The Casino File
The main takeaway from uber-comic Sebastian Maniscalco’s first of eight performances at Ocean Casino Resort? The dude is getting old.
That’s not an opinion. It’s straight from the horse’s mouth, as the 52-year-old, Chicago-born funnyman anchored last Thursday night’s turn with an extended — and easily relatable — segment filled with hilarious observations about the aging process. The show — his first at Ocean’s 5,200-seat Ovation Hall since leaving his longtime local nest at Borgata Hotel, Casino & Spa — kicked off an eight-night run, the second half of which commences tonight and ends Sunday.
Clad in what might be described as “Bruce Springsteen drag” (e.g. black pants and shirt covered by a black leather jacket), Maniscalco spent his 70 minutes onstage reminding the sold-out audience why he is one of the top standup comics of the past decade. And nothing hit the bullseye with more precision than his diatribe against the ravages of time — most of which, to hear him tell it, appears to be assaulting him on a nonstop basis.
“When I wake up, I feel worse than when I went to sleep,” he proclaimed, adding that he wonders if “I fell down the stairs last night.”
From there he lamented a variety of ailments and conditions, many of which can’t be repeated in a general-circulation publication like this. But suffice it to say he repeatedly nailed the jokes, never more so than when he riffed on how charley horses have become the defining aspect of his sex life. His punctuating the bit with exaggerated recreations of said condition sent the audience’s response into overdrive.
Another winning gag involved the discussion with his doctor as to how he may have ruptured his bicep. “I don’t know,” was his response to the doctor’s inquiry about how the injury may have occurred, “I woke up?”
Likewise spot-on was his jaundiced take on sleep apnea — specifically the ways to mitigate it. He spoke of applying tape to his mouth (“so I don’t die tonight”) in order to force air though his nose. The result, he lamented, was that he “looked like a hostage in Afghanistan.”
There were, of course, other targets for him to skewer, among them dogs (he explained he didn’t endorse rescuing pets from shelters because “I don’t want a dog that was hanging by chicken wire in Nicaragua”), the inability of women to tell stories concisely (“Land the plane already!”) and Amazon (he described having a ridiculously large box delivered, only to find “one dental floss at the bottom with airbags around it”).
The entire performance was enhanced immeasurably by Maniscalco’s uniquely physical style. He is a master of supercharging a joke by stretching his limbs, craning his neck, making funny faces (easily visible on to two gigantic video screens) and pacing the stage like a caged animal.
Of course, no one — not even megastar comedians — bats 1.000, and there were a few dicey spots including a passage based on the recent California wildfires, and a couple of tossed-off lines that called upon Jewish stereotypes (perhaps he feels he gets a pass because his wife is Jewish).
But these were mere missteps in a typically sterling turn; it’s hard to imagine anyone leaving Ovation Hall believing they didn’t get their money’s worth.
Incidentally, Maniscalco opened the set with a salvo aimed directly at Our Town (talk about biting the hand that feeds you). His (not necessarily without merit) bile-filled grenades targeted everything from Steel Pier’s “Ferris wheel” which, he suggested, “looks like it doesn’t have screws on it,” to the perception the Boardwalk is unsafe (he spoke of taking a stroll with his mother and “I think we were about 40 yards into the walk, I said to my ma, ‘Let’s get the f— back to the hotel!’”) to the town’s general atmosphere (“It looks like the apocalypse out there”).
We note this non-judgmentally, but only to advise that you probably won’t be seeing him in an Atlantic City tourism campaign anytime soon.
Spook-tacular fun at Resorts
It’s a local gaming-industry tradition that Resorts Casino Hotel transforms its Bar One into various holiday-themed “pop-ups.” As such, it’s no surprise that, with Halloween on the horizon, the “Boo Bar” has returned.
Now open through Oct. 31, Boo Bar offers a variety of season-appropriate features including two specialty cocktails (both $14), the Candy Corn Martini (whipped cream vodka, pineapple juice, grenadine, whipped cream) and the Devil’s Margarita (tequila blanco, lime juice, simple syrup, red wine).
Also available will be the Perfectly Pink Cosmo ($10). While the cocktail consisting of New Amsterdam Vodka, Cointreau, lime and cranberry has nothing to do with Halloween, sales will benefit the Men Wear Pink breast cancer campaign.
Boo Bar also features a full slate of entertainment:
Sundays: Musical Bar Bingo (3 p.m.-midnight).
Mondays: Trivia (7 p.m.-midnight).
Tuesdays and Thursdays: Karaoke (8 p.m.-midnight).
Wednesdays: DJ (9:15-midnight).
Fridays and Saturdays: Live music followed by DJ (6-9 p.m.; 9:15-2 a.m.)
And on Oct. 25 and 31, there will be costume contests with a grand prize of $100 in slot cash (full costumes only).
Chuck Darrow has spent more than 40 years writing about Atlantic City casinos.
