"Alumni News" article in Cornell Magazine
by Brad Herzog
September, 1993

Dek: Comedian Bill Maher '78 is a veteran of the stand-up circuit and late-night talk shows. Now he's got his own TV show. And the really good news: he's not stealing toilet paper anymore.

The Green Room at Zanies Comedy Club in Vernon Hills, Illinois is neither green nor roomy. The place where the performers bide their time before being called on stage is filled by two chairs and an end table and has pasty white walls, half-covered by graffiti. It's so small it's almost funny. The graffiti belong to comics who have headlined at the club, and at the moment one chair belongs to this week's headliner, Bill Maher '78.

As the muffled sounds of laughter seep into the room, Maher sips a beer and looks over some notes he's made on a few pieces of paper-his act, in abbreviated form. It's a list of words, but each triggers a particular bit in Maher's mind, and the bits flow together to form a set. Successful comedy may have the look of free association, but is the product of creative architecture, and Maher is reviewing a blueprint before he steps on stage for his second show this Saturday night.

The evening's first show was a hit. The early crowd at Zanies, an hour north of Chicago, was comprised largely of Bill Maher fans. Nearly 300 paid $14 apiece to enjoy a three-act slate and two-drink minimum, and, in comedic parlance, Maher killed them. But he's unsure of the new audience. He watched as the opening act, who doubles as master of ceremonies, did his 15-minute set and as the middle act began his half hour. The audience was loud, half-drunk, bordering on unruly. "It's a lousy crowd," Maher says.

To a veteran of the stand-up circuit, a tough crowd is not unsettling, just unfortunate. An audience can smell fear, so confidence-be it real or not-is a vital part of a comic's arsenal. And Maher knows he's funny.

The middle act is over, and the MC has returned to the stage: "We're very lucky to have this next comedian with us tonight . . ." Maher puts down his notes, takes a final swig of beer and steps from the Green Room. " . . . You've seen him on "The Tonight Show" more than 25 times, "Late Night with David Letterman" and "The Arsenio Hall Show." Recently he has guest starred on "Married . . . With Children," "Roseanne" and "The Jackie Thomas Show . . ." " Maher straightens his sportcoat, smooths his tie and walks toward the stage. " . . . Please give a warm welcome to our special guest, Mr. Bill Maher . . ."

There is hearty applause, but as it dies down Maher decides to take a poke at the crowd: "So how's everybody doing? Are you all facing this way?" He launches into his first joke, one that's a reliable indicator for how a set will go. It's his impression of a New York City cop at Golgotha. "Okay," he says, waving his arm and adopting a thick Brooklyn accent, "show's ov-uh." He smiles, and the audience roars with laughter. Tough crowd? Not any more. The show is just beginning.

I'm half-Catholic and half-Jewish, which is an interesting way to grow up. On one side you have the guilt, and on the other side you have . . . the guilt. When we went to confession I would bring a lawyer in with me: "Bless me father, for I have sinned-and I think you know Mr. Cohen."

It was probably Maher's most successful joke when he began his career at the New York City comedy club Catch A Rising Star. Someone thought enough of it to watch his set, write down the bit and sell it to Rodney Dangerfield. Eventually, after discovering he was doing Maher's joke, it was Dangerfield-of all people-who showed Maher a little bit about respect in the world of comedy. He called Maher, apologized profusely and never did the joke again. "I'll always hold a special place in my heart for him," says Maher "because he didn't have to consider me."

Dangerfield knew what every comic learns-good material is hard to find. In fact, the goal of any beginning comedian is to find a solid 20 minutes. "First you want to find one minute that works," says Maher, "but 20 is enough to do a set." The good comics use that as a beginning. In New York, Maher used to watch people do the same 20 minutes for years. "Not a word different. I mean, we could do their acts for them," says Maher.

Maher's thrown out a few hours of material over the years, retiring most of the jokes he did on his first 20 "Tonight Show" appearances. "I think you have to do that," he says. "It's not gone forever. But you have to move on." Stale comedy is like stale beer; it may serve its purpose, but it can't last forever.

People try to sell Maher jokes all the time, but his material is primarily the product of a fertile imagination. "You either have to be diligent or vigilant," he says. "You either have to sit down and write jokes every day, or remember and write down every good thought you've ever had. I never let anything get away."

When I was in high school, the worst thing you could get was VD. Boy, I'd like to meet an old-fashioned girl with gonorrhea . . .

According to Maher, it was the first AIDS joke performed on television, and according to Johnny Carson, it earned one of the longest laughs he'd heard in years. Says Maher, "It sort of broke the tension about this subject nobody had been able to laugh about."

Anything topical or troubling is fodder for Maher's comedy. Sex, drugs, religion, war-nothing is too sacred. Content is the heart of comedy, and it is there that Maher makes his strongest statement. He is an observer, an educator, a risk-taker. His aim is to make the audience laugh, and to make it think. "You can either confirm prejudices," he says "or you can challenge them." For the most part, Maher chooses the latter.

Often, he will set up a premise with a virtual summary of societal ills: "We've become a nation of crybabies," Maher will begin. "If you lose your job, you can sue for mental distress. If your marriage goes south, you can sue for the money you would have made if you didn't get married." Audiences begin to think on a deeper level, to refashion perspective, and then he hits them with the comedic transition: temporary insanity ("I'm fine now, thanks for asking. It was just yesterday. I had a cough, head cold, shooting spree . . ."), political correctness ("I don't even call my dog a dog anymore. He's a Canine-American.")

Dan Quayle? Bush needed a guy who was young, dumb and good-looking. And Woody was already on "Cheers." Pat Buchanan? He's just to the right of the Sheriff of Nottingham. Ted Kennedy? Every family has that stupid son. He's like Fredo in "The Godfather."

Recently, Maher has turned his political awareness into a cable television show. On the night Bill Clinton was elected President, Maher co-hosted a tongue-in-cheek election night special on the Comedy Channel. "When was the last time we were truly excited about our candidates for President?" Maher asked. "When was the last time we said, 'I just can't decide who to vote for because their both sooooo good. Ford and Carter! Pinch me! Bush and Dukakis! What an embarrassment of riches!'"

In April, Maher began filming a weekly show for the Comedy Channel called "Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher", which is scheduled to first air in July. Calling it "a funny 'McLaughlin Group'", Maher describes it as four different people having a real discussion about real issues with real opinions. So what makes it funny? When asked to list a hypothetical panel, Maher named Norman Mailer, Sister Souljah, Fran Lebowitz and Frank Zappa.

Why is Elvis Presley on a stamp? You know, who people make as gods tells a lot about who they are, and we've made Elvis a god. You want an example? He's dead, and people still see him. Excuse me, but that's how Jesus got started . . .

There is a common maxim in comedy: It's always the comedian's fault. If a joke that usually kills somehow crashes, the fault was in the telling, not the listening. "That's what I was told when I first started," says Maher, "and I've always taken issue with it. Crowds can be very different."

There are urban crowds and suburban crowds, college crowds and older crowds, liberal crowds and conservative crowds. There are Las Vegas crowds, there are Bible Belt crowds. And, occasionally, there are unfriendly crowds. A drunk audience is not necessarily a good audience, particularly for Maher's conceptual brand of humor.

But for the most part, it is the comedian who controls his or her fate. It's not the crowd that determines a joke's success, but the comic's delivery. So while Maher keeps a notepad by his bed for ideas, during every show he keeps a tape recorder in his pocket for nuance. A pause, a head movement, the correct wording-they can mean the difference between a long laugh and an embarrassing silence. "That's how delicate a joke is," says Maher. "You have to say it exactly the right way."

Every generation thinks their kids are crazy. I'm sure there were cavemen who were saying, 'The kids today, with the fire and the wheel. They're glued in front of that fire 24 hours a day. I say do your homework, then you can watch the fire. And they all want to walk erect . . .'

When Bill was still Billy, growing up in River Vale, New Jersey, he was destined to make people laugh. Even at the age of 10, he would sneak a glimpse of the "Tonight Show" and transcribe routines from "Laugh In" and "The Smothers Brothers." He would watch his father, Bill Sr., a radio announcer by profession and a showman by nature.

"Comedians will tell you that comedy is a gene that gestates over a generation," Maher says. "They'll tell you their fathers were funny, but not professional comedians. My father was always funny and gregarious around the house, and I think that had an effect on me," says Maher. "But from the time I was very young I knew I was going to do this."

Maher was restless as an English major at Cornell. His peers seemed to be preparing for one career or another, but how do you prepare for a career in comedy? Rather than attempting to learn a vocation or specialized skill, Maher concentrated on learning. "I always treated college as what I thought it should be used for-to get an education," he says. "I got a great education, and it serves me still today."

But there came a time when Maher couldn't wait any longer. He had to break in his first material, and play to an audience. And he did it in, of all places, the Temple of Zeus cafe in the basement of Goldwin Smith. "They had poetry readings there, and I thought this was my only outlet," he says. "So I went up there and tried to slip in jokes within a poem. It was something like, 'Like as the waves roll in toward the pebbled shore . . . but how about these airlines!' That was humiliating."

That feeling, Maher soon discovered, is commonplace for a young comedian. "The first year is so hard because you don't know what you're doing," he says. "If you're learning the computer, you just stare at a computer screen, and it's not humiliating if you don't get it right away. But if you're doing comedy, there's no place to hide."

Maher was a quick learner. The summer before his senior year, he found the courage to audition at Catch A Rising Star. He didn't have much of an act, but he did come up with some witty responses to a heckler, and he passed the audition. After graduating, he did the same at The Comic Strip and The Improv, and so began months of learning his craft at what were then the only three comedy clubs in Manhattan. Eventually, he worked his way into perhaps the most coveted position in the New York comedy scene-master of ceremonies at Catch A Rising Star.

While he didn't have much of an act, he had the support of stand-up soulmates Richard Belzer and Jerry Seinfeld. Still good friends of Maher's, they represented comedy's close-knit fraternity. "When someone comes along who really has it, who's a contender and not a pretender, the ranks close and people who are above you put their hand down and pull you up, at least emotionally," says Maher. "From day one, when I didn't have one joke, they still made me feel like I belonged and it was just a matter of time."

And it was. Maher earned his first "Tonight Show" spot late in 1982, and two more quickly followed. Having become bookable as a headliner, he moved to Los Angeles, where he immediately landed a role in the movie "D.C. Cab," a film most memorable for how quickly it was forgotten. That marked the beginning of a dual comedy and acting career that has seen him star in several movies, such as the recent political satire "Pizza Man," as well as a handful of short-lived television series.

But stand-up comedy is still the backbone of Maher's career, and as evidenced by his recent Ace Award for best cable television stand-up special, he has come a long way from the Temple of Zeus. When he travels to comedy clubs around the country, it is as a special guest, a sort of superheadliner. He is even working on a novel about comedy that Random House plans to publish next year. Tentatively called True Story, the book details the life of a young comedian amid the Manhattan comedy club scene, with all its endearing-and unnerving-idiosyncrasies. It is fictional, yet a product of recollections that stir a smile from the man who's become the comedian other young comics press for advice.

Maher's got his start during comedy's renaissance. There may have been a few hundred comics when Maher began, but now he estimates there are several thousand. Everyone is a comedian. With more comic venues come more opportunities for stand-up rookies, and that makes Maher all the more nostalgic for the days when he worked for "cab fare and all the pride you can swallow."

"I have a crinkled piece of paper with old jokes written on it," he says, "and at the bottom, it says REMEMBER TOILET PAPER, because I used to steal toilet paper from Catch A Rising Star."

Maher pauses a moment for timing, and tilts his head, trying to remember. "Unless," he wonders, "that was my big joke."

But seriously folks, take Brad Herzog '90, please. He's a freelance writer who lives in Chicago.

Lorraine Aronowitz '82 sidebar

Lorraine Aronowitz '82 had never tried stand-up comedy. She had few performance skills, no material and no experience. It was early 1992, and having just left a real estate company where she'd enjoyed financial success for eight years, Aronowitz decided to take time off to pursue her fantasies. One was stand-up comedy.

"A friend, Brian Jung '83, encouraged me to do it," she says. "He said, 'You're the funniest person I know. Go up there, and take a shot at it.'"

So Aronowitz entered a contest for the funniest unemployed person in New York, and discovered her humor works in front of an audience. "I wore Cornell gear on stage," she says, "and I guess that added to the enjoyment of the audience because people love seeing an Ivy Leaguer suffer."

That is, if suffering means winning the contest and earning television exposure, including interviews with CNN, CBS and Regis Philbin. It meant a kick-start in the world of comedy, and though Aronowitz has since signed on as a partner with a new real estate firm, she is far from selling out her stand-up career.

On the heels of her debut, Aronowitz did what most comedian wannabes do-she tested her material at an open microphone. The process is simple. You go to a bar or a club on a Monday or Tuesday night, pay your four bucks and get five minutes on the stage-guaranteed. "They don't care what you do. You can read the telephone book," says Aronowitz. "But they'll let you stay up there for five minutes."

From there, Aronowitz began auditioning at comedy clubs. If you pass, you join a rotation of comics. If not, you work on material and delivery, and try again. New York City has more comedy clubs than most areas, and Aronowitz has found regular club work to supplement her real estate career. Four nights each week, she can be found testing her act-an act that always includes at least one reference to Cornell-at any one of a dozen comedy clubs. ("Cornell has two seasons: winter and July.")

It's fun and rewarding, she says, but far from the headlining status and heady paychecks enjoyed by comedy's experienced stars. "At my stage, I never get to do more than 15 minutes," says Aronowitz. "One night, I got 20 minutes, and I think it was because the guy with the stopwatch fell asleep. And the most I ever made was $75 in one night, so this is not a money-making proposition. If this was a real estate deal, I'd be way in the hole."

There have also been those times when life's ironic twists have taught her a little bit about comedy's ladder of success -like the time Robert Klein made a surprise appearance at a club just as she was about to go on. "He did two-and-a-half hours," she remembers, "and as soon as he left they said, 'And now a very funny lady . . . Lorraine Aronowitz . . .'"

One person clapped.

Yet with every humiliation that accompanies stand-up's trial-by-fire nature, there are times when she discovers that sense of accomplishment only show business can provide. "When you've had a great night, and you kill-as it were-and people come up to you and thank you for making them laugh, it's great. It's really great," says Aronowitz.

"I never saw myself as a performer, and I never had those kinds of dreams. I always saw myself as a businesswoman. But there's another side of me that's a court jester, and that side needs to come out."

--B.H.