Since winning the latest season of Last Comic Standing, and ultimately scoring himself a half-hour stand-up show on Bravo and a development deal with NBC, Josh Blue has rarely stopped moving.

Website: www.joshblue.com

Influences: Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle

TV Shows: Mind of Mencia, Last Comic Standing 4, Ellen DeGeneres Show, Regis & Kelly Live, Kathy Griffin – My Life on the D-list, Cold Pizza.

Albums: CD-Good Josh – Bad Arm

“The thing is, it’s all I’ve ever known, you know? Cerebral palsy. If I didn’t have palsy, I’d just be some other geeky white guy,” he says. “Now at least I have something to talk about.”

In an interview with Punchline Magazine, Blue says his own stand-up style is self-deprecating. “Some of my friends call it ‘reverse teasing’ because I make fun of myself,” he explains. “I make fun of you by making fun of myself by making fun of you if that makes any sense at all.”

Though he started hitting the country’s stages in earnest in 1999, Blue first did stand-up as a sophomore at Evergreen State College, a liberal arts school in Washington. He used the confidence he gained from those informal shows to start at open mics. During his last year of school, he was doing time every week at a local coffee shop.
It’s been an upward climb ever since. Two years before he beat out 11 other contestants on Last Comic Standing, Blue won the Bass Ale New Talent Contest as well as $10,000 for being tops at the Las Vegas Comedy Festival’s Royal Flush Comedy Competition. He’s also just released his first live concert film 7 More Days in the Tank! and is already booked to headline clubs across the country well into the summer of 2007.

Wise beyond his years and continually active, Blue has never let his disability ground him from doing much of anything— even off the comedy stage. He’s an avid soccer player and in fact went to Athens, Greece to play as a member of the 2004 US Paralympic soccer team. He’s also been known to play the occasional slide guitar for Denver band Zebra Junction as well as being an enthusiastic painter and sculptor.

Denverite and Last Comic Standing 4 winner Josh Blue claims “Comedy is my life and I love to make people laugh.” Jokes aside, this sudden overnight television sensation and seasoned stand-up comedian is a deeply philosophical man who reveals, “I’m never vulgar or over the top. I make fun of myself,” and audiences go wild for his humor. America elected him the Last Comic Standing by calling in votes on an 800 number that was displayed at the bottom of their TV screens, and Josh assured them “the 800 number is not for a telethon, it’s so you can vote for me.”

Josh isn’t abashed to point a finger, or in his case his ‘bad arm’ at himself or his Cerebral Palsy, which seems to be, if anything, a slight inconvenience more than a debilitating disability. In the matrix of his humor, Josh is teaching valuable life lessons through the venue of parody.

Born to Jacque and Walter Blue in Ngaoundéré, Cameroon Africa, Josh is the youngest of five siblings. “My brothers and sisters had a very dry sense of humor,” claims Josh of his family, all of whom are well traveled and fluent in three languages. “We’d play tricks on each other and if someone picked on you then you had to pick back on them or make fun of yourself.” Sibling antics crafted the art of stand-up comedy early in Josh’s life with a profound platform that “comedy is making fun of yourself.” Josh claims Cerebral Palsy is “a touchy subject, but through humor I can help people learn by making them laugh.”

For example, Josh jokes, “I can get away with anything I want to because I have a disability. Who’s going to admit they kicked the crap out of a cripple? That’s cruel. With my luck, however, I’d find someone who’d hit me and I’d be cured. . .and there’d go my gig.” If you did fight Josh, the self-professed spastic warns, “I have a palsy-punch. You don’t know when or where it’s coming from, and neither do I.”
Being inspired by Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby and Chris Rock, the latter being his ‘top favorite,’ Josh indicates, “They’re all black men,” and reveals a story from his high school days. “I was friends with everyone, but I obviously stood out, and kids made fun of me. I noticed that cool kids hung out together, as did the freaks and the jocks. It was the black girls that befriended me, and we ate at the same lunch table. They like me and called me ‘crazy.’ They taught me how to laugh and how to swear, and no one messed with me because they were my friends.”

Known as the class clown won Josh friends, but his quick wit didn’t win him a spot on the junior high soccer team, a sport near and dear to his heart, spawned when he lived in South Africa. “I was cut from the junior high soccer team, which hurt my feelings,” confesses Josh. “No one should be prevented from playing any sport when they’re in junior high much less cut from the team.” Jacque and Walter’s son learned parental lessons well in perseverance and determination. “I didn’t try playing soccer again until I was in college. Some friends and I formed an intramural team. We practiced every Friday night and played competitively on Saturdays. We didn’t win many games, but it sure was fun.”

Beneath the blond mop of hair and striking blue eyes stands a man that’s breaking down stereotypes above and beyond the stand-up comedy circuit. Defeat makes Josh more determined to succeed. He holds the position of striker (similar to a forward and often referred to as a soccer team’s primary scoring threat) on the U.S. Paralympic Soccer Team. In September 2004 Josh and his team competed at the Paralympic Games held in Athens, Greece, which is the world’s second largest sporting event. Over 4,000 athletes from 130 different countries compete in the Paralympic Games two weeks following the Olympic Summer Games.

The opportunity arose for Josh to try his hand at standup comedy while he attended Evergreen State College where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing in 2001. His comedic style and delivery might take audiences by surprise, or they’re confounded by the fact that this stand-up genius has Cerebral Palsy. Laughter is a global language, and when Josh quips, “The drunk tank stopped to pick me up the other day, and when I tried to tell them I wasn’t drunk I have Cerebral Palsy, they said, ‘that’s a big word for a drunk.’ Three days later they still had me in the tank trying to figure out what I’d been drinking.” The audience rolls in gales of laughter when Josh mocks impishly, “You’re all going to go to hell for laughing at me.”
Josh hired Mike Raftery to manage him several years ago and shares, “I tried out for Last Comic Standing two years ago and didn’t make the first cut. Mike encouraged me to try again this year and I’m glad I did,” confesses Josh, who claims to be “completely overwhelmed that I won. I was in it to win, but when I did it was unbelievable.”

After recently performing before a sold out crowd in Houston, Josh was walking in downtown Houston when a homeless man approached him with an outstretched hand. “He recognized me and wanted to give me $1.00. It took me by surprise. Another time my girlfriend and I were in a terrible car accident. The car was filling up with smoke, and I was trying to pull my girlfriend out of the wreckage when the police arrived. I was shocked when they recognized me and said, ‘Look, it’s the last comic standing.’ These experiences showed me that if I ever run out of material, all I have to do is go outside and routines walk into my life.”

Of his new found fame, Josh confesses, “I’d like to believe I’m still levelheaded and none of this has effected me, however, everything is so different. Everyone wants my autograph or picture and a typical day for me is getting on an airplane and flying all over the country to do shows or interviews. I just want to be treated like a regular person.”
There’s nothing regular about Josh, who’s currently writing his autobiography finds time to put paintbrush to canvas to create incredible art when he’s not on stage or the soccer field. He’s looking forward to “working as much as I can and one day [hopefully] having my own sitcom.”

To those with disabilities he advises, “Set your goals high and set out to experience life, but don’t try comedy, I have that area covered.” To the rest of the world, this humble and modest man with the spastic body, quick wit and abundant talent is teaching us to reach for the stars and find joy and laughter along the way.