Many stand-up comics owe their continued employment to booze. There’s nothing like a drink, a lot of drinks, to mangle the minds of clubgoers sufficiently enough to make many believe that another tired series of jokes about convenience store clerks is fall-down funny. But there will be no liquor served at Zanies three area clubs Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights because the performer is in recovery and so will be most in the audience. Mark Lundholm, in his late 30s with spiky hair and amiable manner, performs mostly for former drunks and druggies. We saw him a while back at Zanies and admired him for not trading in the p.c., holier-than-thou attitudes so often espoused by those in recovery. He deftly and humorously examined the dangerous life of substance abuse and the rigors of recovery. The roomful of recovering drinkers and druggies loudly lapped it up. They sipped their club sodas, coffees, Cokes and Virgin Marys. They laughed. It was a happy, hopeful sound.
