Friday, July 18, 2003 | 9:16 a.m.
Lisa Ferguson's Laugh Lines column appears Fridays. Her Sun Lite Column appears Mondays. Reach her at [email protected].
Kip Addotta has comedy down to a science.
Of the jokes he pens, the longtime stand-up comic figures about 80 percent make the grade with audiences at the comedy clubs and other venues where he performs, while 20 percent might fall flat.
"There's always that unknown factor," says Addotta, who takes the stage Tuesday through July 26 at Palace Station's Laugh Trax. "I'll tell a joke three times onstage, and if it doesn't work, I put it away in a file."
He knows he has a hit on his hands after listening to the tapes he makes of each of his performances. That's also when he calculates the distance between laughs (about seven seconds) he receives onstage. It's quality -- not quantity -- that counts.
"It has to be a full laugh. It can't be some guy in the corner who just swallowed his cigarette," Addotta explained during a recent call from his Hollywood, Calif., home.
After 30-plus years in the comedy business, such attention to detail is to be expected. Or is it? Addotta clearly has an ax to grind when it comes to his perceived lack of dedication to the craft of comedy he says is exhibited by most of his fellow stand-up comics.
"I don't consider everyone that says, 'I'm a comedian,' a comedian at all, because they're not," he says. "They don't know the first thing about it."
What makes 59-year-old Addotta an expert on the subject? After all, this is a guy who, as a teenager, was groomed by his grandmother to enter the priesthood. Following her death, he built a career as a hairdresser. In the early '70s, when he "got bored" teasing tresses, he packed up his wife and three kids and headed for Los Angeles, where he took a job parking cars while attempting to break into comedy.
"I knew I was funny," Addotta recalls. "What I didn't know was, 'Can I do this?' Being funny is one thing; knowing how to entertain an audience is a total other thing."
Turned out, he had "God-given talent" on both fronts: After three decades and -- count 'em -- 32 guest spots on "The Tonight Show," he's still entertaining crowds at clubs and on the radio. His original "novelty songs," including the ditties, "Wet Dream (The Fish Song), "Big Cock Roach" and "I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus," are favorites with drive-time disc jockeys throughout the country. His most recent CD, released earlier this year, is titled, "Forced to Have Sex With an Alien."
In his music and his stand-up act, Addotta says, "I talk about relationships. I talk about my own human foibles, my fears, my triumphs," as well as some less-pressing topics. A few examples of his quips are featured on kipaddotta.com:
"Why does my garbage always weigh more than my groceries did?"
"How deep would the ocean be if there were no sponges?"
"When I die, I want to die peacefully, in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not kicking and screaming like the passengers in his car."
"I like to take the audience down little roads, then pull the rug out from under them," Addotta says. "Entertaining is a surprise. It's, 'Gee, I didn't know I was gonna see that or hear that.' "
While his approach to comedy may be traditional, he balks at being lumped into the "old-school" category of comics. "That's inaccurate. I'm cutting-edge ... I'm an old guy, but I'm not old-school. People who say that have never seen my act."
Addotta says he sometimes spends up to six months writing a single joke. "I put so much work into my material and into my show that I have disdain" for comics who go up onstage and tell jokes about bodily functions and such. "That's not art."
Spewing obscenities and spinning indiscreet tales does not a comic make, he contends."These jokers that come out and they're saying one word after another, and they're using scatological references and they're talking about things that really shouldn't be discussed in public, those are not comedians -- those are charlatans."
Comedy, as a profession, has been "devalued to the point now where I don't hear guys even admitting they're comedians anymore," he says. "We used to take pride ... Now they kind of avoid it because comedians have lost the public's respect."
Don't get him wrong: Addotta does have some favorite fellow comics, including legends Steve Martin and Richard Pryor, as well as Vegas frequenters Dennis Miller and Wendy Liebman. "I'm delighted when I see someone I can appreciate and laugh at. I'm not intimidated at all."
Still, he's not about to rest on his laurels as an elder statesman of comedy.
"If I don't do something new in every show, to me the show is work," Addotta says. "I'm proud of myself that I took the chance; that I suffered the uncomfortable feeling in my stomach of fear."
Out for laughs
The next installment of Sunset Station's bimonthly "Kazam Komedy" show is slated for Aug. 4 through Aug. 8. Hosted by comic Matt Kazam, the featured performer will be Kathleen Dunbar, who was awarded the gig as the grand prize for winning a local version of CBS's "Star Search," sponsored by KLAS-TV (Channel 8). Tickets for "Kazam Komedy's" 7 p.m. nightly shows are $12.95; call 547-5300.
It will be as close to a "Police Academy" reunion as it gets when Catch a Rising Star at Excalibur hosts two of the flick's co-stars: Bobcat Goldthwait performs Aug. 8 and Aug. 9, while Michael Winslow (the human sound-effects guy) headlines Aug. 29 and Aug. 30.
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