How to go
Who: Jeff Oskay with Jeff Bodart
Where: Wiley’s Comedy Niteclub, 101 Pine St., Dayton
When: 9 p.m. Friday and 8 and 10:30 p.m. Saturday
Cost: $12 Friday and $15 Saturday
More info: 937-224-JOKE (5653) or www.wileyscomedyclub.com
Artist info:
If you think you have a busy schedule, just take a gander at how comedian Jeff Oskay pays the bills. He works days for a landscaping company and spends five nights a week writing material for radio’s syndicated “The Bob & Tom Show” and still manages to find time to work on his own material so he can venture out on select weekends to present his stand-up act.
Oskay, who is releasing his first comedy album through On Tour Records in September, is performing at Wiley’s Comedy Niteclub in Dayton through Saturday.
“A lot of comics are full-time comics, and they’re struggling, but it’s hard to find a day job that will understand if you get a last-minute call to be in Oklahoma the next day,” Oskay said. “Most jobs will fire you for that. I feel blessed to work for people who are supportive of my comedy career, and, if I’m having a slow time, I still have the ability to pay my bills without stressing out.”
Oskay worked plenty of other jobs before becoming a stand-up comedian a decade ago, including assistant manager at an envelope manufacturing company, stock broker, the proprietor of a short-lived coffeehouse and restaurant kitchen manager.
“I got on stage for the first time the week I turned 30, and I was horrible,” Oskay said. “I just stopped throwing up before shows about five years ago. I was horrible. My jokes were good. My writing was good, but I had never performed before, and that was atrocious. I would shake and sweat profusely. It was not good. It was funny but not for the reasons I wanted it to be funny.
“It became a goal of mine that I was going to win this,” he said. “I didn’t care how many years it took, I was eventually going to get good enough that someone would pay me to emcee. That was my goal, and it took four years before I ever emceed, and things went rather quickly after that.”
When Oskay returns to Wiley’s, he’ll be co-headlining with Jeff Bodart.
“He’s a great comic,” Oskay said of Bodart. “Jeff’s been doing comedy about five years longer than me. When I started he was kind of the guy to try to be. He was already getting paid work. We’re good friends, and we do a lot of shows together. We did a Monday night radio show together in Rushville, Ind., for a year. He’s one of my favorite comics to watch. I think he’s absolutely brilliant.”
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