Twenty minutes into a convivial conversation with Maritime comic Ron James, I make a near-fatal faux-pas: I ask him about the short-lived American sitcom he moved to L.A. to work on in the early ’90s.
“That’s an old story,” he says, exasperation in his voice. “That’s 16 years ago now. I went down with a series (My Talk Show) and the series was cancelled and not everybody that goes down to Los Angeles wins.”
“But y’know, I’m more interested in what I’m doing now than what I did 16 or 20 years ago, man. Why do you guys always talk about Los Angeles so much?”
Um . . . er . . . because it’s interesting?
“But why?” he almost explodes. “But why? Why? Why? Why? It was a show that wasn’t as good as the show I have on CBC now (The Ron James Show). You know what I mean? I mean, this is it, man!
“We’re pulling gold away in the Olympics, we’re doing our job and they explode with standing ovations. I play in Canada but the press continuously wants to know what the (bleep) I did in Los Angeles 20 years ago!”
“I don’t get it. And that’s not to say I won’t go back to Los Angeles again, because America does comedy very well, they really do. But what I’m doing here now is for and about us, and I really enjoy it and I don’t need the U.S. to validate my worth, I just don’t. “
He’s a passionate fella, this 52-year-old Nova Scotia rabble-rouser who slogged it out in the comedy trenches for more than 20 years — beginning with an ’80s stint at Second City — before finding his niche as a poetically tongued ranter with an affinity for the nuances of small-town Canadian life.
And despite his apparent outrage, he’s first to admit his ill-fated U.S. sojourn forced him to reinvent himself, play to his strengths, which — after three years of disappointing guest spots and failed expectations — meant a return to his homeland.
With a muse to follow and kids to feed, he turned his Hollywood experiences into an acclaimed one-man show, Up & Down in Shakey Town, and morphed into a rare animal indeed: a standup comic who — defying the trend of the last 20 years — managed to make a living without playing the sleazy-club circuit.
“The lessons I learned in the land of liberty I brought home to Canada, shifted the paradigm and became a standup,” he orates like Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg Address. “And what I’ve enjoyed about the work here is the journey, not the grail at the journey’s end!”
Celebrity culture, he says is a “pernicious ruse” that tricks performers into thinking success happens overnight.
“But make no mistake: this is a trade, and it does not suffer fools. You have to put your time in, sit down at your desk and write, be prepared to learn the trade. If boat builders in their 80s are still learning new things, why should it be an overnight success for us?”
His perseverance has paid off, with a series of high profile TV specials, a slew of awards and media citations as “the funniest man in Canada” (Victoria Times-Colonist), “devastatingly funny” (Globe & Mail) and “utterly brilliant” (Ottawa Sun).
He is — based on his defiantly Canadian focus and unpretentious defence of the little guy — the Stompin’ Tom Connors of Canadian comedy, a title he seems to appreciate.
“I think it’s my Maritime heart,” he concedes graciously. “I come from unpretentious people . . . they have a pretty accurate bull---- meter. That being said I also never underestimate an audience’s intelligence.
“I never thought they’d be any less aware in Huntsville than they would be in Kitchener. We’re all locked into the same grid.”
But, of course, when I belabour the point about his small-town appeal, his combative instincts kick in once again.
“Just because I play the small towns doesn’t mean I’m a small town act!” he grouses heatedly.
“I’ve said that already! Just because I have an appreciation for the rural sensibilities of the country doesn’t mean I’m a small-town comedian! All my comedy specials, whether regionally themed or not, have universal material.”
Universal, in the case of his current Mental As Anything tour, means comic pokes at the Olympics, politics, the baby-boom generation “T-boned at the crossroads of mid-life” and the rejuvenating power of the land and nature.
“It’s a phrase we used to use back home,” he explains of the Mental As Anything moniker. “The world is spinning “mental as anything” and everybody on the planet is doing the same thing.
“I’m just trying to make sense of it all before the pursuit of the bourgeois dream cripples me at the finish line, brother.”
Comedically, of course.
“If the ushers aren’t wiping the seats down after I’m finished,” he notes succinctly. “I haven’t done my job.”
jrubinoff@therecord.com
Ron James
Tonight (Fri. March 5), 8 p.m.
Centre in the Square
Tickets $49 and $54.
Call 519-578-1570 or log on to www.centre-square.com
