STAND-UP TUESDAYS: Glenn Wool

August 14th, 2012

Grant Trimboli

Stand-Up Tuesdays is a weekly comedy spotlight written by the wonderfully talented Angie Frissore. Covering both known and unknown comics, Stand-up Tuesdays is your new source for all things funny.

This week, Angie puts a spotlight on Glenn Wool. If you or your comedy troupe would like to be featured on Stand-Up Tuesdays, please email utgjames@gmail.com.

When I think of Alaska, I generally think of polar bears playing ice hockey with seals, and penguins holding UFC-style matches to determine who takes home all of the fish. One thing I never think of, however, is stand-up comedy – let alone good stand-up comedy. But when Canadian comedian Glenn Wool comes to Chilkoot Charlie’s in Anchorage, that’s exactly what one gets.

After beginning his comedy career in his hometown of Vancouver, Wool moved to London in 1998 and quickly became a star on the London comedy circuit. Stateside, Wool has made appearances on John Oliver’s Stand Up on Comedy Central and The Green Room Season 2 on Showtime. Onstage, he has also performed with fellow alt-comic favorites Kumail Nanjiani and Hannibal Buress, while his comedic talents have also found him headlining stages everywhere including Switzerland, France, Croatia, Australia, New Zealand, Dubai and beyond.

Wool’s humor sort of reminds me of Mitch Hedberg – if Hedberg were hopped up on No-Doze and Red Bull. His upbeat, rock-and-roll personality is countered only slightly by his ability to connect personally with his audience. Where Hedberg avoided such interaction, Wool embraces it, giving I’ll Ask Her a very intimate, private-party feeling – particularly as Wool delves into some personal material related to his failed marriage.

“I don’t have no kids because I’m divorced, and it’s hard to get your ex-wife into something like that. I’ll be honest with you, Maggie, here’s what went down,” Wool jokes; referencing friends that demanded to know when he and his now ex-wife would have kids, “Me and the wife won a lifetime’s supply of abortions from a church raffle. And we like kids, but we loooove a bargain!”

Wool, who has headlined venues all over the world and has made countless appearances on TV and radio and has been performing for sixteen years, recorded the album live on tour in Alaska. I’ll Ask Her follows Wool’s previous release Let Your Hands Go (Stand Up! Records) and features his acerbic wit, wickedly sharp personal anecdotes and well thought out stories laced with political challenges and heaps of charm.

“I like to hurt people with jokes sometimes. So unless you loosen the fuck up, I’m going to do the hardcore show,” Wool says jovially. “Usually I won’t get into an argument with somebody after the show. You either like the show, or you’re retarded. That’s the way I look at it. What makes you think you got some protected right to never hear anything you disagree with on a stand-up comedy stage? And he said, ‘Because Christians built Canada!’ And I said, ‘No they didn’t, Chinese slaves did. Which, you probably don’t know too much about because as a nation, we never talk about it.”

Glenn Wool’s I’ll Ask Her is a delightfully hilarious romp – despite falling short of the typical full hour of comedy – that offers a slightly more worldly view on society and life in general. Grab a free download of album track “Dr. Hook’s House of Solutions” here and pick up your copy of I’ll Ask Her on Amazon and iTunes today!