Exclusive “Man-on-the-street” interview with Boston’s Tony V.

Tony V has headlined comedy clubs and remained a fixture of the Boston comedy scene since it boomed in the early 1980s, as depicted in the documentary When Stand Up Stood Out. You may have seen him in movies such as The Heat or One Crazy Summer.

His most recent onscreen credit, though, could most easily be captioned: One Crazy, Cold Winter: When a Stand-Up Stood Outside, Sat Down in amid Boston’s Historic Snowfall and Saved a Parking Space.

As captured in a photo and shared with the world via Twitter by The Boston Globe to promote a story Wednesday morning, reading: “When the #Boshow won’t go, some simply grin and find the fun in it.”

I’ve known Tony since years before launching The Comic’s Comic, when I reported on entertainment and pop culture for The Boston Herald. So here’s my exclusive “man-on-the-street” interview with Tony V!

First off, obviously: Who were you wearing?!

“The robe is a little number woven from two-and-a-half years of collected dryer lint. Warm, soft and flammable, just like me.”

The boots: Man UGGs, right? “Originals, 15 years old,” he said. “Pre-Brady.”

One of South Boston’s “Southie” proud neighborhood traditions remains defiantly protecting their shoveled-out parking spaces each winter. But everyone always has used an array of artificial objects, from chairs to large stuffed animals to lobster traps to anything they can find and attached a written warning not to “steal” “their” “spot.” So why put yourself out there in the cold like that?

“Why I do it? Anything, a ready-to-be-tossed, old, three-legged, broken chair can do…I figure I can do almost as well.” Earlier, on Facebook, when he noticed he’d been spotted, he had shared the photo with a caption of: “No idea what’s wrong with me. Unless…. Even worse, I have even less of an idea about what’s right with me.”

Did you know the Globe photog was snapping you? “I had no idea I was being photographed. I thought I was sitting for a portrait.”

And has the record snowfall, which has dumped several feet of snow into the New England streets over the past two months, cost you any gigs? “I have lost some gigs on account of the weather, but better to piss in the face of adversity than to curse the clouds for doing their job.”

The professional acting reel for Tony Viveiros may include several small parts in big-screen movies filmed in Boston (The Town, Celtic Pride, My Best Friend’s Girl, plus the aforementioned bits in The Heat and One Crazy Summer), his first big TV gig as the suitcase-smashing gorilla for American Tourister Luggage’s ad campaign, a recurring role in Showtime’s Brotherhood, and his two-episode turn in last year’s season of Louie as young Louis CK’s school principal.

But this may be his best scene-stealing role yet.

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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