Joshua Womack looks back at his brief stint working the Northeast Ohio comedy scene

Jun. 30—It isn't the laughs that Joshua Womack misses.

For a few years in his late 20s, the Mayfield Heights native and Mayfield High School graduate worked the Northeast Ohio comedy scene, grabbing mic time whenever and wherever he could, be that at a Cleveland club or a Willoughby bar.

"I miss the chase of it," Womack says during a recent phone interview. "It was always fun, chasing stage time — you know, chasing gigs, things like that.

"No, I mean, the laughs were cool, but (I miss) the anticipation of the shows," the downtown Cleveland resident adds. "I kind of fed off the energy more."

Having given up the stand-up thing years ago, he doesn't miss the occasional long drives and the frequent late nights.

He chronicles it all, the good, the bad and the hilarious, in "You Are Not That Funny: Stories From Cleveland Stand-Up," a self-published book releasing July 3.

It's an easy-breezy read, a book consisting of short themed chapters that, oh, you know, one might stash in the bathroom.

"I'm a copywriter — I always lean toward brevity," he says, referring to his occupation. "I kind of wanted each chapter to be like a conversation you would have with somebody you ran into on the street. ... I never want to bore anybody by going and on."'

Still, Womack — who last year also put out a book "I'm Not a Copywriter, but ...: Lessons Learned From a Late Bloomer" — packs a lot into "You Are Not That Funny," starting with what he absorbed about storytelling from his father, who, he says, has led close to 1,000 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings since 1985.

"Alcoholism and sobriety are serious subjects, but my dad keeps it light," Womack writes in the book. "At parties when people say to him, 'You haven't had a drink in over 35 years?!' he replies with his quippy go-to line, 'Yeah, I'm really thirsty.'"

Womack's comedy journey began, as it has for many a funny person in Northeast Ohio, with him taking part in the comedy workshop regularly offered by Dave Schwensen. (Womack took part in it in 2007, he says, and his dad did it a decade later, the latter performing only in the showcase at the Cleveland Improv at the end of the program.)

From there, he worked to get on stage here and there. He befriended a few local comics, all of whom lived within a few miles of each other just west of downtown Cleveland, including Mike Polk and Chad Zumock. He would pay attention to when and where they were slated to perform and ask if he could do a few minutes before their sets. If the show was a bit of a hike — say, Akron, for example — so much the better.

"I think the reason they would say yes is I always offered to drive," he says. "I was kind of their go-to designated driver, which I think helped me out a little bit."

Womack adds, "And Polk was always great. (He would) let me do 10 minutes or so if he had, like, a corporate event and throw me 50 or 100 bucks when he didn't really have to. I always thought that was kind of cool."

Womack devotes space in the book to venues that have seen their last laughs, including two in Lake County: Willoughby Brewing Co. and Bogey's Comedy Club in Willoughby Hills.

The latter, a short-lived spot opened in 2008 by Kirk Bogos, gave a lot of comedians their first significant chunk of stage time, Womack says.

"Even though it came and went pretty quickly," he says, "I think it remains a pretty cool part of a Cleveland comedian's story."

As for WBC, a one-time craft beer-fueled hotspot in Downtown Willoughby, it would regularly turn the area around a stage usually reserved for musical acts into a mini comedy club.

"The cool things about it was you could see (local) comedians that would be the same ones at (Cleveland's Hilarities 4th Street Theatre) — the Mike Polks, the Bill Squires, the Ryan Daltons, the Jason Lawheads," he says. "Even though it was a bar show, Willoughby Brewing did a really good job of trying to make it the best stand-up show."

Speaking of Lawhead, the Lorain native helped make Womack's dream of gracing the hallowed stage at Hilarities — where many of the biggest names in comedy have played and continue to perform — a reality. Seeing that Lawhead would be returning to Northeast Ohio from the Los Angeles area to headline at the club where he started as an employee, Womack reached out to him about hosting the show and got the green light.

Womack's willingness to be persistent and to hustle to get stage time shows up again and again in "You're Not That Funny." He shares a string of a mostly one-sided email thread with a Hilarities booker as he tries to secure a spot, for example.

He would go on to host more shows at that club, some featuring alums of "Saturday Night Live," including Chris Kattan and Kevin Nealon. That was always a thrill for a guy who used to watch VHS recordings of the show he'd already watched live to go back through the sketches.

He recounts a memorable moment in Hilarities' green room when Nealon told him he was not great with geography and wondered if Cincinnati was fairly close to Cleveland. Womack told him that it wasn't, that Pittsburgh, Toledo and even Detroit were closer. Nealon jotted that down and thanked him, and Womack thought little of it, he says.

"Five minutes into his set, he's like, 'I told my wife that I was flying out to Cleveland to do stand-up, and she said, '"What are you going to do in Cleveland? There's nothing to do in Cleveland."' And he said, 'Honey, there are plenty of things to do: You can drive to Pittsburgh, Toledo, Detroit!'

"He just used that conversation that we'd had an hour beforehand and included it in his set, which I thought was pretty funny."

Who's not funny? Womack — at least according to his then-young niece, who picked up on his older brother saying, "You're not THAT funny" to him.

"(Choosing) the title was one of the easiest things about the book," he says. "We'd be at family parties and stuff like that. She'd be playing with her toys and look up at me and just say, 'Uncle Josh, you are not that funny.'

"It just always stuck with me, so when I got the idea of writing the book, that was really the only title I could go with."

Appearance

Joshua Womack says that he will conduct a book-signing event from 6 to 8 p.m. July 20 at Geraci's Slice Shop, 603 Prospect Ave E., Cleveland. Contact the business at 216-202-2775.