No props, no problem for this funny man

By John Benson

The Pittsburgh native has some political jokes up his sleeve.

When comedian Bill Scott talks about his current set, the conversation quickly turns into what audiences attending his upcoming gigs tonight through Saturday at the Funny Farm in Niles should not to expect to see.

“Well, I’m not pulling anything out of a box and I’m not playing a guitar,” Scott said with a laugh, calling from his Pittsburgh home. “I’m just going to stand there and talk. I always felt like if you had to do anything more than that, you’re cheating. So I’m a purist when it comes to the nuts and bolts of what I do.”

Reading between the lines, it appears Scott is actually taking a potshot at prop-king comedian Carrot Top, who by the way these days can bench a semi-truck filled with his prop trunks.

“He’s actually more creepy now with the eyeliner and the muscles than when he was a skinny dork with a trunk full of [expletive],” Scott said. “He was probably catching a lot of flack for what he does from random people and he probably wanted to be able to beat up someone who told him he wasn’t funny. But from what I understand, he’s a very nice guy. I hear nothing but good things.”

For over a decade, Scott has been a regular on the comedy club circuit. He’s also appeared on “The Bob and Tom Show,” as well as opened for comedy heavy hitters such as Chris Rock, Bill Maher, Lewis Black and George Wallace. Naturally, Scott said eventually he’d like to make his way into television, but for now he’s focused on honing his set on the road where he stays normally 40 weeks a year.

“I would say my comedy is lowbrow humor delivered in a highbrow way,” Scott said. “It’s lowbrow humor, but very sarcastic with kind of a very dry delivery.”

Topic-wise, Scott said he’s currently talking about life on the road for a 37-year-old comedian who recently had a vasectomy. He’s also discussing something that is on everybody’s mind this fall.

“I’m doing some jokes about the election coming up,” Scott said. “I think it’s kind of the same as everyone’s take. It’s that John McCain is old and Barack Obama is black. So those are the two big subjects that seem to occur over and over again in all of the comics’ jokes with anyone doing election humor.”

So does Scott consider himself a political comedian?

“I just happen to talk about it and it started off with the best of intentions, but when I try to write jokes about politics, they all end up spiraling into a [penis] joke in the end,” Scott said. “It’s disappointing to me but the crowd seems to enjoy it.”