Two Huge, Warm Ramrods

“To be perfectly honest, I like the Cubans. I don’t like Cuban men, because they try to fuck my wife in front of me. They’re filthy animals that way.” That was the first thing out of comedian Ralphie May’s mouth when I asked him if he was looking forward to visiting Florida for the South Beach Comedy Festival, and it’s pretty standard Ralphie stuff. The fat, white Southerner whose fame grew (and frame shrunk) after a near-victory on Last Comic Standing, has a preternatural ability to get away with statements that would have lesser men banned from public life forever. It’s the good humor, probably. He never sounds mean when he says that kind of thing. Not so with Jeffrey Ross, world-renowned gross-out master and celebrity Roast Master General. He actually comes across as nasty. But that’s just onstage: When I spoke with him, he mostly talked about his USO tours in Iraq, and he spoke with unfakeable awe and reverence for that holy moment when a joke “punctures the bullet-proof vest” of a soldier fresh from combat. It was touching. But his show next Friday with Ralphie at The Colony Theatre (1040 Lincoln Road, Miami) — dubbed “The Meanest Men In Comedy Tour” — will probably just be funny. Showtimes are 8 and 10:30 p.m., and tix for both cost $39.50. Visit www.southbeachcomedyfestival.com.
Thu., Jan. 17, 8 & 10:30 p.m., 2008