"Chicago" Steve Barkley, Comedy/Music by Dennis Blair, & Don McEnery Show #264

Three solid standup comedy acts come together for a fun podcast show. First it's "Chicago" Steve Barkley sharing marriage material, then comic/musician Dennis Blair shares some musical laughter; and finally some very funny material from Don McEnery, a strong comic who plays clubs and cruise ships around theworld. 

Steve Barkley, Dennis Blair, and Don McEnery are seasoned stand-up comedians renowned for their unique styles and perspectives in the comedy world. Steve Barkley, known as "Chicago" Steve, captivates audiences in Northern California with his hilarious storytelling that draws from personal experiences, such as his wife becoming a falconer and their adventurous move to the mountains. Dennis Blair, a well-respected comic musician, has toured with legends like George Carlin and Rodney Dangerfield; his performances are celebrated for their blend of comedy and music, which often includes relatable sing-alongs and sharp wit. Don McEnery, meanwhile, offers witty observations on life's everyday annoyances and the quirks of aging, delivering performances that resonate with audiences nationwide; his humor has been featured in popular comedy podcasts and specials, highlighting his critical yet endearing comedic approach.

(00:00:22) Cellphone Jokes to Musical Laughter Podcast

(00:05:18) Reggae's Catchy Melodies Masking Dark Lyrics

(00:13:57) "Daily reminders of aging through humor"

(00:18:15) "Evolution of Inflight Amenities: from Peanuts to Knives"

Transcript

Announcer: 0:04

This is another episode of Stand Up Comedy. Your host and emcee celebrating 40 plus years on the fringe of show business. Stories, interviews and comedy sets from the famous and not so famous. Here's your host and emcee, Scott Edwards.

R. Scott Edwards: 0:22

Hi, and welcome to this week's podcast. I got some great stand up comedy coming up for you all. All stuff recorded just in the last year or so. So good new fresh material. I'm so excited to be sharing it with you. Coming up, at the end of our show, a guy that just did a dry bar comedy special. Very, very funny, Don McHenry. Also appearing, a little comedy music from Dennis Blair. Now you may know that name, he toured with George Carlin for over 12 years. He was also a regular with Rodney Dangerfield. In fact, helped write the movie Easy Money. He's a very funny comic musician. So coming up in the second position, Dennis Blair. But let's start off with some local comedy. This guy's right here from Northern California. He's been doing stand up comedy for a number of years. Had a little bit of TV experience, but always a lot of fun. His name's Chicago Steve Barkley. You've seen him at stages all over Northern California. Very funny guy. Jump into some great stand up comedy on this week's podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, Chicago Steve Barkley.

Steve Barkley: 1:33

Experience is a relationship where one person is right all the time and the other person is the husband. It's what you do as a team. You work out problems together. These are usually problems that you wouldn't have if you weren't married. It's just a whole different world. It really is. My wife, she became a falconer and one day she comes home and she goes, hey, guess what, guess what. I go, I don't know. She goes, she goes, I got a job at a falconry center. I go, really? She goes, yeah. I go, where is it? She goes, it's in Browns Valley. And I go, where's that? She goes, it's up near Marysville, California. I go, oh, that's going to be a long drive from Walnut Creek every day. And she goes, no, no, we're going to move. I go, I don't want to move. There's palm tree in the front yard. I don't want to move. We have a swimming pool in the back. Oh, it's hot. I'll go in the pool. I don't want to move. You know, and so when you're married, you work out things, you discuss things. And so we talked about it for a long time and I Said, you know the Bay Area here, all my gigs are here. I've been doing comedy a long. I know you just got it in Falcon Ring. You love it a lot. No, we're not going to move. We got a beautiful home here and we're not going to move, you know, so we moved and we were looking for a place to live and we looked all over in Browns Valley for a place and we couldn't find any places to live there. So my wife said to the real estate agent, well, let's move farther up into the mountains where Steve's career will just die completely. Well, that's a good idea. So we moved up to a little town up in the mountains called Brownsville. That's an old Indian word, means nobody lives here. And now we're mountain people. And I had on buckskins before I came here tonight. And we live in the mountains now and we have neighbors. We've never seen them. We hear them off in the woods, but they dropped off an abandoned car in our front yard, broke the windows out for us, which was really nice and left us a marijuana growing kit, the pit bull puppy. So we're feeling very at now over the mom and boy, is it quiet up there. It's, it's, there's no city noises at night time. You can sit out in the front yard. You can hear the meth labs exploding off the distance close. We're trying to become, you know, participants in the community and everything, you know, so we, we go into town a lot. We live near Marysville, which has a huge, huge homeless population, which is great if you're single because if you're dating a homeless woman at the end of the night, you just drop her off anywhere, you know, get out of the car, Sally. No, I don't have any spare change.

R. Scott Edwards: 4:36

That was Steve Barkley live on stage. A very funny local comic. Local in the sense that he works all over Northern California and just always great to have him around. I worked with him recently on my new podcast, the tag team talent podcast. If you haven't found it, it's on Spotify and YouTube. Tag team talent Podcast. And Steve was one of my co hosts. Thus the tag team. Hey, let's get into some comedy music. As I mentioned, this guy toured with George Carlin, worked with Dangerfield and I did a big fundraiser with him just last year. Really funny comic musician. Let's hear for our next act, Dennis Blair.

Dennis Blair: 5:18

It's happy you'll sing along. You don't care what the words are. It doesn't matter. What the lyrics are. As long as it's uplifting and happy, you will sing along. That's why everybody loves reggae. That's why everybody except the people in this room love reggae. Too late. By the way, I've noticed this about reggae. Every reggae song starts the same way. It's really weird. Translation, hide the shit, the cops are coming. Got that happy sound. Then the lyrics kick in. Ruin everything. I want to punch you in the face. Kick you in the head, Throw you down the stairs. Cause God is love. Doctor says I got one week to live. The hooker I was with tested positive. Don't worry, now you're singing great. Tap that ass. Tap that. No God damn music. I love it every decade, too. If you go, I got SiriusXM. I just got SiriusXM radio. Put it in my car. You get every decade. They have every decade. And every decade, if you were to, like, substitute your own lyrics, it wouldn't matter. Lyrics don't matter. I mean, you go all the way back to the 50s. You have, by the way, 50s. One of my favorite decades. All right. Three people there, okay? I like to entertain three people at a time. That's what I like to do, folks. But right. By the way, shortest song ever recorded was written in the 1950s. This is the shortest song ever written. Do you love me?

R. Scott Edwards: 7:22

No.

Dennis Blair: 7:23

Okay, that was the shortest. Yeah. Yell out your favorite singers. I'll destroy them for you. David Bowie. Queen. David Bowie was first. Ground control's a major tom. Ground control's a major tom. I'm in space, I'm weightless and I can't keep my panties on David Bowie. Right off the top of my head. Come on, Queen. Here we go.

Don McEnery: 8:09

Queen.

Dennis Blair: 8:17

We are the champions, my friend.

R. Scott Edwards: 8:25

We.

Dennis Blair: 8:26

Can have sex from either end. Right off the top of my head.

Don McEnery: 8:36

Right off the top.

Dennis Blair: 8:42

I'm not responsible for what I say if it's right off the top of my head. Who else? Yeah, keep going. Greetings, Elton. Elton John. Oh, God. Well, the biggest kick I ever got was doing a thing called the Crocodile Style rock. While the other kids were rocking around the clock, I was thinking about grabbing somebody's lyrics and writing melodies to them. They didn't tell you it was going to be a clean show, did they? Creedon's clear. Yeah. Creedon. Yes. Sorry, Credence.

Don McEnery: 9:33

Clear.

Dennis Blair: 9:33

Yeah. Credence Clear. Water Revival left a good job in the city. What am I, an idiot? All right. Who? The Prank. Prank. Pink Floyd. Oh, my God. Prince. And Prince. Holy crap. Wow. Pink Floyd. We don't need no masturbation If I don't stop, I'm gonna knock another hole in the wall. I'm not sure you want to hear Prince. Remember, this is all on you. My tribute to Prince. I was about to have sex with this beautiful woman, so I dropped my pants. She pointed to it, she said, no way. And I said, how come all of a sudden you don't want to have sex with me? She said, cause running down your. Your penis is this great big purple vein. Purple vein. Purple vein. Thank you. Good night.

R. Scott Edwards: 11:41

That was Dennis Blair live on stage doing some great comedy music stuff that everybody can relate to. I know you enjoyed it and we're having so much fun with this comedy podcast. Let's keep it going. A guy that's a little newer to me, he never had a chance to work my club because he came along a little later. But he's had some huge success in the last decade. In fact, he recently did a dry bar comedy special and he's performing all over the country and cruise ships. This guy is very popular. Don McHenry. He does some great stand up comedy and he's going to close this comedy podcast today. So let's hear it for him. Ladies and gentlemen, Don McHenry.

Don McEnery: 12:23

I'm just saying. People say that all the time. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. It's an annoying thing. I'm just saying. Yeah, there's just the two of us and I didn't say it. And as you know what I'm saying. You know what I'm saying. Have I stopped you at any point along this conversation and said to you, I really am confused about what it is you're saying? Could you please reword it some other way? So maybe I get the gist. Then there's the one. It goes without saying. You ever hear people say that that's annoying? Because the people that say that, those kind of people, they're not going without saying. They're gonna say, my only hope is that I get away. I go before they say in. My mechanic has a great expression. More than fair. More than fair. That's what. If I argue about a bill with him, he'll say, we charge you a price we think is more than fair. What does that mean? He figured out what was fair and then charged me more. Yeah, we figured $75 was fair. We charge you 150, we're being twice as fair. I'm just saying things are a lot different. I'm getting old. One thing I learned. Here's something I learned about getting old. That I've realized recently. And if you're a little. If you're my age out there, you'll back me up on this. Even as you get older in your head, you're not old in your head. You don't get old in your head, you're still like 20, 25 years old. It's kind of amazing. But there are things during the day that remind you that you're old. Like things like standing up and then having to sit down because you stood up too fast. And all the blood rushes to your head and you go, oh, am I going to die? No. Okay. That's the most exciting part of my day. You know what else makes me feel like a 30 year old? Calling me sir. Excuse me, sir. Excuse me, sir. Hey, drop dead, kid. Filling out a form online makes you feel old, you know? Cause you put your name and your address and your phone number. Then you get to your birthday, but the day and the month and then you gotta scroll. An hour and a half later, I'm taking a nap in between. I saw a commercial the other day for a mattress. Company was doing a commercial on tv and their slogan was, we take sleep to the next level. We take sleep to the next level. What is the next level of sleep? Death. Right. I don't think I want that mattress. Do you have a mattress where I wake up refreshed and feeling alive that I could get into. Everything's changed too. The news, you watch cable news. There's too much going on on cable news. You know what I mean? When I was a kid, there was just one guy talking to you on the screen, telling you the news, and it was always a guy. Because until like 76, they didn't realize women could read too. Lightened world we lived in. But there's just too much going on on the screen, you know what I mean? There's like the person there, the yanker, and then there's that grid of people in squares. It looks like the Brady Bunch is there to answer political questions. And then there's the crowd on the bottom. The crawl. I hate the crawl. The crawl, because I can't not look at it. You know what I mean? I'm trying to pay attention to the person talking. Yeah, I'm listening. Okay, yeah, good. I'm listening. I got you. No, I'm not paying attention. But five minutes in, I'm looking at the crawl. And that gets me mad because I'm paying like 150 bucks a month for cable and now I'm reading the TV and I Can't concentrate on what I'm reading because this guy keeps talking. It's like, hey, shut up. I'm trying to read the news. You know what they didn't have when we were young too? When I was young, they didn't have the live satellite feed. You know that thing where they could guy in America can talk to somebody 5,000 miles away and instantly they're connected. But it's not always so instant. You ever notice that there's always like some kind of gap of time between when the guy asks the question and the other guy hears the question. Sometimes it's a pretty big gap too. Sometimes you could go out for lunch. But you know, the guy in America goes, well, Jim, it must be harrowing there on the eve of such a big battle. And then Jim's over there, yes, Bill, was it worth it? Everything is extra. Peanuts. People in this room, do you remember a day when peanuts were free? They would walk down the aisle throwing peanuts at you. You can't even throw peanuts anymore. Cause they'll sue the, you know, the airlines. But they would pity you. Can I have two bags of peanuts? Go ahead. They're peanuts now. That little bag of peanuts about this big. $7.50. I counted them. Turns out comes out to 62 cents a nut. It's too much for me. Everything is extra. I bet you someday you're gonna read a story about a plane making an emergency landing. And you know you have to go out. They open the side doors, you gotta go down that slide. They're gonna charge you $5 entertainment fee. You'll see, you'll see. There'll be some story where you try to go off the plane. That'll be $5. $5? No, sir, we don't take cash. Only credit cards. You don't have a credit card? Well, you have to go back to your seat. Oh, you don't have a seat. They're also easing up on the restrictions that I find weird. And you know that you can bring a knife onto an airplane. Now you can woo to somebody. I don't know why you think that's a good idea. Cause you could bring up to a 3 inch blade onto an airplane. What could go wrong? Why do you need a 3 inch bladed knife on an airplane? Are you whittling? You ever get on a plane? Some guy's going, oh, I gotta get this moose done. I promised my boy I'd whittle my moose. I wish I picked a less antlered animal. Even worse, they're talking about letting you Talk on phones, on your cell phone while in flight. Now that's the worst idea I've ever heard. That is just not gonna be good because people are annoying on cell phones. There's always that, you know, not everybody, but there's always at least one guy when you're somewhere that talks too loud on the phone, you know, and they're always bragging. That's why they're talking too loud. They want to let you know how great they are. I told him, I make more money in a month than he makes in a year. You know, that guy is annoying enough on 30,000ft in the air, somebody's gonna stab him in the eye with a three inch blade. That somebody is me. I'm just saying.

R. Scott Edwards: 19:55

That was Don McEnery live on stage from a show he recorded just last year. Very, very funny guy. I know you enjoyed that. He has been doing stand up for a number of years. Very successful. It was great to be able to share him on the podcast. We also had a little comedy music from Dennis Blair. And opening up the show from Northern California, Chicago, Steve Barkley. Yeah, that doesn't make sense. Northern California and his name's Chicago. But that's a great story. I'll share with you sometime. All right, well, that was this week's comedy podcast. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed producing it for you. We'll be back next week with one of our interview shows. Keep listening, tell your friends, share it, and if you get a chance, subscribe to the podcast. Thanks so much for being a regular listener. Ladies and gentlemen, this has been Stand Up Comedy, your host and mc. I'm Scott Edwards, your host. Have a great day. Bye.

Announcer: 20:54

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