Rickles ready for Rockland festival

ROCKLAND – Comedian Don Rickles has made a career out of insulting people, but when he had a chance to take a shot at lobsters he passed.

“Oh, no,” Rickles said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “Who doesn’t like lobster? I love lobsters. Of course I’ll have to have somebody crack them for me. I don’t do any physical labor.”

The legendary comic is looking forward to his appearance at the Maine Lobster Festival, where he will be Friday night’s main stage headliner. He is also looking forward to enjoying more than just Maine lobsters.

When Rickles takes the stage at 9 p.m. it will be his first time walking the boards in Maine since he played a joint in Lewiston more than 40 years ago, he said. He recalled that gig with fondness, although he questioned whether the audience could pick up on his jokes.

“It was in an old hotel with a potbelly stove and a train running by right outside,” he recalled. “Every time I talked, the room rattled.”

Rickles, 79, said he does about 100 performances a year and jumped at the chance to play Rockland when it was offered. “It’s better than laying on my couch,” he said. “As long as people keep saying they want to see me, I’ll go there.”

Nicknamed “The Hockey Puck” because his wisecracks, zingers and insults fly from his mouth as fast as slapshots on a hockey rink, Rickles is one of the last of a breed of American comics that started in vaudeville and worked their way to stardom on television.

His guest shots with Dean Martin and Johnny Carson in the 1960s made his career, and later shots with David Letterman stamped it for a younger generation.

When asked if he had any surprises for the Maine Lobster Festival audience, Rickles said he planned to come on stage “dressed as a clown, blow up balloons and then fall down.”

Rickles described his show as “exaggerated comedy” that blends a number of styles, both traditional gags and rapid-fire stand-up.

“It’s never mean-spirited, and all in good fun,” he said. “It’s a performance that people find very interesting.”

According to his Web site “The Hockey Puck,” Rickles is also known in the business as the “Merchant of Venom” and “Master of Insults.”

A favorite of Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack buddies, Rickles and his wacky mix of jokes and insults were the perfect combinations of hip and humor for their times.

Sinatra, a noted brawler, once walked into a room Rickles was working and was met with the shot, “Make yourself at home, Frank. Hit somebody.”

Rickles was born in New York City in 1926 and went to school on Long Island. He claimed to be painfully shy as a child, but said his father “was a great ‘kibitzer’ who loved to kid people about themselves. I loved him and adapted his approach.”

Once he realized he could make people laugh, Rickles began putting together a comedy routine blending jokes and impressions. It was when he was confronted by a heckler during a nightclub performance that he found throwing “off the cuff” lines back at the audience got him laughs.

“If I were to insult people and mean it, that wouldn’t be funny,” he once told an interviewer. “There is a difference between an actual insult and just having fun.”

Call 596-0376 for ticket information. Rickles will appear at 9 p.m. Friday, Aug. 5, at the Maine Lobster Festival stage.