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Page 2 -The Michigan Daily - Monday, September 25, 1989
Passion fuels
comedian's wit
IN BRIEF
Compiled from Associated Press and staff reports
by Ruth Littmann
From frozen embryo lawsuits
to'restaurant dining dilemmas to
pets, Wayne Cotter's cracks cover
all bases.
"I try to steer clear of the
nuclear proliferation jokes,
though," said Cotter, who
performed at Ann Arbor's
Mainstreet Comedy Showcase
last weekend.
-. "I'm not apolitical, but I try
to' get the audience laughing
about everyday absurdities. Life
has so many," the native New
Yorker said. "The absurdities that
really count in life are the ones
we overlook. But 'trivial'
absurdities are part of all of our
lives... Laughing about them
brings members of the audience
together."
Cotter leaves "dirty jokes" to
the layperson.
"People don't need to pay a
professional comedian to crack
jokes they can hear in the locker
room or at the office," he said.
A regular on "Late Night with
David Letterman," Cotter debuted
on "The Tonight Show" last
June. He has appeared in Ann
'Arbor about seven times since
1985, when he began performing
in cities around the country.
Though he's currently touring
cities from Los Angeles to New
York, Cotter began his career in a
collegiate setting similar to East
Quad's "Half Ass" snack bar and
piano lounge.
"As freshmen, my buddies and
I would go down to the Coffee
House - a place in the
dormitory where the vending
machines were located," he said.
"We'd hang colored blankets over
them to spruce the place up, and
kids would come and watch as
each of us did our own thing -
play guitar, sing. I was always
MC."
Before becoming a
professional comedian, Cotter
attended the University of
Pennsylvania, where he took his
electrical engineering major as a
joke and took his jokes seriously.
While he was still in college,
Cotter and five of his college
comedian friends began their own
comedy club in an empty room
of a campus bar.
"This was at a time when
there wasn't a comedy circuit," he
said. "We were pioneers."
Cotter, who lists his comedic
influences as Robert Klein, Bill
Cosby, and Lily Tomlin, said he
began his stand-up career because
Comedian Wayne Cotter amuses the crowd at the Mainstreet Comedy
Showcase. Cotter performed in Ann Arbor last weekend.
he loved comedy. His inspiration
came from within, he said, not
from the growing "comedy
craze."
"You've got to have a real
passion for comedy if you want
to pursue it as a profession,
because stand-up comedy is so
much more than a profession."
The passion, said Cotter,
comes from the interaction
between the performer and the
audience. "There's something
about live performances you can't
get on the TV screen. As much
as I appreciate broadcasting
technology, I thank God people
aren't just sitting there, plugged
into their TVs... that they're
actually getting out of the house
for entertainment."
Cotter's advice to the aspiring
comedians at the University? "If
you have a passion for comedy...
a real passion... do it."
Dooley s
by Jennifer Hiri
Unless Dooley's bar successfully
appeals the Michigan Liquor Control
Commission's charge that it violated
state alcohol laws, it will be put on
probation for 46 days, starting Oct.
1.
The commission ordered the bar's
suspension for alleged alcohol viola-
tions - including selling to minors
and permitting them to consume al-
cohol on the premises - last
January.
If Dooley's, located at 310
Maynard St., fails its appeal, the bar
Will also have to pay $4,900 in
fines.
But Dooley's Operating Partner
Norm Foltz said he contests the
charges and vowed to fight the sus-
may have
pension. "The (liquor commission)
did not prove all of their allega-
tions," he said. "Dooley's will con-
tinue to fight and appeal because we
refuse to close down."
Dooley's plans to file a brief to-
day in the Washtenaw County
Circuit Court, in hopes of appealing
the suspension or postponing it for
the next six to eight months.
Foltz said Dooley's business
would suffer much less if the sus-
pension is put off until spring term,
because fewer amounts of students
will be in Ann Arbor. The bar's bus-
iest hours are during the school year,
especially football season, he said.
The bar's reputation for serving
to underage drinkers, however, may
make an appeal difficult. LSA
violated liquor law
Sophomore Jennifer Weinreich, for
instance, said she attends the bar
regularly and "although I have never
used a fake ID, I have friends pur-
chase alcohol for me... I have been
fortunate enough not to get caught
there."
To enter the bar, customers must
be 19; to drink alcohol, they must
be older than the legal drinking age
of 21.
Last October, Dooley's was
ordered to close for two weeks, but it
appealed in the Washtenaw County
Circuit Court successfully.
Representatives of the nightclub
say they have been responsible in
checking identification and not serv-
ing to minors.
Foltz said he believes Dooley's
works well with the police, who
watch over the bar nearly every
night. "We agreed to raise the mini-
mum age (to enter the bar) from 18
to 19... keeping good ties with the
police and recognizing their concerns
for minors," he said.
But Mary Pride, acting supervisor
of the state Hearings and Appeals
Section of the Department of
Commerce, disagrees. "Dooley's
does not seem to hold a friendly rela-
tionship with the Ann Arbor police,
considering the police are constantly
filing reports on Dooley's proce-
dures," she said.
Car flips over Mich. bridge
ST. IGNACE - Police were trying to sort out reports about
who was in a light blue subcompact that flipped over a 3 1/2-foot
'guardrail and into the Straits of Mackinac, a state trooper said yesterday.
Sgt. Kenneth Hardy of the St. Ignace state police post said there have
been about 100 calls from people who haven't heard from friends or rela-
tives traveling through the area.
"People have called from as far away as Florida," Hardy said. But he
said only one of the calls about the accident seems to fit all conditions.
He declined to elaborate.
The search for the car and any survivors was scheduled to continue to-
day. The search was halted Saturday due to 6 to 12 foot waves and 40 mph
winds, said Sgt. Larry Brown of the state police post in Ignace.
The car was traveling north on the bridge when it careened over the
guardrail on Friday.
Inmate hopes to continue fast
JACKSON - A prison inmate being force-fed after a six-month
hunger strike hopes to win a legal victory today and resume his fast until
he's proved innocent.
Rene Acuna hasn't eaten since March 3. But Department of
Corrections officials on Sept. 12 won temporary guardianship that al-
lowed them to give Acuna liquid food through a nasal tube.
Corrections officials went to court after Acuna rejected the coffee with
sugar he'd been taking for several days. Prison doctors fear the hunger
strike, the longest ever by a Michigan prisoner, has endangered Acuna's
health.
His weight dropped from 180 pounds to 106 before the force-feeding
began.
Jackson County Probate Judge Fred Sill scheduled a hearing today at
the Duane L. Waters Hospital, next to the State Prison of Southern
Michigan near Jackson.
Three teens die from fumes
IONIA, Mich. - State police investigating the carbon monoxide poi-
soning of three Ionia County teenagers will conduct tests to determine
whether they had been drinking, an official said Sunday.
"It's considered right now an accidental death," Sgt. Jerry Daily said
from the state police post at Ionia.
Dr. Darrell Opicka, the county medical examiner, did not plan to con-
duct autopsies because he was confident that carbon monoxide poisoning
was the cause of death. Daily said he did not know when toxicology test
results would be available.
The bodies of Danon Lee Pierce, 16, of Ionia; and Kevin King, 17, of
lake Odessa were found at 10:10 a.m. Saturday inside a car parked about
two miles southeast of Ionia, Trooper Robert Beaver said. The car motor
was running with a rusted exhaust system and holes in its floorboard and
trunk.
Beaver declined to say whether alcohol or drugs were found inside the
car.
Infected mothers may not
transmit AIDS to children
DETROIT - Researchers at Children's Hospital of Michigan
and elsewhere are discovering that women carrying the AIDS virus don't
necessarily transmit the disease to their unborn children.
Until recently, it was considered certain that a mother diagnosed with
AIDS or human immunodeficiency virus, would pass the disease to her
baby.
Dr. Flossie Cohen, director of the Maternal-Infant Center for HIV at
Children's Hospital of Michigan, said infected children are living longer
and are healthier, largely because of the AIDS-fighting drug AZT.
"A few years ago, it was thought that the kids who were infected
wouldn't live to be two, but we are finding this isn't true." Cohen said
recently.
EXTRAS
'The Satanic Verses' may
appear in paperback in '90
LONDON - A paperback edition of the controversial novel "The
Satanic Verses" likely will go on sale this winter, The Observer reported
yesterday.
More than 1 million hardback copies of Salman Rushdie's novel have
been sold since it was published a year ago this week. It is in its ninth
month on the bestseller lists in Britain.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Iranian spiritual leader who died
June 3, declared Feb. 14 that the novel blasphemes Islam and called on
Moslems to kill the Indian-born British writer and his publishers.
Since then, Rushdie has been living in hiding in British intelligence
safe houses.
Nine stores have been bombed for stocking the book, seven in Britain
and two in California, in the past seven months. No one was killed in the
explosions, which police blame on hard-line Moslems.
The weekly Observer, which publishes occasional book reviews by
Rushdie, said Viking Penguin told the author last week after months of
negotiations that a paperback edition will be published by .a specific date
in 1990.
The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter
terms by students at the University of Michigan. Subscription rates: for fall and winter (2 semesters)
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ADDRESS: The Michigan Daily, 420 Maynard, Ann Arbor, MI 48109.
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Murder suspect may be released today
SEATTLE (AP) - A "viable suspect" in the
Green River serial murder case is due to get out
of jail today, but authorities say they need more
tine to investigate him and will try to keep him
incarcerated on federal charges in another part of
the state.
William Jay Stevens, II, 38, is scheduled to
leave King County Jail after completing the re-
ngainder of a sentence for a 1979 burglary and for
his 1981 escape from a work release center.
But the Green River police task force will
klow where to find the onetime law student, at
least until later in the week. Stevens is being
transferred to Spokane County Jail in eastern
V4shington to face federal charges of possessing
a firearm while a fugitive in the burglary case.
Those charges carry a potential prison term of up
to 10 years.
No charges have been filed against Stevens in
the Green River killings, the nation's worst
known unsolved serial-murder case. Stevens has
denied he is the killer, and his family members
have produced documents that they say show he
was on vacation when the killings began.
The case is named for the stream south of
Seattle where the first five victims were found.
The killer is blamed for killing 40 young
women, most of them linked to prostitution,
from 1982 to 1984 in the Seattle and Portland,
Ore., areas. Eight missing women also are be-
lieved to be Green River victims.
King County Capt. Robert Evans, the task
force commander, said Thursday investigators
need about another 10 days to evaluate evidence
on Stevens.
After he gets to Spokane, Stevens could be re-
leased on bail on the federal charges when a de-
tention hearing is held, probably later in the
week, but prosecutors said they would fight that.
Stevens, a fourth-year Gonzaga University
law student, was arrested in Spokane in January
after a tip following a syndicated television show
about the Green River killings.
+°
Hewitt Associates
is coding to The University of Michigan.
We are an international firm of consultants and actuaries
specializing in the design, financing, communication, and
administration of employee benefit and compensation
programs. Hewitt Associates is included in the publication
"The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America.
INFOR1WATION SHARING
Tuesday, September 26, 1989 at 7:00 P.M.
Michigan League Club
Henderson Room
ON-CAMPUS INTERVIEWS
October 17, 1989
February 19, .1990
School of Business Placement
October 27, 1989
February 19, 1990
Engineering Placement
October 18, 1989
January 29, 1990
February 20, 1990
Career Planning & Placement
See Your Placement Office For Sign-Up Details
Great Opportunities
Opportunities for graduating seniors with coursework and
interest in the following 4reas:
:,
CINEMA UIHECTOAY
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