Another tempting stand-up comedy show at the Funny Bone in Beavercreek came up once again on October 11, 2012. Ever since discovering this location at the Greene shopping mall, I’ve been enjoying an occasional evening out alone, a nice dinner, and a little celebrity encounter. I hoped that this one with Kevin Pollak would yield the same results. At first I had bypassed this one, but quickly realized that even though the name Kevin Pollak was only vaguely familiar, I did indeed know a good chunk of the body of his work. Ironically, most of the roles were in the dramatic vein.
The clincher was that he was in The Usual Suspects, and in fact appeared on the film’s movie poster. He had portrayed the character of criminal hijacker Todd Hockney in the film. Among his other credits were Casino, A Few Good Men, L.A. Story, The Whole Nine Yards, and the second two installments of The Santa Clause franchise. Clearly he was no slouch in the film department. And had I realized that he had been half of the team of Morton & Hayes in the short-lived TV series that served as a tribute to 30’s and 40’s slapstick comedy, I would have been even more impressed.
But filmography aside, I was not familiar with his comedy. His show was named after the book that he was currently promoting called How I Slept My Way to the Middle: Secrets and Stories from Stage, Screen, and Interwebs. As I settled in with my bleu cheeseburger and Pepsi, got through the opening act of the emcee Vincent Holiday, and the featured act Erin Jackson, I was immediately enchanted by Pollak’s comedy.
Not only was he funny, but he delivered some of the most uncanny impersonations of celebrities that I’ve ever seen. Among the parodied: Robert DeNiro, Jack Nicholson, Christopher Walken, Don Rickles, William Shatner, and Peter Falk. It was one of those shows that you didn’t want to end.
In fact, I would have considered buying one his DVD’s for him to sign if it hadn’t been $20. Instead, after the show he was happy to sign my Usual Suspects DVD, although he made sure that he inscribed it to me. He also made a derogatory comment or two about his co-star Stephen Baldwin and briefly considered drawing a mustache on him.
The only odd and unsettling thing that night was the way that pictures were handled. Instead of allowing us to use our own cameras, he had a member of the staff taking pictures with his own digital camera. Then we were supposed to enter our email on his iPad and we would be sent a link to retrieve them. This made me nervous.
The weekend came and went and I saw no sign of his email. Eventually I was able to search the web and come up with the website on my own. Two photos had been taken of us, but only one was displayed…but at least it was there: a nice high resolution image for the taking. I have no idea what that was about, but once I had retrieved the photo I really didn’t care.
I may just buy that DVD on my own. Kevin Pollak really is a very funny fellow.
Return to October 2012…
Leave a Reply