Vlad the Mad

The hardest-working angry young russian comic in town

A A A Comments By Tommy Craggs Wednesday, Mar 24 2004

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"I'm gonna have some fun tonight," he says.

But things don't go so well. The crowd's cold -- thin, too, with only about 30 people in the 400-seat club -- and everyone seems a bit puzzled by this Russian kid onstage, who says right off the bat, "I'm 19 years old, and I was born in Russia, and I used to pee on myself when I was a little kid." It's clear his is not a warm-up act; he doesn't have any of the glib mannerisms of an effective MC, and his flat, morose style won't win over a midweek audience still burping dinner. Afterward, Sawyer will say the set was "horrible ... terrible." But Khlynin plods on, and after a few more minutes he says, "All right, you guys aren't going for the Safeway shit, either," and then introduces the next comic. When the showcase is over, he slouches out the door and heads over to the Purple Onion, which is debuting its resurrected comedy show. He seems spooked. "It was OK," Khlynin says of his set. "I ate it. Got three medium laughs."

James Sanders

At Cobb's Comedy Club, hosting and bombing. "He's fearless onstage," says Cobb's co-owner Tom Sawyer.

James Sanders

At Brain Wash. Khlynin tries to hit six open mikes a week.

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Four nights later, as the weekend's final show winds down, Khlynin is sitting in the corner of the room, sipping a drink through a straw. His mood has lifted. It's been an auspicious weekend for him, after all. His sets have improved over the past few days. In a moment he'll pocket $250 for three days of work, the equivalent of something like a week's worth of Safeway shifts. And earlier tonight, shortly after Khlynin's seven-minute set, Robin Williams made a cameo, waddling into the club and chatting with the comics backstage; you could hear them laughing during the dead spots in the opener's set. Not two weeks ago, Khlynin was dying at the Uptown Bar with a bad Kinko's joke on his lips; tonight, he was bullshitting with Robin Williams backstage at Cobb's, asking if he wanted to do a guest set. (Williams declined.) Later, Khlynin will say it was all "pretty amazing," but right now, as the final comic of the night finishes his set, that's not what he's talking about. He's talking about what he'll be doing tomorrow, and he sounds excited. "Rose & Crown," Khlynin says. "I got the seventh spot."