Waukegan News Sun, IL
March 31 2007
Hometown boy Waukegan native Rob Paravonian brings his comedy act
back to Lake County
March 31, 2007
By DAN MORAN [email protected]
You can take the boy out of Waukegan, but you apparently can’t take
Waukegan out of the boy if he ends up in Brooklyn.
Rob Paravonian, stand-up comedian and Waukegan West High School Class
of 1987, said he has now lived in the New York City borough for a
decade, and he feels both at home and like a visitor at the same
time.
Rob Paravonian will perform two shows tonight at Zanies in Vernon
Hills, 230 Hawthorne Village Commons. Tickets are $22 (with a two
drink/food minimum). For more information, call (847) 549-6030.
"I live there just because New York is the place to be for stand-up
comics, and Manhattan’s too expensive for a writer or an artist," he
said, on his cell while heading to a gig at Susquehana University in
Pennsylvania. "What I like about (Brooklyn) is that it’s very
neighborhood-y, it’s more like Chicago or Waukegan.
"But I do feel like a Midwestern exile, like a Waukegan exile, in New
York. I don’t know — there’s a different demeanor to Midwesterners,
maybe not as brash."
Those who have caught Paravonian’s act either live — Saturday finds
him wrapping up a week of appearances at Zanies in both Chicago and
Vernon Hills — or on cable shows like Comedy Central’s "Premium
Blend" can attest that his style has a certain distance from the East
Coast-freneticism of, say, Denis Leary or Dane Cook.
Employing a guitar, which he taught himself to play while performing
as a cellist for the Waukegan High School Symphony, Paravonian will
offer original comic compositions and riffs on classic material, like
a "Pachebel Rant" that is a current feature on YouTube.
His sense of humor is also steeped in non sequiturs that play off of
"Jeopardy" intellect, such as when he explains his Armenian heritage
for visitors to his Web page ( ): "Other prominent
Armenians you may have heard of: Actor/writer Eric Bogosian, former
Governor of California George Deukmejian, and administrator of Bespin
City Lando Calrissian."
It is a style that has taken the humble Washington Elementary School
graduate literally across the globe. Two years ago this summer,
Paravonian, whose tour schedule usually takes him from one American
college campus to the other, traveled to Afghanistan to perform for
U.S. troops.
"It was a great experience. A friend of mine who’s a comedian in
Chicago asked me if I wanted to do it, and I said yes," he said. "We
played seven different bases, and it was usually on a stage, but
sometimes it was just in a conference room or a dining hall with no
sound system, doing a show for just a hundred guys."
But no matter where he goes, Paravonian has one answer when people
ask him where home is. Well, maybe two answers: Waukegan, a.k.a.
"Rockegan."
"Oh, that’s from when I was in a band," he said, explaining the
hometown description on his MySpace Comedy page (where he also
describes himself as 77 years old). "When we would introduce
ourselves, we were all from Waukegan, so one of my friends would just
say, ‘We’re from Rockegan.’"
http://www.suburbanchicagonews.c om/newssun/entertainment/321267,5_5_WA31_MAINROB_S 1.article
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
