Maine comic

recording CD

at Prose Gallery

Ryan Waning is a funny guy. No, really, that’s his job. He makes his living off people’s willingness to give up a few bucks to pay him to make them laugh.

The former Auburn man, a ’96 Edward Little grad, is hoping he’ll capture some of that laughter when he records his first comedy CD Friday, Oct. 11, in two shows, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m., at Prose Gallery, 223 Lisbon St., Lewiston. Tickets for the 21-and-over, BYOB event are $5. For reserved seats, call 740-8800.

Waning says funny is something he’s been since he was a child. “I always felt funny,” said the 37-year-old, who is now the father of two girls. But, “now it’s more of a reflex than anything else. It’s like a muscle that’s been trained to do something a certain way. I really do think of almost everything through the filter of, ‘OK, how or why is this funny?’ Sometimes I feel like it’s a superpower or, at the very least, a magic trick. Sometimes, though, it’s tiring.”

And sometimes it’s hard work.

“My process is strange,” he said. “I write punchlines verbatim and then a few other key points in bullet-point form and then work it all out live onstage. Sometimes it takes 10 tries, and sometimes it works like I thought it might the first time. By the way, 10 times is a bit of a stretch. If it doesn’t work the third time I try it, it goes back in the notebook to be forgotten until I write almost the same thing again months later and think I’m a genius who just struck gold.”

And sometimes it involves the “I” word.

“I think the thing that inspires my work the most is my questioning my place among everything,” Waning said. “I also love the language so much that I feel like an artist when I use it well. I got an English degree from UMaine and am constantly amazed at how many of the principals of poetry and poetic theory apply to stand-up comedy.”

While Waning is always working fresh material into his routines, he does have a few favorites that frequently make their way into his act.

“I loathe the Duggar clan, so they find their way into my act a few times,” he said. “But my favorite bit that I’m doing right now is a story I tell about eating people’s lunches at work. The guy who was the booker at the Portland Comedy Connection before it closed was a super smart comic in addition to putting together the shows. I told him the lunch-eating story one night just shooting the bull and he was like, ‘Why don’t you do that onstage?’ I’d been sitting on it for years, just telling other comics about it to make them laugh and commiserate about bad jobs, but Rich saw it as a bit. He was right. I have closed with it ever since.”

So, what makes Ryan Waning laugh?

“People-watching never fails to entertain me. Professionally, there are a ton of comics that I work with that I love watching. Any list I made would be exclusionary, as the scene in New England is about as well-kept a secret as there is, but it would have to include Brian Beaudoin and Ray Harrington, two Providence comics I can’t get enough of. Personally, my wife is super smart and is funnier than she knows; we laugh together a lot.”

Waning, who has been doing comedy for about 10 years, says he came up the usual way, “bombing at open mics and hoping I could eventually cobble together enough of an act to get noticed by some of the local spots that booked actual shows.”

And gleaning advice from other, more experienced comics, including popular Maine comic George Hamm, who, Waning said, “is one who always has time to talk shop with the new guys. I wonder how many comics he’s influenced in one way or another over his years in the business?”

Waning won’t say comedy was his destiny, but he won’t deny it, either. “I can’t say I set out to be a comedian, but I can’t say I didn’t, either.

“I wasted time doing other things that were sort of related to it, always trying to put it off. But the bottom line is I’ve always loved comedy and always sort of felt that the time I spent watching the greats like George Carlin and Richard Pryor and squirreling stuff away in a notebook that no one ever sees was leading toward something, like I was training for my big mission.

“I get such a buzz from controlling a crowd, making them laugh, making them quiet, making them think, that I think it would be something I’d always return to. And that’s sort of what happened.”

Waning has “a ton of reasons” for wanting to record a CD at this time in his career. “But the one I keep coming back to is having a sort of signpost that says, ‘Here’s where I am now,’ career-wise. I imagine it being a quaint little joke time capsule in two years’ time or so. It also gives me the opportunity to start fresh again. After I record this hour of material, I’m going to stop doing 95 percent of it and start over with new material.”

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