Rockets is a stand-up comedian. I first met him in his capacity as the genial host, maître ‘d and sergeant-at-arms at the Red Bar on Manhattan’s upwardly mobile Lower East Side. A position he has since vacated. I saw a few of his early performances at Laight Again where he was the M.C. for a late night cabaret. He was very funny. His timing, his gesture and his, shall we say, distinctly different presence had the audience roaring and asking for more. I talked with him in his fashionable Loisaida apartment which he shares, as he says, not with rats or roaches but with tiny junkies who yell at him to “Shut out the light, man,” whenever he opens the refrigerator door.

Mark Magill Rockets, you say there’s a lot of bad comedy out there. What is bad comedy?

Rockets Redglare Bad comedy is the stuff that makes you sorry for the comedian. You are embarrassed for this person. Which is exactly the opposite reaction that somebody would want to get. If you go to see a comedian, you’re saying, “Wow, I’m going to laugh and have a good time.” When someone gets up there and gets really bad and they get a little bit vicious because they’re trying to grab the laugh or they get really banal … you just say what are they rambling about? But then there’s a certain point where you go, “Oh my God, why doesn’t this poor guy just fold up and go?” And you really feel embarrassed for this person. That’s the exact opposite of laughing. Where you feel horrible just to be of the same species as this character.

MM So the audience has no alternative. They can’t even laugh at how badly the guy’s doing. Their backs are against the wall. But how is that different from other bad performances?

RR I think comedy is a special kind of performance. I mean the pure form, the pure stand up comedian, where all you need is a clean shirt, it’s where you have a very special communion with the audience. When you’re really working and you’re rolling along and you’ve got them—it’s almost like cooperation. You’re communicating with them—they’re communicating with you. It’s part of the audience’s job to make that chemistry work, too. The audience knows when to sustain their laughs.

MM When it’s expected of them?

RR Exactly. Once you’ve got them going—then they’ve got to sustain their laughs to keep the feel, to keep the rhythm right. I’ve heard people roaring and it suddenly becomes a split second thing, where in another two seconds it’s going to be too late for me to give the second punch line of the joke. They start to know when you’re going to hit them with double-barreled humor. When you’re going to get them laughing and then you’re going to hit them with something that’s going to really get them. They’ll be in the middle of a guffaw and they’ll stop dead so they can hear that second punch line. That’s when you’re really communicating with them. That’s the stuff that makes you keep getting up there.

MM Is that why you do it?

RR I think it’s the one kind of performance I’m good enough at to have people realize that I was meant to do it … I’m completely comfortable doing it. I’ve been acting for years and years but I think because of my physical stature, I’m very, very limited—to playing character type parts. But as a comic I can get up and do anything. Comedians, usually have to be very ugly or fat or whatever. Only because if somebody is a really stunning human being and gets up and is really funny I think there is a natural backlash.

MM That’s a strange inverse picture that you’re painting. You’re saying some guys, because the fact that they are so handsome, have to overcome their physical limitations.

RR It’s easier for the audience to accept someone who has some flaws. They are not as threatened as they would be by some guy who looks like he has everything. Some Greek God who can tell jokes, too.