Carl Faulkenberry of Chicago was one of two comedians who entertained.

Carl Faulkenberry was a reserved teen-ager, Mo Alexander was, in his words, "the class fool." Neither ever expected to be standing on a stage someday joking about their lives, but there they were.

The two appeared Saturday in the River City Yacht Club's recurring presentation Funnybones on Tour.

The comedians, provided by the Funnybones chain of comedy clubs, played to an audience of 75 people at the first show and a sell-out crowd of 85 at the last show Saturday.

Faulkenberry sucked on a beer his whole time on stage. His style was to assault gently, a funny passive-aggressive blitzkrieg against: the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport; the clothing choices, '91 Ford Festiva and intellect of a good-natured railroad engineer named Tom seated at a front table; his first stereo from his parents ("Thank you for the Speed Queen stereo") and on and on.

He laughed along with the audience at most of his jokes, as if he couldn't believe he'd just said that, then took another swig.

Faulkenberry was the quiet guy at the back of the class who thought all these outrageous things and said them under his breath.

He complained about being awakened on Sunday mornings by the sound of Bob Villa-types planing lumber, and gave an aural demonstration of how that sounds just like his mother's voice rousing him for school. Maybe you had to be there.

"I was a loner as a kid," he said. "I used to catch my imaginary friend sneaking off to play with the other kids."

He appeared to be searching the audience for a post-performance date, and when a prospect in front turned out to be taken quickly dismissed her as "a real pretty girl -- in a last-call kind of way."

Faulkenberry, who lives in Chicago, has appeared on MTV and on the A&E show "Comedy on the Road." Until recently he hosted a radio show in Chicago and has just returned to the road.

Alexander, the less polished of the two and a last-minute replacement for the comic originally scheduled, is the class clown given a platform.

He delivered ethnic jokes -- he is black -- and jokes about fat women who wear Spandex. He is fat himself but defended himself as someone who wouldn't wear clothes that outline the bulges.

He also had fun with the idea of marriage, especially that part about getting in-laws in the bargain with the woman you love.

"I've already got a dysfunctional family as it is," he said. "Why do I need another?"

Men think about two things right after sex, Alexander insisted: "I wonder if there's any ham left and I hope my wife doesn't find out."

Like a class clown, Alexander has developed a catch-phrase. "Can I hook you up?" he asked frequently, an invitation that the audience seemed to embrace without knowing quite how to respond. (It means "Can I help you out?" he explained to the white folks.)

One of two emcees at the Comedy Zone, a club in Memphis, Alexander was much more topical than Faulkenberry. But how funny can a joke about Susan Smith be?

More successful was his PC reference to himself as a "pigmentally enhanced, aerodynamically disadvantaged individual."

A few of Alexander's jokes were cliched. In 1995, can a comedian get a laugh with a joke about a gay biker gang that tears up bars and redecorates them afterwards? He didn't get much of one.

Alexander has appeared in two music videos and is up for a part in the next movie being made from a John Grisham book.

Though his mother, a teacher, might be unhappy that her only child is a comedian instead of a doctor or lawyer, Alexander afterward said he's glad to be pursuing his goal: "Getting seen by thousands of people and making people happy."