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JEBB FINK - March 27, 2005
GUY MACPHERSON: The obvious question for you: Every
Canadian comic who can legally get over the border
wants to get to the States. You came the other way.
Interesting.
JEBB FINK: I came up to work and I fell in love with a
Canadian who is now my second wife. And here I am
fifteen years later.
GM: Were you a comic in the States before coming up?
JF: Yeah. I actually met her, she was running the Yuk
Yuk's in Edmonton.
GM: Mixing business with pleasure.
JF: Yes. And it works very well, apparently.
GM: At the time were you thinking 'career suicide'?
JF: No. At the time I was working as a standup. It
didn't matter. As long as you had an international
airport I was the happiest guy in the world.
GM: I guess that's true. You can travel from anywhere.
JF: Yeah, and I wasn't thinking sitcom or anything.
And I'm still not. I'm really not an actor. So my
thought wasn't they're going to do an 'Everybody Loves
Jebb'. And there's a lot of work up here for comedians
with Yuk Yuk's. So here I am.
GM: I can see Vancouver, Toronto, big centres. But
Calgary?
JF: She was in Edmonton. And when we got together we
ended up moving to Calgary because she took a new
position with Yuk Yuk's for western Canada. And to be
honest, it's much easier to get out of Calgary to
other places than it is out of Edmonton. And it's
pretty central. Especially if you're working mostly in
Canada.
GM: Are you working mostly in Canada?
JF: Oh yeah. Almost exclusively.
GM: Do you ever get a chance to go down there and
perform?
JF: Oh yeah. Although what I've learned is that a lot
of things that Canadians laugh about Americans,
Americans are not quite as prepared to laugh about. I
did a show for about 1100 people from a pool and spa
company and I started going after George Bush and
received numerous boos, forgetting that most pools and
spas were sold in the south, and that's who elected
him. They had no sense of humour about it. Oh, that's
their boy.
GM: Some Americans living here bristle when they hear
Canadians putting down Americans. Are you like that?
JF: No, I don't consider myself like the other
Americans.
GM: Was that always the case?
JF: Yeah. It was always not ever a great fit. I think
no matter where you are, you should be honest about
where you live and what they do. I mean, there's lots
of things the Canadian government does that I don't
care for. But I guess the difference is you can say
something about it here and people don't act like
you're trying to burn the flag. Which I don't even
know if that's illegal here.
GM: No, it isn't. We have to keep warm.
JF: Yeah, if it's cold, burn whatever you've got.
Start with the flagpole, then move your way to the
flag if you have to.
GM: Is it like, 'I can criticise my mom, but if you
criticise her...'?
JF: Oh yeah. And the thing is I live here now so it's
more acceptable for me to make fun. I don't know if an
American comic could come to Canada and make as much
fun of the Canadian government as I do.
GM: Well, they wouldn't know anything about it.
JF: No, and some of them didn't know there was a
Canada until they got booked here. I was pretty
ignorant about the country until I moved up here.
GM: Sure. And why wouldn't you be?
JF: In the U.S. you learn history, it just isn't
exactly world history.
GM: But we're such a small country, population-wise.
JF: Yeah, but we know about Mexico. Maybe because I
grew up in southern California, but Americans know all
about Mexico; they just don't know about Canada. At
least the area of the United States that I came from
does.
GM: You were from LA?
JF: Yeah, I was born and raised down there. I spent
some time - my senior year of high school - in Idaho.
Then I lived in Alaska for a little bit. I was kind of
everywhere.
GM: Alaska moving down to Calgary...
JF: It's warm. I came for the weather.
GM: What did your friends and family think when you
decided to move?
JF: Most of my friends were other road comics. It just
didn't matter where you lived. Like I say, as long as
there's an international airport. You're just not home
that often. I spent 46 weeks on the road one year. So
it really doesn't matter where your mail goes when
you're doing that. When I was staying all year was
after I got a couple of different positions on TV
shows. I was on Global's morning show there for a
while. I was with A-channel for seven and a half
years. So I was working in television there, which
wasn't an opportunity that was probably going to pop
up for me in the States. So overall it's been a great
career move for me.
GM: Do you ever wonder where you might be if you
stayed?
JF: (laughs) Oh, God. Jail. I probably would have been
in jail by then. Let's just say the second wife calmed
me down a lot. She was a very calming influence. Doing
comedy in Chino isn't that fun.
GM: Where's Chino?
JF: Chino's a maximum prison in California.
GM: Do you ever miss it? Or do you get down there?
JF: I go down every once in a while. We go down for
vacations. We go to Vegas. Hotspots. The only thing I
miss is the hot weather. And I mean hot. I love it
hot. If it's 35 degrees, I can stay at the pool all
day. Actually, the last time we were in Vegas, my wife
stayed at the pool with me for two straight days and
ended up with heat stroke the second day. And I was
fine. Just keep drinking beer and you'll stay
hydrated.
GM: How does the development of comics differ?
JF: Honestly, in Canada, I think it works a little bit
better. It's a little tighter network. Whereas in the
US definitely everybody's out for themselves. And Yuk
Yuk's is all the way across the country. And
especially when I came up here, they had all the
comics. So the guys were able to get work and stay
working and develop their craft. Whereas in the United
States you had to fight for every gig you got. When I
came up here I couldn't believe it. I said, 'what do
you mean? You'll just send me my worksheets?' 'There
you go, you're working for the whole six months.'
'Well, how can that be?' And in the States, you were
fighting for every gig.
GM: Does that bring about a better collective? Or is
it as cutthroat up here among the comics?
JF: I don't know. I think it's the same. I think it's
a little bit of a brotherhood in both countries. And
you gravitate towards the guys that are similar; funny
in the same way as you and the stuff you think is
good. And now, of course, we're the old guys. I'm 47.
We're like the ancient guys when we go do the clubs.
They might as well give us a walker compared to some
of the guys. But I would take the guys in my bracket
any day.
GM: Just that wealth of experience and material.
JF: Oh yeah. And at a certain point of doing this, you
have seen every possible thing that could happen. I
mean, I did a show in Toronto one night and they had a
girl that something medically had happened to her and
she was in the back hallway. The last thing I heard
before my introduction was the EMS guy going, "We've
got a pulse; let's move her." And then I'm up. And it
was funny because most of the audience knew something
really bad was happening because as I walked on, the
girl was on her way out and they were ventillating
her. So you've seen everything that could go wrong or
that could happen. I was in Edmonton a few months ago
and a guy... I believe he had a heart attack in the
audience. It was just, 'Okay, everybody calm down.
They'll get him out of the room. Let's not freak out
here.'
GM: And you're able to go on with the show.
JF: You gotta work around it because it just is what
it is.
GM: You do galas, corporate work, TV, but you also do
rowdy comedy clubs.
JF: Mostly the corporates. I don't do the clubs as
much as I used to. But there is something really fun
about a wild crowd.
GM: Money aside, now, is there something to be said
for playing in a club?
JF: There's no comparison to doing really well on a
Saturday first show hot crowd. There's nothing like
it. There's just an energy in there. And part of the
problem with corporates is that everybody knows
everybody so sometimes you gotta warm them up and get
them past that 'oh I don't want to laugh at that in
front of the boss'. So it's just a completely
different animal. It's pretty rare that you get a
corporate gig that compares to a Saturday first show
in a club.
GM: And you really develop your chops in a club, don't
you?
JF: Oh yeah. That's where you get all of the guts. I
went in last Thursday to see an old friend of mine and
I still went up to do ten minutes. So you miss it.
It's a shame the clubs don't pay more, but it's just
the mathematics of it. They're trying to run a
business.
GM: When you've been around and you're successful,
your price goes up.
JF: It's funny, I remember years ago - it must have
been 15 or 18 years ago - I was in Seattle. It was
when I was first kind of getting going. And I was
working with Marsha Warfield. We did nine shows. I got
$350; she got $6500. (chuckles) When she found out how
much I was making, she bought all of my meals. She
goes, 'You can't even eat!'
GM: Well, you wouldn't eat as much as she would,
anyway... Whatever happened to Marsha Warfield, I
wonder.
JF: You know, I have no idea. I haven't heard anything
about her for years. Those are the people I grew up
with: Paula Poundstone, Marsha Warfield, the Amazing
Jonathan, Paul Reiser, Sinbad was just coming out as a
headliner when I started.
GM: It's good we haven't heard much of him.
JF: I think he made his money and quit. I think he
still does Vegas and stuff.
GM: For the superstar comics, lots more opportunity
down in the States. But do you think for the
non-superstar comics there are more opportunities up
here?
JF: I don't know. No, I think in both countries it's
fairly even. There are some people that are a better
match for one or the other country. Flat-out, their
sense of humour works better. There are so many funny
Canadians, it's hard to pick the guys that wouldn't do
really well up against the same level of Americans.
GM: How does our scene compare?
JF: The real big difference is on the top end. I think
from the middle acts down it's about the same. But
they're just top heavy down there. There are just so
many guys that are of a certain calibre. And there
just isn't as many cities to work in for the
Canadians. So many of them, as you say, just try to
get down there. Just by virtue of there's so much more
work by numbers. It's all a numbers game.
GM: Will the show at Yuks with John going to be
political?
JF: Oh, I think there'll be a lot of political...
It'll be very political. (snickers) I mean, I'm hugely
opinionated about politics. One of the things that
truly amazes me about Canada is that they're actually
able to somehow ignore the sponsorship scandal.
GM: I plead guilty to that.
JF: It's just, 'Ah, it happens.'
GM: That's exactly my feelings.
JF: A hundred thousand bucks that Martha Stewart gets,
she's in jail in the US. Up here they filtered $320
million to their buddies--
GM: Allegedly!
JF: --allegedly, and they're reelected. The one thing
I learned watching the hearings, watching Paul Martin
testify, was that I am as qualified to be minister of
finance as anybody.
GM: But you gotta admit Chretien did a masterful job
at the hearings.
JF: That was some serious dancing, huh? But you know
what? Paul Martin just isn't able to pull it off, this
thing.
GM: When you're being political, do you make an effort
to be fair?
JF: I hit everybody. You know what? I'm a big Ralph
Klein fan. But when he does something silly, you're
going to hear about it. I've hosted his roast three
times. And still it's the best when I hear him do
something just before because I'll do it there. And he
laughs with everybody else.
GM: And I guess it's the delivery, too.
JF: If it's done in just a vicious attack, your
vicious attack is going to override the funny part.
Although they may do something that's just as
aggravating as it could possibly be, it's your job to
figure out a way to get... You want to get some
information in there, too. You don't want to just make
it funny. You want to get a little information where
people maybe start to think a bit. I mean, to me
that's the best comedy. You hear something, you laugh,
and you go, 'Hey, wait a minute. There was a fact in
there.'
GM: But do you think people actually change their
minds based on what the comic's said. They laugh and
then they go out there and ignore what you said.
JF: Could be. All you can do is just keep doing what
you do. And even if they just have a good time and
laugh about it... I'd love to tell you, if one
person's life was changed from a show, but I know
that's a load of crap.