Comics and club managers have considered him one of San Francisco’s sharpest stand-ups since 1982, but he’s yet to make the big splash. “In terms of talent and intelligence he has everything it takes,” says Holy City Zoo co-owner Bob Fisher. “But he still hasn’t got a grip on what it is about his act that kills.”

“He’s as funny as anybody I’ve ever seen, but he just doesn’t bring it all on stage,” says good friend Milt Abel.
“He’s one of a couple people who lay me on the floor laughing so hard I have to kick to breathe,” declares Tom Sawyer of Cobb’s Pub. “Two years ago I thought he had the most potential of anyone in the Bay Area, but now…”

The man they’re talking about is Larry “Bubbles” Brown, and if some of this sounds depressing, it’s consistent with Brown’s personality. He acquires the “Bubbles” moniker the way grey the size of boxcars yet nickname “Tiny.” For Brown, depression is an up mood.

He’s routinely introduced as “a man guaranteed to make you feel better about yourself,” and he quickly pops this off with lines like “It’s been a pretty good day, I haven’t passed any blood yet” and “The most romantic thing a woman ever said to me in bed was, ‘Are you sure you’re not a cop?'”

Indeed, Brown’s comedic lifeblood is sheer, unsweetened negativity, dispensed either as the pathetic loser “Bubbles” or in the guise of contemptible egoist “Bob Bitter, America’s Greatest Comic,” who combines the worst elements of Jerry Lewis and Frank Sinatra into one reasonably funny character.

Bitter would kick an orphan girl’s seeing eye dog., Bubbles would envy the dog. Each has demonstrated the power to put an audience completely away, standard fare of Brown’s two career drawbacks: his inability — or unwillingness — to settle on one stage persona or to structure his act to accommodate both.

“One of my pet peeves,” grumbles Sawyer, “is that he won’t pick a coherent act, build it up, filter out the hit, then a sure hit, then work; audience perform I know which way to go.

Neither does Brown, partly because both characters express real elements of his own nature. “Each one of those rare comedians who can actually transform part of his personality into his act,” says Fisher. “Bubbles is deadpan comedy, and Larry is a deadpan person.”

Bubbles is probably closer to the real Larry, embodying such themes as inadequacy, morbidity and cynicism. “If you expect the worst, you’re never disappointed. My dad used to read me Kafka as a bedtime story instead of, ‘He lived happily ever after.’ It was, ‘He never knew what the charges were. Sleep tight.'”

Actually, Brown’s Ohio upbringing was unremittingly ordinary. Brown was simply different. “My morbid nihilism goes back to when I was 4. I asked my mom if we all die and she said ‘Yes, but we go to heaven,’ and I said, ‘Is this like the Santa Claus story?’ I used to read medical books in junior high and became a hypochondriac.”

Evidently congenital, this saturnine gloom is also frequently hilarious on stage. “He’s the antithesis of everything that’s supposed to work,” says comedy producer Jon Fox. “Instead of being sophisticated, charismatic and energetic, he’s just the opposite, carrying a pitiful persona to the point that it wins you over.”
By contrast, Bobby Bitter wins (or loses) you with pure obnoxiousness, with bits about his telethon (“You know, folks, cerebral palsy ain’t as funny as it looks”) and about loaning James Dean his Porsche in 1955 and urging him to “open it up on this great straightaway near Salinas.”

Concocted with David Feldman and several other comics in 1984, Bitter represents the current black-collar humor that Sam Kinison and others have made fashionable. A favorite of Brown’s appearances on Alex Bennett’s show, Bobby is eagerly requested now whenever he performs.

The victim vs. an arrogant Bobby may be a stronger act than the feckless Bubbles — both Fisher and Sawyer wanted him to work solely as Bitter — but Brown is not so certain. “If audiences are aware [Bitter] is a parody, they love it,” says Larry. “If they aren’t, they hate it. Some people take it so seriously they walk out.”
“Bitter could be a great character, but Larry doesn’t have that need for success,” says Sawyer, raising the second career obstacle laid at Brown’s door: That is, as Fisher says, “Larry has a distinct fear of success.”

Supporting this charge is a remarkable track record of blown opportunities. In 1984, “Tonight Show” scout Jim McCawley saw and loved Bubbles, but his follow-up audition in Los Angeles went poorly. A year later, virtually the same scenario was played out with David Letterman’s people in New York. Other near-misses have included “Star Search” and HBO. And in last year’s Comedy Competition, Brown eliminated himself on the last semi-finals nights by going an unheard-of two minutes over the time limit.

“I’ve been rejected more often than a baboon’s heart,” he wisecracks, then dismisses the “self-destruct” label as a combination of unpreparedness (for Carson), inconsistency (in New York) and brain-fade (in the competition).

At 35, after five years of stand-up, he may have grown tired enough of lugging the cross of “potential” to take a serious, make-or-break shot at success. “It does bother me,” he allows. “I’ve been pretty lazy the last couple years, but I’m starting to really work on my act…”

Fisher calls him “a late bloomer,” and cohort David Feldman feels he’s “a TV comic just waiting to be discovered.” All that seems missing is real motivation, and perhaps he’s found that.
“I want to be famous in a bad way, to get even with all those women who didn’t go out with me,” he declares. Then, as Bubbles, he sighs. “If I don’t make it this year, I’m gonna change my name to Digit and move to the primate center.”