Brown Collar Comedy

Comic Steve Trevino is all about the funny business

By Jasen T. Davis

Steve Trevino is a stand-up comic from Texas who infuses his blue-collar humor with a Mexican American cultural perspective. His comedy veers away from the predictable ethnic references, instead focusing on observational humor about life as a member of the working class, infused with an energy only a guy from Texas could generate.

Trevino recently performed in San Bernardino for the Laugh Out Loud Comedy Festival Arts. His hour-long comedy was filmed for a Showtime special, along with routines by Rita Rudner, Jay Mohr, Tommy Chong, Willie Barcena and Monique Marvez.

As a Mexican American, Trevino says he sometimes has to deal with an entertainment industry that expects his work to just be a series of jokes based on racial stereotypes.

“I write material about life. Whether you are black, white or Asian, you can relate.”

“I’m very proud to be Mexican American, but I set out to make my material as broad as possible,” he adds. “George Lopez does a lot of racial humor, but we are different types of comedians.”

Trevino’s persistence has paid off, and he’s currently working on a pilot for a sitcom that will be bankrolled by legendary producers David Himelfarb and Vic Kaplan.

“We are working on a show about my life with my family, the woman I live with and the love/hate relationship a couple can have.”

He points out that since it’s about him, the show is going to have a cultural element. “I want to show a Mexican American couple in a good light.”

Trevino talks about how the network got so carried away with the racial vibe of The George Lopez Show in that they even asked that comic to have a tortilla machine on the show. It doesn’t get more one dimensional than that.

“I think George Lopez’s sitcom was great, but the networks really pigeonholed him.”

Trevino also admits that for all its glitter and glamour, L.A. can bring an audience that might be too cynical to laugh.

“When you play in Hollywood, it’s like there’s a big attitude problem. When you perform in the Inland Empire, it’s for people who work like I do,” he says. “I’m a story teller, I talk about my life. You have to be sincere. People can tell if you are lying.”

And considering Trevino moved to SoCal, CULTURE asked him about his thoughts about medical cannabis and dispensaries.

“I don’t have a problem with it,” he says, adding he is fine with other people using cannabis though. “I think it’s a medicine.”

To Trevino, cannabis should just be like alcohol, something a person takes to relax with after a busy day. “If I can get drunk at a bar after work, then people should be able to smoke.”

As a stand-up comic, he’s met a lot of pot comedians. Does that get old?

“I think, ‘Oh boy, here he goes with the pot material.’ It’s kind of like race humor. It was funny 10 years ago. Now it’s like, ‘Really, dude, those jokes again?’”

Trevino points out that pot humor can be just as one-dimensional as racial humor. “They never make fun of weed in a good way. Why not tell a joke about how cannabis helps a person’s life?”

stevetrevino.com.

Canna-Comedy

Comic Steve Trevino might be a little fatigued by the Doug Benson school of canna-comedy, but his recent appearance at the Laugh Out Loud Comedy Festival in San Bernardino was marked by the presence of two celebrities who are very well know for their pro-marijuana stance: Tommy Chong and Snoop Dogg. It’s Up in Smoke meets The Chronic!