Drew Lacapa's Live Comedy

THERE'S SOMETHING FUNNY ABOUT DREW LACAPA AN INDIAN COMIC RIDES LIFE'S UPS AND DOWNS

Drew Lacapa, one of the hottest comics in Indian country, does a bit in his act about his scary appearance. A 300-pound mixed-blood Apache with a goatee and a ponytail, he wears black Ray Ban shades, black high-topped Keds and shorts. He talks about walking down the street in Scottsdale and seeing people grip their wallets and purses as they dart out of his path. "I'm one sinister-looking Indian," says Lacapa, laughing. "I'll bet there are people out there having nightmares about me right now." But don't fear. The 41-year-old father of three, Navy veteran and product of what he calls a "Leave It to Beaver" Indian family, possesses a sweet nature, and often ends phone conversations by telling callers it was good to hear their voice. In fact, Lacapa is so easygoing that as his comic star began rising, he found it difficult to increase his rates. He started out charging $500 a show, and eventually learned that entertainers get judged, in part, by the size of their fee - and the more the better. Now he receives $2,500 to $3,000 a show. "My kids are getting older and I need to pay tuition," explains Lacapa, a native of Whiteriver on the White Mountain Apache Reservation. "But it wasn't easy asking for more. What I do comes from the heart." He began performing in 1987, working fairs and rodeos on the reservation for fun. His first payday came in 1991, when he was a nursing student at Arizona State University in Tempe. He was asked to entertain at a Thanksgiving gathering of Native American students. Carol Sneezy, a fan of Lacapa's, says Indians, and Apaches in particular, love to laugh. "It's not our image, but it's always been that way," explains Sneezy, who teaches the Apache language at the high school in Globe. "We see comedians on TV all the time," adds Sneezy, "but when it's one of your own, you think, dang, he's talking to me." One of Lacapa's best professional moments came in 1996 at the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, where he was the featured comedian at the Native American venue. In three weeks of shows, he earned more than half the annual salary he was then making changing bedpans at the Indian Health Services Hospital in Whiteriver. More recently, he hosted a film festival in San Francisco, and then fielded interview requests from National Public Radio and the television show “Extra.” In January 2000, he did a show at the prestigious Heard Museum in Phoenix to accompany the opening of an exhibit on misconceptions about Indian peoples and their cultures. It was the first time he'd been to the museum.

Another sign that he's become a celebrity: Lacapa often gets invited to nightclubs in Phoenix, just to create a buzz. But there's a problem. “I have to wear my shades because they're my trademark, and it's easy to trip over stuff,” he says. “I usually just find a chair in the corner and sit down.” But with no agent, no manager and no public relations specialist working for him, finding Lacapa can be difficult. When the phone at his Whiteriver home goes unanswered, prospective employers sometimes call the Apache police in Whiteriver to ask if they know where he is. Others contact the office of the tribal chairman, Dallas Massey, who obliges by sending someone from his staff to look for the comedian.

To Lacapa, the ask-around system makes perfect sense. But if you press him to explain why his act remains popular, he can't although seeing this bear of a man on stage wearing a camp dress, one of his regular props, is funny all by itself.

“I go on and talk about my life,” says Lacapa, whose dad was Hopi-Tewa and his mom a mixture of Apache and Scotch-Irish. “I never prepare anything. If Robin Williams can do it, why not me?” His humor ranges across topics, but he gets his biggest laughs talking about the differences between whites and Indians. Lacapa often opens by describing his own racial makeup as a “Heinz 57, a mixture of everything.” Then he launches into a routine about Navajos, noting that of all the tribes, they have the most land and people. “Everything with them is bigger,” he says. “To us, they're like Texans.” A significant part of Lacapa's humor is physical. He's brilliant at making movement funny, and cementing the joke with a line. He might point out someone in the audience wearing a nice jacket and say: “By the way, I take an Apache Medium. Know what that is?” Pause. “It's a Double XL.” As the laughter begins to fade, he says, “And what's with the teepee anyway? I live in a HUD home.” That usually sends reservation audiences into the aisles.

Lacapa acknowledges that sometimes his humor doesn't play with people who don't understand rez jokes, but he doesn't tailor his routine for the crowd. “It doesn't work if you don't be who you are,” he says.

Like Robin Williams, Lacapa has endured much, including substance abuse and a suicide attempt in 1988. But his demons have quieted now, and Lacapa believes humor has healed him and continues to do so. He takes particular joy from the antics of his 2-year-old grandson, Antwann, whose “pants hang off his behind, just like mine.” These days, Lacapa and his wife, Olivia, live in Tempe while she studies for a master's degree in education. For this “total rez Indian,” not being at home presents a burden, and by far the biggest drawback to being a traveling comic.

He tells a story about his days in the Navy when he was stationed at Okinawa, where, he says, no Japanese person dared speak to him. He liked to sit out at night and daydream about home. He swears he could close his eyes and smell the piñon trees and the hominy stew, and see the crown dancers. “Then I'd look up at the sky and think that somewhere under that same moon was Whiteriver,” he recalls. “I learned to be grateful for the 1.6 million acres of White Mountain Apache land.” AH