By Bill Van Tassel
Feature Writer
LEWISTON — “Just a mic and my thoughts.”
This is how Lewiston standup comedian Mark Turcotte explained the simplicity of the standup’s job he enjoys so much. The fact that this is all he needs “to entertain a crowd of people” has a strong appeal to Turcotte. He added later in our conversation, “You’ve got to be prepared, however. You can’t be lazy about your preparation.”
When I asked him if he ever gets nervous taking the stage, he quickly said, “Not really. I’m confident in my material and my preparation.”
Turcotte does admit to being mildly nervous when trying out new material. As many of us know, the fear of speaking in public is one of the things we humans most fear, even ahead of death. Jerry Seinfeld joked in one of his bits, “Do you realize what this means? It means when we’re at a funeral, we’d rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy.”
Turcotte’s preparation methods have evolved over the last five years since he began standup comedy. He used to write out every word of his routine and memorize it. Over time he began to shorten his comedic lines into phrases, often just words stored on his phone. He does keep a notebook by his bed to use if he happens to think of a funny way to handle a current topic in the news.
“When people are paying to see you, you don’t want to go on stage with a list to look at,” he emphasized. “It’s not very professional.”
Turcotte has no favorite topic for his comedy. He uses a variety of topical subjects ranging from his family (“my father is unintentionally funny”) to current events and the political. In one of his sets reminiscent of the “Windex Cure” in the movie, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” Turcotte jokes about his father’s use of NyQuil for every ailment under the sun. Whether it’s being unemployed, doing taxes or being a stay-at-home father, Turcotte manages to put his own humorous twist on the topic.
“I’m not afraid of any topic,” he says. Illustrating this, he has used some material stemming from his wife’s battle with breast cancer. The 47-year-old Turcotte, of course, does this in a manner that is not offensive to anyone.
His list of comedians who he admires includes Dave Chappelle (Achoo in Mel Brooks’ “Robin Hood: Men in Tights”), Minnesota’s Chad Daniels, Maine comedian Johnny Ater, and the more widely known George Carlin. A young Turcotte saw Carlin’s Carnegie Hall performance on HBO, and it had a lasting effect on him in his decision to do standup.
Though in Carlin’s later career he frequently challenged politics and religion, Turcotte says, “I love Carlin’s writing, especially his earlier stuff and his point of view.”
Most of the comedians Turcotte mentioned in our interview base their comedy, as does Turcotte, on their daily lives, the situations, and current events that affect our everyday lives.
On occasion, Turcotte uses Turner Publishing’s Lewiston Leader in a routine. He visibly carries the newspaper on stage and says something about a serious situation in North Korea or some current scandal in the States that he read in the paper. A local audience would know that this couldn’t be the real source of the scandalous news as the Leader covers no bad news, whether political or otherwise.
I asked Turcotte if he ever bombed. He did. He was doing a bit at his daughter’s sixth-grade graduation some years ago. The audience response was so “not there” that, “I felt like everyone wanted to leave,” he said. It was a learning experience most comedians have had.
“If you can’t take a bomb once in a while, you’re not going to make it in the long haul,” he shared. Dave Chappelle, noted above, was once booed off the stage of the “Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York. This moment encouraged Chappelle to pursue his career with more vigor.”
In addition to hosting his own Maine Comedy Event and performing in “open mic” nights around the state, Turcotte has done standup in comedy festivals and contests from Boston to Florida and Cleveland. He has also appeared on WABI television’s “The Nite Show” with Danny Cashman, WCSH’s “207” program and the “Steve Katsos Show” in Arlington, Massachusetts. He has used his talents for several fundraising causes like the Dempsey Challenge, John F. Murphy Homes and others.
