Stand-up for a Child at Cranbury Inn

[Princeton Packet]

Just How Boyish?
Comedian Gary Gulman can tell you what a sugar cookie is
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 2:22 PM EST
By Adam Grybowski

Comedian Gary Gulman loves grapes, hates grapefruit, and he’ll explain why at the Cranbury Inn on Nov. 15.

LEAVING his day job as an accountant, Gary Gulman would drive four, five, six hours to appear on stage for five minutes. He traversed New England pursuing his dream of becoming a stand-up comic, and for his effort he often received no pay. He brought his act to rock clubs, used bookstores, bars, dance clubs — any place that would have him.

”I never had any misgivings about it,” Mr. Gulman says during a phone interview. “I was thrilled to get the gig. I didn’t know how tall the mountain was. If I did, I may have never started climbing it.”

Six years and thousands of open-mike shows passed before Mr. Gulman could make a living off comedy. Since then he has appeared on Leno and Letterman. He released his first CD in 2005, Conversations With Inanimate Objects, and starred in his own specials on Comedy Central and Showtime.

On Nov. 15 he will appear at the Cranbury Inn as the featured performer of “Stand-up for a Child,” a night of comedy to benefit CASA of Mercer County. After scouting the field, the CASA staff overwhelmingly favored Mr. Gulman, believing his multi-generation appeal and observational humor would draw a crowd.

Here’s a sampling of his work:
On sugar cookies: “You might want to remember this: Every cookie is a sugar cookie. A cookie without sugar is a cracker.”

On grapefruit: “Vile. So bad it should be a vegetable.”

On safety scissors: “Those things couldn’t cut through Jell-O.”

CASA Executive Director Lori Morris e-mailed him to see if he was interested in performing at the benefit.

”I read it and I found the cause compelling,” Mr. Gulman says. “And the person was nice — she did the right amount of fawning over me.”

CASA volunteers are trained to advocate for children who have been removed from their homes due to neglect or abuse. More than 560 children are currently in out-of-home placement in Mercer County. CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) is able to serve about 25 percent of them. Through no fault of their own, these children can become trapped between the courts and the welfare system. Volunteers work directly with them, helping to resolve their unmet needs.

A resident of Edgewater, Mr. Gulman is currently working on a follow-up to Conversations With Inanimate Objects. He’s on the road a few times a month testing new jokes in front of audiences. Expect all new material for the CASA benefit.

His childhood dream was to tell jokes on TV.

”Comedy was a currency in my house,” he says of his formative years. He learned that being funny could earn him attention and praise. His parents allowed him, beginning at age 6, to stay up and watch Saturday Night Live. Still, the family did not have a lot of money, Mr. Gulman says, and he was impelled to become a financial success.

Mr. Gulman was a dean’s list student at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management. When he began working at an accounting firm after graduating, he struggled with his sense of responsibility. “My authentic self wanted to goof off,” he says. “It was very bizarre.

”I did a horrible job as an accountant,” he continues. “I couldn’t be bothered.” He was perpetually late to work. He had no ambition for the field. Eventually the firm let him go.

While developing his act, Mr. Gulman worked as a waiter and a doorman. He got a job at Starbucks. For a while he worked as a substitute teacher at his former high school earning $45 a day. As a student at Peabody Veterans Memorial High School, Mr. Gulman, who is 6-feet-6-inches tall, was a three-sport varsity athlete and a member of the National Honors Society. He received a full scholarship to play football at Boston College.

”I had a lot of promise,” he says. But in his late 20s Mr. Gulman was taking breaks with his former teachers in the lounge while his career was stalled. “I should have been humiliated.”

He wasn’t. “It was probably blind confidence,” he says. “I felt it was temporary, and I got enough positive feedback to keep me going.”

A break came in 1999 when Mr. Gulman appeared at the Montreal International Comedy Festival, a showcase that led to a deal with FOX to develop a sitcom. Although the show never got picked up, the paycheck allowed Mr. Gulman to focus on comedy full time. Soon he appeared on both The Late Show with David Letterman and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
In 2004 Mr. Gulman finished third on the NBC reality-talent show Last Comic Standing. Two years later he released his first DVD, Boyish Man. That same year Mr. Gulman appeared in the HBO documentary Tourgasm, which followed four comedians on a 20-day tour. The show was created by comedian Dane Cook, who has said that Mr. Gulman “tours more than, like, the Grateful Dead did. I called him one night at 9 o’clock and he was headlining in Dakota. At midnight he was in Costa Rica.”

Stand-up for a Child, with headliner Gary Gulman, will take place at the Cranbury Inn, 21 S. Main St., Cranbury, Nov. 15. Tickets cost $100; (609) 434-0050; www.casamercer.org

http://www.packetonline.com/articles/2008/11/12/time_off/entertainment_news/doc491b2c2d26dfb939178272.txt