It was a two and a half hour show, a marathon by comedy — and Tuesday night — standards.
There were greatest hits sets, put-it-to-bed sets, new sets, bad sets, great sets, emotional sets and reflective sets. Some comics made fun of the sign that adorns the stage’s back wall. Many decided to dig into the guy in the front row with the Rumpelstiltskin beard. Most said their goodbyes and final thanks to the club.
Wiley’s is Dayton’s oldest comedy club. The club closing is like losing a mighty redwood.
I first went there in 2017 for a show headlined by comedian Andy Kindler.
At the time, I had an interview podcast not-so-vaguely inspired by Marc Maron. (Let’s say I co-hosted to cushion the blame for how bad it was.) I wore bleach blonde hair inspired by Trey Parker’s coif in “BASEketball.” And I had a comedy sketch show on DATV (that I, again, co-hosted) which could only air after midnight.
I was on the comedy path.
In school, whenever we’d have an icebreaker, I’d always say I was funny. For the remainder of the year, I’d have to convince the class that I wasn’t lying.
When our public school system decided to give us all spiral bound assignment notebooks, I started jotting down barbs, one-liners and cartoons instead of homework.
Eventually, I wanted to perform on a larger scale (hence the podcast, sketch show, blonde hair, etc.). I thought standup was the next logical choice. But after spending enough time watching local comics work it out at Wiley’s, I knew it wouldn’t be easy.
I hung around the club circa 2018, 2019. I’d recently grown apart from one of my best friends, my biggest cohort in laughter. I was a man with no land and was flailing for any shore at all.
When I found Wiley’s open mic, Wiley’s Sunday Comics, I felt I’d discovered my island... albeit as a mere observer through a pair of binoculars. The door person would ask who I was there to see, to tally up who brought who. For the first couple of shows, I’d tell them to put me down for whoever had the least amount of guests — not out of charity, but because I didn’t know anybody.
I always tried to sit away from the stage, at the two-seater table against the wall. One server even knew my drink order: Miller Lite and a cup of coffee, unfortunately.
Eventually I’d come to meet some of the comics, many of them with recurring spots. I’d not only familiarized myself with their jokes — ones they’d try out on a theoretically different crowd than last Sunday’s — but I also got a sense of their cadences, tones and deliveries.
I’d sit with my revolting beverage pairing to listen, study and write my own material in a notebook that I’d hope to perform on that stage one day.
But I never did.
I took up music instead. I hid behind a guitar, and used the mic in a different way.
I found that a smattering of applause is not as heart-wrenching to a musician because a musician doesn’t need an audience like a comic does. Musicians can be background noise; a comic needs you to react.
There’s a vulnerability, a rawness, a solitude to the work. There’s no barrier between you and the audience. Standup is unforgiving business.
Jesse Nutt is one of the tough ones. He’s been doing comedy for four decades. He started at Wiley’s when it was on Patterson Road, before it moved to the Oregon District. At the Last Laughs show, he told his origin story: how he met Dan “Wiley” Lafferty, how he first got on stage and how nervous he was to do it. He even told a new joke.
I had seen Nutt perform countless times. I saw him uproariously read the directions on a box of instant mashed potatoes — on three separate occasions. He can be hilarious one moment and have you welling up the next. He’s grateful for the last 40 years of comedy, and he’s grateful for the last 42 years of Wiley’s. His Wiley’s last stand was profound.
Some of the audience dispersed before the show ended. It was a long night. When the lights came up, Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” played through the speakers. All the comics who performed sang along and captured the moment of camaraderie with their phones.
I took that opportunity to visit the carpeted bathroom again, to see the spent nicotine packets in the urinal, the ones some of the comics observed and commented on throughout the show.
There was no soap, and the paper towels were gone, too. I dried my hands on my jeans on the way out. A train on the tracks above the club rolled by as I left. There’s a funny bit in there somewhere.
And that was last laugh I had at Wiley’s.
Brandon Berry is a contributing Lifestyles writer for the Dayton Daily News. Contact him at branberry100@gmail.com.
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