After downward spiral, comic stands up, delivers

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This article was published 08/04/2015 (3974 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

All it took to get Jon Ljungberg’s comedy career back on track was a bit of time, a bit of perspective and a swift kick in the backside.

While there probably aren’t any gigantic piles of money involved, Ljungberg’s story certainly qualifies — in a creative and career-satisfaction sense — as a classic riches-to-rags-to-riches tale. The Massachusetts-born comedian was a mainstay on the local standup scene through the 1990s (he and fellow comic Dean Jenkinson were the go-to guys as host/MCs at Rumor’s Comedy Club), but he put his comedy career on hold when he became co-host of Citytv’s Breakfast Television in 1999.

After 11 years in the wake-up-hours TV gig, Ljungberg experienced one of those “Worst. Day. Ever.” kind of days that can turn a person’s life upside down: on the same day his bosses at Citytv informed him that his contract was not being renewed and he was being dropped from BT’s roster, his wife announced that she was leaving him.

“I lost everything, literally,” Ljungberg reflects. “I lost the job, the house, the car… everything. I ended up filling balloon bouquets at Gags Unlimited, just to have a job. I couldn’t get arrested around here. I remember just sitting there thinking, ‘What are you doing?’

“And then I picked myself back up, and now I’m doing keynote (speeches) about that experience.”

Ljungberg has also rediscovered his love for standup comedy, doing a steady stream of corporate dates as well as occasional high-profile gigs such as serving as opening act for Lewis Black’s recent show at the Club Regent Event Centre.

He has also signed on for a handful of shows at this year’s Winnipeg Comedy Festival, including the always sold-out Winnipeg Show (Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., Club Regent Event Centre) and a taped-for-online-streaming warm-up set at Saturday’s matinee gala, Quit Your Day Job (4:15 p.m., Pantages Playhouse Theatre).

“It’s kind of a funny thing — at almost 53 years old, I’m booked solid,” he says. “It just kind of came out of the blue.

“I didn’t really tour much during the BT (Breakfast Television) days, and then I went into a bit of a funk for a while, and then it was Big Daddy Tazz who kind of kicked me in the ass and said, ‘What are you doing? You’ve got to get back out there. Tell your story.’

“It kind of woke me up; now I’ve got a bunch of new material, and I’m having a blast.”

One of the things that has impressed Ljungberg during his comedy-career relaunch is the strength of the city’s standup scene — with showcases and open-mike nights in venues all over town, young comedians are being given the stage time required to become solid, experienced entertainers.

“I think it’s fabulous,” he says. “I’ve done a few of the open mikes, and they’re all so welcoming to guys from my generation of comics — Jenkinson, Tazz, myself — who were around back when there were only a few clubs to play. They want to hear you, and they make you feel like you’re still relevant.”

Part of being relevant, however, is having material that’s true to who he is at a new stage in his life. And for Ljungberg, that has proved to be the most rewarding part of writing the second chapter of his comedy story.

“I’m totally stoked and energized,” he says. “I hadn’t written much for a long time; I just relied on the same old template because I was only doing a handful of shows here and there. But now, as I’ve had new experiences in my life, I’m writing material based on that.

“When I did the show at the casino with Lewis Black, my daughter was in the audience with her friends. So they weren’t just laughing at me, they were laughing at ‘My dad’s done that,’ while other people were laughing at ‘I’ve done that.’ Humour is humour and funny is funny, so I’m out there, talking about those experiences to an audience that understands them.

“I’m having fun again, that’s the main thing. I’m having a lot of fun.”

brad.oswald@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @BradOswald