"The Nation must begin at once the development of understanding, attitudes, and policies of public and private support that will assure the quality and accessibility of the arts and thereby their contributions to the richness of civil life, apart from which there will be no enduring democracy, the foundation of not only our economy but of the American way - at its best."

-From "The Arts and the American Way," on June 25, 1998, by Dr. Oscar E. Remick, Westminster College President Emeritus, immediate past Chair of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, seven year member of Michigan Council of the Arts and father of John Remick, stand-up comedian.

by Chris Kozak

One second, it's you and John Remick '86 having a nice discussion about his past careers, like the time he managed a Blockbuster Video store for four months before he was fired. All of a sudden, in pops venerable football announcer Keith Jackson calling a horse race laced with sexual innuendo.

As soon as it began, it's back to John and his recollections of the time he tended bar at a Japanese restaurant where everything, cash register included, was in Japanese. Then Ross Perot makes an appearance, as a Burger King employee, waiting on Bill Clinton.

John will tell you about his five years at Adrian College, then burst into Christopher Walken singing the Oscar Meyer bologna song.

If you don't know John 'J.R.' Remick, it's OK, you will. If you already know J.R., then none of this is a surprise to you.

In 1992, Remick traded in the corporate world of Blockbuster Video, the fast-living times of bartending and the back-breaking labor of working as a Budweiser Merchandiser ("A fancy way of saying stock guy"), to become a full-time professional comedian, impressionist, actor and model.

Now, at age 38, he's carving out a niche in the business that so far includes working the comedy club circuit with the likes of Tim Allen, Jeff Foxworthy and Judy Tenuta. He has also had roles in national print, radio and television commercials and major motion pictures. For all this success, John will tell you that he lives in L.A.-"Livonia area," he says proudly of the Detroit suburb.

"I'm blessed," he says throughout the conversation as he rattles off the impressive resume covering his body of work. But it's his body that has garnered the bulk of commercial work. More precisely, his face and crew cut. "It was the best investment I ever made," he said of the flat top. "With it, I can be anyone."

Yes, gone is the long hair and mustache from his Adrian College days, replaced with a short crew cut and a clean-shaven face. His look was instrumental for landing some of the largest roles of his career to date, including a part in a national advertising campaign for Chrysler.

"They were rolling out the new 300M series, and were looking for someone to appear in the ads. They ended up using the back of my head."

But the head shot led to face time in the next batch of ads, and he's currently in the running to be the regular face of Chrysler automotive.

J.R. is always on, like a switch on his back has been turned to comic and broken off. But unlike someone who thinks he's funny, and continues to rake your nerves with lame attempts, John is genuinely a funny, funny guy. The ability to make you laugh is never forced. Busting out with a Scooby Doo, Shaggy, Barney Fife, Bullwinkle, Columbo, Gomer Pyle or Homer and Marge Simpson is not a shock, but a welcome surprise. His booming, ready-made DJ voice can be contorted into a dizzying array of people.

"I'm humbled by what I do," he said. "I know that I'm just a vehicle for the guy upstairs. Anyone can tell a joke, but getting up in front of a crowd and doing it is completely different. It's a gift."

His career path began to take shape while working at a Bennigan's.

"I was always funny as a bartender. It was right after Cocktail came out, so everyone was flipping and spinning bottles. I couldn't do that so I made the customers laugh by doing impressions and making silly faces, and everyone was telling me, 'You should be a comedian'."

While at Budweiser in 1991, he was "at rock bottom in my life" he readily admits, when someone from the front office asked him to do a little stand-up for the company bowling banquet.

"I had, like, 15 minutes of material, and needed to come up with something else." If necessity is the mother of invention, then John's rock bottom feeling gave birth to the shtick that sparked his comedy career: Bowling Elvis.

If you can imagine Elvis, in a bowling shirt and in a bowling alley, performing classics such as In the Gutter (Sung to: In the Ghetto), Bowling Shoes, (Don't be Cruel) and It's Me Bowling Elvis (Viva Las Vegas) - then you have the gist of the bit that helped launch John's career. It's such a killer bit that John's license plate and web site, maybe the two most personally identifiable extensions someone has in this day and age, are named after it. (www.bowlingelvis.com)

"Elvis as a bowler actually helped launch my career in the earlier days, and when I made it a permanent part of my act in the last few years, it gave me a viable hook or staple bit in the business that people can identify me with."

So now the patrons of the comedy clubs throughout the Midwest that he headlines have come to love and expect the routine. But he still wonders how he came up with it.

"It was divine intervention. I don't know where it came from," John said. Ask those who know John, and it's no surprise.

"He always has had a good understanding of what was funny on an intellectual level," said Greg Meyers, his Adrian College theatre professor and academic advisor. "He was performing all the time, and was a very good comic actor. But what he also had was a good understanding of comedy and timing, which is something you can't teach."

It sure doesn't surprise his mother. "No question he was going to be a comedian. At age three he said he was going to be a clown."

"We're an accumulation of our experiences," said Mrs. Remick. Which would explain John's ability to get up in front of a crowd, for he grew up watching his father preach from a pulpit. His father, Dr. Oscar Remick, was president of Alma College from 1980-87. He also served as president of Chautauqua Institute in western New York for six years, where John was privileged to meet famous comedians and personalities of the era, including Bill Cosby, Victor Borge, Duke Ellington and Ted Koppel. Though she wasn't readily offering herself as a comedic influence on John's early years, instead saying it was John and his two brothers who were the funny ones, Mrs. Remick managed to get a pretty good impression of Kitty Carlisle Hart into the interview.

John's path to Adrian College took him through five states, as the family was always on the move. The strong family kept John grounded, and let him develop not only his humor, but also his sense of pride in what he does. "I can remember watching my dad speak from the pulpit when I was four," John recalled. "Then standing next to him as the congregation filed out and feeling the pride, sort of saying 'Yeah, that's my dad' as I stood by his side. Some years later, 1997 in Youngstown, Ohio, my parents came to one of my shows. As I stood by the door, thanking people for coming out, my dad was standing there next to me, with the same look of pride on his face I had when I was four, 30 years earlier. It was his approval of what I was doing for a living, and that makes me feel really good. It also allowed me to understand and appreciate what coming full circle really means."

-One of John's most recent movie roles was a bit part as a heckler in Billy Crystal's 61*. Also in this issue is a story on another alum in this movie. Click here to read "Being Al Kaline."

(Drawn by David Dunn)