Bill Santiago – Bio
Bill Santiago is the first born of at least four children. He became a standup after narrowly escaping a career in journalism, facing the fact that as a comedian he was funny, but as a reporter he was a joke.
It’s been said he was born to Puerto Rican immigrants, which is technically untrue, as Puerto Ricans are US citizens. Although, he’s got an uncle who was once deported to the Bronx.
With the premiere of his first television special, “Comedy Central Presents: Bill Santiago,” he won over fans nationwide with his dead-on observations about Spanglish – “twice the vocabulary and half the grammar!” and his beloved catchphrase “¡Porque because!”
Notably, his special premiered May 5, Cinco de Mayo, in a shrewd programming decision to attract a wider Latino audience, despite his not being Mexican (allowable under the “close enough” clause in his contract). Soon after, Santiago landed his first book deal, to write “Pardon My Spanglish,” based on his act and promising laughs for Latinos and the Latino-curious.
He has also appeared on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” Comedy Central’s “Premium Blend,” “Que Locos,” “American Latino,” and is scheduled to appear on “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson” this fall. Last year, he hosted the Latin Grammy Person of the Year Award ceremony, honoring Juan Luis Guerra (the tallest Dominican he’s ever met), at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas.
Formerly an awarding-winning journalist (despite his worst efforts), he contributed regularly to newspapers including the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Boston Globe and Philadelphia Inquirer. While living in Puerto Rico, he worked as a staff writer for the San Juan Star. He was also a humor columnist for Mother Jones magazine online.
When not on stage, he enjoys curling up with a good book or a well-read, Spanglish-speaking woman. He lives in New York City.
Praise for Bill’s standup:
‘Playfully explores the subject of biculturalism’
-- New York Post
“Like George Carlin in his prime, Santiago is expert at honing in on the way language reveals society’s bizarre fixations.”
-- The San Francisco Examiner
For more information, video and clips, and to see Bill’s updated calendar of appearances:
www.billsantiago.com www.myspace/billsantiagocomedy www.pardonmyspanglish.com Printed from the East Bay Express Web site: http://www.eastbayexpress.com/artsculture/el_reconquistador/Content?oid=627759 El Reconquistador
Comedian Bill Santiago wants to see your salsa moves.
By Rachel Swan January 23, 2008
Wiry, curly-haired, Puerto Rican comedian Bill Santiago describes himself as a failed reporter who found his voice in stand-up, though he still has a reporter's curiosity about culture and a writerly love of words. Hence, Santiago's fascination with Spanglish, which he sees as one of the most pervasive signs of Latinization in the United States. He cited several examples in a Comedy Central special that aired in 2006, including new conjugations of the verb "to google" ("Yo googleo, tu googleas, nosotros googleamos"), and examples of department store announcements that you might here in East LA or Miami ("Atención K-Mart shoppers!"). Even more exciting is a new addition to the urban dictionary, "chancla," which Santiago defined as "a cheap sandal which doubles as a disciplinary device in Latino households." (He is, in fact, a survivor of such correctional measures.) Santiago champions the unintentionally ironic phrase, "Como que why? Porque because!" (Rough translation: "Because I said so!") After all, it's a great day for Spanglish when an expression that literally means "because because" can pass off as a snappy rejoinder.
With his new book Pardon My Spanglish projected for fall publication, Santiago decided to tackle another subject within the theme of Latin America's "reconquista" of US popular culture: Latin dance. With his lean, rubbery frame, cartoony facial expressions, and Groucho Marx eyebrows, Santiago has no trouble impersonating the histrionic gyrations of Colombian superstar Shakira, and he could easily parody any swishy heel-clacker from Dancing with the Stars. ¿Cómo se dice Polyglot?
Meet comedian Bill Santiago, the Spanglish explorer.
by ANDREW GILBERT Originally published February 4, 2004, East Bay Express
Given his previous life as an award-winning journalist for newspapers such as The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, and The San Juan Star, it's not surprising that the stand-up comic Bill Santiago is obsessed with language. But you might have trouble finding the words he's been exploring lately in a standard English or Spanish dictionary. Santiago presents some of his research on Friday at La Peña in Spanglish 101: A Total Immersion Comedic Excursion into Latino USA, an evening-length piece he describes as a work in progress. As Santiago sees it, Spanglish isn't just an evolving pidgin tongue, it's "an identity, and everything that's involved with that." During a recent interview at Ben and Nick's Bar & Grill on College Avenue in Oakland, he elaborates: "There are so many issues around it. Is it the corruption of two languages? Is it a third language? A marriage of two languages?" The up-and-coming Nuyorican comic, who has opened for Margaret Cho and shared stages with Culture Clash and Marga Gomez, recently gained attention through his appearances on Comedy Central's Premium Blend and Galavision's Que Locos. He realized the potential of Spanglish as a comedy topic last year after a college performance in Santa Barbara. "Afterwards everybody wanted to come up to me and share their Spanglish experiences, their favorite words, how it's part of their life with their parents, grandparents, or friends," he says. As part of the show's development process, Santiago invites the audience during the second half of the performance to share their favorite Spanglish words and anecdotes about growing up Latino or interacting with Latino culture.
Each time he performs "Spanglish," Santiago gathers more material, uncovering the regional differences between Los Angeles, New Mexico, New York City, and Miami. "It's dialect upon dialect upon dialect, this polyglot non-language called Spanglish," he says. "And when you say Latino, what are all the different groups and experiences? Mexicans are coming for specific reasons and how they get here is very different from, say, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans. They're all coming here under completely different circumstances and get lumped into this Latino title."
Born and raised in New York, Santiago attended film school at New York University, and dabbled in stand-up. But a job at The San Juan Star, an English-language daily, brought him to Puerto Rico, where his parents grew up. Unable to suppress his zingy one-liners, he made the move to stand-up after winning a prestigious national award for feature writing. Santiago is a captivating performer. His handsome, boyish face registers his lightning-quick emotional leaps. But he sees his writing as the key to success. As he has honed his comedic talent, Santiago has taken to dissecting classic routines by comics like George Carlin and Woody Allen, much the way jazz musicians transcribe solos by Charlie Parker and Lester Young.
"I identify with Carlin's fascination for language, the way he can take one idea and unravel it into a piece that's enduring," Santiago says. "Seinfeld is the same thing, but he does it with a little bit more of a microscope and he takes out the edge. There's no politics. It's one of the reasons for his success." Comedian quips about Life with a Latino Beat
by ROWENA COETSEE Knight Ridder, April 2003
SAN FRANCISCO -After examining the serious side of life, Bill Santiago knew he just had to get silly.
The 31-year-old San Francisco comedian toiled in the trenches of daily journalism long enough to know lie wasn't destined for a conventional career.
The son of Puerto Rican immigrants, Santiago instead has become an entertainer, doing parodies of Latino life that bridge the cultural divide.
The Manhattan-born Santiago's earliest memories include watching Johnny Carson's monologues, an entertainer he still admires for the seemingly effortless way "The Tonight Show" host delivered his lines.
But it never occurred to Santiago that stand-up comedy was a career option for him, too, until friends in the business encouraged him. After graduating from New York University's film school, Santiago took a job with a suburban newspaper while looking for a way to continue pursuing what he realized by then was his real passion.
"The next thing I know, I'm in Puerto Rico," says Santiago, who accepted an offer from The San Juan Star and spent the next five years as a reporter for the English- language daily. He originally had thought the island was close enough to the mainland that be could fly to Miami for weekend gigs.
But it wasn't, and he abandoned his plan. "I actually thought I could try not to do it," he said, "(but) every time I turned around people would say, `Oh, that's so funny!' and it would rip my heart out."
"It was through the deprivation that I realized it was a calling," Santiago said. And so he returned to the mainland and moved to San Francisco, where he began working the comedy clubs.
Until recently, Santiago got his laughs from observations he'd make about life in general. His bill on semantics:
"I have no problems. No one has problems anymore, everyone has issues.
"We’ve done away with problems overnight. What was wrong with problems? I miss problems. You could fix a problem. You can't fix an issue. You can compromise on an issue. Come to terms with an issue, cope with an issue, but you can't fix one. Not without risking, causing, a problem. And if there's one issue people with issues have an issue with, it's problems."
When Santiago first performed his ethnic material before an all-Latino audience 2½ years ago, however, the response was electric.
Santiago now mines his roots for material, poking good-natured fun at everything from Anglo-dominated salsa clubs ("Dancing with non-Latinos is like driving a car without power steering," he observes) to tiny chirping tree frogs, a beloved national symbol to Puerto Ricans but in Hawaii considered a noisy pest that must be eradicated.
The Taco Bell Chihuahua, West Side Story, and El Nino are additional fodder for jokes. So are Latin American politics and U.S. foreign policy, the Spanish-American War, Panama invasion and green card marriages.
It's non-derisive, equal-opportunity humor, says Santiago, who insists that audiences of all colors and cultures can appreciate it.
He takes time to provide the historical background listeners need to understand a joke.
"You can't just jump into it," Santiago said. "The average audience is not coming to hear that. They're coming ... to enjoy a beer and some laughs."
All the quips are original, adds Santiago, who spends hours collecting news clippings about Latin America and jotting down ideas as the synapses begin to crackle.
Now he's looking for a way to perform his south-of-the border material regularly, and hopes eventually to take the show on the road.
From there, it's on to off Broadway theater and HBO, says Santiago, who's determined to share his freewheeling associations and bull's-eye commentary on life's absurdities.
"It's just personality - it's how you see the world," Santiago said. "You take information the world is telling you, and I'm saying that's not it! You have to be lobotomized to accept the world as it's given to you. 'Why are you lying to me? This is the way it is!"'
And what way is that? Santiago bursts out laughing. "How do you set up existence in a sentence or two?"
SANTIAGO, ON ICE CREAM
Before Castro, only the rich got to eat ice cream in Cuba. Castro changed that. I picture him and Ché Guevara sweating it out in the jungles of the Sierra Maestra.
“Ché, I don't know what else I can do to motivate the people. Equality, literacy and progress don't seem to be enough. What else do they want?" "I don't know, Fidel, but I could sure go for some ice cream.”
Next speech, Castro's going, "All right, listen up - here's the deal. If you people get behind me on this, when I get in, ICE CREAM for everybody!" And now there are government owned ice cream parlors all over the island. Castro and Ché are the Ben & Jerry of Latin American communism. It's the first revolution to come in so many flavors: El Comandante Coconut Crunch; Chunky Monkey Ché; Sierra Maestra Strawberry; Guevara Guava; Moscow Mango Mania ....
(continue to next story) Laugh your way to the voting booth with Bill Santiago
by ANDREW GILBERT Special to The San Francisco Examiner, Originally published: November 4, 2002
On the eve of a gubernatorial election that leaves most voters, according to recent polls, gnashing their teeth and shedding tears of despair, it seems like an ideal time for the "No-Holds-Barred Election Day Political Comedy Blowout."
Some of the Bay Area's most incisive stand-up comics are gathering at Cobb's Comedy Club tonight to apply their powers of observation and wit to the deplorable state of the union. Indeed, with a malaprop-prone president maneuvering the country toward war, an ongoing parade of shameless corporate leaders facing indictment, and regular alerts from the government that al Qaeda is sure to strike soon, laughter may be all we have left to preserve our sanity.
"Contrary to what was often said after the 9/11 attacks, it was not the end of humor," says Bill Santiago, the comedian who organized the event. "The truth is that it has sparked the comedy scene in an amazing way, because people need to laugh more than ever, because of the tragedy, the continued threat, the economy, the scary exploitation of the situation by the administration."
Like George Carlin in his prime, Santiago is expert at homing in on the way language reveals society's bizarre fixations. An extended riff on President Bush's celebration of shopping after 9/11 ends with Santiago declaring, "You hear those cash registers? That's the sound of freedom ringing!"
For the "Election Day Political Comedy Blowout," Santiago has recruited a top-flight lineup of Bay Area comics, including Aundre "The Wonderwoman" Herron, Robert Duchaine, Joe Klocek, Johnny Steele, Brian Copland and Randy Harken, who credits his stint in the Marines with giving him life skills "like shining boots and scrubbing toilets."
"A lot of comics have been doing a lot of political stuff, and I notice who has the best material," Santiago says. "But there hasn't been a real showcase where people know that's what you're going to get. You'd think that would be a standard of the entertainment scene."
There was a time when the U.S. was awash in political humor. In the late '50s and early '60s, comics such as Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl and Dick Gregory were cutting- edge social commentators and masterly comedians. Carlin picked up the mantel later, but in the '70s something seemed to break. As Tom Lehrer famously quipped, political satire was impossible after Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize.
"It's one of the most difficult forms of comedy to do," says Tom Sawyer, who has run Cobb's for the past two decades. "Jay Leno does topical humor and thinks it's political. It's hard to break in that way. Younger audiences are usually bored out of their socks. You have a narrow market. It's generally for a more sophisticated audience, looking for mind candy. That's the audience we go after."
The tremendous success of lefty performance artist Reno during her two long runs at Brava Theater indicate that the Bay Area is fertile ground for political humor, so maybe Santiago is on to something. Long before he devoted himself to comedy, he was mastering the art of conveying anecdotes and closely following the news.
Born and raised in New York, Santiago grew up with a group of show-business- minded friends, one of whom used to write for "Politically Incorrect." He attended film school at New York University and dabbled in stand-up, but a job at the San Juan Star, an English-language daily, brought him to Puerto Rico. Unable to suppress his zingy one-liners, he made the move to stand-up after winning a prestigious national award for feature writing.
While Santiago is a captivating performer -- his handsome, boyish face registers lightning-quick emotional leaps -- he sees his writing as his key to success. As he's honed his comedic talent, Santiago has taken to dissecting classic routines by comics such as Carlin and Woody Allen, much the way jazz musicians transcribe solos by Charlie Parker and Lester Young.
"I identify with Carlin's fascination for language, the way he can take one idea and unravel it into a piece that's enduring," Santiago says. "Above everything else he's a brilliant writer. Seinfeld is the same thing, but he does it with a little bit more of a microscope and he takes out the edge. There's no politics. It's one of the reasons for his success."
Now Santiago is hoping that politics will be the key to his success. Judging from the appreciative responses of audiences in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and Palo Alto, he may be just what San Francisco needs to get through a time when it feels like there's not much to laugh about.
The No-Holds-Barred Election Day Political Comedy Blowout a political-humor showcase featuring Brian Copeland, Johnny Steele, Joe Klocek and Robert Duchaine, Bill Santiago and others. Comic takes Swipe at all the Latin Fuss
by ANDREW GILBERT Contra Costa Times, September 2001
When it came down to the critical moment, Bill Santiago decided to trade headlines for punch lines.
After establishing himself at Puerto Rico’s San Juan Star and contributing features to the Washington Post, Santiago gave up a burgeoning career as a free-lance journalist two years ago to pursue his passion for stand-up comedy. Looking for the best place to work his way up the stand-up ladder, he settled in San Francisco, a city with a long tradition of sharp, edgy comedians.
“What made it the perfect time was that it was absolutely the wrong time to do it, because my journalism career had never been better,” Santiago said during lunch at a waterfront restaurant on the Embarcadero.
“But I was having literal nightmares about not doing stand up. I liked writing. Even today I would be happy disappearing in South American and just writing. But this is a calling.”
After paying dues at countless open-mike nights at Cobb’s and the Punchline, Santiago, 29, has graduated to one-man shows, where his high-octane performances have gained him a dedicated coterie of supporters. Mixing the verbal dexterity of George Carlin, the amorous self-deprecation of Woody Allen and the physical presence of Michael Richard’s Kramer on “Seinfeld,” Santiago is both a keen observer of human relationships and a quick-eared dissector of 20th-century euphemism (“The stock market doesn’t crash anymore. Now we have corrections. I’d hate to be in a plane correction.”)
His latest show, “On the Verge of a Latin Meltdown,” which plays Sunday, as well as Sept. 19 and 26 at Venue 9 in San Francisco, takes a bemused and skeptical look at the vogue of all things Latino. (On Ricky Martin: “Who would have thought all you had to do to make Latin music so popular is just take out the Latin music?”) The show features a one-hour set of Santiago’s trenchant stand-up followed by Cuban percussionist Roberto Borrell’s Orquesta La Moderna Tradición playing classic Afro- Cuban dance music. In many ways, the show is a time trip back to the days when comedy and jazz easily shared space in nightclubs.
“I like bringing people back to the heyday of the hungry i,” Santiago said, referring to the old North Beach night spot. “Now you have a great music scene and a vibrant comedy scene and they’re separate and I love combining them. Roberto was one of the first people I met when I moved here. He’s such a genuine ambassador of Cuba. He’s into danzón and that’s it.”
Born and raised in New York by Puerto Rican parents, Santiago grew up with a group of show-business minded friends, one of whom now writes for “Politically Incorrect.” He attended film school at New York University, and dabbled in stand up, but a job at the San Juan Star, an English-language daily, brought him to Puerto Rico. Unable to suppress his zingy one-liners, he made the move to stand up after winning a prestigious national award for feature writing.
While Santiago is a captivating performer, he sees his writing as the key to success in comedy. As he’s honed his comedic talent, Santiago has taken to dissecting classic routines by comics like Carlin and Allen, much the way jazz musicians transcribe solos by Charlie Parker and Lester Young. “I identify with Carlin’s fascination for language, the way he can take one idea and unravel it into a piece that’s enduring,” Santiago said. “Above everything else, he’s a brilliant writer. Seinfeld is the same thing, but he does it with a little bit more of a microscope and takes out the edge. There’s no politics.”
“On the Verge of a Latin Meltdown” marks the first time Santiago has worked Latino themes into a significant part of his routine. Leery of being narrowcast, he centers much of his humor on the enduring comic territory of sex and relationships. Over the years, he generated a pile of material based on his experience growing up Nuyorican, and the confluence of the hit Cuban album “Buena Vista Social Club” and Rick Martin’s “Living La Vida Loca” convinced him it was a good time to make it public.
“When I see Ricky Martin and the reaction to him, the first Puerto Rican ever on the cover of Time Magazine, you’re talking about it with your friends, your family,” Santiago said. “And you suddenly see your culture go public. It’s always been an inside thing. Suddenly it’s as if he were a Latino Internet IPO that went through the roof.”
Santiago hasn’t completely given up journalism. He’s still writing for the Washington Post and pitching the New York Times, but he’s found the freedom to express himself in comedy.
“It’s the last maverick, renegade, cowboy thing you can do,” Santiago said. “You can’t go to the School of the Americas to learn how to be a comedy mercenary. There’s no degree in it. You cannot impart wit and you cannot teach somebody to be funny.” Comedian Bill Santiago Has the Last Laugh
Meet comedian Bill Santiago, the Spanglish explorer. by MACARENA HERNANDEZ November 17, 1999 - www.latinolink.com
Have you heard the one about the Puerto Rican comedian? Not many have.
With the exception of Freddie Prinze, star of the 70s sitcom, "Chico and the Man," stand-up comic Paul Rodriguez and John Leguizamo, successful Latino comedians are few. But Bill Santiago, who was raised in New York and now resides in San Francisco, knows that it's just a matter of time before it's his turn.
Two and a half years ago Santiago decided to pursue his passion for performance full force. He left a promising journalism career in Puerto Rico to move to San Francisco, a hub for aspiring comedians.
During a recent performance of his show, "On the Verge of a Latin Meltdown," a tightly-packed, predominantly Latino audience laughed heartily at his jokes, which take a skeptical look at the recent Latino cultural explosion.
My God, that was like a moon landing for us," said Santiago. "One small syncopated step for Puerto Rico, one giant leap for La Raza." He adds: "Now everybody wants to be Latino -- even Latinos."
(continues) Not that Santiago himself wants to be pigeonholed as a comedian who only does Latino-themed comedy. His recent show was his first focus ever on Latino themes.
On stage, Santiago glides in and out of topics dealing with everything from relationships to the Taco Bell Chihuahua. But regardless of the topic, he relies on his writing skills and powers of perception rather than cheap shots and shock-value to earn laughs.
Those who have been following his career, like Norita Gonzalez, agree. "It's so easy to rely on vulgarity as the basis of your joke, which is something that Bill doesn't do, and that in itself sets him apart," said Gonzalez, who produced and directed "Viernes Literarios," a showcase of Latino talent that featured Santiago.
In Santiago's latest show, his hour-long routine is followed by the performance of Roberto Borrell's Orquesta la Moderna Tradicion, an Afro-Cuban music group.
After the show, audience members are invited backstage to feast on family-style servings of tostones, pernil and arroz con pollo. And for anyone who fills out the little information cards he passes out at each show, Santiago will make sure they receive emails and postcards notifying them of every show and interview he is doing. They'll probably even receive a Christmas card. November 21, 1999
Before he began producing his own shows, Santiago went through the usual paying- of-the-dues-routine. While he was a college student at New York University, he performed at countless open mic nights. He spent numerous hours at all-night diners, pizza joints and coffee shops discussing comedy writing and onstage delivery tactics with fellow aspiring comedians like Jose Arroyo, now a writer for the Dennis Miller Show.
"I've seen his show, there has been a huge evolution," said Arroyo. "He always had twice as much energy as I did. His voice was always louder, more varied, more expressive -- a lot of pacing and stomping. He has figured something out that I never did about how to deal with audiences and how to just arrest their attention."
After college, Santiago got an offer to work for the San Juan Star in Puerto Rico, his parent's homeland. During the next five years, he went on to freelance for the Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer and the Miami Herald.
But while he toiled as a journalist, others reminded him of his true calling. "Even at the San Juan Star, the receptionist would say, `You should be on TV, you should be doing stand-up," said Santiago. "I would just smile because they didn't realize that's what I really wanted to do. It was like, 'What the hell are you doing here?"'
So he left the sun-drenched beaches for fogshrouded ones.
As an unknown in the City By the Bay, he performed at open mics up to five times a week. He began with 10-minute performances and worked his way up to one-hour shows. He also studies other comedians he admires: Bill Cosby's story-telling techniques, Woody Allen's attention to detail and George Carlin's masterful manipulation of language. He carries with him at all times notebooks filled with daily entries about conversations, anecdotes, news stories and other material he can massage into a routine.
Santiago's work has just begun. He has ambitious projects in mind and movie ideas he says he needs to discuss with director Gregory Nava (he claims he can make both of them LOTS of money. Mr. Nava, are you listening?).
"Latinos haven't broken in [to the business] the way African Americans have," said Arroyo. "I think Bill could be the one to break through. He is very Latino, but he is also very universal." Returning to the whole Latin craze, Santiago expressed his amazement at "the sudden change of attitude in this country toward Latinos. Ricky Martin gives that performance at the Grammys, steals the show. Next day, the President is releasing political prisoners. I don't think they realize exactly how much they owe their freedom to Ricky," he said. "But they should really sit down and write him a nice thank you note..."
(continue to next story) Interrogation: Bill Santiago - The L.A. Interrogator
San Francisco’s unofficial cutup laureate spills all he knows about spiritual bloodlust, what news anchors have in common with lap dances, and being the most impersonated person you may have never heard of.
After Bill Santiago gets off stage, up next is Bill Santiago. Actually, this time it’s the club MC, indulging in what has become a new staple of the San Francisco comedy scene, the Bill Santiago impression. Comics all over this city are paying similar tribute.
To be sure, his style lends itself to caricature. Start with the emphatic elasticity of his enunciation, to say nothing of his morphable mug. Of the phenomenon, Santiago says, “Hey, I just want to make it big enough to make anyone who does a really good impression of me really rich.”
Yet if, and some aficionados would say when, this wise-cracking, salsa-dancing, iconoclastic flirt of a standup ever ushers in a lucrative business for his impersonators, credit not only his style but the content of his act, the mind candy he distributes plentifully at every performance. Santiago’s writing is tight, lean and well served by his I-could-read-a-telephone- book-and-make-you-laugh delivery. He doesn’t do physical comedy, per se. But he possesses a magnetic physicality, cajoling us to laugh before he even opens his mouth.
His sets are seductively kinetic, bouncing between precision zingers, observational flybys, anecdotal asides and fully wrought bits involving near poetic twists of logic and language.
Logging over 300 shows nationwide last year, he gigged at top clubs, theaters, coffeehouses, country western bars, Mexican restaurants, hotels and the occasional Laundromat. Back at his studio, the evidence is in the décor.
Santiago makes a habit of scotch-taping Xeroxed copies of all his paychecks to the walls of his apartment in the city’s Tenderloin District. And in a gesture of positive visualization, he likes to add zeros in pencil after the actual amount on the checks to help summon bigger money days ahead, which may be right around the corner.
Not only does he make his national television debut in a few weeks with an appearance on Comedy Central’s Premium Blend. But just as notably, at a time when the arts-funding spigot has been choked to nary a drip, he has been awarded $20,000 in grants from the San Francisco Arts Commission, The National Performance Network and Theater Bay Area to produce a new solo show. The project will be directed by Amy Mueller (“Let My Enemy Live Long,” Berkeley Repertory Theater).
Given all the hubbub, we thought it would be a good time to catch up with the Santiago juggernaut. So Interrogator sent contributing editor Lindsey Morgan (who last interrogated Grammy-winner Gwen Steffani) up to San Francisco to talk with the infectiously animated funnyman and find out what it takes for Santiago to imitate Santiago. Here is her report:
“Bill wanted to know why he should submit to the interrogation at this stage of his career. And wouldn’t it be more fun to wait until he had peaked and faded into a trivial pursuit question or some game-show curiosity?
“I told him we wanted to profile him before he becomes a household name. ‘Like Tilex?’ he asked, over our second round of get-acquainted martinis at Mementos, a shamelessly gentrified kitsch bar a few blocks up from his studio. He had come straight from a swim at the YMCA and his dark curly hair, scented with chlorine, was streaked with highlights from the overly treated pool water. He hadn’t shaved. “He lives in a cramped ‘no-bedroom’ loaded with books. Jeanette Winterson, Somerset Maugham, PJ O’Rourke, Chomksy, Ayn Rand, David Sedaris, Bukowski, Arundhati Roy and Tom Wolfe, are among his favorite writers. But the library also includes Tom Clancy. There are piles of audio and video recordings of his performances, waiting to be catalogued and scrutinized. In the tiny kitchen, a filing cabinet, stuffed with newspaper clippings and scribbled ideas for his material, stands three times as tall as his knee-high refrigerator.
“We managed to get most of the interviewing done during a marathon weekend, taking time out to eat homemade arroz con gandules (his abuelita’s recipe) and to see the movie ‘Adaptation’ (he liked it till the alligator thing at the end). But we didn’t finish until a month later, when he was in LA showcasing at the Improv.
“He answered all my questions with that same confident vulnerability that makes him so disarming on stage. The guy is articulate, mercurial, opinionated, obsessive, candid yet at times curiously evasive.
“As I jotted these observations down in my reporter’s notebook, he hovered over me, saying, ‘Put that I’m height and weight proportionate and that I’m self-assured without being arrogant, and have a job, and I’m creative but stable, own a car and a yoga mat, don’t mind a woman with kids, like cats and am 420-friendly. That I’m cynical but without being hardened or bitter. That I’m spiritual but not dogmatic. Little rough around the edges but clean up well. Your pic gets mine.’” INT. Let’s start with the obvious. What’s your reaction to the sudden proliferation of Bill Santiago impressions by other comics? How does it feel to have everyone doing you, your mannerisms, your voice, your persona?
SANTIAGO: I remember when I was the only one doing Bill Santiago. It wasn’t so cool then. Kind of puts me at a disadvantage now because it’s the only impression I do and there’s lots of competition.
INT: You’re about to make your first Premium Blend appearance coming up on Comedy Central. How big an opportunity is that for you?
SANTIAGO: It could be very lucrative if I remember to mention Big Daddy’s Limousine Service.
INT: To what do you attribute your comedic tendencies? Is humor hereditary?
SANTIAGO: Um, not in my case. My parents are hilarious but not particularly on purpose.
INT: Where does your ability to make people laugh come from then?
SANTIAGO: Learning Annex. Six weeks. Forty bucks.
INT: Did you used to make your friends laugh before you decided to do it on stage?
SANTIAGO: Yes, but thinking that you can do standup because you make your friends laugh is a little like thinking you can swim the English Channel because you don’t drown in the bath tub. One is not a reliable indicator of success in the other.
INT: OK, but why did you decide to do it professionally?
SANTIAGO: Because I’m uncomfortable talking in front of groups of people unless they’re staring at me in a semicircle.
INT: So you moved to San Francisco five years ago to launch your standup career.
SANTIAGO: Yes, that, and because I love the smell of a burning clutch. INT: But what made San Francisco a good place for honing your comedy chops?
SANTIAGO. You don’t have to keep it simple for San Francisco. You don’t have to dumb it down. You don’t have to be vulgar to win over an audience here. Also, it’s like an oasis where the thinking goes against the grain and that makes, I think, for the best comedy. After 911 there was a huge banner up over the City Lights Book Store, that said, “Dissent is Not Un-American,” underscoring for me the sense that this city is kind of immunized against the contagion of lockstep mentality that so much of the country seems to be afflicted by.
In other words, any city that offers its employees free sex change operations has got to be a great place to develop as a comedian.
INT: How much of what you do depends on the audience?
SANTIAGO: Slightly more than what a bullfighter does depends on the bull. At least the bull is always paying attention. I mean there are nights when the audience is so with you, that you can’t do wrong and you’re floating on this very ephemeral but tangible bubble of total joy, love and acceptance called everybody’s having a good time. And then sometimes, it’s out of sync for some reason and neither you nor the crowd is enjoying it and it just sort of ends with a simultaneous anti-climax. And you go home thinking, I can’t believe how much fun that wasn’t.
INT: When it doesn’t click, when it sucks, do you beat yourself up over it or do you chalk it up to a lame crowd?
INT: You have to assume responsibility. You were the entertainer on the watch at the time of the disaster and must be accountable. But audiences do fluctuate in quality.
INT: How do audiences differ town to town, gig to gig?
SANTIAGO: Well, as a rule of thumb, if you’re playing in a town where your cell phone isn’t getting a signal, the crowd isn’t going to be getting the jokes.
INT: How bad do crowds get?
SANTIAGO: Retarded is probably too strong a word. But some crowds are excruciatingly slow witted, don’t get sarcasm, irony, anything requiring even a residual education. You can tell they don’t read. It’s like they’ve somehow avoided any brain stimulation their entire lives and suddenly decide to show up at a comedy show as a group, all handicapped by the same smooth atrophied gray matter sloshing around inside their skulls.
INT: What’s been the worst crowd?
SANTIAGO: Modesto, California. Last week. It’s the kind of town that makes you appreciate people who are only half-stupid. On the menu at the sports-bar restaurant where the gig was, I swear, they had a “Heckler’s Burger.” They had a burger named after a comic’s natural enemy. Which kind of lets you know right away whose side the management is on.
INT: How do you handle hecklers?
SANTIAGO: I’ve tried every possible way and have found that crying almost never works.
INT. Is there anything in particular that makes some audiences better than others?
SANTIAGO: Estrogen. I do better when there are women in the audience.
INT: Because you’re in touch with your female side?
SANTIAGO: Because I’d rather be touching a female.
INT: There is a sexual energy about you on stage. Is that something you put out there deliberately?
SANTIAGO: No more than Cristina Aguilera. But, it’s true that a good standup performance is comparable to sex. I mean you are connecting with people in a very intimate way, and there’s a power thing, a seduction involved.
INT: Which is better, sex or being on stage making people laugh?
SANTIAGO: Well, if you could get applause after sex that makes people laugh, then maybe sex would be better. But that’s only happened to me once. Twice.
INT: Why do you think audiences respond to you? SANTIAGO: I’d like to think it’s the writing, the thinking.
INT: It’s bright stuff.
SANTIAGO: It’s funny, though, you spend all this time writing, I mean writing and re- writing and polishing and obsessing about the phrasing and wording and cadence and the consistency of logic. Then after the show everyone goes, “Hey, great facial expressions.”
INT: They don’t mention the writing?
SANTIAGO: Mostly, they say I give good face. INT: What’s more important to you, as a comedian, the jokes or the persona you have on stage?
SANTIAGO: The personality is innate and the jokes amplify that. I pay attention to the writing and let everything else fall into place.
INT: Where’s your favorite place to write?
SANTIAGO: I can’t write at home. I need to be in a café, around people. I need to be distracted so I can stay focused.
INT: What distracts you the most?
SANTIAGO: Focusing is very distracting to me. That’s what got me through college.
INT: Where did you go?
SANTIAGO: NYU. INT: What did you study?
SANTIAGO: Film and procrastination. In fact I keep doing standup now just to avoid actually having to make a movie.
INT: Before standup, you worked as a journalist. Why did you give that up?
SANTIAGO: Because I was much more interested in holding a live audience hostage and subjecting them to my personal take on reality.
INT: What’s the difference between journalism and standup?
SANTIAGO: In journalism there is the pretense of objectivity and accuracy, and in standup there’s the pretense of actually reading the newspaper.
INT: Any thoughts on the recent scandal about the reporter who was totally making stories up for years at the venerable New York Times?
SANTIAGO: I could never take The New York Times as seriously as it takes itself. And now, nobody can. The only hope they have of restoring their credibility is running a permanent correction on the front page: “All the news that’s fit to print -- in the National Enquirer.” It kills me though. I leave journalism for standup, and now journalism is a joke.
INT: You wrote for newspapers including the New York Times, The Washington Post and The Miami Herald. You also worked in Puerto Rico at the San Juan Star. But where did you start as a reporter?
SANTIAGO: Small town paper called the Rockland Journal News.
INT: How small town?
SANTIAGO: If the word raccoon appears in the headline more than 17 times a year, you’re probably not talking about a major metropolitan daily. I was actually offered the raccoon beat, but I couldn’t see myself staked out in a garbage can all night waiting to be tipped over for the big scoop.
INT: What other jobs have you had? SANTIAGO: I’ve worked as a waiter, of course, a telemarketer, a tropical rain forest tour guide, a biotech consultant, a dog walker, a cat-sitter, a burger flipper, a burger flopper, movie usher, receptionist, a personal trainer, strip-club MC, tons of jobs.
INT: What strip club?
SANTIAGO: A place called St. Tropez, in Puerto Rico. I’d introduce the girls in Spanish. “Aplauso fuerte para nuestra proxima belleza, que la pobrecita se acaba de divorciar y se siente muy sola…” It taught me how to be perfectly at ease around lots of naked women.
INT: Is that a very marketable skill?
SANTIAGO: No, but I put it on my resume anyway.
INT: Not a lot of comedians can say they used to work in a strip club and a newsroom.
SANTIAGO: I’d work in the strip club at night and then go to my job back in the newsroom in the morning. And it was always a little jarring to suddenly see everybody walking around in their clothes and I always found it amusing that both occupations, stripper and journalist, are brought to you by the first amendment.
INT: Never thought of it that way.
SANTIAGO: For the right price, you could get Tom Brokaw all to yourself in the champagne room.
INT: The first amendment also gives you the right as a comedian to say whatever you want. But what about saying something too controversial and suffering the consequences, like the Dixie Chicks?
SANTIAGO: Well, actually, I wrote that line for them. So, rightfully, I should have been the one banned from country radio.
INT: But do you think entertainers should take that kind of thing as a warning? SANTIAGO: I’ll admit, just to be safe, I’ve stopped calling Bush an idiot and now refer to him as the patron saint of functional idiots.
INT: You’re censoring yourself.
SANTIAGO: Well, it’s not just me. Madonna pulled her own video off the air because she was afraid it would be interpreted as anti-war. Madonna, the whore of pop, afraid of offending that vast Christian, right-wing, conservative fan base she’s spent decades cultivating with that wholesome family-values music of hers.
INT: Is the climate of backlash against dissenting views the reason you said recently that you felt the country isn’t a true democracy?
SANTIAGO: Correction. What I said was that, as a democracy, The United States hasn’t lived up to its promise yet. But, as a hypocrisy, this country exceeds all expectations every day. We truly are the world’s greatest hypocrisy ever.
INT. Are you a hypocrite?
SANTIAGO: As a good American, yes, of course.
INT: What about?
SANTIAGO: I’ll give you one example. I think we waste billions of dollars on defense that would be much better spent on education. But I love fighter planes, which cost 50 million a pop. I love watching them so much that when I see one, for that split- second, I don’t care if another little kid ever learns to read again.
INT: Didn’t you once fly in an F-16?
SANTIAGO: Yep, for a story I was writing. Oh my God, I couldn’t believe I actually got to do that. Afterwards, I was jealous of myself.
INT: Did you throw up?
SANTIAGO: A little, but it was worth it. I flew with the Puerto Rico Air National Guard squadron leader, for over an hour over the island, did mid-air refueling, dropped ordinance over the bombing range, broke the sound barrier and he let me actually fly the plane for little bit. Gave me control of the stick!
INT: You?
SANTIAGO: Why not? I pitched in for gas.
INT: You’re Puerto Rican, right?
SANTIAGO: Yes.
INT: Born in Puerto Rico?
SANTIAGO: No, I was born in New York, like most Puerto Ricans.
INT: What was it like growing up?
SANTIAGO: Loud. My mother only had one decibel setting. Like a car horn.
INT: You mention in your act that your mom and dad had a rocky marriage?
SANTIAGO: I was deeply traumatized by my parents divorce. Because they never got one.
INT. They stuck it out?
SANTIAGO: God knows why, or how. But they eventually called a truce and my mother actually tells me all the time now, “Marriage is a beautiful thing, Billy. If you can get through the first 30 years, the rest is easy.”
INT: Did you grow up in a Puerto Rican neighborhood?
SANTIAGO: We were always the only Puerto Rican family in the neighborhood, wherever we lived. And we were not raised as Orthodox Welfare Ricans, either. We were more upper class Ricans. We ate welfare cheese. But on Ritz Crackers. INT: Why so privileged?
SANTIAGO: Because my father was a lawyer. He worked in the Bronx in the Puerto Rican community and a lot of times his clients would pay him for his services with blocks of welfare cheese. Five blocks for a divorce, seven for a real estate deal, three for an eviction case, etc. It was an accepted medium of exchange, sort of like a Puerto Rican wampum.
INT: Did you have a religious upbringing?
SANTIAGO: We didn’t go to church. My parents felt that by subjecting us to their marriage, we’d see what hell was like and figure out the rest.
INT: At a recent show, you opened with a line about God and Velcro and something about how if we had invented Velcro before God, we’d all feel a lot less guilty about crucifixion.
SANTIAGO: Well, you totally mangled that joke. But I understand that as a journalist, it’s your job to misquote me.
INT: Sorry. I just remember really loving that bit. SANTIAGO: Me too. It’s not a blockbuster joke. It’s more of a word of mouth joke, that’ll slowly find its own audience over time. Eventually it may even build a cult following. It has all the makings of a cult joke.
INT: A cult joke about how hard it is to get rid of religion.
SANTIAGO: Proving my point.
INT: What’s your problem with religion?
SANT: All the harm that comes from twisted, unquestioning faith. Look at all the killing that’s been done and all the war waged in the name of God. I mean I would think that any truly benevolent god wouldn’t want to be associated with any of it. I’d think he would denounce any connection whatsoever with all that carnage. You know, the inquisition, the crusades, the conquests of the new world, the holocaust, the lynch mobs in the south, burning witches in Salem, the current holy war, all conducted in the name of God. On the other hand, there’s been a lot of genocide committed by communist atheists, too, who totally reject God. But I don’t recall very much killing done by people who are sort of ambiguously fence sitting on the question of whether or not there is a higher all-knowing omnipotent being. Agnostics are the people with the best human rights record.
INT: Do you believe in God?
SANTIAGO: I do. But I wouldn’t be surprised if God were an agnostic. It would just be more in line with his values.
INT: Does your material always have to have a point?
SANTIAGO: I have no problem with a dick joke as long as it subverts, challenges and illuminates.
INT: You get compared to Carlin a lot, especially because of your use of language.
SANTIAGO: You mean because we both speak English?
INT: Because you both have a way of mining humor from the language itself. SANTIAGO: Well, I believe that language is the infrastructure of identity. We are what we speak. And because any variation from our own usage sounds funny to our ears, it makes for very rewarding comedic exploration.
INT: Hence the title of your next one-man show: “Spanglish 101: A Total Immersion Comedic Excursion Into Latino USA.”
SANTIAGO: It’s going to be a great HBO special.
INT: How far off is HBO for you?
SANTIAGO: It’s on my to-do list.
INT: And you’re working with a director for the first time. Amy Mueller. How’s that work, for a standup?
SANTIAGO: I get together with Amy and I riff on ideas I’ve been working out for the show. She’s really good at making thematic connections and guiding me with questions into the heart of what I want to get at with the material. I tape all the sessions. Transcribe the tapes. Edit. Add. Re-write. Try the stuff out on stage in clubs, workshop it front of small groups in theaters, then recycle whatever seems to be working in more sessions with her, take it back on stage and it evolves. It’s very nurturing on her part, very needy on my part. Like all my relationships.
INT: What’s the difference between your regular standup club act, and a one-man show?
SANTIAGO: In a one-man show there’s a theme, all the jokes and all the laughs are built around that theme. In a standup comedy club, there’s no need for a theme because of the two-drink minimum. The theme is selling alcohol.
INT: Do you feel that you have to be funny all the time?
SANTIAGO: No. Off stage, socially, I’m perfectly happy to keep quiet and let other people entertain me.
I’m a big laugher. In fact that’s how I really got started in the business. INT: How?
SANTIAGO: I won this laugh contest they were having on the radio in New York City. I called, laughed on cue, won best laugher and they played my recorded laugh all day long on a loop, over and over. Friends were coming up to me, “Hey, Bill, did I just hear you laughing on the radio?” And what I won was tickets to see my first real standup show, at Caroline’s Comedy Club. One of the comics on the bill that night was Seinfeld, before he was famous.
INT: Do you want to be famous?
SANTIAGO: As long as it’s not posthumous. Whatever fame I’ve got coming to me, please make it pre-humous. That’s all I ask.
INT: What’s your definition of success?
SANTIAGO: Artistically, I want to achieve the comedic equivalent of Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme.” Materialistically, all I want is a small subsistence plot of land where I can grow some legumes.
INT: Any political aspirations?
SANTIAGO: Other than carrying on inappropriately with an intern, no.
INT: The Premium Blend show will be taped in New York, your hometown. Does that add to the excitement?
SANTIAGO: I’m psyched that my parents will be there, because they’ve never watched me perform. And it’ll be good for them to finally see why law school’s not going to happen.
INT: How do you psyche yourself up to make people laugh night after night?
SANTIAGO: Before going out on stage, I close my eyes and remember the joke must be laughed at before it is told.
INT: Do you have an all time favorite joke? SANTIAGO: Yes, and I wish it were mine.
INT: What’s it like to try a new joke, a new bit of yours, on stage for the very first time?
SANTIAGO: The best. You get the absolute greatest thrill from the new material the first time you do it, if it works. Because it’s a surprise for you as well as the audience and that’s a very special kind of one-time-only electricity. You don’t know where the laughs are going to come. You don’t know where the beats are yet, where to wait for laughter, so you are not manipulating the audience into a preconceived response pattern. You are not going, oh, the audience last night laughed harder there, or not as much at that. It’s more genuine and taking the risk rejuvenates your entire act. Keeps it alive. And as often as possible I will open with an entirely new line.
INT. Jerry Seinfeld, in his movie “Comedian,” said that a comic shouldn’t ever open with a brand new bit.
SANTIAGO: He’ll never get anywhere with that kind of attitude.
INT: What’s the biggest laugh you ever got?
SANTIAGO: Asking to be paid what I thought I was worth.
-End-