Tommy Sledge, �Eat Lead, Clown!�
�So, now that Christmas is over, what do you think you would write about our family?�
�You can read about it later.�
�Why not tell me now?�
�Because I want to be out of striking distance.�
-Conversation with my mom, December 26th.
(Disclosure: Tommy Sledge is my cousin, and while I don�t censor myself, all comments are to be suspect.)
So yeah, Tommy Sledge is a relative of mine. I have a blood link to a comedian who also happens to be a movie star, if you can call Lobster Men From the Moon and Million Dollar Mystery movies. Tom Servo also mentions him personally in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
As you can probably guess, I�m infinitely jealous.
His comedic personality is a private detective straight out of a 40s Dashell Hammett novel, or perhaps �The Dane� from Miller�s Crossing. I think his routine is really funny, especially when he improvises with the crowd, which is about 45 percent of his act. I wish he would perform more in this area, particularly since I finally convinced him that it was okay to riff on friends that I brought.
Some of my favorite parts of his act revolve around his rapid-fire simile slang spewing for everything from a cigarette, to a lighter, to the breasts on the bimbo in the back of the room. And while there are several quotes I steal from people at various points, I usually forget them after a few weeks. He has one joke that I�ve continually used since I first heard it ten years ago, though I know better than to try and describe it. Buy me a cup of coffee sometime and I�ll use it on you.
Part of the improvisational portion of his act revolves around him writing the great detective novel, whereupon he does a �Madlibs� style approach, taking nouns and verbs from the audience as he pounds away at an old typewriter. Probably sick of getting lame responses like �Uh... beer!� and �Uh... more beer! Whoo!� he went out and finished a book. And this is it.
But there�s a problem with it. If you haven�t seen the act, you may not get the jokes he�s doing here, and if you have seen the show, you might be disappointed that there aren�t themes such as the 15 different ways you can say cigarette in rapid succession.
There are also some basic errors in layout, such as having a line of text repeated unintentionally. He did this book by himself, so I�m not going to lay into him too hard, seeing how my book will be done in about a month or so and don�t want to eat any crow come next December. This was also his first book, and he�s since done another, so I�m eagerly looking forward to reading that one to see how he�s progressed.
But then again, the last time I saw him perform about five years ago, he still had a MC Hammer joke, so maybe I shouldn�t get my hopes up.
