Enough of the grind, Hawkins goes off the grid
When Robert Hawkins left Los Angeles to settle in Texas, it was both a symbolic and practical move. Hawkins was done with the get-ahead grind of Hollywood after a run on the TV sitcom “Titus” as an actor and writer. He wanted to concentrate on the standup work that took him to L.A. in the first place.
A decade later, Hawkins looks back and is pleased. The comedian talked about that choice and about his current act, as he heads to Go Bananas, one of his regular stops on the live circuit.
Hawkins doesn’t think he was as marketable a television or film commodity as others thought. “I don’t really fit into anything. I’m too ugly to be good looking. Too good looking to be ugly. Too short to be tall. Too tall to be short. Too dirty to be clean. Too clean to be dirty.”
So why did other people think he was marketable? “They saw people laughing. I never really gave it a square chance as far as putting my face out there, but that’s partly because I was exhausted from the road. And also, I really couldn’t give a (care).”
After cutting back to a standup-only career, Hawkins is now touring less than ever, he says – something he can pull off, because he keeps overhead is low. He no longer flies to tour dates. “I flew for decades. Million-miler. I’ve seen 30,000 feet, and I’m talking about real feet, like on the plane, people with their shoes off, filing their nails and whatnot. I got tired of explaining why I don’t want to fly, so now I just say climate change. Put that down. You fly, and you don’t care as much about climate change as I do, my friend.”
Contentment has taken the place of ambition, it seems. “I don’t feel like I’m trying to ladder-climb. I don’t feel like, ‘Well, if only I could be in a commercial or a movie, or only if I could be a writer on this or that or the other thing.’ That would be for the money. Not that it’s not fun or not that it’s not rewarding, but why do I need to join a team or work for a corporation?”
What topics will he be discussing this weekend? My act is so body-function-heavy that I write my set list on an anatomical chart.
Hawkins has come to realize that standup is all he wants to do. “To be a standup you need the skills that you could apply to other areas of the entertainment business. But I would only be doing that for the money. I don’t feel like I have some big, giant life-changing lesson I need to teach everybody, or one big story that needs to be out there. As soon as people get big and famous, they go right back to doing standup, because it’s so (much) fun. I just like to mine my experiences and try to put them into funny stories for an hour…
“Although I don’t plan to do a minute over 50.”
If you go
What: Robert Hawkins with Cam O’Connor and Wille Bostic
When: 8 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 8; 8 and 10:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 9; 8 and 10:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 10; 8 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 11
Where: Go Bananas Comedy Club, 8410 Market Place Lane, Montgomery; 513-984-9288
Tickets: $8 Thursday and Sunday; $14 Friday and Saturday