Columnist Lisa Ferguson: Pescatelli keeping it real on 'Last Comic Standing'

Tammy Pescatelli is no Tony Soprano -- not by a long shot. But as of late, it has been a bit easier to draw some loose comparisons between the comely Sicilian comedian and television's favorite mob boss.

Shared heritage aside, both have families that are quite literally in their respective businesses. As opposed to the criminally inclined Soprano clan, Pescatelli has built a solid stand-up act -- which she performs Tuesday through July 10 at Palace Station's Laugh Trax -- based on the antics of her outlandish extended brood.

She's also learning firsthand what it is to be a television character, so to speak, as one of the 10 funny people featured in this season's installment of the NBC reality series "Last Comic Standing" (airing at 9 p.m. Tuesdays on Channel 3).

Following a series of nationwide auditions -- and a controversy-laden finals competition taped this winter at Paris Las Vegas -- the comics were selected to live together for several weeks earlier this year in a Hollywood mansion (a funky castle, as it so happens), and engage in battles of quips in an effort to earn said title. The winner will be determined during a live broadcast from Las Vegas later this summer.

"In the house, it was every emotion really that you could possibly have as human beings," Pescatelli explained of her time there during a recent call from Beverly Hills, Calif. "It was a lot of fun; it was a lot of withdrawal. There was no TV, no telephone, no e-mail, no outside influences at all."

That was a cakewalk compared to dueling with the other comedians, she says. Each week on the show, each comic selects a fellow contestant whom he/she is confident they can successfully out-joke. The hitch: The person with the most votes must choose another to square off against in a stand-up showdown to determine which comic gets booted from the abode. This week's episode saw Pescatelli go head-to-head against comic Todd Glass, whom she edged courtesy of a studio-audience vote.

Speaking before the episode aired, Pescatelli explained, "You had 10 comics who ... were all friends, but then were constantly smacked in the face with the reality that we have to push one out at one point, and then that person gets the opportunity to come back and choose you to go up against. I didn't know a lot of them, so I battled my own fight within it because I had to try to prove not just to the outside world, but I had to prove to these other comics that, 'Hey, I can do this.' "

The Cleveland native is hardly a comedy rookie, having gotten her professional start nine years ago in the Midwest. After performing at a comedy club's open-mike night, Pescatelli was hired as that club's house emcee.

Despite a complete lack of experience, she was tapped by radio station KPXR 98.9-FM -- heard in the "Quad Cities" of Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa, and Rock Island and Moline, Ill. -- to co-host its morning show, which she did from 1992 through '94. On the air, she interviewed comics who performed at the club where she worked, then "picked their brains" after the show to learn the inner workings of the business. "I consider that like my comedy college," says Pescatelli, who actually holds a degree in fashion design.

Interestingly, one of those comics was Kathleen Madigan, who is also on "Last Comic Standing" this summer. "There was nobody in the world I admired more than her," Pescatelli says, "and I just kind of patterned myself after her. She was my Michael Jordan."

Before long, Pescatelli was being invited by some of the comics she'd met -- including George Lopez, John Pinette and D.L. Hughley -- to join them on the road for performances. "There was nobody helping me other than comics," she insists. "I didn't have some inroad to this. I walked up onstage one day and just started digging."

It was six years into her professional career, however, before she began using her kinfolk as fodder. When her newlywed brother and his wife divorced, "I was sick about it," she says. Three months later, she was onstage riffing about the split, as well as her family's candid nature: "If you're an idiot, we call you an idiot. If you're a scumbag, we call you a scumbag. If you're a whore, we call you my brother's wife."

"It was so cathartic," she says. "I'm sorry for my brother, but it was the best thing that's ever happened to me." No one in the Pescatelli family is safe: Not even her (wink, wink) retired-mobster grandfather, or her twin uncles who resemble "little Joe Pescis."

She has, however, been criticized by some who complain her act is " 'stereotypical Italian,' and I wanna go, 'Do you understand that that's my family? There's no stereotype. I wish that it was ... These are all true stories.' "

In 2002 Pescatelli appeared at the Just For Laughs comedy festival in Montreal; and last year guested on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." Later this month, she'll be featured on "The World Stands Up," an international-flavored special on Comedy Central.

"I don't necessarily want to be famous," she insists, though that isn't helping her adjust to the instant-celebrity status that befalls most reality-TV stars. Already she claims to have encountered autograph hounds and gawkers. "Being the true Italian that I am, when people look at me I'm going, 'What are you lookin' at? Do you know me?' "

And Pescatelli (who declines to reveal her age) insists what you see is usually what you get. "I was real at all times" on "Last Comic Standing," she says, "and sometimes people expect something different from you." Forget the adage that any publicity is good publicity: "I don't know if that necessarily is true with comics, because you're supposed to be funny."

Her hot-headed Italian temper got the best of her, she concedes, evidenced on the June 22 episode in which she feuded with comic Bonnie McFarlane (who, coincidentally, the studio audience sent packing that week).

Nevertheless, Pescatelli isn't fretting over the impression she's making on viewers. "Tony Soprano cuts people's heads off and they still love him," she reminds. "Now, am I gonna be blessed enough to have that kind of grace with the American public? I don't know."

Out for laughs

Another NBC programming note: Catch Ted Alexandro's appearance tonight on NBC's "Last Call with Carson Daly" at 2:05 a.m. Alexandro, a former New York City grade-school teacher-turned-comic, has previously played Riviera Comedy Club.

Wait, there's more: Kevin Downey Jr. -- who gushed in this space on May 14 about his makeover late last year courtesy of the fashionistas on Bravo's "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" -- sent an e-mail informing us that the episode of the hit show featuring his transformation will air at 8 p.m. Wednesday on NBC.

Avi Liberman (profiled here last October, and who plays The Improv at Harrah's Tuesday through July 11) returned to Israel last month to perform five shows for audiences in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. It was similar to a couple of tours he'd previously made of venues in the strife-ridden nation. Sharing the bill with Liberman during the recent visit were comedians Max Alexander, Randy Kagan and Steve White.

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