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As per Colin Quinn, there is no more humbling experience than standing on the beach in Montauk, wriggling oneself into a wet suit.“They say black is a slimming color,” the comedian—best known for his work on “Saturday Night Live” and MTV’s “Remote Control”—deadpanned last week during a telephone interview from his Manhattan apartment. “Wet suits? No such thing. Every flaw is right there.”
His gravelly voice, laced with a heavy Brooklyn accent, broke with laughter. “And then I went surfing. Well, kind of. More like body surfing.”
He took this particular plunge three summers ago, fresh off his “Long Story Short” run at Guild Hall in East Hampton. Every year since, he has planned to rent a home on the East End—and never does.
Perhaps his upcoming show at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center, “Colin Quinn: Once Upon a Time in New York,” will do the trick. On Saturday night, he will debut his freshest batch of stand-up commentating on his latest pet peeve: political correctness in a place where it doesn’t belong.
“I’m Irish, so I don’t do a lot of sex humor,” he explained. “I don’t do low-rent kind of humor. I curse a lot, so it’s not Noël Coward. Don’t get me wrong—I feel like political correctness and positivity are great. Compassion is great for the rest of the country, but it was never supposed to be like that around here. And that’s what I’m objecting to—New York being sensitive, bland, vague.”
And Mr. Quinn knows what he’s talking about. The son of two teachers, he grew up in Park Slope, Brooklyn, in what was called an “integrated neighborhood,” or, as Little Colin called it, “very mixed.” He was a loud-mouthed kid, he said, who preferred fun to school, and loved to make anyone laugh.
“I was actually funnier then,” he said. “I peaked at 13. Everyone who knows me says that. It’s pathetic.”
After studying for a year at Stony Brook University, he realized college was not a natural fit and dropped out, working odd jobs as a bartender and even behind the counter of Westhampton T-Shirts during the summer of 1982. Two years later, he found himself on the comedy club circuit, mic in hand and trying not to get beaten up.
“One time, I was up there, and these guys came in and started breaking the place apart,” he recalled. “Their friend was trying to be a comedian, and the club owner didn’t put him in the rotation. They started winging chairs around the place. I stood by the owner, because I wanted to get in the club. I was so desperate to be a comedian, I was ready to get my ass kicked.”
His first big taste of fame came in 1987 as the sidekick announcer of the MTV game show “Remote Control,” and again in 1995, when he was hired by “Saturday Night Live” as a writer. By 1998, he was anchoring the “Weekend Update” segment, until his departure two years later.
Performing again among the greats during the star-studded special celebrating the 40th anniversary of “Saturday Night Live” earlier this month, Mr. Quinn said those years came into sharp perspective.
“It was touching. It was like, ‘Wow, this was my life and this is, like, a real part of my life,’” he said. “And I was so lucky to be there. At the time, you don’t feel lucky to be there. You sort of do, every once in a while. It’s only in retrospect. It’s an interesting world.”
The comedian has felt his dose of failure over his 30-year career, he said, but stands by his honesty and opinions to a fault. In his latest project, “Cop Show”—an eight-episode comedy web series that premiered last week on L/Studio—he portrays a fictionalized version of himself trying to make a cop drama. He can’t help but poke fun at “Law & Order,” never having been asked to be on the long-running show.
He said he prefers stand-up to film and television, anyway.
“I love the fact that stand-up’s reality, and I can say what I really want to say,” he said. “You’re in front of a live crowd. They’re there to laugh. And if you don’t get a laugh, it’s something you have to change. Not always—the crowd isn’t 100-percent flawless either. They can be idiots and drunken fools and laugh at more dick jokes than anything else. They’re not this God figure.”
He paused. “It bugs me that these people determine my existence,” he continued. “But I love it, too. It’s part of the fun. That’s when I’m happiest, when I’m getting laughs, even back in the day. Now, I’m just a guy who wishes he had the Hamptons house but doesn’t. Every summer. Knowing me, I wouldn’t have appreciated it anyway. Better off getting it late in life.”
Maybe.
Colin Quinn will perform his newest stand-up show, “Colin Quinn: Once Upon a Time in New York,” on Saturday, February 28, at 8 p.m. at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center. Tickets range from $55 to $75. For more information, call (631) 288-1500, or visit whbpac.org.
on Feb 24, 2015