Mugging for anyone who is looking, Roger Acevedo (left) and Roland Salazar hype the next Comic Explosion, their live standup comedy concert on August 15 in Kerrville. The pair has produced 15 live local shows since 2003. Photo by Phil Houseal
Details:
The next Comic Explosion is Saturday, Aug 15, at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Kerrville, 100 Doris Drive off Goat Creek Road. Featured performers are Danny Ingle, Quinn Hudson, and headliner Jay Lafarr, plus special guests. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at KVHC TV or Shearway To Heaven Salon in Kerrville. For other show and ticket information call 830-739-9451, visit www.myspace.com/acemancomedy, or email ace1@hctc.net. BYOB
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Support your local comic
by Phil Houseal
Aug 12, 2009
Thirteen-year-old Roger Acevedo remembers sitting in class and not laughing at the class clown.
“Secretly I said this guy is not even funny. I should be the class clown.”
When he told his mother he wanted to be a standup comedian, she had a surprising answer.
“She said, I don’t see why not,” Acevedo revealed. “You are already crazy.”
To the young Acevedo, that was a compliment. So the Kerrville resident went on to do standup comedy in the 1990s, and now produces Comic Explosion, a regular live comedy concert at various venues in the Kerrville area.
The next show is Saturday August 15, at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Kerrville.
According to Acevedo and Roland Salazar (“my best friend, gopher, psychic friend, and psycho friend”), it ain’t easy being funny for money. They have dealt with hecklers, equipment failures, changing venues, and headliners who sometimes insist on using words that we can only refer to with their initial letters.
But the pair is passionate about bringing live standup comedy to the Hill Country, an entertainment option many residents still don’t know exists.
“We are bringing a big city comedy show into a small town,” Acevedo said. “It is the same professional show, with the same staging, equipment, and lighting, but you are spending less. There’s no driving back and forth, and you don’t have to take your significant other to The Outback, then buy a two-drink minimum. We are trying to keep costs down for people who want to laugh.”
The team figures 3000 have attended the 15 shows produced since 2003. They do have a following, and that audience is surprisingly diverse. Acevedo estimates the age range is 18 to 88.
“Yeah,” added Salazar. “They come in wheelchairs and walkers!”
Regardless of age and outlook, they also stay. One reason is that at a live show, you never know what is going to happen. They have had the lights go out and the mics go dead. And of course you can't control what might come out of a comedian’s mouth. Although Acevedo does not like working “blue,” stuff happens.
“When watching it live, you are on the edge,” he said. “There might be some jokes you have to turn to your neighbor and say, did he really just say that? Sometimes the language gets salty, and there is going to be adult humor, especially when it comes to the headliner. But they have to filter it - after all, this is Kerrville.”
Acevedo and Salazar are proud to book professional comics with a diversity of styles along with TV and Las Vegas credits. Acevedo still works the crowd, and has achieved some level of recognition locally.
“This morning I stopped at Town &Country and this guy came up and said, you’re Roger aren’t you? I thought, where does he know me from - an episode of COPS? But he had come to our shows.”
About those hecklers. They seem to gravitate to live comedy.
“At my show I tell people not to heckle,” Acevedo said. “But someone always has to make a comment. But the comic has the microphone, so he’s always going to be louder than the heckler. Besides, if you thought you were that funny, you should have gone on stage yourself.”
Be careful, cautions Salazar, because the comic always has the last word. “A lot of people don’t like to sit up front,” he said. “Because they get picked on.”
“Usually a comic won’t mess with you,” said Acevedo, adding, “unless you are wearing a loud shirt or making little comments.”
Don’t let that - or anything more mundane - keep you at home.
“Some people say, oh, I have to do something this weekend, I have to help clean the river,” Acevedo said. “Forget that, man - support your local comic.”