Have you always wanted to feel like a celebrity? Jeffrey Ross is here to help. But be careful what you wish for.
Dubbed the Roastmaster General for his brilliantly scathing work aimed at the rich and famous on Comedy Central Roasts, Ross is now reaching out to the common herd. The author of I Only Roast the Ones I Love now sees potential subjects everywhere, from dudes in the airport to whole cities.
"Roasting for me has gone beyond celebrities and tuxedos," he said on the phone from the Jersey Shore, prior to heading west to host Just For Laughs' Nasty Show at the River Rock Casino Resort on June 10 and Red Robinson Show Theatre on June 11. "Now I can roast people, places and things, adapting it to the world. The world is my dais, if you will."
Ross will act as MC for the standup spectacle, introducing fellow comics Ari Shaffir, Thea Vidale and Big Jay Oakerson. But he'll also make time to put us in our place, both collectively and individually.
First off, the Lower Mainland is on notice. "Before I get to Vancouver I'll start writing jokes about the city. I'll do an opening monologue about Vancouver."
And then?
"I think I'll just start ripping into people just because it's the Nasty Show. I feel like this is a license to kill if there ever was one. It's finally a chance to break down my wholesome image."
That wholesome image has been slamming celebs since the mid-'90s but it was the Pamela Anderson roast in 2005 that sealed his reputation as one of his generation's top comedic feather rufflers. Who can forget his cringe-inducing zinger, "How is it possible that Courtney Love looks worse than Kurt Cobain?" directed at Cobain's widow sitting but a few feet away? And that's the only line that can be repeated in a family newspaper.
With jokes like that, you'd think he'd be making enemies all over Hollywood. But that's not the case. At least that he knows of.
"I feel like I haven't really hurt anybody," he insists. "But then again, the great Buddy Hackett once told me that if you hurt somebody's feelings, they'll probably never tell you about it."
So now's your chance to get that special warm feeling of being publicly humiliated by one of the industry's best.
"I'm going to try an experiment at the Nasty Show, which I don't think has ever been done before in Vancouver," he says. "I'm going to try speed roasting volunteers from the crowd, whoever wants to come on stage to get ripped on. Fifteen seconds of pain."
But fret not, Ross, at the age of 45, is a master craftsman. There is an art to a comedic undressing. Nothing is off-limits, he claims, if delivered right. But there must be genuine affection for the subject matter, too.
"You don't want to be a bully," he says. "You don't want to pick on people that aren't up for it. You want everyone to leave the show going,
'That was so much fun. I wish I'd been roasted.' To me, that's the key, is to have everybody think of it as a party and not as competitive or mean. You want everyone to feel like they're Frank Sinatra surrounded by the Rat Pack. You don't want them to feel like a deer about to get shot."
This isn't the first time Ross has taken roasting to new environments. He's lambasted the contestants and judges on Dancing With the Stars, where he himself was a contestant ("I danced so poorly people thought it was a telethon and sent in money"), recently did a part on Family Guy roasting one of the characters, and on Monday night gave a crash course to the men on The Bachelorette.
"It was really fun," he says. "I actually coached them beforehand on tips for making a woman laugh. If you can make a woman laugh at herself, you can virtually make her do anything."
And that's not the only practical reason for embracing the roast ethic in your everyday life. Ross has no option. It is his calling and everyone expects it from him. "Every guy in the airport wants me to rip into them," he says.
But we can learn from the art of dishing it out and taking it, too. "I feel like it's a good self-defence mechanism. If you read my book, chances are you're not going to get picked on. I recommend it as a textbook for children."
Note to parents: Not so much. He is the host of the Nasty Show, after all.
"I don't consider myself nasty; I consider myself classy," he says. "But maybe a little nasty."