September 10, 2004

Wiley's, Jokers on goal tonight with quirky headliners

Local comedy clubs score with funnyman hat trick

By Don Thrasher for Dayton Daily News

Comedy fans living in Dayton are fortunate to have two premiere comedy venues, Wiley's Comedy Niteclub and Jokers Comedy Cafe, programming local and national talent every week. This week there are several funnymen worth checking out.

Bruce Bruce, a native of Atlanta, is a comic known for adult comedy that can teeter on the edge of good taste, but he refuses to stoop to cheap vulgarity to generate laughs. The former host of BET's Comic View, who performs at Jokers Comedy Cafe through Sunday, is more of a storyteller than standard joke-riffer, delivering humorous anecdotes about relationships, mothers, racial issues and more.

Bruce is a natural raconteur who delivers these obviously polished tales with a casual ease. This style meshes well with the true spontaneous moments when the comic interacts with the audience, singling out individuals and playfully pestering them about their clothing, hair-styles, dates and anything else that sparks his imagination.

Former paramedic "Wild" Bill Bauer, co-headlining with Dwight York at Wiley's through Sunday, has been called a fearless comic. The Minneapolis native refuses to use profanity or what he calls "mean" humor, but at the same time he delivers material that ranges from darkly twisted to clever but patently absurd.

The animated performer is an odd bird who lives up to his nickname, but his approach works because Bauer delivers his intelligent material on touchy topics such as sexual perversions, Russian roulette and Catholicism without coming off as ultrahip or smarter than the audience.

A 26-year veteran of the comedy business who still does more than 200 nights a year, Bauer also finds time to write, contributing script work to a number of television and film projects.

This week, Bauer shares the stage with fellow Minneapolis native Dwight York. A quirky comic, York has made a name for himself by developing an approach that favors quick, concise jokes that pick apart modern conventions and present them from an unconventional perspective. York did his first open-mike night in early 1989 and worked on perfecting this style for six years before quitting his day job and hitting the road in 1996.

He rose steadily up the stand-up ranks, but his career got a major boost in 2000 with a successful first appearance on radio's The Bob & Tom Show. He has since become a frequent guest on the popular morning program, hosted by Bob Kevoian and Tom Griswold.

On Saturday night, York and Bauer will be joined by guest host Chick McGee, a comedian and the longtime sports reporter and comic mischief-maker for Bob & Tom. A native of London, Ohio, McGee worked in radio in West Virginia and Ohio in the early '80s. He joined the Bob & Tom staff in 1986, only three years after the show was launched locally in Indianapolis. The program, which airs locally on WTUE, has been syndicated nationally since 1995 and is wildly popular.