Native Talent

The guy with the microphone above is Charlie Hill, a comedian I used to see often when I was hanging around The Comedy Store. He was pretty funny, fairly successful and well-liked by his fellow up-'n'-coming comics. I remember a comedian who was none of those things dismissing him as a "gimmick comic," Charlie's supposed gimmick being that he was "the first Native stand-up comedian," though back then we said "Indian" instead of "native."

I'm not sure where in Charlie's development I first saw him but as I recall, about 70% of his act was about the way his people had been treated in real life and on the screen. The other 30% was on topics anyone could hit and I guess that was to prove he could talk about something else. Either way, I thought he was pretty good.

He and comedians of like ancestry are the subject of a new book by my pal Kliph Nesteroff, who writes great books and articles about the profession of standing in front of paying customers and making them laugh. A few days ago, Kliph came by and dropped off a copy of We Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans in Comedy, and that's an Amazon link via which you can secure a copy.

To be honest, I haven't finished it yet but I'm liking everything so far and I've liked everything else I've read by Kliph. You can read a nice excerpt of it here at the Esquire website. It'll make you want to read the whole thing.