A real stand-up guy comes to Beaver Creek

It’s hard to imagine a comedian as a parent. It doesn’t matter how seriously they take parenting behind closed doors, when we see them they are on stage telling jokes for a living — not exactly a bastion of parental responsibility.

Looking at comedian Josh Blue you get the impression there’s no way he could be a father. He dresses like a teenager, his hair is usually wildly shaggy, his speech often sounds slurred and his movements are defined by a jerky twitch forced on him by cerebral palsy — a disability he constantly overcomes by making it the running theme and punchline of his routine. And yes, he is the proud new papa of a baby boy.

“Just glad to be on the adventure,” Blue said of his new-found fatherhood.

The best medicine

On stage, though, Blue is a comedy machine — raw, blunt and viciously funny — the complete opposite of his off-stage personality, or at least the one he presented during a phone interview. Blue started doing stand-up in college, which gave him plenty of practice taking the lumps of the national circuit. By winning NBC’s reality series “Last Comic Standing” he solidified himself as a likable and appealing personality as well as a maturing professional comedian.

Blue’s quick-witted act displays his uncanny ability to improvise and interact with the audience. Often his jokes are responses to audience member’s quips. He even added a Q&A section at the end of his show to pull the audience into his act even further.

If you go ... What: Comedian Josh Blue. When: Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. Where: The Vilar Performing Arts Center in Beaver Creek. Cost: $38. More information: Call 888-920-2787 or vilarpac.org.

Getting the last laugh

So, what does Blue think of the onslaught of personal fame and recognition his career has brought?

“My whole life I’ve had people staring at me and now people are staring at me for the right reasons. You know, they’re like ‘Hey, that’s Josh Blue,’ not ‘look at that drunk guy,’” Blue said.

Now that the world is becoming acquainted with Blue and his material, he must keep a rigid writing schedule so as not to get stale, right? Not so, Blue said.

“I have an interesting writing style. I don’t really write anything down. I just have things happen to me,” Blue said.

Relating those encounters to his audience is the basic format of Blue’s show.

“I attract strange situations ... and then it’s just me regurgitating what happened to me at some point in my life,” Blue said.

Not to say that Blue doesn’t have a steady arsenal of jokes memorized to unleash on the crowd on any given night — jokes he usually tells at his own expense.

Now Blue is riding the lightning bolt of success, working with comic icons like Dave Chappelle, Jon Stewart and Carlos Mencia. Sometimes he is still surprised at the achievements of his career, saying, “A lot of times I forget to, like, realize that that’s me actually doing it ... sometimes you get so swept up in the hard part of shit.”

Though it may appear that Blue is cool and in control while working, he hinted that much of what he does is merely rising above the controlled chaos of comedy. His advice to aspiring comedians is simple: “Never let ‘em know you don’t know what the hell is going on.”

High Life writer Charlie Owen can be reached at 748-2939 or cowen@vaildaily.com.