Show reveals the many faces of Navajo humor

The Wild Horse Pass Casino & Hotel Amphitheater was the place to be on Saturday if you wanted to laugh.

The 49 Laughs Comedy group presented the Laugh Now, Cry Later Tour, which features a not-so-wet-behind-the-ears Tatanka Means, Pax Harvey, Ernest Tsosie III and James Junes.

The show took place at a state-of-the-art amphitheater that will soon host concerts featuring country star Josh Turner and R&B singer Brian McKnight.

The diverse audience filled the floor and half the balcony above.

First up was Chinle native Tatanka Means, who got the laughter going with a riff on Arizona's new "papers, please" law, joking that he got pulled over by a police "ociffer" who asked about his citizenship, and now he's afraid to enter the state without a passport.

This was a different performance from Means' recent appearance at the Navajo Nation Museum, and included both new material and a growing sense of his craft. Means brought on his punch lines without hesitation and got the crowd laughing with insightful jokes about clans and dating.

In a riff that anyone with Native relatives can identify with, he described welcoming a relative who wants a place to stay during the Gathering of Nations Powwow, only to find himself entertaining an entire drum group.

Means also nailed it with his skits on Native fashion models in high heels and a partied-out model trying to find a spot on her neck that doesn't yet have a hickey.

Opening a comedy show is tough, but Means held his own and ably delivered a well primed audience to the next act, which was "hardcore rez boy" Pax Harvey.

"My uncle speaks perfect English in his mind. (He) came up to me and asked me, 'When did you came?'" Harvey quipped. "Then he asked me, 'Where's your dead (dad)?'"

The audience roared with laughter.

Then he tried using the Navajo language to be romantic, with hilarious results.

Harvey's routine ignited the amphitheater, and left the audience ripe for the next act, Ernest Tsosie of James and Ernie fame.

Tsosie also found rich material in Arizona's fear of brown-skinned invaders, joking that being followed by a police vehicle in the Valley - home to the state's most xenophobic lawmakers - made him "drunk from paranoia."

An accomplished actor as well as a comedian, Tsosie delivered humor with subtlety as he joked about the impact of lactose intolerance on your social life, and his playful interaction with the audience won the crowd over.

Tsosie was followed by James Junes, the other half of the James and Ernie comedy duo, whose humor had a little more edge to it.

Mimicking solicitous white people asking him how the Indians were faring in the recession, Junes delivered the wry response, "I looked at them and said, 'I guess we're doing OK because we never had money to begin with.'"

"We've lived on Spam, Vienna sausage and commodity cheese," he said. "I guess we can live with that again," drawing one of the loudest audience reactions of the night.

Information: www.49laughscomedy.com.

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