The Midnight Swinger
The Midnight Swinger is getting ready for the longest one-night mic stand of his life.
David Scott, 43, really is a standup guy from Cedar Rapids, but his larger-than-life alter-ego is a Vegas lounge comedian who does clean, upstanding material. One and the same, they aim to shatter the 40-hour Guinness World Record for longest one-man comedy show.
Scott will step into the spotlight at 6 a.m. Monday (4/29) in the Diamond Jo Casino’s Mississippi Moon Bar in Dubuque. His goal is to finish at the midnight cusp between Tuesday and Wednesday.
“Technically, I break the record at 40 hours and 1 minute,” he says by phone en route to a recent gig in Peoria, Ill. “If I break the record and there’s still a big crowd, I might just keep going a little longer.”
The details
- The Midnight Swinger’s Guinness World Records attempt
- When: 6 a.m. Monday (4/29), continuing 41 hours
- Mississippi Moon Bar, Diamond Jo Casino, Dubuque
- Tickets: Free; ages 21 and over
- Details: Diamondjodubuque.com
- Artist’s website: Themidnightswinger.com
However, he has to be back onstage at 6 p.m. Wednesday (5/1) to host the casino’s second-annual Comedy $10K preliminary rounds, which begin at 7 and 9 p.m. through May 3. Comedians from around the country will vie for a share of $10,000 in prizes. Kristi Lee of “The Bob and Tom Show” will host the semi-finals and finals at 7 and 9 p.m. May 4.
Scott isn’t normally a marathon man.
“I run when I’m chased and that’s as far as it goes. You cannot pay me money to run a marathon. I could say I’m ‘a marathon lover,’ but now I’m just trying to score points,” he says with a laugh. “I’ve never done anything like this. This is a one-time only event.
“I will do this one time, I will break record, I will never do this again. If my record gets broken a month from now, I will not try to capture it back. The preparation has been crazy. The amount of prep work, the amount of material, the overall anxiety level have been so crazy, I will never ever attempt this again,” he declares.
The odyssey started as a joke he made during a podcast in Chattanooga, Tenn., in November 2012. His agent, Jeff Johnson of USA Entertainment in Fairfax, heard it, liked the idea and contacted the Diamond Jo. Scott says the casino jumped at the chance to land a world-record attempt in conjunction with its comedy festival.
“What started off as an off-the-cuff remark became reality in like, 96 hours,” he says.
In mid-December, he contacted the Guinness folks and by the end of January, he had the green-light.
“From that point on, it’s just been going crazy — chicken-with-the-head-cut-off — trying to get everything done.”
He has strict rules to follow. A minimum of 10 people have to be watching at all times. The casino, open 24/7, has guaranteed that, Scott says. He has to hold the microphone — no mic stand, no lapel mic. He’s had to rewrite jokes to accommodate having a corded mic in his hand, and he has to carry that mic offstage before he can let it go for his scheduled breaks.
For every 60 minutes, he’s allowed a 5-minute break, but he’s working up the stamina to go four hours at a stretch, so he can have a 20-minute break.
He’s been preparing since January, working with a nutritionist to make sure his body is burning calories efficiently. He’s stepped up his physical workouts to build muscle mass and endurance.
He’s also writing more material, since the longest show he’s done to date has been around 95 minutes.
“I’ve been writing down anything I think is even remotely funny,” he says, amassing “hundreds” of pieces of paper. He’s aiming for 12 hours of material before he has to start repeating jokes.
He describes The Midnight Swinger as “a cross between a Vegas Rat Pack lounge show and a Super Bowl halftime experience.”
“It’s high-energy, over-the-top craziness,” he says. “I don’t stand at a microphone telling jokes. There’s singing, there’s dancing, there’s impressions, there’s costume changes. … I’ve never actually considered myself a comedian. I’ve always considered myself a showman entertainer in the vein of a Sammy Davis Jr. I try to be a triple-threat: you can sing, you can dance, you can do comedy. It’s a fun show. I’m not dirty, I don’t do R-rated comedy, I don’t use f -bombs — I stay away from all that.
“The show I’ve come up with is meant to be fun. If you walk into my show, you’ll walk out singing. I never tried to reinvent the wheel. My job as an entertainer is to make people laugh. That’s all I’m trying to do.”
He’s been honing his craft for 20 years, with gigs around the country and on HBO and Comedy Central. Breaking the record won’t net him any cash, but he is hoping it could be a stepping stone to making the late-night talk shows with David Letterman, Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel.
“I’ve never had the credentials to get on their shows,” he says.
A world record might just change all that.
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