Until quite recently it was all but impossible to get a good laugh in this town. One might be so cruel as to call Portland humorless. There were a few comics around, but they had fewer places to hang their funny hats than the average vagrant. Patricia Camuzano came along, opened her Laugh Night at the gone-but-not-forgotten Luis' LaBamba Club and humor raised its silly head. Well, almost.
It's been a few years now and we actually have a front line of comics in our fair city. No longer forced to crack jokes in front of the Greyhound bus station, they have honed their craft and begun the long process of making laughs pay-which is, according to many reports, not always a pretty picture.
The following are some of the funniest people to meet a microphone head-on. We dressed them up a bit, with the help of Jay Jacobs in the Galleria, which forced a few of them to strut into their favorite mannequin poses. Sort of a weird mixture of art imitating life imitating advertising. In an effort to make this all make sense, we standardized our questions. It gets to be a pretty heady atmosphere when you can't think of questions, or talk, or breathe, from laughing too hard.
Our questions? They were as follows:
1. Who's the funniest person in America today and why?
2. What's the best part of being a comic?
3. Why did you become a comedian?
4. What's the most fun you've ever had on stage?
5. What do you want to be doing in five years?
DAWN GREENE
1. "My grandmother is undoubtedly the funniest person in the USA. Why? Because she doesn't know when she's being funny. She sees this complex world so simply. She cut off a toe the other day kicking a lawnmower and was upset about missing her dance class. Nothing gets her down. She's my inspiration."
2. "The feeling of having survived a great challenge-kind of like skydiving without a parachute."
3. "I got involved with comedy because it was a challenge, a form of theater I'd never tried. It seemed the scariest experience conceivable. It was. I stayed in it because the sound of laughter is addictive."
4. "I had the most fun in a little tavern in St. Helen's (Klondike's) with the Nukes [Portland comedy duo The Newcomer Brothers], Dwight Slade and Andy Wayne Hassman. There were more comedians there than audience. It was a free-for-all with the audience, the owner and a few pals, with me playing ringmaster. We ended up trashing the place and the owner loved every minute of it. Everybody hugged and kissed us as we left, and waved goodbye. It was the last comedy show they've ever had."
5. "I'd like to be on Johnny Carson promoting my new best-selling novel, or own my own 7-Eleven."
ART KRUG
1. "Fred Pflancroft-because of his facial gestures."
2. "The hours; 8-8:30 and then it's Miller time."
3. "Because I didn't have the dedication it takes to become a shoe store clerk."
4. "I was an entrant in a male beauty contest. That's when people started to tell me to do something else...comedy maybe."
5. "Standing at the Tomb Of The Unknown Mime."
DWIGHT SLADE
1. "Woody Allen. He called me and told me."
2. "Coffee breath."
3. "I wanted to become jaded and offensive."
4. "I haven't yet."
5. "Managing a Denny's."
JOHN JOHNSTON
1. "My mom...because."
2. "Making fun of people and not getting my lights punched out."
3. "Because I can't get any other jobs."
4. "When my bagpipe gave birth to a baby bagpipe. It was kind of special."
5. "Five years from now I'll probably be pretty tired, so I'll take a 20- or 30-minute nap."
