What do you do after you achieve legendary status? Find a warm climate with a decent surf-and-turf special and wait to die on a bamboo lawn chair? Not if you’re Ron Shock. Known as a master storyteller, Ron has more presence in a look than many have in their whole acts. Like a grandfather he guides the audience with anecdotes as if it were a large family at Thanksgiving dinner. You feel safe, like you’re in good caring hands, until a drunken cousin points out your grandfather is also a convicted felon. That’s right, comedian Shock has done hard time as a jewel thief.
He’s run the gamut, from working a Louisiana chain gang to being the vice president of a Fortune 500 company. Though at 40 he gave it all up for a career in standup comedy, joining the original “Outlaws of Comedy” — a group of comedians that included the likes of Sam Kinison and Bill Hicks. Listening to stories of their adventures is like Huckleberry Finn — if Jim and Huck engaged in drug-fueled standoffs with Louisiana biker gangs when their only weapons were a microphones, dick jokes, and the shattered remnants of a car window.
Shock is appearing at Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club (618 N.W. Loop 410, Suite 312) through Sunday, September 11.
