'Wild' Willy Parsons to Perform at Ramona Mainstage Saturday

Saturday at 8 p.m. "Wild" Willy Parsons will be telling jokes at Ramona Mainstage.

On Sunday he will be on his brother's couch in Imperial Beach watching the Daytona 500.

At 52 years old, Parsons has been in comedy half his life.

His first performance was at The Comedy Store in La Jolla. His career started small. 

"We called it the Sizzler circuit," he said. "They'd give you a steak dinner and $20 bucks or something. Those were horrible gigs."

In the 1980s he moved to Hollywood and eventually worked with Andrew Dice Clay, Sam Kenison, Steppenwolf and Pauly Shore. 

Parsons has performed at biker functions and comedy clubs throughout the nation.

He also worked as an actor or writer for movies and TV shows like The Tracy Ullman Show and Matlock.

"When I started out, I came in right as comedy was booming. I mean, it was like you could work everywhere and there weren't enough comics for the clubs that were opening up," he said. "And then it started to turn. The clubs started closing and there were too many comics."

Parsons grew up in Imperial Beach and still remembers working as an usher at the Palm Theatre on weekends.

"It was great back then," he said. "IB is such an 'off the beaten path' community. The only people who knew about it were people who were going to Coronado. We used to drive Jeeps on the beach all the way down to the Mexico border. I don't think you can do that anymore."

Though the city has a legacy of bikers and motorcycle clubs, Parsons' reputation as a biker did not begin in IB, but in how he was perceived by members of the audience in comedy clubs, he said.

"I kind of just look this way and when people used to comment about me they'd say, 'That biker dude's funny,'" he said.

The wild in "Wild" Willy Parsons comes from a nickname given to him by a co-worker who thought his hair was too long in the 1970s.

Parson said the biker persona has followed his name, but is not the base of his comedy. That can be a surprise to the audience sometimes, he said.

"I like showing I'm vulnerable—I'm an idiot, I'm a father, but coming from a guy who looks like me is where it is based, where it started, you know,"  he said.

Parsons said he has done shows for biker clubs but it's not his favorite audience.

"I used to do a lot of bike rallies and bike shows mostly and some private ones for clubs. They're not gangs, they're clubs. My ideal audience is a regular audience because I'm different than them. If I'm up in front of a bunch of guys that look like me, then they just nod their heads in agreement."