All about JR Redwater

JR Redwater:  ‘Full-Blooded Hilarious’

Comedian will tape his live stand-up Friday night in Dakota Magic Casino.

By Paulette TobinComedian JR Redwater is so confident in what an upcoming comedy special on cable television will do for his career, he’s taping his stand-up show Friday night in Dakota Magic Casino so he’ll be ready to take his career to the next level.

Redwater and six other American Indian comedians will be featured in “Goin’ Native: The American Indian Comedy Slam,” set to premiere Dec. 31 on Showtime, a show that Redwater believes will raise his profile nationwide.Redwater's style of humor:Redwater’s “fearless style of raw funny,” as his press kit describes it, reflects the harshness of reservation life and of Redwater’s life. Check out videos of Redwater on YouTube, taped during part a Powwow Comedy Jam appearance at Wisconsin’s St. Croix Casino & Hotel. You’ll hear him riff about Mom’s good Indian cooking (“powdered eggs, powdered milk, commodity cheese”) and talk about what he hears from every casting director at every audition he goes to in Hollywood: “Where are your braids?”

He makes fun of his Indian name, “Wanbli-Ohitika,” or Brave Eagle. “It sounds like my dad just looked into a bowl of alphabet soup,” he says. He jokes about taking offense at an airline attendant who asked him if he wanted a blanket: “Last time we took blankets, we died!” Clean and sober for more than seven years, he explains why he quit drinking: “I was allergic to alcohol. Every time I drank, I broke out in handcuffs.”

This is humor with a hard edge, reminiscent of Richard Pryor’s storytelling, without the F-word.

“Native people are naturally funny people, man,” Redwater said in an interview. “We use humor to deal with all of our tragedies that we’ve ever been through. That’s how our people have been able to survive and deal with the way life has changed so drastically in a couple of hundred years.”Comment:  I saw Redwater perform once. He was pretty funny and had a great stage presence. So yes, I'd say he deserves to be at a higher level. He could be a comedic actor in movies or TV.