Greg Walloch and Alison Castillo

    He's a rising comedian who starred in his own biopic entitled (get ready!) "F**k The Disabled". She's performed at the prestigious Aspen Comedy Festival and has appeared on MTV's show "True Life: I'm a Comic". He's been praised by admirers as diverse as Lily Tomlin and Howard Stern. She's not afraid to tell it like it is: "When women say 'Size doesn't matter', it's because they haven't HAD size! It's like when you have an imitation handbag and you say "Fendi doesn't matter.'" Who are they? They're Greg Walloch and Allison Castillo. On July 2nd, the two pals teamed up for "Bad Girls", possibly the first comedy act to be inspired-- and proudly inspired, at that-- by a Donna Summer song. The act was one of two shows in a night called "Bang A Gong", a part of the FUSE Festival 2003 which showcases young, up-and-coming talent in comedy, performance art, and more. Greg and Allison emerged on stage with Ms. Summer's emblematic party song playing in the background, and started the festivities by handing out a Smirnoff Ice to anyone who declared themselves a felow "bad girl". This prompted one wild gal in the audience to get up and shake her booty for all of us. Then, it was showtime. Think of it as "Sex in the City", a la Greg Walloch and Allison Castillo. The two alternated their monologues about life and love in the urban jungle, ostensibly with the intent of showing the similarities between gay men and fabulous women. And did they? Indeed! But by the time "Bad Girls" was over, other song titles entered my head, including "Love Is a Battelfield" by Pat Benatar, and Seal's "Crazy"("But we're never gonna survive, unless we get a little crazy!")

    Greg Walloch, a multi-talented performer who by now may be getting just a bit weary of being summarized as "a gay disabled comedian living in Harlem", offered a variety of his comedic monologues, kicking off with an anecdote about... well, let's just say that taking the subway every day in Manhattan can bring out a nasty side in all of us, even a normally mild-mannered guy like Greg Walloch. Which gives us the first sneak peak inside the personality of this funny boy: he may be cute and gentle-looking on the outside, but there's a trace of devil behind that boyish smile. His humor is sort of real, and sort of fantastical, and sort of sincere, and sort of bitchy... all at the same time! His observations on some of the idiosyncracies in New York, including the "mirrored urinal" in the men's room at the Paramount Hotel and the male strip joint The Gaiety ("We clap for the erection!"), are often hilarious. In one bit, Greg lamented the fact that gay porn is hard to find in Harlem... although he did manage to stumble upon the magazine "Pregnant Black Bitches Over 40". He admitted that the mag led him to something of a freakish admiration for just how "specific" straight porn can be. Similarly, he's both wide-eyed and naive, yet sarcastic and sassy, when he describes his unique experiences in his quest for finding love in the Gay Apple. In one monologue he recalls meeting a guy and discovering, in an intimate moment, that his date is missing an index finger-- which makes Greg more than a bit on edge: "Even though I have a disability myself, all I could think about was... that MISSING INDEX FINGER!" An actor as well as a comedian, Greg shared some precious show-biz anecdotes with us, managing to turn his not-always-pleasant experiences as a disabled actor into comedy. Like Margaret Cho's now-famous story of her experiences with "All American Girl", when some critics said that she "wasn't Asian enough", Greg experienced a similar situation when he was told he didn't appear or act "physically challenged" enough at an audition. In another bit, he mirthfully commented about the "Daddy" tattoo on fellow actor Stephen Baldwin's left arm. Let's just say that Greg's take on it, ahem..."makes ya think"!

    Greg Walloch performs all over New York City as well as the rest of the country. His next project will be a live comedy CD. Check out his official website www.GregWalloch.com for pics, news, reviews, and much more. Walloch's film "F**k the Disabled"(The more genteel title is "Keeping It Real: The Adventures of Greg Walloch"), which also features Stephen Baldwin, Anna Meara, and Michael Musto, is now available on DVD. It's part stand-up comedy, part behind-the-scenes, and part dramatizations of Greg's monolgues. You can order it from either www.TLAVideo.com or www.WolfeVideo.com, two great sites. Like her friend Greg Walloch, funny lady Allison Castillo has had her share of adventures in the love department ("I have my period, he has his herpes..."), including a cache of war stories about her relationships with younger guys. She speculated on her reasons for always attracting guys that are younger than she: "My pheremones smell exactly like the inside of a Darth Vader Halloween mask!" Early on, Allison bemoans, "New York is the land of lowered expectations-- like being happy just when a guy calls back when he says he will!" She's too young to be jaded but too wise to be naive, too pretty to have difficulty in getting the guys but too smart to settle for less. Armed with a whole bunch of single girl-in-New York anecdotes, she's the stuff that comediennes are made of. A truly priceless recollection involved her brief stint at Coney Island as a bobby socks-wearing stripper (!)... prompting her to later have an "Elizabeth Taylor Butterfield 8 moment": "Mama, I danced for men... and I LIKED it!" In between her stories, she launched some very funny verbal torpedoes at such targets as men who wear tote bags (Hint: Unless you're European, there's no excuse!) and at those rebellious, free-spirited, dreamer-type young guys that all of us meet around town, warning them, "I'll see you in five years when you're on antidepressants and thinking about becoming a teacher!" She also deservedly made fun of how annoying your old friends can be when they become parents for the first time. If you've ever been irritated by women who have that "I'm a new mother... and I'm SO much better than you!" kind of attitude (And we all know a few like that, don't we?), then you'd eat this right up. Allison also offered us a useful observation: "It's not the unhappy people in New York that we have to worry about. It's the 'too happy' people that we need to be suspicious of. You can see the lies behind the eyes!" Greg Walloch and Allison Burke may both face the quintessential challenge that all gay men and straight girls in New York face: finding Mr. Right-- or at least, a guy who's not too much of a total nut. But we can't feel too sorry for this charming duo. They both have just what it takes to survive and succeed in the big city... not the least of which is a smart yet wicked sense of >humor. And as they point out, sometimes all we need to know to get through life is"Toot toot! (Yeah!) Beep beep!"... "Toot toot! (Yeah!) Beep beep!" Well, you get the idea.