Some of the contents of this post may be offensive to some people.
Tonight is the last Toke n’ Joke Friday show at Church and Wellesley’s Village Vapor Lounge, the city’s most infamous weekly.
There is one big reason this show has burned a hole in every comic’s self-esteem – for some, the hole remains, for others, they return and it heals over with stronger scar tissue – and that is resident heckler, Rutiger.
Rutiger is a maniacal old queen whose appearance could be described as Anton LaVey if Satan were actually real and had cooked his nervous system for 30 years with amyl nitrates.
His crazy eyes, frenetic movements, and piercing witch cackle could fool an unfamiliar comic in to thinking he’s too mentally disorganized to pose a real threat. A familiar comic knows this is not so. His wit is impressively quick and has left many a comic dumbfounded on stage.
He enters the building, wearing his ridiculous backpack and chugging a 1.5L grapefruit soda, “I smell, *sniff sniff*, FEAR!”
A comic tries leveraging his confidence with a pre-show jab in response, “I smell raw cum.”
Without a pause Rutiger fires back, “then brush your teeth, bitch.”
When battling Rutiger a comic has to abandon any constraints imposed by political correctness or even common decency. He is not at all bound by these concerns so for the comic to worry about this would be a losing strategy. Despite being a gay man, he will randomly shout, as an insult, and at the most inopportune moment, “YOU’RE GAY!” The worst of his insults cannot be printed here. This can be pretty threatening coming from, as his scene would categorize him, a 6’2 bear. (Albeit a little emaciated these days.) I have seen newer comics visibly shaken coming off stage.
Comedy is largely based on timing and momentum. Rutiger has a talent for feeling out exactly when a bit has built to fifth gear and aggressively yanking up the hand-brake from the passenger’s seat, yelling “TELL US A FUNNY JOKE!” or “BOOOOO!” or if it’s a female comic, “WHORE!” or “GROW SOME TITS!”
Whenever I’ve told people about Rutiger they invariably ask why he isn’t thrown out. The answer is partially because he’s been a regular for years, but primarily because he is actually funny. He is perhaps the one heckler in the world who genuinely adds to the show. (Most hecklers erroneously think they’re an asset to the show but are really just drunk and annoying.)
Standing onstage in his crosshairs is a thoroughly uncomfortable experience, but watching him eviscerate another comic is hilarious. Most of us sit there secretly waiting and hoping for him to screech a ridiculous non-sequitur and destroy their joke.
Those of us who regularly perform there also owe him that we are now unphased by hecklers. He is Bowser while every other heckler is a mere Koopa. And after battling him enough times, most of us can boast at least a couple of victories.
One time last year I found out his real name. I dutifully went through my jokes, waiting for him to heckle, then exposed him. His name, serendipitously, is an androgynous name so it was easy to make fun of. Everyone in the room started chanting his name in unison, thrilled to see him shaken like never before. Host Dred Lee came on to say he can’t take him seriously now knowing that’s his name. Rutiger charges the stage, screaming the N-word in Dred’s face (Dred is black), then storms out not to be seen for five weeks.
Upon his return he was wearing a leather sex mask and a padlocked dog chain around his neck. He was not on form though. It took months for him to recover to full set-ruining capacity.
This show will be weirdly missed. The last Toke n’ Joke Friday with Dred Lee and Company will be tonight (Friday) at 10pm.