Former accountant finds laughs are his biggest asset
BY ROGER SCHLUETER News-Democrat September 27, 2007
When John Garrett was an unhappy accountant, being told to think outside the box usually led to a world of trouble. After all, the New Baden native was a comedian at heart, so his "outside the box" was light years beyond that of his company's stuffed-shirt muckety-mucks. Take, for example, the time he was helping finish up a project. One day, a consultant -- who looked like she had sucked on lemons all her life -- asked him and his team to list all the things that they could control. You know, like costs and deadlines. "So I wrote 'bladder,'" Garrett cracks. "In yellow highlighter! Woohoo!!" The quip only added to the sea of black marks in his personnel file, he said. So what? As a rising star in the comedy world from coast to coast, Garrett, 31, now literally laughs at those days of ledgers and balance sheets he left far behind two years ago. It has even led to his first CD, entitled -- what else? -- "Outside the Box." Metro-east residents will be given first crack at obtaining a copy when Garrett returns here this weekend for appearances in Breese and St. Rose on Friday night along with an official CD release party at 8:30 p.m. Saturday at the Lincoln Theatre in Belleville. All three shows also will feature Mike Armstrong, the popular ex-cop comedian often heard on the nationally syndicated "Bob & Tom Show." And, if you can't make it this weekend, you can sample Garrett's humor and pick up a CD at his Web site, www.JohnGcomedy.com.
It's no wonder the CD cover shows Garrett climbing over a cubicle wall like some crazed Dilbert trying to escape his pointy-haired boss. One listen to his CD, and you'll understand why his mind would have been a terrible thing to waste inside a corporate office.He takes a cockeyed look at everything from his joining the Notre Dame marching band ("I was thinking, wow, accounting is going to make me waaayyy too cool. I'd better geek this up with some band!") to Southerners drowning him in sweet tea ("When they're little and learning their alphabet -- Q, R, S, Sweet Tea!"). Little escapes his notice, from the popularity of NASCAR during a trip to the Brickyard 400 ("I mean, 400,000 people can't be wrong, can they? Yes, they can!") to speculating about CNN's minute-by-minute coverage of a glacier. And, if you think it's all too ridiculous to be true, think again. He swears the bit about the guy at Wal-Mart sniffing his underarm to figure out what deodorant he buys really happened. "It happened a couple of years ago," he said during a recent telephone interview from his apartment in Indianapolis. "I was, like, 'I can't remember' and I caught myself doing it. Then, I stopped and I looked around to make sure no one saw me, because I was, like, wow, that was pretty stupid!" Now, he has recorded it for posterity because he found fans clamoring for his nose for humor. "A lot of people after shows were asking, 'Hey, do you have a CD? I want to share your jokes with my friends,'" said Garrett, who also knew he needed one to get some serious local and satellite radio play. But while the final product is a hoot, putting it together was no barrel of laughs. Garrett, in one of his wacky moments, might compare it to having a baby -- the spark of the idea that led to it was great; then came the nine months of sweating over recording, design, photos and production. So, when Garrett was finally ready to record it in March at the Go Bananas Comedy Club in Cincinnati, the pressure was on."It's really funny, because once you start a show and the crowd is really good, that's when it becomes really intense because you're, like, 'Oh, this is going to be the one, so don't screw it up," said Garrett. Not the smallest detail escaped his notice. The back of the album, for example, has a picture of the actual 10-key calculator (complete with a river of paper) he used in his accounting days. He even pays homage to past comedians by having the CD pressed and colored black to look like a vinyl record, complete with the groove. "Oh, yeah, I'm really excited about it," he said. "It turned out exactly how I wanted it." Now, he hopes, it will help his climb up the corporate comedy ladder, which, in just the past few months has seen three appearances on the "Bob & Tom Show" (heard locally on KSHE-FM) and earned high praise from manager Jamie Masada after his sets at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles. In addition, he has written a sitcom pilot for his good friend, Mike Armstrong, which Armstrong's manager is now pitching to various networks. He even enjoyed a bit of sweet revenge by performing for an accounting firm that had rejected him after he graduated from Notre Dame. "I started out with, 'Wow, you guys look like you've been punched in the face about a hundred times!'" Garrett said. " 'I'm so glad not to be you guys anymore!' And, they still laughed, so it was good. That was kind of a neat moment." Just one word of caution: Even if you buy his CD, don't expect any help on your taxes next spring in return. "I barely do my own taxes," the former senior financial analyst says. "I can't help anybody else. I hate it when people are coming up to me, 'Hey, what about this?' I'm, like 'Man, whatever you think. Your guess is as good as mine, dude!'"
He figures it's about time the IRS started thinking outside the box, too.