COLIN QUINN: THE NEW YORK STORY
By armen pandola
Stand-up comedy has changed.
There was a time when a stand-up comedian talked about the weather - George Carlin first hit the big time on the Tonight Show with his hippy-dippy weatherman. The dean of stand-up in the 60s was Alan King, the Grand Pubah of aggravation - here is his routine about airlines. Some stand-up comedians varied the usual diet - here's a Woody Allen story about appliances.
In the 60s, stand-up comedy was no longer about jokes a la Bob Hope. As the audience changed, stand-up comedy changed. Richard Pryor, Joan Rivers, Eddie Murphy, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock - comedy no longer was just about telling funny stories, it was about being funny. While comedians still told 'jokes', they were wrapped in a personality. Rodney Dangerfield got no respect from anyone and Don Rickles had no respect for anyone.
Today, doing stand-up can be dangerous. Making fun of certain people or peoples can be career ending. Funny no longer is the sole criteria for stand-up. Comedians have to navigate through a minefield of potential blow-ups. Even a show that is only a few years old can seem written for a different era. For example...
Colin Quinn's 2016 Netflix special is a film of his off-Broadway show about New York City and its people, directed by Jerry Seinfeld. Quinn's style is cynical cool. He surveys the history of New York by sticking it to every group that ever called NYC home, starting with the Lenape Native Americans and the Dutch. His history survey doesn't really heat up until he gets to the Irish - they are the ones who gave NYC its many Catholic parishes. What's a parish? It's 'a church, Irish people and a bar.' He points out that churches and bars share stained glass windows and kneeling (as in kneeling-down drunk). All cops are Irish because the police academy is just like catholic school with nuns who had an unusual taste for violence.
As Quinn goes through the various nationalities who immigrated to NYC, he hits the funny bone without drawing blood - Italians loved America because the first thing they see in America is a 100 foot statute of mother. Momma mia! Everything about Italians was operatic - big! The Jews made NYC their home when sweatshop workers needed volunteers to complain about the terrible conditions - and so unions began. The Jews not only complained, they raised complaining to apocalyptical dimensions - How was traffic, bad? Murder. Are you uncomfortable? I'm in agony!
Quinn makes certain that he touches on ALL the ethnic groups of NYC, even the Albanians - 'I'm not going to say anything about Albanians and that should tell you all you need to know about Albanians.'
Quinn saves some of his funniest bits for his real target - the NYC of the 1970s when the City was on the verge of collapse. From 'mugger money' (you would carry a $10 or $20 to have something to give) to leaving notes on your car for the thieves ('No radio in the car'), to the pimps outside the Port Authority building who were lined up like Citi Bikes, the NYC of that by-gone era is as distant as Ancient Troy. And even then Quinn throws out a line that is funnier today than when he made it almost 4 years ago - “of course, there’s a lot less racial tension now.”
For an hour Quinn turns on the juice and lights up the ether with fireworks that burn brightly if all too quickly. If there is one down moment, it's the end. While the fireworks in the sky usually end with an incredible, how the hell did they do that moment of sheer bravura, Quinn's show ends like somebody pulled the plug, Other than that, sit back and enjoy. You may never see stand-up like this again.
PS - thanks Steve.
DIRECTOR
Jerry Seinfeld
RUNTIME
62 minutes
RATING
Not Rated
CAST
Colin Quinn