6 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) $28.00 in-town and $39 out-of-town, for fall only $18.00 in-town and $22.00 out-of-town. The Michigan Daily is a member of The Associated Press and the Student News Service. ADDRESS: The Michigan Daily, 420 Maynard, Ann Arbor, MI 48109. PHONE NUMBERS: News (313) 764-0552, Opinion 747-2814, Arts 763-0379, Sports 747-3336, Cir- culation 764-0558, Classified advertising 764-0557, Display advertising 764-0554, Billing 764-0550 t 4 t s h ' 6 '6 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 EDITOFIAL STAFF: Editor in Oief Mnaing Editor News Editors Opinion Page Editors Associate Opinion Editors Photo Editor Weekend Editors Adanm Schrager Sieve Knopper Miguel Cruz, Alex Gordon Donna ladpado, David Sdiwartz Elzabeth Esch, Amy Harmon Philip Cohen, Elizabeth Paige, David Austin David Lulier Alyssa Lustigman, Andrew Mils Sports Editor Associate Sports Editors Arts Editors Rim Music Books Graphics Coordinator List Editor Mike GO Adam Benson, Steve Blonder, Richard Esen, Lory Knapp, Taylor Linccdn Andrea Gadd, Alyssa Katz Tony Siber Nabeel ZuerI Mark Swrz Kevin Woodson Angela Mcsheais News Staff: Laura Cohn, Diane Cook, Laura Counts, Marion Davis, Noah Finkel, Lsa Fromm, Tara Gruzen, Kistine LaLonde, Ann Maurer, Jennifer Miler, Josh Minick, Gil Renberg, Taraneh Shafli, Vera Songwe, Jessica Strick, Noele Vance. Opinion Staff- Sharon Holand, David Levin, Fran Obeid, Greg Rowe, Kalhryn Savoie. Sports Staff: Jamie Burgess, Steve Cohen, Theodore Cox, Andy Gottesman, David Hyman, Euic Lemont, Jay Moses, Jonathan Sa mnick, Ryan Schreiber, Jeff Sheran, Pelar Zellen. Arts Staff: Greg se, Sheala Drant, Mike Fischer, Michael Paul Fischer, Forrest Green, Brian Jarvinen, Kistin Patn, Jay Pinka. Photo Staff: Amy Feldman, Julie Holman, Jose Juarez, Jonathan Uss, Josh Moore, Bl Wood. Weekend Staff: Jim Poniewozik. 0U I :.