GIGGLE CITY: Marcus Beaubier
Our guest this week is Marcus Beaubier, performing at Yuk Yuk’s (in the Century Casino) tonight (Saturday, Feb. 19) Warning: The following contains explicit content not suitable for children.
Q. If you could be any Canadian celebrity, who would you be, and why?
Marcus Beaubier plays Yuk Yuk's on Friday night.
A: Some sort of weird hybrid of Gord Downie from the Tragically Hip and Gordon Lightfoot. I like that Downie is willing to take some risks. And I like the longevity of Gordon Lightfoot. It doesn’t hurt that you can pretty much sing any pop song to the tune of The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. (Declines to sing.)
Q: Winter in Winnipeg, or summer in Sierra Leone?
A: I think they’re both just as hateful. At least there’s the heat in Sierra Leone. I might need an AK-47, but then there are days in Winnipeg when you need an AK-47.
Q: What’s your best heckler story?
A: It was in Vancouver. I was talking about this six-foot novelty dildo I had seen at a mom and pop sex shop on Granville Street. A woman in the front row was having a birthday, so I asked what she got, and she said a rubber cock. I said, that’s awesome, let’s try it out. “You first,” she said. And I said, “At least then someone will be trying to fuck some sense into my head.” And then someone in the audience, for no apparent reason, yelled, “Yeah, like your stupid whore of a mom!” And I was like, what the hell? And I said, “At least my mom’s not giving coupons for free hand jobs at 18th and Main.” I won. It was the first time I ever crushed a heckler.
Q: Do you have to be pessimistic about the future of humanity to be optimistic about the future of comedy?
A: There are two camps in comedy: There’s the George Carlin camp, who loved people, but hated humanity, and the Bill Hicks camp who loved humanity, but hated people. I don’t think you need to be pessimistic about the future of humanity at all. In some respects, and I don’t mean to sound grandiose here, I think comics are some of the last bastions of sober second thought. We’re realists.
Q: What’s your favourite joke you just can’t use anymore because it’s too tired or dated?
A: I had something about Pamela Anderson, and how she said she didn’t understand where she got hepatitis. How can you not know where you got hepatitis? You fuck rock stars! You can sniff out rock star cock like a truffle hog looking for mushrooms. I don’t do that one anymore.
Q: What do you see as the biggest difference between kids today and when you were a kid?
A: I find the new generation is less about risk taking and more about entitlement. It’s as if they think they earned something already. It’s weird. And I have to tell ya: this era of indie pop is atrocious. Anyone with a squeaky voice and a Casio keyboard can put out a record and a bunch of kids in stripy shirts and oversized glasses will groove to it.
Man, I never thought I’d be that guy.
Q: What do you do when a fan tells you a joke?
A: Depends on the joke. If it’s a great joke, which happens rarely, it’s fun. What I’m not cool with is if it’s horrifyingly racist. I’ve actually written a joke for the stage that pre-empts that nonsense: Basically, it’s when someone says to you, “I’m not racist, but …” which we all know is the calling card of a racist. It’s weird someone would say that. That’s like being at the change room at the YMCA saying, “I’m no homosexual, but I would totally suck that dick.” The people who think I’m being intolerant with that line don’t understand that I’m making fun of them twice: Once for being stupid and the second time for not getting it.
