Comic: Push-up handles look like cardiac paddles

By John Benson

Greg Morton enjoys his Cleveland gigs.

Known as a variety show style stand-up comedian, Greg Morton is excited about his return to Northeast Ohio.

It was just over two years ago while playing Cleveland that the musically inclined funnyman, who often entertains audiences with a musical tribute to the ’80s featuring impersonations of Prince, Madonna, Mick Jagger and more, decided on a whim to add James Brown to his repertoire. To this day he feels he owes the Rock Hall city a debt of gratitude for its acceptance of the “Godfather of Soul” into his set.

“Cleveland is good to me, man, I’m telling you,” laughed Morton, calling from Los Angeles. “I’m doing James Brown as my big closer and the genesis of the idea started there. I worked it out, bought all the costumes and I’ve been touring with it ever since. It’s been going very well.”

Though the “Please, Please, Please” moment ends Morton’s show every night, people attending his upcoming gigs at Hilarities 4th Street Theatre can expect everything from zany slapstick and physical comedy to memorable impersonations and observational material. In fact, the latter finds Morton discussing his numerous New Year’s resolutions.

“Right now I’ve got six of them,” Morton said. “The funny thing about it is nobody ever asks you if you completed or resolved any of those issues from last year. So I wanted 2009 to be a productive year. And No. 1 on my list is to try to lose weight. It’s different for me because my whole weight history is chronicled on YouTube. You can actually see my butt get fatter.

“I have tried the Wii Fit, or as I call it the Wii Fat. Basically the Wii Fit is a $100 bathroom scale that insults you. It’s supposed to be a video game but it has way too much activity for my taste.”

Other resolutions vary from not buying any new Apple products this year to eliminating texting people on a regular basis (“I’m 50 years old; stop passing notes to me. I’m done with that.”). One of his funnier bits stems from basically purchasing too many products advertised on late-night television.

“You know the Perfect Pushup, they’re like these handles that twist around and rotate,” Morton said. “Coincidently they look a lot like those cardiac paddles. One push up and that was put under the bed. And then there was the Ped Egg. I don’t know why I was so fascinated with that. The Ped Egg is a cheese grater that scrapes the dead skin off the bottom of your feet. I’m sure that’s how it was invented.”

He added, “The last thing is to stop worrying about the economy. Part of it is the media. They’ve created this whole frenzy about how bad the economy is, it’s the Great Depression all over again, and they’re going to bring back the breadlines. I can’t go in a breadline, I’m on a low-carb diet.”

Finally, something else currently on Morton’s mind is the Jan. 20 inauguration of President Barack Obama.

“A lot of people were worried about Obama,” Morton said. “They said a lot of crazy things, that he was a terrorist and they said he was a socialist. I just want to tell people you can’t be both of those at the same time. I’m going to blow your [expletive] up and then I’m going to give you health care. That just doesn’t work.

“This is what I say: we just need to stop all of the racial tension in this country. We’ve got a black president, O.J. [Simpson] is in jail now, so we’re even and everybody should just calm down.”