Steve Sweeney
written by Ken Carlson
“When I started,” said comedian Steve Sweeney, “I worked with a lot of good people, folks like George Carlin and Jay Leno. In the beginning everyone said, ‘Don’t swear and don’t do all local stuff.’ Rather than wanting to be yourself, they wanted you to be somebody else. I never really cared about making it. I wanted to be different. So swearing was all I did. How did the guy make his money off the hula hoop? Reputation. I got a reputation as the guy with local characters who swears, like the guys from the corner. People identified with that. So I’ve been able to eek out a living from it.”
It’s a warm evening in touristy Faneuil Hall, downtown Boston. Steve Sweeney’s reputation from his decades in Boston comedy and time spent in radio is on display. The locals reach out to him to say hello and show their respect. Sweeney, in his linen shirt, carries himself with the grace and presence of a South American president; shaking hands and showing his appreciation.
“I love stand-up,” said Sweeney. “I’ve been doing it so long. There’s an immediate gratification, getting the laughs. There’s also the immediate agony of not getting laughs, but usually I can get them. Also, I always underestimated it, what it does for people.”
He’s best known for his outlandish characters that blanket the Boston landscape; the guys you find on the barstool, at the convenient store, in your neighborhood. As veteran comic Chance Langton puts it, “Steve is a dynamic improvisational performer. He sets the crowd on fire!”
It’s easy to think that Sweeney’s lampooning these
ludicrous caricatures of his beloved Beantown, that nobody acts so ridiculous with so little disregard for others, is so devoid of class.
Then, as if on cue, as we walk through the outdoor market, we meet a fellow Bostonian asking for change. I give him a few quarters and wish him good luck. He goes on a shouting spree.
“I’m trying to improve my situation!” said the gentleman. “I don’t got no problems! Bring it on Mother Fucker! You think I’ve got a fuckin’ problem! I’ve got ideas! You fuckin’ crazy man!”
“Yeah, this is the story of my life,” said Sweeney after the man took his shouting down the street. “You give the guy the money. You’re the Jesus figure, I’m the devil. Now he’s going to talk to his shoes. You have to kind of buy them off, now you’ve learned your lesson. The best tshirt I ever saw was in New York. It said, ‘No, I don’t have a quarter.’”
If you’re from Boston, you know Steve Sweeney. His rants on everyday life in this quirky burgh, from snow shovelling to scratch tickets, are so well known in comedy clubs that his “You got to be shittin’ me!” should be patented. He did five years of morning radio, first in classic rock, then at a sports station, where he enjoyed the rhythm of creating everyday on air. Now, he’s also got a day job where he talks to kids about drugs and alcohol, from the standpoint of someone who has experienced a lot and got sober 18 years ago. The national audience would know him from club appearances in Vegas or Atlantic City, not to mention his film roles, most notably, There’s Something About Mary.
“I started out as an actor,” said Sweeney “I kind of fell into stand-up. I’ve stuck with it because I enjoy it and it pays the bills. I don’t work as much these days, it’s not the same scene. In Boston, in terms of talent developing, it’s kind of like when there was a rock scene, there were places to work. Back in the day, when I started with guys like Gavin and Lenny [Don Gavin and Lenny Clarke], we really didn’t know what we were doing, so you just found your voice. Now, it’s a business, so people are a little more aware going in. They don’t just want to do it for fun. Around here, people are a little better about it. They still have the big dream, I guess. But artistically, I think that since there are so many comedians out there, it got kind of watered down.”
“As I get older,” he continued, “I see the value of getting a laugh. So, I value this job. I do it in all kinds of places; homeless shelters for vets, jails. It’s always a different place, different experience. How many people can say that about their jobs? I get spoiled because I have a following in Boston. At Giggles on the North Shore, that’s the local crowd. If they know you, it’s like being at home. Last night, doing a show in Faneuil Hall, there were all these tourists. They didn’t know what the hell I was talking about with all this local stuff. So I adjusted my material. When you do that, it keeps your mind going.”
Times have changed. On this night, Sweeney is playing a popular, cozy club, Mottley’s. In the glory days of Boston comedy, the clubs were filled with drunks getting shitfaced. On this evening, there are a group of women siting at front table, chatting and texting through the entire show. After some subtle suggestions from Sweeney to the ladies to show more courtesy fails to get the preferred result, he changes speeds, taking his material to a bombastic level so the laughs of the crowd take over.
He’s been at this game for about thirty years,but can still draw a laugh in describing certain early nights in his career that didn’t go as planned, like an evening opening for BB King at a club called the Sugar Shack. “It was a club with jazz entertainers down on Boylston. Mostly a black crowd. I went right down the shitter. I was doing stuff like John Lennon impressions, no jokes. It was ridiculous! Then there was a night at the Ground Round where guys were throwing ice all over the place. How funny was I that night? I got up there and said, ‘Anybody throws ice at me, I’m going to fuckin’ kill ya!’ That’s not funny. That’s not Red Skelton or Jonathan Winters with all their warmth.”
“In Boston,” Sweeney continued, “the local crowds, they’ve gotten a lot better. They’re a little older. They don’t just come out to get drunk. That’s my least favorite thing, drunken crowds. The bottom line is, if you’re pissed off, you can be pissed off. But, if you’re on stage, you have to play this stupid game, where, ‘Oh, you’re heckling me? Now I have to one up you?’ It’s awful because I’m easily triggered. Some nights you have to plow through it. But how do you explain to somebody that they’re not watching television;that it’s very rude when they’re fuckin’ around with their cell phone. It’s so rude! It’s very annoying when it’s up front. The satisfaction you get is, some nights you’re a professional. Even after all these years, I don’t know exactly what to do. How to confront it? Change the mood. It’s not anything conscious. Since I have a stage voice I can drown it out.”
“But I fell into this from doing a one man show at the Charles Playhouse about the works of Samuel Beckett” said Sweeney. “I needed to keep going. So I put together all these characters. At the time, I was afraid to use a mic because I was an actor. The last play I did was Beyond Therapy by Christopher Durang. I played the psychiatrist. Now, I’m putting together a one man show for the Newburyport Theatre. It’s called Townie. It’s all the characters I came up with. What I miss about the stage is the camaraderie. I’ve worked at stand-up so long, it’s natural. To go back and do plays again, it would be immensely difficult for me to learn lines. It’s tough to be a stage actor. I go to plays all the time. I see these people, the work they put into it.”
“Any conversation of Boston comedy,” said comedian and writer Brian Kiley, “starts with Steve Sweeney. He’s an artist who has captured a myriad of New England characters perfectly and hilariously. What sets him apart is that people come to see him hoping to hear him do their favorite bits. He’s the ultimate Boston headliner.”
“I work off the crowd,” said Sweeney. “It’s about presentational acting. The crowd is your partner in the scene. I don’t write my stand-up routines. I just get up there and wing it. Tonight I’m just going to go. I create it in front of the audience.Beginning comics are either the Writer Type, they get up there and sound like they’re reciting it. Then there’s the Performing Type, who look don’t have the material. It’s tough to get that combination. Rodney Dangerfield said it takes ten years to be a good comedian. But it’s not like ten long, hard years. It’s emotional. There is no feeling like bombing in Louisville, Kentucky and going back to your Motel 6, thinking about what you’re doing with your life. Then there’s the loneliness of playing the road. You get up, now what the hell do you do all day?”
“If you put down a book for more than a week, it’s hard to catch up,” Sweeney continued, “So, this character does this, that one does that? In stand-up, it’s the same thing. When you put it down, Professor Irwin Corey said, ‘The fear gets worse when you stay way from it. It’s not like riding a bike. It’s like falling off a cliff!’”
“I’m more myself now,” Sweeney says. “Having said all this, if I go up and suck, it’s irrelevant. Guys like Nick DiPaolo, I’m in awe of. They can write these great jokes. Jimmy Brogan, nicest guy. Sam Kinnison, devil incarnate. The range of people in this job... It’s a job that can feed into a lot of anti-social neurosis. You don’t have to develop any social skills; like those guys who do impressions, then take themselves really seriously. You do Howard Cosell! Lighten up! Some guys get really freakin’ weird. Some guys, they’re great on stage. They get off and become mean bastards.”
Like many other veteran comics, Sweeney came up as a rebel and now stands as the old guard. His ideals come from an education in the fine arts and a lifetime spent in clubs where people spend money to hear dick jokes. From early on, he understood the importance of working dirty to get laughs and working clean to make a living. He freely admits hating Last Comic Standing, though the show’s producer, Barry Katz, is a friend of his. “I hate that show. It’s what’s wrong with American culture. Imagine if you had all these brilliant comics, like Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Lilly Tomlin. You’re going to reduce them to living in a house with a fat guy, a guy with red hair, and one with a disability? It makes you feel pretty old.”
“He is the first comedian I ever saw live on a comedy club stage,” says comedian Nick DiPaolo, “and probably the reason I do this today. After 22 years of doing this I still have yet to see anyone kill as hard or destroy a room like Steve Sweeney did at Stitches and Nick’s in the 80’s and 90’s. Watching him reminds you of that really funny guy everybody knew in high school but he had the natural ability to make it translate to a live audience. Having to follow him at Nick’s was every comics nightmare but little did we know then it was making us all better comedians. He has that perfect combination of being naturally funny and also a little crazy that makes for a wicked comedian. I owe a lot to that guy. Love him to death!”
“It’s such strange job,” said Sweeney of his life as a comedian. “Sometimes, you want people to take you seriously... just don’t forget I’m funny.”
To more on Steve, visit SteveSweeney.com.