Lives
Consumer Man
Possible bag conspiracy threatens to undermine social order.
By PAUL MECURIO | January 13, 2008

VIEW PDF HERE

I'm one of those people who yell at store clerks. Not just any store clerks, but the ones who are rude, incompetent or indifferent. In other words, all store clerks. I'm the guy who always has to speak to the manager. In my head, I'm "Consumer Man": a superhero fighting on behalf of oppressed consumers the world over. In my wife's head, I'm crazy.

"Someday you're going to scream at the wrong person," she says. "And you're going to get shot." This "wrong person" has figured into so many of our conversations that I feel as if I know him, even though I really know only two things: 1) he's "wrong" and 2) he's going to shoot me.

One day I called a computer company and tried to reach a human in customer service. As I ran a gantlet of voice prompts, I couldn't get the automated female voice to understand me when I said "yes." Repeatedly, she asked if I'd like customer service. Each time, I said "yes." She kept asking. I could feel consumers everywhere being oppressed. So, standing there in my superhero costume (boxers and T-shirt), it was Consumer Man to the rescue. Instead of saying "yes," I tried other one-word responses.

"Would you like customer service?"

"Idiot!"

"Would you like customer service?"

"Moron!"

"Would you like customer service?"

"Whore!"

As this insane tirade took place, my wife and 8-year-old son looked on in shock. I vowed to change my ways - or at least to tell my wife that I was changing them. A new, more tolerant me was born. Someone else would have to fight for the rights of consumers. I had a family to not "frighten to death" anymore.

With this new approach, one day I found myself with eight items in the express lane at the supermarket. I felt great. Then the guy at the register asked, "Would you like a bag for these?"

He was kidding, right? No - he ag. Who carries eight loose items? He asked again: Would I like a bag? I wanted to say: "No, I'm from Africa. I'll just balance these on my head as I walk barefoot 126 miles to my village." But the "new Paul" politely said, "Yes, I'd like a bag," and I was on my way.

Being passive wasn't so bad. Although I did feel a pain in my chest and a tingling in my left arm. But if repressing my true feelings caused a heart attack, so be it. It was better than being shot. My wife would have been proud.

On the way home I stopped at a little newsstand to buy a paper. It's owned by a nice Indian gentleman I had given my business to for years. With him I never needed to "speak to the manager." Besides, in his stand there wasn't room for one.

It was raining, so I asked for a plastic bag for my paper. He lashed out at me: "We have no bag, just go, we don't have a bag, go, go, no bag!!" I was shocked, first at his hostile refusal, then at his use of "we." Denied a bag again! Had the supermarket guy called the newsstand guy to tell him I was coming?

In my new, positive tone I asked again if I could please have a bag. He said: "No! I only make 5 cents on the paper."

Since when was rain protection given for only periodicals with a healthy profit margin? In other words, I needed a bag. I saw a big pile of bags behind him. I was crestfallen. After all the business I had given him, I earned the right to encase my news in plastic. "New Paul" was gone. "Consumer Man" was back.

"I want to speak to the manager," I bellowed.

"What? No manager, no bag, just go!!"

I said he was rude, incompetent and indifferent. Although not in those words. He responded, "I'm going to kick your butt, properly!" He said "properly." I had never been told off so politely. "Go or I'll kick your butt!" he repeated.

"Do it!" I screamed and dropped my drawers right there on the sidewalk in Midtown Manhattan. While slapping myself on the backside I yelled: "You want it? Here it is! I demand a bag!"

Soon we were being watched by a large crowd - if they only knew I was doing this for them! - and two police officers.

"What's going on?" asked one cop. With my pants around my ankles and a tone of complete justification, I explained, "He won't give me a bag!"

Unbelievably, the officers made him give me one ("I hate it when my paper gets wet," explained the cop), but they gave us both summonses. "Looks like you picked the wrong person to tangle with," they said to the newsstand guy. "You're lucky he didn't shoot you." I couldn't wait to tell my wife. I had finally met the wrong person - and he was I.

Paul Mecurio is a comedian, an actor and an Emmy- and Peabody-Award-winning writer.

Newsweek | February 13, 2006

Turning Fake News Into Real Careers: For decades, if you wanted to make it in the comedy game, you started at 'SNL.' but now 'the daily show' is building a better pipeline. By Devin Gordon | NEWSWEEK

COMEDY'S CAPE CANAVERAL

THE DAILY SHOW IS THE NEW LAUNCHING PAD FOR COMEDIC STARS. HAS THE COUNTDOWN BEGUN FOR EMMY AWARD-WINNING WRITER PAUL MECURIO?

Penthouse | November 2006

Select the attachment below to view the full story.

He Got No Game

Written by Todd Schmerler, Friday July 31 2009
http://www.playerpress.com/articles/he-got-no-game

July 31, 2009 1:57 pm
posted by: comedy central insider

Paul Mecurio's got no game?
NUVO | March 25, 2009 | By Joe Ogara

If you were able to take a look at Paul Mecurio's "day planner" (if he has one), you would see that the talented comedian is staying pretty busy. The list of Mecurio's current projects includes:

• - contributing his standup and writing skills to The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (which has earned Mecurio an Emmy Award, a second Emmy nomination and a Peabody award)
• - posting material (written and video) that can be found on his Web site, www.paulmecurio.com
• - working on a one-hour special that will be shopped around to the various cable networks later this year or in early 2010
• - creating (with help from a writer based in L.A.) a pilot for a television sitcom
• - creating and presenting his "Image Makeover" pieces on the syndicated Bob and Tom Show
• - working on Got No Game with Paul Mecurio, a sports-comedy show for HBO and its Web site, www.HBO.com

The endeavor that currently has top priority for Mecurio is the HBO show, on which he serves as the creator, executive producer and star. Mecurio describes Got No Game as a half-hour program that "focuses on the craziness going on in sports today."

"There's plenty happening in sports these days that deserves to be skewered with some smart satire," Mecurio points out, "from the use of performance-enhancing drugs to the expensive stadiums that are going up that make it impossible for the average fan to go to the games."

Mecurio is very excited about doing the show because "it gives us the flexibility to do both short-form and long-form pieces for HBO and its new Web site. We have a lot of flexibility when it comes to what we can do on the show."

While he may be busy with all these different opportunities to expand his visibility, Mecurio admits that he still enjoys going on the road and doing shows at comedy clubs around the country.

"When I'm doing standup, I try to do something different like talking with someone in the audience about a sensitive topic, like racism. I'm not trying to alienate the audience when I do that, but rather I'm trying to get them to see it for what it really is, a prejudice.

"I enjoy the ability to interact with an audience at a comedy club. I want to make them feel like they got something unique when they came to see my show."

SFist.com
Q&A: Paul Mecurio | May 13, 2008

SFist recently went to one of Robin William’s practice sessions at Bimbo’s and it rekindled our interest in comedy as a way to cope with national politics. The Daily Show has long been a bright spot on that front, thanks in part to the writing of Paul Mecurio. Mecurio has won both an Emmy and a Peabody for his writing for the Daily Show. He will be headlining at Punchline tonight through Saturday, tickets are available here. Still trying to decide? Watch this, and read on for his SFist interview below.

What's your take on the comedy scene in the Bay Area?
I had a great time when I performed there with Brian Regan. Crowds were cool, a nice vibe to the place. People seem to respect the art form and what we’re trying to do up there. Of course, I think San Francisco and NYC have the best pedigree and heritage of putting out some of the best comics. To be able to work in the town is very exciting for me. It feels a bit like you’re playing on hallowed ground Plus, it gives me an opportunity to back and visit the Polygamist cult I once ruled with an iron fist and a soft heart.

Any advice to aspiring comedians?
Have your mother hug you two more times and the need to have people laugh at you will disappear. If you still insist on going in to Comedy sleep with everyone you can. Club owners, bookers, managers, agents, servers, dishwashers, bus boys, etc. It won’t advance your career but it will make the long days on the road go by quicker.

Also, never wear loafers on stage— podiatrists say it is not healthy for the feet to be standing for hours without tie shoes and it sends the message you are not serious about stand-up.

What makes a joke funny?
A masturbating money, whipped cream, lots of it, oh and humping the shit out of a bar stool! Try to work these 3 things in to every joke and you got a home run!

Is there anything that is not funny?
Jerry Lewis when he is trying to be serious and a person in a wheelchair rolling out of control backwards down a hill … no, wait, That’s actually funny. READ MORE...

Paul Mecurio special to The Auburnian

Exclusive to CNY Stages and The Auburnian

Q&A: Paul Mecurio

1) Wow. We see by your website that you like spending time with your family. But our first question is "does that rule out the possibility that you are gay? Lots of local gay guys need to know!

Sadly, yes. But I am still "gay" in many non-sexual ways. I love antiquing, small dogs, a nice chiseled, hairless back on a man, and ANYTHING Kathy Griffin does. And of course, I can't get enough of "Project Runway." I expect to see the gay community out in full force at the Auburn Public Theatre this weekend! I'll dance for you!

2) Watch out you're heading into the hinterlands. Do you think your brand of comedy will play in quaint historic Auburn, NY?

Yes, I've been here several times in the past three years and the locals LOVE me - or so they say. You don't think they are lying do you? Oh god, that would be awful. It's really not so quaint. Once I got heckled by a group of drunken sixty year old women from the Auburn knitting club and one of them threw a knitting needle at me! I had to spend a night in the hospital and have it removed from my head...

READ MORE...

Indy.com powered by The Indianapolis Star | February 22, 2008

Stream the interview online here: Indy.com.

The Indianapolis Star
Q&A: Comedian Paul Mecurio
By Matt Gonzales | February 20, 2008

Back in the mid-'90s, before Paul Mecurio was a successful stand-up comedian and TV writer, he was just another struggling comic, slumming it in some of the grimiest nightclubs in New York City.

But Mecurio was different from other comics in one important way: While his peers were sleeping in past 10 a.m. to recover from late nights performing, Mecurio was waking up at the crack of dawn to make it to his job as an investment banker on Wall Street.

For months, Mecurio kept his evening gig a secret from his Wall Street colleagues. But after a particularly grisly club appearance, Mecurio's secret life began to get too strange to hide.

"I was performing at a place called Downtown Beirut II," Mecurio recalled. "And before I went on, there was this guy playing 'Blowing in the Wind' -- badly."

"And then all of the sudden, this guy in the audience starts screaming, 'He cut me, that son of a bitch cut me!' And he's got blood all over him, and he's obviously drunk.

"Some other guy -- somebody he apparently knew -- had slashed his neck with box cutters. Meanwhile the folk singer keeps playing. He ain't stopping for nothing. And then the cops come in the place with walkie-talkies and everything."

Standing offstage, Mecurio pondered his options. READ MORE...