Columnists
The County comedian
We were fortunate this week to catch up with the County’s own Jacky Rosenhall, the stand up comic who recently took the fabled Las Vegas comedy venue, Club Brutus, by storm.
Rosenhall explained to us that he had always longed to be an actuary, but decided comedy was for him after watching former Conservative MP Paul Calandra defend then Prime Minister Stephen Harper during the Mike Duffy scandal. “That guy needed a dose of comedy to save himself—unless he had a personal pipeline to the patron saint of hopeless causes, which he didn’t, so he couldn’t. I decided I’d never let that happen to me.”
After years of working the improv scene around Bancroft, Campbellford and Whitby, he finally caught his big break when a patron at one of the Legion open mic nights in Brighton invited him to tag along on a weekend trip to Vegas. “I headed straight for Club Brutus, and wouldn’t you know it, they had an open stage night when I got there. You get five minutes, unless you’re booed off stage before that, so it’s an ordeal by fire.”
So Rosenhall screwed up his courage and dove in feet first. “I started out with a mother-in-law joke, just to make them feel comfortable,” he recalls. “But my schtick is all about the County. That’s what distinguishes me from Jerry Seinfeld and all the rest of them.” Fortunately, an audio recording has preserved Rosenhall’s performance, and we are pleased to present excerpts from it here:
“Say, you’re a wonderful audience. You sir in the front row with the big ears. Yes, you. Is there an elephant in your family tree or what? “But seriously, folks, I’m from Wellington, Prince Edward County, Canada. Anyone else here from that neck of the woods. (Faint clapping sound). You madam: I thought they took away your passport when you’re on day parole. But seriously, you know, we have sand dunes and vineyards and a population that’s pretty old.”
(Voice from deep in audience). “How old is it, Jacky?”
“It’s so old, there’s folks who voted for Shakespeare when they took a poll for for world’s greatest living author!”
(Sound of groans).
“But let me tell you how hot it was in the County this summer!”
“How hot was it, Jacky?”
“It was so hot, people chose to stay inside and watch Olympic golf!”
(Sound of murmurs of disapproval, obviously from golfers with poor sense of humour).
“And dry. Let me tell you how dry it was.”
“How dry was it, Jacky?”
“It was so dry, they were making plans to film a spaghetti western in Wellington!”
(Sounds of moans).
“Moving right along. Tourists. You wouldn’t believe how many tourists we had this summer.”
“How many tourists did you have this summer, Jacky?”
“We had so many tourists, you couldn’t find a parking space on Main Street!”
(Sounds of rising conversational buzz from audience).
“But we had very little to keep our tourists amused.”
“How little did you have to offer them, Jacky?”
“We had so little to offer them, they hung around Home Hardware all day trying to decide whether a lawnmower was a beach toy or a souvenir!”
(Murmurs reach crescendo).
“Wait. We’ve had such torrential winds and rains in the County to end the summer.”
“How torrential were they, Jacky?”
“They were so torrential people didn’t need to tow their boats to launch them on West Lake. Say, what do you call someone who owns a winery….?”
Buzzer sounds. MC yells “Time’s up!” A pumped up Jacky Rosenhall, having lasted his full five minutes, leaves the stage to the obvious delight of the audience.
Jacky Rosenhall will be touring open mics in the midwestern United States this fall. He is in negotiations to appear as national celebrity spokesperson for the Institute of Canadian Actuaries. His appearance at the forthcoming County Comedy Festival is yet to be confirmed. County officials are still assessing his impact on the County’s tourism market. His mother-inlaw joke was not recorded. No one knows what you call someone who owns a winery.
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