{image1}The Renegade Comedy Tour makes its final stop at The Modjeska Theatre Saturday, July 17, and feature stand up comic Michael Gull says the hometown venue doesn't guarantee it'll be a walk in the park.
In fact, "Milwaukee is the most difficult show to sell tickets for because, as Brian Green (of Comedy Sportz) used to say, 'A prophet is never appreciated in his home town,'" says the 38-year-old Gull.
Milwaukee-area natives and Safe House regulars Gull, Tracy Marhal, Chastity Washington and Joe King will precede the master of comedy himself, Rich Vos.
"Signing Vos is huge for us, because he was one of the finalists on 'Last Comic Standing' and he's on Comedy Central like four times a week," Gull says.
Vos may be known for this uncensored show, but Gull, originally from Greenfield, will surely add to it with his crude style of humor. "I'm not a nice, friendly comic," he says.
"I don't have a whole lot of tolerance for stupidity, and a large portion of my act is about racism," Gull adds. "That does particularly well because I look like a white, supremacist skinhead, and I talk a lot about how white people suck."
On a mission to find a creative niche to balance out his private investigator day job, Gull tried acting and playing in bands, but "none of that ever felt right, and comedy feels right."
A few years back he made his comedic debut at the Safe House. "I just thought I'd give it a try, and I was horrible," he admits. So, he spent about a year scoping out material and writing and then went back into it.
Gull says the risk of comedy keeps him coming back to the mic.
"There's a vulnerability involved in it that I think is really cool because there's a high degree of risk," he says. "Doing comedy is like if you were booked to perform with your band and nobody else showed up, and you had to speak your lyrics alone."
And a notable sense of humor isn't exactly easy to come by. "Everybody thinks they have one, and in comedy you're going out there saying, 'Here's my sense of humor, please think it's funny' and sometimes it doesn't work.
"It's really difficult, because you watch people do it, and it looks like there's nothing to it, but they know every word they're going to say," says Gull.
The tour has taken Gull and friends to music and theater venues in Tennessee, Michigan and is now bringing them back to their hometown for the finale. But why haven't they been hitting up comedy clubs?
"What we're trying to do with this mostly is go to places that aren't for comedy," Gull says. Their attempt to bring back the Sam Kinison comedic style of the '80s.
"He (Kinison) had this whole rock and roll vibe that just tore through the whole comedy thing and changed it, and then stand up pretty much dried up in the '90s, and now it's back huge, and I'm trying to basically reproduce what he did," says Gull. "There's nothing like that any more in comedy."
To catch some of this replicated rock and roll, rough-around-the-edges comedy call the Modjeska Theatre box office, 1134 W. Mitchell St., at (414) 384-4550. Tickets are $20, $15 and $10, and VIP packages are available by calling (414) 687-1261.
Doors open at 7 p.m., and the show starts at 8 p.m. Bring three non-perishable food items to support The Hunger Task Force and to receive a half-off voucher for the CD or DVD they'll be filming that night.
