Thurs. June 21 – Sat. June 23

I’m about to phone comic Paul Mecurio when, moments before news of Rodney King’s death, hits the Internet. And so, the topic is raised: This is awful, tragic, sad. And when, how or if does something like this make the crossover into comedy? “The process of current events, for me, it’s like the radar is always up,” says Mecurio. “I’ve always got paper and pen or a phone nearby to make notes; it’s a constant writing process. I appear regularly on cable news shows, having worked for a number of years as a writer on ‘The Daily Show with Jon Stewart’ and performed on it and still do warm-up [before the tapings].  It’s ingrained in me to be on top of the news cycle. Whatever’s out there in the zeitgeist, this political season, especially. There’s a lot of fodder. Any event can happen where you’re ready at a moment’s notice. When I do those political shows we’ll get topics day-of, a couple hours before taping, so we have a little bit of time, but not a lot.  You have to be a bit judicious in what you say. In the case of Rodney King’s death, well, it’s hard to make jokes about people who died unless it’s Hitler or Trump.”
    Wait, Donald Trump is dead?! “That’s just wishful thinking.”
    Mecurio - who plays Foxwoods’ Comix Club Thursday June 21 through Saturday June 23 – is a standup who loves interacting with the audience. Yet, he can also say, “You almost reach the point where you don’t care what the audience thinks. You can’t kowtow to being too politically correct. It’s very easy to pick on the right and not do jokes about the left and that gets very predictable. I’ll do jokes about Obama and Romney and I’ll say with Obama the economy’s not bouncing back, the LA Clippers getting better than economy, and I’ll talk about Obama’s approval rating and his winning the emigration lottery to leave Kenya.” Liberals will sometimes groan. Me curio: “I have Emmy awards you’re wrong and I’m right. You have to have a bit of a fuck-you audience [mentality].”
    “The point of standup,” says Mecurio, “is it’s a platform for social and political commentary, an op-ed piece really, an unedited place to say what you want to say.” He references Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, Bill Hicks and Chris Rock. “I think it’s a place you can be left alone to say what you wanna say. I think it’s good to shake things up. Otherwise it becomes milquetoast, McDonald’s comedy. The art of comedy, isn’t it supposed to transport you to a place, for a few minutes anyway, where you say, ‘Wow I didn’t think I could enjoy this?
      Mecurio considers himself libertarian or independent. On TV, he’ll often be the political foil – the lefty on Sean Hannity’s show or the righty on MSNBC.  “I’m fiscally conservative, and socially liberal,” he says, “but I don’t come off as kneejerk on one side. I don’t know how anybody cannot have altering points of view depending on issue. When people [like Hannity] put me in that position as a left-wing foil, it makes good TV. I’m not that left wing, but he knows how to make theater, and it’s what all those shows are about.  I’m not trying to court a particular right or left-wing audience.  My act is a mix of political, topical, autobiographical, and observational. It’s important your act reveals things about you that let the audience know what makes that guy tick, how he thinks and what he thinks. I think you want your act to be true to what you want to say and hopefully somewhat related to what people see in themselves.”
     Mecurio took a most unusual route to comedy – so unusual he’s working up a TV pilot with himself and Lewis Black based on it. Mecurio graduated Georgetown Law School and was a Wall Street lawyer and investment banker, handling multi-million dollar transactions for Fortune 100 companies. “The way it happened,” he says, “is I was on Wall Street, but also writing jokes as a hobby, shooting short films. I gave a joke to Jay Leno at a private function and he called me and called and hired me two days later, saying I need guys to write for my monologue. He paid me $50 for the joke. Here I am, a middle class kid from Providence, working on million dollar deal, and it was the most wonderful thing that happened to me. I create something out of thin air and people reacted to it viscerally.”
    It wasn’t like Mecurio hated his white collar life. “It wasn’t ‘the Man sucks on Wall Street.’ It was more that. I started sending Leno more stuff, he said to try ‘em out in clubs. I got the charge of people laughing at me. So it was Wall Street by day, comic by night at dive bars, living in two different worlds, no one in either world knew about the other. My girlfriend-now-wife didn’t know. Talk about tale of two cities. I was on 60th floor with color marble offices and in a Bowery hellhole club. My world was colliding for a couple of years.”
    In 1998, he left Wall Street to become a full time comic. The IRS couldn’t believe it. His income plummeted substantially and they audited him relentlessly – how could anyone do this? “I moved to a rooming house from a two-bedroom coop and started living the life of a comedian. A rooming house with two ex-cons, two people in rehab. I was starting over in $325/month 10 x 12 room with a hot plate just outside New York City. It was scary. And I had my doubts. I was struggling and miserable. The doubts were piling up.  I thought maybe I needed to go back to something more secure so I went back on Wall Street, got a new apartment with my girlfriend back, swore off comedy …  Two months later I was back doing comedy like a junkie needing a fix. So I left for a second tour of duty about 2000.”
   He created, executive produced, directed and starred in an HBO and HBO.com Sports Comedy series, “Got No Game w/Paul Mecurio,” which was nominated for an Emmy.  “I do stuff with sports and comedy that’s thoughtful,” Mecurio says, “not just a tailgate sketch. Sports is a very influential part of our culture, and there’s a lot of stuff off the field people aren’t covering comedically. I tackle that, a good avenue for me, if you will, to have a voice in a part of our culture. Check out this link for a very funny take on how various races got involved with very specific sports: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqLB8wyrE_A
    Mecurio got Emmys and Peabodys working on “The Daily Show.” “It was my full time job,” he says. “But I really never wanted to be a fulltime writer. I wanted to perform and as ‘The Daily Show’ got more successful there was less time allowed to be away.  So I gave it up. You can’t be a fulltime writer and full time actor.” And, so he does standup about half the week, is working on two pilots (the aforementioned autobiographical one and a talk show) and an animated show. I enjoy doing it. It’s all integrated. Being a good performer helps your TV and doing TV helps create a national name for myself. I like the different experiences for different reasons.”

Showtimes at 8, and an additional show Saturday at 10:30. Tix; $50-$20.

350 Trolley Line Blvd., Mashantucket, CT, 860-312-5050 www.comixatfoxwoods.com http://paulmecurio062312.eventbrite.com/