By Peter Lindblad
It was late, and the bar had cleared out for the night. Mostly done pouring drinks, David Dyer was settling in to watch “Politically Incorrect” with Bill Maher, as he often did, on the off chance he might hear a familiar line.
“I was bartending at the time and by the time ‘Politically Incorrect’ would come on at 11:30 p.m., it was dead,” recalled Dyer. “And I would have it on, and he opened the show with one of my jokes and it did really well.”
Weeks of calling different TV shows asking if they’d accept submissions from outside writers had finally paid off. A writer for “Politically Incorrect” told Dyer earlier he’d look at his stuff, but until that moment, the veteran stand-up comic wasn’t sure if anything would come of it.
“So, they faxed me a form – there’s a release form you have to fax in every time if you send jokes in – and they bought a few jokes and it was amazing,” said Dyer. “I’d been sending stuff for two or three months, and nothing, nothing, nothing.”
Dyer would also become a contributing writer for “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” but he’s best known for his hilarious guest spots on the nationally syndicated “Bob and Tom Show,” having also shared stages with Jim Breuer, Lewis Black and Mike Birbiglia. When “The Friends of The Bob & Tom Show Comedy Tour” rolls into Green Bay’s Meyer Theatre on Jan. 19, Dyer will perform alongside Greg Hahn and Jeff Oskay.
“It’s just a super fun show,” said Dyer, a frequent participant in past “Friends of The Bob and Tom Show” comedy tours. “A lot of what’s fun about them is that the crowd that’s coming to the show, they know you from the show … so the crowd has kind of an expectation, which is fun. It’s a great way to do it.”
Originally, it was just supposed to be just Hahn and Dyer for the Meyer date, but Oskay’s been added to the lineup. Dyer and Hahn go way back.
“He and I have done a ton of them together, and we have an absolute blast,” said Dyer. “He’s not much different offstage than what he’s like onstage, which is absolutely hyper … he’s like a pointer, a dog that just can’t settle down. And that’s what he’s like being with all the time.”
Well-read, with a skewed, off-kilter outlook on everyday life, Dyer reels off humorous quips at a punchy, rapid pace, with his family providing a goldmine of great material.
“And it truly never ends, because the kids are little and there’s all kinds of stuff going on that you’ve never experienced, and then they go to high school,” said Dyer. “Now, they’re actually out of the house, so my wife and I are empty nesters. That’s a whole new world that’s opened up because I do a whole bit in the act about being an empty nester and how they never really leave. Even though they’re gone, their crap is everywhere still, you’re still spending money on them on one thing or another, so they’re never really truly leave.”
Decades into his career, Dyer has seen it all, and his experiences in comedy – both good and bad – could fill a book.
“One of the hard things is that when I started doing comedy I started 31 years ago, and there was no internet, there was nothing, so your goal when you started doing stand-up was to work your way up the ladder to be a headliner, where you could hold a crowd for 50 minutes to an hour,” said Dyer. “That was your goal, to be the last guy on the show, whose name was on the ticket, and that’s the reason people were coming to the show.”
Used to rejection and wrangling with club owners and bookers, Dyer, who lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has developed a thick skin. Brave enough to fight fires, as he also works a fireman, Dyer can handle indifferent audiences.
“One of the good things about the generation I came up in, I think as actually being a performer, you’re prepared for a much wider array of situations, and you’re prepared for different kinds of crowds,” said Dyer. “I didn’t go to Chicago, I didn’t go to New York, I didn’t go to L.A., so I never really was tested by those crowds, but I played a bar in a hotel in the middle of Michigan where my crowd is eight electrical contractors who flew in from out of town and couldn’t give two craps about a comedy show and (I) get them to laugh. And when you do that, you go, ‘Okay, I’m getting pretty good at this.’ I can make eight people who had no desire to be at a comedy show actually have a good time.”
Rock bottom, however, came one time when he played Birmingham, Alabama, where Dyer had to compete with a kitchen staff that was in the weeds.
“It wasn’t a private show. It was a club,” said Dyer. “Oh yeah, it was possibly my worst night of comedy ever where the crowd … unfortunately, the guy who was ahead of me, they hated him. The place had like five new menu items that they hadn’t trained the cooks on how to make. And so, what does everybody order, but these five new menu items. So, the food is taking forever, everybody’s ornery, half of the wait staff had called in sick, so it was just … it was the worst. By the time I hit the stage, they just wanted to kill people. And I did my best. I had about 15 people up front who were enjoying the show, and the rest of the crowd … I can’t say the rest of the crowd hated me because I don’t think they were even paying attention.”
Even the greats have an off night now and then, as Dyer discovered.
“One of the greatest lessons I ever had in comedy, years ago, I worked a weekend with Kevin Meaney … he passed away a few years back,” said Dyer. “Great comedian, great comedian. Very active onstage, just super funny. And I worked with him, and we did five shows one weekend, and four of the shows he blew the roof off the place, and one show they just didn’t get him. They just didn’t dial into what he did and rather than kind of crumble or curtail to what they wanted, Kevin’s demeanor onstage was, ‘Well, tough crowd. You’re going to listen whether you like it or not (laughs). I’m going to give you the same level of commitment. I shouldn’t do my show any differently. We’ll walk away from this and we’ll never have to see each other again.’ And he just did nothing differently from any of the other shows, and the crowd left, and I was backstage with him, and he was just like, ‘You’re never going to get them all the time. That’s just the way it is.’ It’s not the end of the world. Sometimes they just don’t get you.”
Luckily, for Dyer, audiences do usually get him, whether he’s coaxing big laughs from the gang at the “Bob and Tom Show” or leaving them in stitches in clubs or theaters. He’s adapting to comedy’s new landscape, where social media and podcasts offer opportunities to build large followings. He used to do a podcast called “Idioms,” where Dyer played around with the English language.
“I did that for about a year,” said Dyer. “I should have done it longer, but it just wasn’t getting the traction I wanted. It was a lot of fun to do, though, because I love reading, I love the language, and stuff like that and idioms have always been something that’s really interested me. So, I put a bunch of them out there – little five-minute things about different idioms we use in everyday vernacular, where they came from and what they mean. And I always had a great time looking those up.”
A new podcast is in the works for Dyer. It’s another quick hitter.
“The working title is ‘Tight 10,’ said Dyer, “because that’s kind of a thing in comedy, which means do your 10 minutes and get off stage. And that’s what it’s going to be. It’s going to be 10 minutes, just packed full of stuff. And the reason being is I’m an incredibly impatient and restless person. I don’t want to listen to myself for much more than 10 minutes. And I can’t imagine other people do. So, I don’t know about you, but anytime I look at a podcast, even if it’s something I’m interested in, I look at the length and if it’s an hour and a half or more, I’m like forget it. I’m out. I’m not going to put that kind of time into it. So, this will be … boom, 10 minutes, make you laugh, couple interesting things, I may incorporate idioms and things like that into it, and then, boom, 10 minutes you’re in and out the door.”
Expect Dyer to stay a little longer on the Meyer stage, where he’ll be honing his set to prepare for a filmed special that’s coming up.
“I’ve got a lot of new stuff I’m working on, just really kind of ramping it up to … I just booked a place in Grand Rapids,” said Dyer. “There’s this rock club in Grand Rapids, in mid-May, and I’m going to shoot a special there in mid-May, and I’m really looking forward to that. In all the years that I’ve done comedy, I’ve done a couple albums and things like that, but I’ve never shot a special, so that’s going to be a new thing and it’s a really special show.”
Taking a slightly more leisurely approach onstage, Dyer likes to change the tempo.
“Onstage, I can pace things the way I want to pace them,” said Dyer. “I can speed up when I need to, I can slow down when I need to … so I’ve got no problem doing a headlining set, you know, for 50 minutes to an hour. But the podcast thing, I love it, but it’s short and concise, and full of stuff I want to know, and then boom, you do it and move on.”
In the past, Dyer had to move on from various jobs – “some rough ones,” he added. Along with doing some bartending, Dyer worked for a company selling small business phone systems. He then joined a big company selling big phone systems, before moving out of sales. Eventually, however, he found his calling as a firefighter.
“48 years old, right when you want to go running into a burning building,” joked Dyer, who wanted to go into military service at one time, but it just didn’t happen.
When his kids moved out of the house, Dyer started training to be a fireman and he got hired out of the academy. He now works in the township where he started, which is close to home. Dyer said everybody in the firehouse gets on each other, which is a laugh riot, but it’s no substitute for telling jokes live onstage.
“That’s the fun thing,” said Dyer. “I’ve been doing this for a long time, but it never stops and I’m fortunate I have a job that I still love, that I still get excited about. I still enjoy getting up in front of people.”