From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Comedy isn’t pretty

but comedian Will Watkins is -- and he has the groupies to prove it.

by T.M. Shine

November 8 2006

Will Watkins is sitting at a table outside the South Shores Tavern and Patio Bar in Lake Worth, jotting down notes for new comedy material he intends to try out tonight. The set list he has scribbled on his pad reads like this:

pregnant

suicide calls

cybersex

rape

virgin

Xanax

"I know, I know," he says. "It looks more like Jeffrey Dahmer's shopping list."

Between sips of his drink, Watkins describes the cybersex routine, which involves a cousin who got caught going into a sex chat room by his girlfriend. "It's really my brother," Watkins admits, lowering his voice. "But onstage, I say it's my cousin because I don't want to rat out my brother. It's all part of the big comedy cover-up. But anyway, the thing is, in the chat room the cybersexers all rate each other, and he got all thumbs-down and … "

The Lake Clarke Shores resident will keep honing this bit as the evening and the week wear on. Comedy night at South Shores is just a prelude, a quick exercise in front of an audience that is predominantly made up of a dozen local comics who gather on Mondays to test new material.

"We give each other feedback, but you have to be selective with who you take advice from," Watkins says. "Like, the guy who dresses up as a woman tries to give me tips, but I'm like, 'Get outta here; you dress up like a woman.' Although I have seen him pick up the ladies at Blue Martini while dressed like a woman, so I have to give him some props for that."

Watkins has recently been getting his own props, rising to the top of the amateur comedy scene in South Florida. "He stands out because he has a really strong stage presence. He draws you in," says René Harte, talent coordinator and partner in South Florida's Improv Comedy Clubs. "I teach comedy classes, and you can't teach the kind of delivery Will has. It comes natural to him."

Watkins is hot, but the lanky, 6-foot-3 comic's sexiness isn't the only reason one of his female fans set up a MySpace page (Groups.myspace.com/willshoes) for herself and the other Will Watkins' Groupie Hoes. In the past few months, Watkins has also ruled at local comedy competitions, winning a trip to Los Angeles and stage time at the famed Hollywood Improv as well as the opportunity to create his own showcase evening at the Palm Beach Improv at CityPlace in West Palm Beach. Now, he's making the step up to hosting, which he will do Tuesday at the Improv, overseeing a new open-mike competition for young, up-and-coming comics.

"When you host, it's different than regular standup. Emceeing is restrictive, and you have to be careful what kind of jokes you do," Watkins says. "Like, there might be a Christian comic on the bill, and you don't want to be going from a dick joke to Jesus."

Watkins is on the verge, but to cross over completely to the realm of paid professional comedian, he works maddeningly at building a fan base. "At my level, it's about creating your own audience. I promote on MySpace, put fliers on cars, call friends I haven't seen in 20 years," he says. "And I'm only 20, so that can be really awkward."

Two years after graduating from William T. Dwyer High School in Palm Beach Gardens, Watkins has found that his age also prevents him from enjoying some of the perks of working the amateur comedy circuit. "I've made maybe $200 since I started this. Most of the clubs pay comics with bar tabs, but I can only drink so many Sprites," he says. "If I can, I try to take it out in chicken wings."

His friends who are in college confront him about the money. "They say, 'You're not getting paid? What the hell are you doing it for?' I say, 'Well, you're not getting paid for college.' "

Watkins pops up from the table on the patio and strolls inside the tavern, where the comics are already performing. They are a motley crew, including the character Watkins describes as the "retarded Jerry Seinfeld" and an old guy who just spouts jokes he steals off the Internet. "He's kind of wasting our time," Watkins says. "But I guess he decided he wants to do this before he dies, so we put up with him."

Aside from a few stragglers at the bar, the audience consists of a family with young children having a late dinner. The previous comics have made no attempt to perform clean. The sex jokes and profanity have been flowing, and the first thing Watkins does when he gets his hands on the microphone is turn to address the parents: "So where else do you like to take the kids? Rachel's strip club?"

Watkins keeps his set brief, never even getting to "virgin" on his list, but this is only his first stop of the night. Along with two other local comics, Todd Webster and Ramon Garcia, Watkins will head to Java D'Lites open-mike night in Coral Springs.

Webster and Garcia are two comedians whose opinions Watkins does value. "We got together because we're comedy snobs," Webster says. "We're serious about this."

The 26-year-old Garcia regularly emcees at the Palm Beach Improv, where he also works the box office, and Webster, 35, excels on what is known as the "Giggles" circuit, which is basically a series of hotels in Florida that book comics on weekends.

"It's not even the B circuit. It's more like the C or D circuit," Watkins admits. "But you get to go to towns like Weeki Wachee, so that's a plus, right?

As "serious" comics, the threesome write together and regularly hop into Webster's Grand Cherokee and hit every spot they can to work out material. The three Improvs -- in Miami, the Hard Rock and CityPlace -- are a given. "But we'll go anyplace with an open mike," Watkins says. "Considering we're in South Florida, you'd be surprised how much is out there: Banana Boat, Funky Buddha Lounge, Mental Ward. Sometimes, we can do five or six places in one night. We even go to Dada in Delray."

"Oh, Dada … Foresee-eth the night before us," Garcia says, mimicking the "ponderous poets" the comics are often condemned to sit through before they can get onstage at the Delray Beach eatery and club. "Oh, and there's always a depressed guy with his head down, plucking away at a guitar like this: A, A, A, A … B minor … C, C, C, C, C."

"And some chick hunched down by the fireplace doing heroin," Webster says. "Nobody ever gets the jokes."

If it's such torture, why does he do it?

"That's the thing, with standup sometimes it's just actually doing it, like working out at the gym. It's not even about being funny. You just want to get up there and get the words out someplace other than in front of the mirror," Watkins explains. "When I first started, I'd practice for two hours a night for weeks straight before getting the nerve to go onstage."

It's not that the stage was completely new ground for him. "I was a bad student. I hated school except for drama and theater," he says.

Watkins' girlfriend, Katie McBroom, a graceful redhead who has done stints at Disney World as Snow White and Princess Leia, is heading to D'Lites with Watkins because she "enjoys it." But she may also feel compelled to keep an eye on him, since he has become sort of a comedy sex symbol.

"With headliners, you expect that," the Improv's Harte says. "But with someone new like Will, it's pretty rare. He definitely does have a girl following around town."

"Oh yeah, onstage they're always calling out for sexual favors," Watkins says. "I must be very hot up there under the lights. One night, a girl kept yelling, 'You can stick it up my ass!' I usually have comebacks ready for hecklers, but how do you top 'Stick it up my ass'?"

"He is cute," Garcia admits.

Raised predominantly by his mother, Watkins was a cute but fat kid. "Really fat," he says.

He doesn't necessarily buy into the adage that being overweight makes a person funny by forcing him to build up an arsenal to combat the insults. "But I've got all those clichés going for me," he says. "I was fat, come from a broken home, moved seven or eight times, attended six or seven schools; I was constantly picked on, so there's no way I'm not going to be fucking funny."

At Java D'Lites, the three comics sign in but learn that it will be a while before they can perform. So they set up camp at a table out front. And no lie, directly behind Garcia, a stringy-haired guy sits hunched over his guitar, plucking A, A, A, A …

To stay pumped, Watkins and Webster are eating chocolate cake and drinking Red Bull. Garcia is having a chamomile tea. "Somebody told me it was good," he says, shrugging.

The wait time is long, so the talk at the table strays from Webster's making too much money at his day job in sales to breaking down the Giggles circuit. "Clearwater sucks, but the Lakeland Coconuts is a great gig," Webster says. "The guy behind the bar there doesn't know how to keep a tab, so you can just drink all night."

Garcia passes around a press kit he had recently put together. "There's too much head in your head shot," Webster critiques.

All three want to market themselves better. "That comic Lisa Lampanelli isn't that funny, but she's a hell of a marketer," Garcia says.

"I want to market the hell out of myself to such a degree that people actually think I'm funny," Webster says.

Garcia is in the middle of reciting Dane Cook's Windex-sniper bit when the MC of the open-mike night, Renda Writer, comes outside to harass them. "Great, the comics," he says sarcastically. "I really appreciate the support you're showing all the other acts by sitting outside for two hours. Can't thank you enough."

The comics laugh and wave at him, but there are so few people left and the atmosphere is so dim inside that it looks as if the business is only one light switch away from locking up for the night. So Watkins starts to lead everybody inside.

"Man, it's getting late," Garcia says. "I don't think I have it in me. I think the chamomile did me in."

"I think I'm going to get going, too," Webster agrees while on the phone with his girlfriend.

"What?" Watkins asks. "At least come in to support me."

"I've seen your set," Webster says with pitch-perfect smugness.

Suddenly, Watkins is the last comic standing. Inside, a guitar player called Crush is doing a cover of John Lennon's "Imagine," and a rapper is slated to perform before Watkins gets his turn. The remaining audience consists of the staff, Writer's girlfriend, a reporter and a soul singer in a stunningly shiny suit waiting to follow Watkins on the stage and close this place down.

In this game, he knows every night counts, no matter how small or misbegotten the crowd may be. Only one time did he refuse to perform. "This place I was at wouldn't shut off the music," he says. "They wanted me to do my act over Nickelback. I had to draw the line at Nickelback. I said, 'That's it. I'm gone.' "

It's showtime, and as Watkins takes the microphone, he glances at his notes -- Xanax, virgin, suicide -- but then just starts conversing with Crush, who has taken a front-row seat in a sea of empty chairs. The two babble on about everything from how the wiry Crush looks more like he should be called Hug to how Watkins has never seen Scarface and how perhaps that explains everything.

The monotony breaks when Watkins' girlfriend begins to heckle him. Looking like Princess Leia curled up atop a big, Jabba-like, red-velvet coffeehouse chair, McBroom shouts, "Tell a joke!"

That may not be the best advice at this hour, but Watkins is relentless in his pursuit to cross over completely to full-time professional comedian. "There's no way I can stop doing this," he said earlier. "Give me three days off, and on Monday, I'd wake up angry -- not because it's Monday but because I didn't do standup for three days straight."

He knows he's in a mix with a handful of eclectic dreamers tonight, and he will pay respect to that fact by staying to be the lone clapper for the smooth soul singer. But right now, he's the serious comic. Here goes:

"So my brother, I mean, my cousin is a cyber-stalker and … "

Will Watkins will host an open-mike competition 8 p.m. Tuesday; tickets cost $5. Along with Ramon Garcia and Todd Webster, Watkins is also on the bill for The Best of South Florida's New Faces of Comedy show 11 p.m. Nov. 18; tickets cost $10. Both shows will take place at the Palm Beach Improv, 550 S. Rosemary Ave., Suite 250 (CityPlace), in West Palm Beach. Call 561/833-1812 or visit Palmbeachimprov.com.