Aspen – It wasn’t so much getting the jokes at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival (in Aspen through today). It was more an issue of getting to Aspen, period.
Weather grounded most of the flights into Aspen’s Sardy Field. Comedians wound up flying into Denver – and boy were their arms tired – and busing up torturous roads to Glamour Gulch for the 13th annual laugh-in hosted by HBO.
Still, they came to entertain, be entertained, and schmooze with industry pals.
By 6 o’clock Thursday night, the 80-year-old Don Rickles was holding court in the bar of Matsuhisa, gabbing with Aspenite Jill St. John as her husband, R.J. Wagner, gabbed with John Landis, the director/producer of “The Don Rickles Project.”
Later in the Wheeler Opera House, an SRO crowd gathered to pay homage to the king of insult comedy, Rickles, a.k.a. Mister Warmth. Landis showed a “rough cut” of his doc about Rickles, his career in stand-up comedy, stints on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson” and the uproarious Dean Martin roasts.
The movie has plenty of clips of Rickles insulting Hispanics, blacks, the Japanese, the Germans, the Jews, the fat, the ugly. You name it.
The politically correct Aspen crowd howled with laughter, as unsettling as that seems. Guess Rickles got grandfathered in.
Rickles was given the Pinnacle Award for 50 years of comedy – in a surprise presentation by his longtime friend Bob Newhart. Newhart had a hard time getting to Aspen, losing his bags at DIA, busing to Vail for the night, arriving in Aspen on Thursday afternoon.
“He’s not a flier, believe me,” said Rickles, openly touched that Newhart would make the trip and the appearance. “And going into Aspen is not his dream.”
The Report
Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert (“The Colbert Report”) was proclaimed 2007 Person of the Year on Friday following an interview with CNN senior analyst Jeff Greenfield. It was the hottest ticket at the fest, with more than 800 people shoehorned into the St. Regis ballroom to love-bomb Colbert.
He was smart and funny – never divisive. With ease, he slid in and out of his TV character based partly on Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly.
“I’m a well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot,” he said. “Because I think the audience accepts my ignorance and not my maliciousness, I can get away with saying Rosa Parks was overrated.” (Then in character.) “Hear me out! Last time I checked, she got famous for breaking the law. You want the world to change? Wait till it changes.”
So how does he prepare his character before the show?
“He puts on Cheap Trick’s ‘I Want You to Want Me.’ And sings along with it to a mirror.”
Wright way
Steven Wright filled the Wheeler on Thursday, slouching through his trademark low-key, deadpan, observational routine. Dressed in black with a black porkpie hat, he mumbled things like: “What did Jesus ever do for Santa Claus on his birthday?”
“The universe is expanding. That should ease the traffic.”
Like a Victor Borge concert, the louder and later you laughed, the smarter you were. Maybe.
Lift lines
The hot, two-girl singing comedy team TastiSkank (20-somethings Sarah Litzinger and Kate Reinders) brought down the house at the Fat City Lounge shows Thursday and Friday nights. Their songs – “I Heart Dirty Boys ” and “The Sex Song” – are too dirty to hum in the paper – but you get the idea. They’re the Dirty Dixie Chicks … Sign at the Wheeler Opera House: “NO FOOD OR DRINK (EXCEPT FIJI WATER) ALLOWED IN THE THEATRE. THANK YOU” … Sez who: “Aspen, I am so happy to be back here. This is an amazing place; every winter thousands of people spend millions of dollars to come up here and jump off mountains, in the snow and the cold, and the shuttered airports, and the icy roads. And in my set we have a name for these people … Gentiles.” Jeff Greenfield
Bill Husted’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. He also appears Tuesdays and Fridays on “Good Day Colorado” on Fox 31. You can reach him at bhusted@denverpost.com or 303-954-1486. Take a peek at Husted’s next column at denverpostbloghouse.com/husted.
