Comedy show to bring life lessons, laughs to stage

Pianist Roland Allen will sing and play original comedy songs for “Unhireable: An Evening of Stand-Up Comedy” Friday at Blue Room Theatre. Photo courtesy Aaron Standish

Merry Standish Comedy will add an “NY” to next Friday’s fun with a local comedy show featuring personal, political and topical stand-up bits.

Aaron Standish of Merry Standish Comedy will host “Unhireable: An Evening of Stand-Up Comedy” 8:00 p.m. Friday at Blue Room Theatre.

The show will feature local comedians such as Don Ashby, Jerm Leather and other comedians from the Chico Comedy Scene , as well as Standish’s longtime, ragtime, piano-playing partner, Roland Allen.

As a student in 1978, Standish began writing and producing comedy plays at Mercy High School in Red Bluff, where older classmate Allen performed in his first show. The two have been creating laughs together ever since.

The name “Unhireable” comes from a roast of Standish, when a fellow comedian described him as “so smart, so funny, so unhireable,” due to his political-based comedy, Standish said.

“I suppose if I was hireable, I’d be hired by now,” he said.

Ashby, originally from Alaska, moved to Chico to study physics at Chico State. He has been doing stand-up for the past three years.

His acts these days are a little dark, incorporating a lot of social commentary and frustration with human experience, Ashby said.

“You can say anything you want as long as you can tie it up with a punch line,” he said.

Many comedians are very intelligent, and comedy shows often become a discourse, Ashby said.

“In a way, it’s kind of like a lecture,” he said. “Except at this lecture, you get to laugh and drink beer.”

Leather has been doing stand-up for a year and a half, and hosts the open mic at the Down Lo every other Monday. He also started the Chico Comedy Scene Facebook page where people interested in comedy can get updates.

“It’s mostly comedians talking about random, weird stuff,” he said.

He describes his humor as nonsensical, silly and sometimes cynical.

“Comedians are the only people that are both expected to tell the truth and have free reign to tell the truth,” Leather said. “(We’re) modern-day philosophers.”

[box]