Jason Beaver
For a standup comedian who boasts 28 years in the industry, seven standup specials and four albums, Jim Norton is oddly unconfident. “I’ve been there once before and it was a surprisingly good gig,” he says of the Pabst Theater, where his Kneeling Room Only tour will make a stop on Friday, May 11. “It’s always weird when you go into a place that you’ve never been to. I expect eight people to show up. But it wound up being pretty crowded.”
When asked why a veteran standup comedian with half a million Twitter followers would expect only eight people to attend one of his shows, his answer was blunt. “I have no self-esteem.”
Self-deprecation is a common theme in Norton’s comedy. He jokes about why he, even as a proponent of the second amendment, feels he shouldn’t be allowed to own a gun, along with his misadventures in the dating world. He says he became drawn to this type of comedy because of the sense of honesty it gave him, and the fact that it was what his comedian friends reacted to when he first started. “When I would do honest or self-deprecating stuff the other comedians would respond to it so it became comfortable,” he says. “Plus it’s mine. It’s my own life so if I can do that, and know where it came from, it feels good.”
On his current tour, Kneeling Room Only, Norton will delve into familiar territory such as his “disastrous sexual history,” everyman issues like problems with airlines, and more topical subjects such as the Me Too movement and, of course, the president. “It’s totally different than [his 2017 special] Mouthful of Shame,” he says. “It is everything that has updated in my life. I’m covering everything that’s happened in the last year.”
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With audience tastes growing increasingly towards political correctness, someone like Norton, who is known for his brash, unapologetic comedy, can become a frequent target of backlash. Norton says he has received some negative comments on social media over the years, but has never experienced anything like that at any of his shows. And while he says that he has made “maybe just little minor adjustments” to his act because of it, his guiding principle boils down to one question, “Can I justify this if I have to?”
Jim Norton will perform at the Pabst Theater on Friday, May 11. You can purchase tickets here.
