Warren Thomas was not a famous stand up comic but he was recognized by other comedians as one of the best around. His “wake” at San Francisco's Punchline was attended by heavyweights Robin Williams and Ric Overton, two comics similiar in both style and temperment to Warren. Warren Thomas was an incredibly handsome black man from one of the more famous projects in San Francsico who stayed in his room reading rather than run with the neighberhood gangs. He went to college on a football scholarship and then started stand up in San Francisco during its hey day, the mid ‘80s. He rose quickly and was admired to the point of worship by many of us for his edge, his charisma, his willingness to suck in order to be great. He was also admired for his free and easy lifestyle.
I found out a month after the fact that he had passed. As with most stand ups, Warren had a large number of shallow friendships and only a few that were long standing and deep. Most of those were from outside the business. People move around, get into varying degrees of the business. Get busy writing for this show or that or develop odd feuds based on petty jealousies or very real slights. When I found out that Warren had died I was filled with both sadness and anger. It was not unexpected, he had been sick for a number of years but it was still jolting. I was sad because he was gone and also because he had come so close to “making it” but had never gotten quite over the hump. That is what also angered me. While insignificant talents rose to promimence, Warren was always just on the other side of the line. The blame rests squarely with Warren and his choices although he may have never wanted for himeself what others did.
He had an HBO Young Comics Special and outshone the other guys on that show who went on to SNL, sitcoms and movies. He got a CBS development deal although Im not sure anything ever came of it. I asked him once if going to big meetings with big people was nerve wracking and he said, “Fuck ‘em, if I don’t like what they offer me I’ll just go get a job painting a house.” this was around the time of the CBS deal and he had some dough. That was a while ago. Pat Sajak had a famous failure of a talk show and CBS put some hosts in to see if any of them stuck. Warren had a week hosting the show and one of his guests was Wink Martindale, the game show host. Wink was there plugging a new show and no idea who he was dealing with. After normal bullshit about the show and making fun of Wink’s name, Warren asked him if there were any Game Show groupies. Wink was so shocked that he accidentally answered honestly and said yes. Warren said, “So there were a lot of bee hive hair dos hitting the headboard at Wink’s pad.” Martindale desolved into spasms of laughter. Later that month we were hanging out, riffing and he kept offering to buy me lunch, I kept refusing and he said, “Hey, take advantage of your Hollywood friends while you can. Tomorrow it will be you buying me lunch.”
He was probably a bit too coarse for mainstream prominence, not just dirty but coarse. He introduced me once with, “This next guy was partying with Joan Rivers and she said ‘can we talk?’ and he said ‘not with this thing in your mouth’”. He could also go overboard destroying hecklers if he was in a bad mood. But even on those occasions, just his sheer stage prescence and obvious intelligence let everyone know that he was an absolute star.
He paid me a weird compliment once by saying that if I laughed at something he said off stage that he wouldn’t use it because, “normal people wouldn’t get it.” Also, considering the fact that he tried to sleep with every hot woman that remained ambulatory, he never hit on my wife while almost every other comic did. Years before I was married or he had a development deal, I was at a party that was right around the corner from the Holy City Zoo and the hostess of the party thought it needed more flavor so I went to the Zoo and just told the comics there was a party a block away. Warren was one of the many who came to this woman’s apartment having no idea who she was. I was hitting on a girl there and got up to get us a beer and Alex Reid (a comic who now produces Malcolm in the Middle) asked me if I wasn’t moving a little fast on the woman. Looking over my shoulder he said, “Uh oh” I turn around to see Warren circle in for the kill and Alex says, “Well maybe not fast enough.” They went off together for like two days.
Warren was also known to crack the occasional redneck who showed just a tad too much racial insensitivity.
Here is a bit of his that may translate to print. He did a riff on Black History Month: “In this Black history minute we learn about Raymond Johnson the first black man to fly first class, “May I have some mo’ peanuts please?” This black history minute was brought to you by Chevron, throwing a bone to the community so they won’t burn our shit when its humid”
It was that kind of mixture of the profane and important that made him unique. Perhaps too unique. No two shows he ever did was the same and he didn’t always nail it. Thats the choice you make when your act changes every night.
When it was obviously near the end he did a show based on the meaning of death. His closing line was “Time doesn’t exist so eternity in hell would be really short. It would be like burning your finger on a cigarette so do whatever the fuck you want.”
http://www.freespeechshow.com/PermaLink,guid,603b8e5b-6285-49e2-ba71-124bdb64d22b.aspxHere is an obit from another friend:
http://www.kilmartin.com/current.htmlI wanted this to be funnier and better but this really chokes me up. I wish you guys could have seen him at his peak because he rocked the fucking house.
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