James Gregory's World of Covered Dishes and Crazy Uncles
	by James T. Black
	James Gregory looks up from the table. He's been going full speed since 4 a.m., appeared on two radio talk shows, and then rushed to a book signing.  And now the matronly lady staring sternly at him in the book store wants to know if he's clean.  I'm sorry? he asks.  "Are you clean, or are you one of those dirty comedians?" she asks. "I want to get your book for my grandkids, so there can't be any dirty jokes in it."  James sits up straighter, his blue-gray eyes twinkling above a mischievous grin. "Yeas Ma'am, all my jokes are clean. My mother wouldn't let me do them if they weren't"  Convinced, she buys two copies of his book It Could Be A Law.....I don't know, and leaves with a grin on her face - another satisfied customer of " The Funniest Man in America"  Ever since he left a successful career as a salesman and first picked up a microphones over 20 years ago, James Gregory has been working to make people laugh, and laugh again The Atlanta comedian has played big cities and small towns, filling comedy clubs and convention halls with his homespun, easygoing stories of food, funerals, and funny relatives. On the road about 48 weeks a year, he regularly sells out clubs in such Southern cities as Atlanta; Birmingham; Lexington, Kentucky; and Columbia, South Carolina.  Along the way the enterprising entertainer offers videos, books, and t-shirts for sale on his web site (www.funniestman.com), and from door-side tables set up after every show. "I was a partner in three furniture stores before doing this, so I learned how to treat a customer," James says, resting before a show at The Comedy Club in Birmingham. "A lot of performers don't like to admit it-but we're in a business just like anybody else. I try to stay away from calling my audience 'fans.' I call them customers."  And few entertainers satisfy their customers like James Gregory. Although not as familiar to national audiences as fellow Georgian Jeff Foxworthy, James's names is a household word to thousands of fans across the south.  Fans say that James comes off as that funny uncle or cousin at the family reunion, the one who's always telling stories. And that's why people are comfortable with his show.  They know they'll hear something that will remind them of their own experience.  James first stepped onstage working as an emcee at The Punchline Comedy Club in Atlanta. He started telling his own stories in between introducing other comedians, and in 1981, a producer from Showtime cable network invited him to compete in a comedy contest broadcast on the network. James's performance finished second to comedian and future television star Harry Anderson.  While his routines still include such Southern subjects as covered-dish suppers, road trips to Stuckey's, and the healthy aspects of fried foods, James doesn't consider himself a regional comic. "To me, Southern comedians are guys who get onstage and talk about pickup trucks, rifle racks, and grits. I don't talk about the South, I just deliver my material with a Southern accent.  James came by his accent and outlook naturally. "I grew up in Lithonia, a small town about 15 miles east of Atlanta. My mother and aunts and uncles still live there," the unmarried comedian says. "All my comedy is based on real life-the people I grew up with, went to school with, family. My Ideas about food came from them. They all eat fried foods and many of them are in their eighties. Meanwhile you read in the newspaper how some health nut jogging on the way home from the health food store.  In addition to extolling the virtues of Crisco cuisine, James also examines the uniquely Southern custom of "bereavement food" in his shows. "We love to bring a covered dish to somebody's house before or after the funeral, and it's a nice thing to do. The only problem is, everybody usually ends up gossiping about the food or other people, and nobody talks about the person who just died."  James's food stories are among his most popular, even when he appears on stages north of the Mason-Dixon-although things have sometimes gotten garbled in translation.  "I had this one story that included something about pushing a buggy down the aisle of a grocery store. It got a great response down here, but when I told it in New York, the audience just stared at me. The club manager latter told me, "When you said buggy they were thinking about something attached to a horse,' So I changed 'buggy' to ' shopping cart' and it worked great.  "I'll be the first to say I'm now a great comedy writer. However, you don't have to be. It's just a matter of talking about things the audience can relate to. Experience has told me that the audience rarely compliments you one new material, but they are likely to complain if you leave out older, favorite routines."  So James constantly adds new ingredients to the old stories. "The main thing to remember is that people come to a comedy club to laugh. It seems like the new thing in comedy today is 'stream of consciousness' or ' cerebral' material. I doubt if a husband and wife ever looked at each other of their way to a comedy club and said, ' Gee, I hope this guy is going to be real cerebral tonight.' Instead they say, ' He sure better be funny.'"  While his Sunday-school safe humor may seem tame in a Saturday Night Live world, "it's helped make my house and car payments and buy a home for my mother, " he says. And it's kept James working while many who started with him have left the business.  "When I started out, there was something like 400 full-time comedy clubs in America. And each club had to have 3 comedians-- an emcee, an opening act, and a headliner--working each show. That's 1200 people who had to be funny every weekend."  Nowadays, you can count the number of successful comedy clubs on one hand and successful comedians on two. James is one of the most successful, and he's grateful to the customers who've made him that way.  "We're living in such a cynical times that people don't believe me when I tell the ' I really enjoy being her' during my show. But it's true. I do enjoy it. I wouldn't be out there is it wasn't for them. Comedy is serious business."