Recap Troy Baxley

“Highlands Ranch is where married people go to die,” Troy Baxley said from the stage of Comedy Works’ downtown location on Sunday, December 28, immediately after asking if any audience members hailed from the notorious southern suburbs. Clearly fearing public ridicule, none of the spectators—who scarcely filled a third of the room—admitted to living anywhere near the Ranch. In fact, on this sleepy post-Christmas Sunday night, the crowd’s reaction was scantly louder than a murmur.

Local comic Hippieman, the MC of the evening, had been hardly able to wring a laugh of out the patrons before Baxley took the stage. When a few intermittent giggles surfaced here and there, the aptly hirsute Hippieman quipped, “Alright, I’m kicking ass one table at a time.” At one point during his routine, he admitted to being thoroughly befuddled at the absence of laughter: “I can’t tell what you people like to laugh at, but I’m guessing you like dick jokes.”

Next at bat was Nashville’s Matt Conty, who was similarly baffled at the silence. “What were you guys thinking when you said, ‘Hey, let’s go to a comedy show?’” He then answered his own question from the audience’s point of view: “We’re going to sit in a room and be a prick to the guy on stage.” For whatever reason, this sentiment didn’t exactly win anyone over, forcing Conty to apologize before going on with his set. He proceeded to blast through one gut-buster after another to nothing more than polite applause.

When another local opener, Ben Roy, hit the stage, the clubgoers were wholly unprepared. To be fair, there’s not much anyone can do to prep an audience for Roy’s unrelenting energy and incessant swearing—he’s like a skinny, punk-rock Sam Kinison. But the comic achieved some modest success by taking brief interludes from his maniacal performance to politely chat with the crowd. By the time he screamed his final joke, people were loose and ready for a healthy dose of that comedy they paid for.

“’Sup, white people,” was the first line out of Baxley’s mouth, even though the comedian is quite white himself. But at Baxley’s request, Hippieman introduced the headliner with a few phony accolades: “This next comic appeared live at the Apollo and was named entertainer of the year by BET.” It was a funny way to start the show, but people seemed more confused than anything.

Baxley is a contributing writer to Modern Drunkard Magazine, which makes perfect sense considering his liquor-soaked standup routine. The man obviously likes the sauce. Throughout his Comedy Works set, he kept asking the audience to excuse him so that he could take the opportunity to drink—or as put it, “to lube my flavor hole.” He scoffed at friends who give him a hard time about drinking in the morning: “You’re drinking at 11 a.m.,” he said, taking the point of view of a concerned loved one. “What’s the story?” To which he self-replied, “I got up late.” Baxley also doesn’t have much patience for people who speak to him like they would a dog because he drank too much. “You’re laying there, trying to party and they say, ‘Hey big guy. You wanna go outside?’” In fact, the very existence of non-drinkers flummoxed the comic. “Some people don’t drink at all,” he said in amazement. “Ever been to Utah? That state will make you rethink being white.”

But Baxley is far from a one-trick comedian. Joking about everything from dolphin’s teeth in chimichangas to why he’ll never support family-owned businesses, the comic adorns every nuance of his sometimes weird, sometimes edgy routine with an equally ridiculous facial expression. And along with his impeccable comedic timing and sing-song punch lines, Baxley was finally able to salvage a dull Sunday evening.