Bumatai’s punch liners
come of age
The principles of stand-up comedy can be taught, but it takes long hard hours in front of an audience to master them. And so, after several weeks as ad hoc after-show entertainment for Andy Bumatai and Paul Ogata at Brew Moon, a group of Bumatai's students are opening a no-cover "Open Mic Comedy Night" tomorrow at All Star Hawaii.
The concept is simple: Each comic gets five minutes. If one strikes you as Hawaii's next big comic, come back and see 'em next week. If another fails horribly, well, another will take his place before you know it.
'Open Mic Comedy Night'
Where: All Star Hawaii
When: 8 p.m. tomorrow
Admission: No cover, validated parking.
Call: 955-8326
There may be as many as 10 comics hitting the stage tomorrow night. Here's a quick look at three:
>> Dan Macho (his real name, pronounced "Mah-ko") tried comedy on the mainland "a good 10 years ago" but was turned off by the hostility of aspiring comedians he met. His goal is to perform comic skits and sketches for film or television, but he "enjoys the challenge" of live stand-up.
"I thought I'd give it another try out here and (Honolulu) is so much more of an open-arm community," he says. Macho's 5 minutes tomorrow may include a "mahu hip-hop/rap person" and almost certainly Schwarzenegger material.
>> Hayes Gregory has a health-care background but grew up "joking around, acting the fool." Friends told him he should try stand up, and through Bumatai's class, he discovered he enjoyed the challenge.
"Acting a fool ... is pretty easy to do, but to make a large audience of people who don't know you laugh takes a lot a work," he says.
>> Louvanna, who dropped her last name for the stage, said she enrolled in Bumatai's class because she's Guamanian "and when you go to Hawaii everybody says you have to go to school."
Louvanna -- "Vanna" for short" -- now works with "stuff that happened in my life that I've tweaked into a comedy bit. 'Karaoke Girl' was something I did when I was working in a bar ... guys look at you across the room, and I would bust it out and all of a sudden they'd get turned off."
The parade of comics concept is not without risk for participants. Five minutes is an eternity when one's material isn't working, and some acts can prove difficult to follow. Macho recalls being blindsided when a student ahead of him introduced a similar Schwarzenegger bit. A little courtesy would have been nice. "I wouldn't do an 'American Idol' bit if I knew someone else had done one the week before," he said.
On the other hand, the audience shouldn't have to worry about crude sex jokes or toilet humor. Bumatai teaches his students to work "clean" and Gregory has already experienced the benefits.
"Anybody can swear and talk about sex and bodily functions. Andy says that's easy. I went home to Minneapolis on vacation and did stand up at an open-mic night at a local bar. Almost every guy there did a lot of swearing and sex and bodily functions (but) I did my entirely clean routine and had everybody laughing -- a lot.
"It felt good to do that."
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