Nice by day,
naughty at night

Pete Lee is an inoffensive Downtown ad man -
until he channels his inner 6-year-old on the comedy stage

By Ellen Nigon

By day, Pete Lee is an anal retentive advertising executive working on sexy advertising accounts like agriculture.com. By night, Lee is wild and hilarious as a standup comic at Acme Comedy Co.

When Lee's clients see him at his Martin/Williams offices in Dain Rauscher Plaza, 60 S. 6th St., they probably see a nice young man working diligently to negotiate rates for their Internet advertisements. Or they see the interactive media planner who creates their client reports.

"At work, I'm me, but I'm me in a library," Lee said. "I'm really proper. I don't want to say anything to offend people. I'm not funny in person, but you should definitely see my live show."

On stage Lee is self-deprecating, physically expressive and just a bit racy.

For example, Lee begins one joke with the set up: "I love to drive with no pants on."

Punchline: "I love it because I never know if people are staring at me because they know...or if it's because I drive a moped."

Lee said, "On stage, it's me as a 6-year-old before you knew better than to say things. Before you knew better not to have energy every single second of the day. Before somebody told you not to get really excited about things.

A twisted life

He draws many of his jokes from his own life, but it's his life with a twist. He weaves tales about the lurid things his co-workers do and paints a picture of his girlfriend as a materialistic Barbie doll.

In his real life, his co-workers hopefully are not as awful as Lee depicts. And his girlfriend jokes are really compilations of his worst girlfriends. He describes his current girlfriend, Bree, as "the sweetest person that I've ever met and even more of a sweetheart for dealing with me."

Although seemingly one person by day and another by night, Lee said that he doesn't really feel like he has separate personalities-just different situations.

"If you're at a formal dinner party, you're different than if you're at a party with your college friends. It is just you in different situations. I think that my stage character is like that. It's just me in that situation," Lee said.

While in college at the University of Minnesota, Lee was a constant comedian. "I was always cracking jokes. Every lunch was a show, and if I didn't have the whole table laughing, I felt like a failure," Lee said.

Tired of being the comic's guinea pigs, Lee's friends decided he needed a real audience. So in 1998 they took him to an open mic night at Acme Comedy Co., 708 N. 1st St., and made him perform.

"The only pocket of people not laughing were my friends because they were so nervous for me," Lee remembered.

Twice after the initial first performance, Lee got up for open mic night again, and in his own words, "sucked."

"Then, I just wrote and wrote and got funny again," Lee said. "One year later I got to emcee at Acme."

Now Lee emcees about once every two months at Acme and Knuckleheads in the Mall of America. "I try to do it as much as possible," Lee said. "It is just a cool feeling to take a completely cold crowd who doesn't know if they are going to like the show or not, and then make them die with laughter. There are selfish reasons too. I crave as much stage time as possible."

After two years of emceeing, Lee became a feature act in March of 2001 and continues to get those slots at Acme and Knuckleheads.

And Lee's chances of making comedy a fulltime career are pretty good, according to Acme general manager Louis Lee.

"Personally I think he's almost ready to do comedy full time. With his talent, I think he's not far from it," Louis Lee said. "Other clubs have really been asking about him."

Louis said that the change he's seen in Lee's comedy in the time he's been at Acme is tremendous. Said Louis, "Out of a seven-show week, when he first started, he might have three out of seven good shows. Right now, he's going seven for seven."

Bait and switch

When Lee isn't being a businessperson or performing comedy, he can be found writing-a big part of a comic's job. Lee's journalism/advertising degree probably helps with the writing aspect of comedy. (He also tried to major in psychology, biology, sports medicine and kinesiology during his five years at the University of Minnesota).

While writing, Lee goes to a "play land" in his brain. He writes comedy by making connections between two ideas that don't seem compatible. "The structure of a joke is all about change. It's always somewhat of a bait and switch," Lee said.

For example, "The other day my dad took me to hand out canned goods to the homeless, which was so rewarding...because they love Michelob."

According to Lee, the hardest part about writing a joke is not coming up with a funny idea. The hardest part is making the joke flow. "Jokes have a certain rhythm to them, otherwise the audience will get tired of laughing at them."

Lee worries that his very structured day job will have a negative effect on his writing. "My job is so right brain-stress, deadlines and math. Then I go home at night and I have such a hard time getting into a creative mode," he said. "But everyone keeps saying that my writing keeps getting better."

Eventually, Lee hopes to leave advertising and a stable income for a fulltime job in comedy. "I feel like if I don't take the risk, I'll be cheating myself," he said. "As my dad puts it, 'You having a steady job has always been a dream of mine, but if you don't chase after this you won't be using your God given gifts.'"