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Like any great trilogy, this third and final installment had its share of desperate moments, but eventually ended in triumph.  Let’s take a look back at the final two nights in Chicago.

Saturday – 3 Crowds Enter, 1 Group of Douchebags Leave

Three shows is a fairly exhausting enterprise and this was no different.  However, in a major surprise, the 9pm show was the worst.  The shows were at 7, 9, 11:15, so the conventional wisdom is the the 7 pm show will be people just starting their evening, coming from an early dinner so they might not be ready for a stand up show.  The 11:15 would be expected to have a bunch of rambunctious drunks and sleepy people, which leaves the 9pm show as the perfect show.  Right time of night, the quickest one to sell out – all things pointed to it being the best.  But it was the worst.

The 7pm and 11:15 pm shows were packed and great.  But the 9pm show seemed to have imported several tourists from the South (this was not true, but given my public opinions of Southern comedy crowds you know this is not a compliment) and most notably had a group of 15 people celebrating a birthday.

This group, which I will call “Jersey Shore 40 Somethings” did not stop talking.  They were having their own show in the back of the room and just kept talking and annoyed at least one of my friends who came to the show.  It was a group that basically consisted of stupid people who still think they are “cool.”  To prove that it was not me, after the show the group of men and women were posing fro drunk photos with a homeless man.  If you are 19 and you did this I’d call you a douchebag, but excuse it to poor youthful decision making.  When you are in your forties and this is how you conduct yourself, you should be driven off a cliff because you are not progressing as a human, nor are you capable of contributing to humankind.  And you also suck as a comedy club audience group.

Sunday – Wherever Two or More Are Gathered in My Name My Jokes Will Be There

Small crowd on Sunday, but they were great.  Of course after the show I complained to my friend that almost no one took my contact cards, doing my best to focus on the negatives, as I sometimes do.  So leaving the club on a sour note I walked down the block after the show was over feeling sorry for myself, but then a woman with her boyfriend walking down the street said, “Hey, I saw you Thursday.  You were awesome!”

So for once, I left a comedy gig on a high note.  Let’s hope the good times continue.

Thanks very much Chicago. It was the pleasure I though it would be.

Well after an odd start to the week, Thursday and Friday turned out to be fantastic comedy nights in Chicago.  Let’s start with Thursday night:

Thursday – Great Set, Awkward Sexual Encounters

Thursday was the first show I would give myself an A or an A+.  I felt great, consistent energy throughout the set and great crowd response.  Then the awkward after-show activities began.

As people were leaving the club I stood by the exit handing out my cards.  I try generally not to be too intrusive – sort of a mild encouragement to take one, rather than an automatic hand-off to everyone so that I guarantee at least the people who take one had some affirmative desire to get my contact info.  And sometimes comedy show attendees want to take a picture with you – perhaps it’s my borderline circus height in some cases, other times it might be because they want to remember a comedian they liked or some just want masturbation material.  Well, the only person who asked for a photo after Thursday’s show fell into this third category.  And yes, it was a dude.

During my set, a gentleman raised his hand during my set and attempted to ask a question.  It was rather bizarre since stand up comedy is not usually a Q & A, unless you are some douchey college comedian who tries to “engage the audience with post show discussion on social issues” so that you seem like more than a third-tier college grad who tells base fart and race jokes under the guise of relating to young people.  The guy seemed nice enough so I did not mock him too much for his raising his hand. (by the way I am in the process of trying to do exactly what I just criticized two sentences ago with a couple of racially ambiguous comedians – what a fu*king sell out!)

Well after the show this man, although slightly drunker at this point, came up to me and told me how great I was and asked for a picture.  Now at this point, based on his slight handshake, effeminate facial expressions and erection poking from his khakis I was able to surmise he was gay.  But since I don’t discriminate when it comes to people who like my comedy I said sure.  Well, as his partner tried to take the photo there were some malfunctions which allowed my new fan to keep his arm around me for what would be an uncomfortable amount of time had he been a large breasted women, let alone a dude.   But I had reached a point of no return.  I just had to bear a creepy hand on the small of my back for about 15 seconds or 45 minutes in creepchill factor.

The photo has not been tagged on any Facebook pages yet, but if anyone sees my face in any gay porn photos they are photoshopped.  I am not homophobic, but I am homophotophobic.   An ex of mine once said to me that she thought every straight man should have to hang out in a gay bar so they can experience what women go through with men (because every man apparently wants to alter the sexuality of a woman with an act she finds contrary to her very being? just more dumb woman logic from someone who thought herself smart).  Of course this is the same woman who defended her having had HPV by saying that “all women get it” (official stats – 25% of women contract it, which is only slightly above “all whores get it”).  Needless to say I disagree and won’t be hanging out in any gay bars unless they start buying my CDs.

After the show I went to a local bar with the headliner Jimmy Shubert.  At the bar we were greeted by some fans from the show.  Lets just summarize that part of the evening by saying women take rejection a lot worse than men.  I have a girlfriend and have no intention of coming back to NYC with anything, but a bunch of unsold CDs and 5 more pounds of fast food body weight.  A man has no problem with rejection because, like a sexual terrorist, we only need to be right once.  If a guy hits on 100 women in one night and one of those women agrees to have sexual relations the guy calls the night a huge success.  For a woman, the name of the game is national defense.  Reject everything until she decides that someone is worthy of a vaginal green card.  But if a woman tries to throw herself at a dude and he is not interested for any number of reasons, she is almost invariably a rude nightmare for the rest of the time that you are in the same room.  In this day and age of sexual equality (which is a myth – it’s just women wanting more money at work, less pressure to have kids (which is sometimes a sour grapes reaction to men getting to have more pre-martial sex than earlier generations) and still wanting the man to provide and pick up the tab like it’s still the 1950s) women need to start getting better at handling rejection.

Friday – 2 Great Shows and a Card in the Snow

Friday’s shows were awesome.  Same as Thursday, but even more people in attendance than on Thursday made these shows even more electric (please gay dude from Thursday’s show, if you are on this blog, do not read anything into me using the word electric in my description.  The Rock referred to himself as electrifying and if a buff dude running around in tights on a stage isn’t the model for heterosexuality than I don’t know what is).  Then some fun things after the second show

I have a bit about Big and Tall Stores –

Well, a “rather robust woman,” to quote Shallow Hal,  came up to me with a look that was either “I think he’s funny” or “I fu*king hate him” and said “Just to let you know I give great head to my black boyfriend.”  Only in comedy or pornography could you have done your job well and hear something like this afterwards.

Leaving the club I observed one of my cards on the ground in the snow.  Maybe that woman came back from “Chicago Trip Part 1” came back for revenge.  So no matter how well a night goes in comedy, there is almost always a chance for something to ruin it.  Last night it was seeing my picture on the snowy ground of Chicago.

3 big shows tonight at Zanies – 7, 9, 11 pm

My final Chicago write up will be Monday when I return to NYC.

On Tuesday I departed JFK on Jet Blue for a 6 day stint in Chicago.  The trip got off to an inauspicious start when the pilot came out to address the passengers in person before the flight.  Here is basically what he said:

(grim face) Hey everyone – we’re getting set to take off soon and I need to let you know that it is going to be pretty bumpy up there, not just taking off, but basically the whole way to Chicago.  We are passing through a pretty bad storm and the weather in Chicago sucks ass and to the tall fu*k in seat 4B who decided that he would leave his parka at home and just bring a thin jacket because it looked less bulky and would be more comfortable – you are an idiot and you should listen to your mother.”

And the pilot was not lying – the flight was moderate to heavy turbulence for about 100 of the 130 minutes of the flight.  As someone who pees a fraction of an ounce every time a plane hits a bump it was a tough flight, but about halfway through I think my system just overcame my brain and said, “you cannot physically sustain this much pussy-ness for the whole two hours so just relax and read your Adam Carolla book (great read by the way – “In Fifty Years We’ll All Be Chicks”).

So I arrived in Chicago with just over 10 hours to spare so I wandered the city, looking like either a terrorist or a homeless person, but I scared no one as much as I did the parents at the 420 pm show of Tangled at the AMC Theater off of Michigan Avenue.

I am a movie buff, some might say I have a “problem,” but those people suck.  I also really enjoy animated movies.  Some might call me “immature” but those people suck.  But it dawned on me that I am not just a “sir” or a “man” or a “sexual deviant” to small children, but to the entire world now.  I may look slightly young for 31 (I can pull of 26 to some drunk girls), but I certainly don’t look 19.  And the worried looks from the parents who saw a guy the size of an NFL defensive end plop down in front of them wearing 3-D glasses to see a princess with long hair sing about how her life sucks may have been justified.  In any case, great movie and for the record – I was masturbating to the hot, evil step mom in Tangled, not to any of the theater patrons.

So after catching pneumonia during the day in Chicago it was finally time for shows.  Here’s my review of my performances and the Chicago crowds Tuesday and Wednesday nights:

TUESDAY

Packed house.  My first joke – a bit about big and tall stores started strongly, but faded quickly.  My entire set was a masterwork in getting an audience to laugh and then giving them an opportunity to show what great people they think they are as the “awwwwwww”‘d several of my jokes.  I believe a decent amount of the awwwww’s came from women under the age of 27, who anyone knows, are the worst people on Earth.   So they let me know that they did not approve of my humor every other joke.  I would give myself a B, but the crowd a C-.  But weirdly enough, after the show I was getting a lot of enthusiastic praise from most of the people there.  Weird.  Lots of people took my cards, none were found on the ground outside and one guy even tweeted that people should go see me.

Sidenote – I did not “retweet” this tweet, because I believe people who retweet compliments so their followers can see that someone complimented them are narcissistic, even for Twitter, and should be hit in the face with a shovel repeatedly.  Seriously.

WEDNESDAY

Smaller crowd, twice the laughter from Tuesday.  This crowd was the opposite of Tuesday – show was amazing and I give myself an A and the crowd an A- (a little chatter from… you guessed it – a table of chicks under 27, stopped them from getting the 4.0).  The set went well, I could not even do all the jokes I wanted because there was more laughter than anticipated.  Great feeling.  And then after the show it all went to sh*t.

Some people were complimenting me – felt good, but then three things occurred that just left me feeling weird and wishing I had gone to teach high school right after college:

1. Several people asking me “how tall are you?” after a show.  I don’t mind the callback to my joke – it is a nice compliment that you liked or at least re-called one of my jokes.  So thank you.  But please don’t give me a look like you want me to laugh super hard at a joke I wrote and have told 500 times.
2. A woman shook my hand and said, “You were hysterical” so I handed her one of my cards with all my on-line content links on it (they are really nice – shout out to Steve Axworthy of Worthy Concepts Inc.) and she took it, walked two steps and then walked back and said, “To be perfectly honest, I will probably just throw this on the ground outside.”   Perfectly honest would be, “Im going to throw this out so don’t waste it.”  Being perfectly cu*ty is saying you will throw it on the ground.  Even in hypothetical situations you can’t have manners or decency – you both disrespect me and litter in your imagination?
3. Last group of people leaving the show were a group of women in their mid 40s to mid 50s.  The first 5 said, good job, really funny, etc.  Then the last one walks up to me and says nothing about the show.  She asks, “have you been tested for (name of disease I cannot remember)?”  You have long legs and long arms and are very big and it affects men, like that basketball player who died (not sure who she meant)?  You should really be tested for it.”  And then she left, without comment on the show.

So I finally ended a show with the will to live restored only to have some lady from Chicago tell me I’m going to die anyway.

Shows and adventures continue tonight at 930pm at Zanies.

Had a good weekend in Long Island this weekend at Governor’s Comedy Club.  Had two shows that were good and then the third show was dominated by talkative, drunk women celebrating a birthday (at least it was not a bachelorette party, but given the group’s average weight of 345 pounds and the dirth of black men in Levittown, the likelihood of this group having a bachelorette party was unlikely).  So I posted a 2-1 record in Long Island, which is better than the 2-2 record I posted in Baton Rouge.

So on to Chicago tomorrow for a 6 night, 9 show run.  Anything less than 9-0 will be a failure (I like setting myself up for failure).

Posts forthcoming from Chicago…

One of the most anticipated magazine issues every year, besides the 114 that discuss whether Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston will get back together, is Time’s Person of the Year issue.  The criteria, according to Wikipedia, is  a person, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that “for better or for worse, …has done the most to influence the events of the year.”   Now clearly Time has not always honored that, most notably when Osama bin Laden lost in 2001 (rumor has it he will never attend the awards banquet ever again) to Rudy Giuliani – which was basically the Dances With Wolves over Goodfellas of  Time’s POTY.  But this year I think Time can get it right.

Many people got talking when the finalists were announced – on my Facebook page LeBron James got a lot of attention (ironically people obsessing over him for the last 6 months thought it absurd that he could be a finalist).  But for me the winner should be obvious.

My pick, of the numerous finalists, is Lady Gaga.  Now in 2001 Time clearly feared their choice would be seen as an award, rather than as mere acknowledgment and the fear of appearing a joke may stop Time from naming Gaga, so here’s the argument for her.

First off, she won a bunch of MTV video awards and in a year without Kanye West interruptions, that makes her the biggest music story of the year.

Now technically that is basically it for her actual accomplishments this year.  She is a hard working performer who has become a major force in music.  But that alone would just make her a minor irritant.  However, what she represents is basically the direction of  our entire culture.  Here’s why.

1) She has become the dominant figure on the Internet.  All due respect to Mark Zuckerberg, who created the Internet’s most pervasive medium since e-mail, but Gaga dominates all of our pithy forms of communication.  Her video Bad Romance is the most watched video on all of YouTube.  She has the most Twitter followers on Twitter (President Obama is 5th).  In other words, in a society that is increasingly turning information and entertainment into 140 character brain farts and 30 second, seizure-inducing visuals intended to keep the attention of morons, she is the Queen.

2) She takes pithy political stands.  In a country that is increasingly mired in a struggle to choose the less complex answer and choice for increasingly complex problems she took the brave stand of asking for the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  It is nice to use your fame and clout for good social issues and I think that is a worthy cause, but for a pop star who is next in line to lead the Kingdom of Gay Dance  Clubs (should Queen Brittney Spears die) I don’t think it is a particularly bold stand.  But that is our politics – does it affect me (Gaga’s dancers and fans)?  Is it already fairly popular or at least popular enough that I will not feel like an outcast if I join?  Then Yes!

3) She could have written the anthem for the anti-Immigration movement.  In a country where many people are anti-Immigrant and come out of the woodwork every election cycle, one of Gaga’s big hits of the last year was “Alejandro.”  The chorus:

Don’t call my name.
Don’t call my name, Alejandro.
I’m not your babe.
I’m not your babe, Fernando.

Don’t wanna kiss, don’t wanna touch.
Just smoke one cigarette and hush.
Don’t call my name.
Don’t call my name, Roberto

We get it Gaga – you don’t like Latinos.  Perhaps you could do a concert for the militias that patrol the border.  Just don’t bring your gay dancers.

4) She is a distraction.  The days of musical artists being relevant beyond the current minute are here.  Unlike Madonna or Michael Jackson or the Rolling Stones or the Beatles artists today are just flashes in the pan, in part because of a lack of creativity and perhaps even more due to our lack of attention span.  Madonna would take years to come out with a new album.  If Lady Gaga took years to release her next album, her next album would not come out because a dozen copycats would have taken her place.  Lady Gaga’s tireless effort is an acknowledgment that she, like the Justin Biebers of the world do not have staying power (at least as musical artists), both because of us, as well as themselves.  Madonna could change her image over a decade. Gaga changes her image every commercial break both because we need it to stay focused and she needs to do it to stay in the spotlight.  She labeled her album the Fame Monster and that is appropriate – because she is a monster and American consuming society is her Dr. Frankenstein.  So her influence is technically our doing, but she should accept the recognition on behalf of our culture.

5) Bad Romance is a pretty good song.  Got to give the devil her due.

Of course – if I were a betting man, I would guess that Time will go for an intellectually safe, discussion-creating choice like…

A musically appropriate summary of my trip to Baton Rouge so far (to the tune of Johnny B. Goode):

 

Deep down Louisiana close to New Orleans
Way back with people obsessed with LSU’s  football team
There stood a comedy club made of earth and wood
Where telling jokes was a boy named Jean-Louis Be Goode
Who actually learned to read and write very well
But he preferred telling jokes inside a comedy hell

Go go
Go J-L go
Go
Go J-L go
Go
Go J-L go
Go
Go J-L go
Go
Jean-Louis Be Goode

He used to carry legal papers in a leather sack
Now he walks aside the roads and the railroad track
Oh, doing shi*ty southern gigs with no car
Since Ferguson wondering how he fell so far
The people watching his act would stop and say
Oh my when is the headliner gonna play

Go go
Go J-L go
Go
Go J-L go
Go
Go J-L go
Go
Go J-L go
Go
Jean-Louis Be Goode

His mother told him “Someday you will be a man,
And maybe then you’ll abandon your comedy plan
Dozens of people coming from miles around
To ignore the jokes you tell when the sun go down
Maybe someday your name will be in lights
saying  “Manager on duty tonight.”

Go go
Go J-L go
Go
Go J-L go
Go
Go J-L go
Go
Go J-L go
Go
Jean-Louis Be Goode

2 more shows tonight…

I have a joke about the Rocky films (which has been added to recently) that they can tell us about Race and American History because Rocky is always fighting and defeating  whoever white people fear.  Here is the proof:

1976 & 1979 – post Civil Rights Movement, Rocky defeats an articulate black man

1982 – Rocky defeats an angry urban black male

1985 – Rocky defeats a Communist

1990 – Rocky defeats a redneck (perhaps prescient of Timothy McVeigh and David Koresh)

2006 – Rocky loses to a black man, but with dignity (sort of the foreshadowing of John McCain’s “hey white people we gave it a good try, but you can’t keep darkies down forever”)

My joke was that Rocky will eventually have to fight a gay Arab (with perhaps a Mexican trainer) to continue this trend.

However, the Rocky series also demonstrates an important lesson about gender relations.  When Rocky met his wife Adrian, she was an autistic pet store employee, but thanks to fame and wealth she was able to speak and look prettier and tell Rocky what to do – it really tells you what is possible when a woman gets a taste of money.  When she told Rocky “YOU CAN’T WIN!” in Rocky IV, his response should have been, “Ohhhh, look who can talk all of a sudden – you couldn’t even look me in the eye in ’76, but now you live in a big mansion and you are talking all this sh*t!”

Well, Rocky now has some important additions to my list of  movies that explain what this country is all about (and I honestly believe should be shown in schools).  Let’s welcome the Class of 2010:

1) The Distinguished Gentleman– Every year this movie becomes more and more relevant.  I honestly believe it is Eddie Murphy’s best movie and unquestionably his most meaningful (sorry Pluto Nash).  How is this movie not holding a more honored place (maybe because it is a re-make)?  Congress has now become an even bigger joke than it was in this film that is around 15 years old.  Money has become too powerful and we need term limits (for example – politicians that often have made major legacies by helping lots of people, Roosevelt, Kennedy – and even Spitzer, at least as Attorney General of NY,  were independently wealthy).  Money corrupts the process and the only way to curtail that is to eliminate some of the incentive for powerful interests to set up office in Congress.  The quote from TDG that best represents our government:

Jeff Johnson: “With all this money coming from both sides, how does anything ever get done?”

Lobbyist: “It doesn’t.  That’s the beauty of the system.”

2) Wall-E– Though I enjoyed Kung Fu Panda more in 2008, the story of a panda doing kung fu does not have quite the impact of Wall E.  Watching Wall-E and then seeing the greatest innovations in America being, in a nutshell, “Look at the new and awesome ways we have developed for you to get all you want without getting off of your ass” is only a few steps away from living on floating chairs.

3) Inside Job– In comedy it is very popular to bash traditional religion, but no one (sans George Carlin who did it exceedingly well) ever truly attacks the most harmful and invidious faith based ideology in America – capitalism.  This documentary, and my favorite movie of the year so far (that’s right Inception – you are #2) basically shows that the American dream has simply become the “you cannot understand God’s will” of the priesthood that is corporate America.  Unchecked capitalism for the last 30 years (ushered in by Reagan, but guided by two Bushes and a Clinton) has helped bring America down from its pedestal.  But don’t tell Americans that.  The American dream no longer exists.  it is now more like the American lottery or the American delusion.  Corporate America has bought our government and the trajectory of our economy is an ever-widening equality gap. It is a scary and depressing film if you really see what it’s about: that greed runs this country and that too many people are too stupid or too scared to see it.

So there you have it: Rocky, The Distinguished Gentleman, Wall-E and Inside Job.  A round of applause for the Classof 2010.  Now you can skip History class.

Bad things come in threes so here are three things I observed in the last week that were a grey cloud on my comedy career (perhaps the incredible week the Utah Jazz had had to be counterbalanced with bad luck elsewhere).

Strike 1

Last Sunday I was eliminated from the 1st round of the Boston Comedy Festival by a “comedian” playing a ukulele.  There are two things that can tell you how stupid people in America are – opinion polls and stand up comedy shows.  There are things I have endured during my comedy career – 1,189 GPS jokes, 24,567 marijuana jokes, to name a couple, but I am not sure anything so demeaning has happened to me as losing to a gimmick.  Being that this is the last comedy competition I will do, this was a particularly stinging “loss.”

Strike 2

The last week represented a week of zero bookings.  Now, normally I would just be talking about clubs around the country who ignore my emails, but what is great is that even free shows in New York are become douchebaggy.  A new thing has emerged (perhaps it is not new, but it is new to me) where shows at bars with good reputations now have bookers.   Really? I have to work through an independent booker for your fu*king show in a backroom of a bar?  You e-mail a friend or a fellow comedian who “runs” the show and then are re-directed to a bookerwho will try to watch your set at some point in the future so that you can have the honor of appearing on a show that will not pay you (perhaps if I had made more friends in comedy someone could vouch for me, but I guess I have not praised or kissed the ass of the right comedians).  WOW!   One more signal that comedy is just as big a fraud as acting or music.  Maybe I jsut don’t understand the game anymore.

Strike 3

Tracy Morgan’s HBO Special.  I watched this abomination on Sunday morning.  Not since I saw Katt Williams deliver an absolutely worthless performance, high on drugs and low on material, at Carnegie Hall two years ago have I seen such an awful stand up performance.  It had all the hallmarks of bad comedy – out of date and unoriginal material (seriously after two years of seeing the actual Obama in office – isn’t the notice of Obama as a badass, gangster president completely irrelevant?), an audience of comedy illiterates (a standing ovation for a glorified open mic performance) and a performer who without Tina Fey’s writing appears to be mentally handicapped.

I was told on Facebook that perhaps not growing up in a black community I could not relate to Tracy Morgan’s material.  It’s fu*king terrible comedy no matter what neighborhood you come from.  I am a fan of many black comedians and Tracy Morgan is just not good.  There was no in depth exploration of anything in his routine that required first hand knowledge.  It simply required that you either a) had never seen stand up comedy before so what he said actually appeared original or b) were a person who took delight in a black man for any reason.  It was awful.

So this was the week in comedy – losing out on an opportunity because of a ukulele, not getting on unpaid bar shows because I have to be vetted by independent commissions and seeing a famous comedian in a position I aspire to, proving that it is not necessary to be good at comedy to be well received in comedy.

Who’d think that 11 audience members at midnight in the Village Lantern this Saturday would have been the highlight of my comedy week.  Here’s hoping for a stronger week.

This past week I spent in Indianapolis to compete in Trial By Laughter, a comedy contest (yay) between thirty-two comics from around the country.  Here are the important details:

• The winner was to receive $1,000 cash, an Amazon Kindle, a Flip camera, a 45 minute DVD shoot at Morty’s Comedy Joint – the host club for the competition and a CD recording deal
• Runner up was to receive $500 cash, a Flip camera, a 30 minute DVD shoot at the club and a recording deal
• 3rd and 4th place receive automatic entry into the Laughing Skull Festival in Atlanta in Spring 2011
• 5th-32nd place leave with varying ranges of disappointment and bitterness towards comedy and with sets to air on local Comcast (Indiana/Midwest) this December.

Guess which group I fell in?  But I am getting ahead of myself.  Here is a full recap of the week.

Night 1 – Optimism in Many Forms

So the first night of the competition I did good work.  I was the second overall comedian of the competition and I felt very good about my set.  I ended up placing first in my group and moving on to the semi finals.

After the show I was going to go to Steak N Shake with fellow comedian Nick Dopuch of Chicago via St. Louis, except for one thing – Nick’s car broke down – specifically his alternator and battery were shot.  This combined with Nick not moving on to the next round (he went after me and lost the crowd with a Chicago Cub bit) and I was feeling bad for him.  Had both of those things happened to me I probably would have lit the car on fire, but Nick was remarkably pleasant.

And he was rewarded – two women who had watched the show drove by and asked us if we needed help (isn’t it usually the other way around? – what a great feminist moment).  They ended up driving us to the dealership so Nick could leave the car there for morning repairs and then were Nick’s guest to Steak N Shake as a thank you (sure this could be the opening for a porno film, but one was married and one had a boyfriend so Nick was going to have to be content with a hamburger and milkshake).  Here is the most important part of our conversation, which, once again, took place at Steak N Shake, where we were waited on by Andrew,

who looked like a teenage Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords, for the first of 4 consecutive nights:

Woman 1 – So you guys just travel around doing comedy?

Nick and J-L – Yeah

Woman 2 – So it must be crazy – is it just money and partying on the road?

Nick and J-L – Yeah, that is why you had to give a jump to my broken down Honda.  And why we are sitting in Steak N shake eating ice cream with platonic groupies – because it is fu*king crazy!

So after night 1 I was feeling optimistic of my chances in the competition and was more impressed with the resiliency of Nick.

Days 2-4 – Movies, The Rock & Al Pacino

The next two days were basically me and Nick driving from strip mall to strip mall doing impressions of The Rock, Al Pacino.  We also went to see Paranormal Activity 2 (underrated) and Due Date (overhyped).  Basically it was just a higher IQ version of Dumb and Dumber for 48 hours.  We also watched the other competitors each night, and passed judgment on most of them.

I kept telling Nick that he had me laughing way more in real life than when he was on stage.  It was like looking at my opposite.  I have been told to be nicer on stage, whereas I think Nick may make too much of an effort to be nice on stage.  That’s comedy – trying to be yourself, while making it work for other people.

Night 4 – The Death of Optimism

So every competition for me has a pattern – I have a kick ass first round,  and a very good set in the round preceding the finals that is derailed by some sort of bad timing.  A brief history:

2008 Boston Comedy Festival – Sandwiched between Bostonians Joe List and Myq Kaplan I get squashed – less crowd interactive than List and then dismissed by one of Kaplan’s patented callback quips to my set.

2009 Boston Comedy Festival – I went last in a field of 8 in the semi finals.  I had an excellent set.  Unfortunately, the audience had sort of tuned out because Dave McDonough had just obliterated them (he went on to win the whole thing).  It was like he felt like a closer and then “hey wait, don’t leave – we know you loved that last guy, but we have one more as*hole who wants to stop you from going home – J-L Cauvin!”

2010 New York Comedy Contest – only 2 rounds and I finished 2nd of 70+ comedians.  1st place won $2500.  2nd place won $0

2010 Trial By Laughter – I am seeded 2nd, but behind the #1 seed Tom Simmons, who beat me in San Francisco last year and went on to win the whole thing.  As a 17 or 57 year veteran of comedy Simmons is a very tough matchup and going last (the benefit of being the higher seed) would make it nearly impossible.  But after the set I had in the first round I am not sure why I drew the toughest matchup in the second round, but the karma-like tradition of “fu*king J-L in the semi finals/second round” is apparently set in stone at this point.

Tom and I had engaged in some spirited texting during the week.  Where he assured me that everyone was fighting for second place and made Mom-related comments and plagiarised Eminem to trash talk while I asked him if he would use any notes from his days workshopping with Elaine Boozler.  So Thursday night we were the lad off matchup with NYC’s Lance Weiss leading off followed by me, closed out by Tom Simmons.

The competition is being filmed for local Comcast airing so all sets needed to be TV clean.  Lance Weiss, 40 seconds into his joke said: “oops I fu*ked up that joke, and now I have cursed… I will be selling my DVDs after the show” – a very funny moment, but made it more obvious that it would be a showdown between the Tom and I.

I went up and had a perfect set (10 minutes this round and comedians were not allowed to repeat jokes from any preceding rounds).   I could not be angry with myself.  What I could be angry with is that the crowd was now sufficiently warmed up for Tom Simmons to finish the show.  Which he did.  I left his set 3 minutes in because every minute that went by I could hear my chances of winning diminishing with every Midwestern guffaw.  Towards the end of his set I heard a loud burst of applause and I came back into the showroom, assuming it was him getting off stage.  Nope.  Applause break.  At that moment, for the 58th time in 7 1/2 years I declared my comedy career over.  All the frustration of the highs and lows just came to an all new head.

Tom Simmons went on to finish second to Kansas City’s Mike Baldwin so thanks for doing my job for me Baldwin.  Of course I was not there because I had flown out the morning of the Finals.  Special thanks to comedian Tony Deyo, who was also a much better sport than me about losing in a very tough semi finals match (to Mike Baldwin), who gave me an early morning ride to the airport.  I guess one of the good things about the week was to see and meet comedians who were able to roll with punches a lot better than me and look to the bigger picture.

Unfortunately now is not the time for lessons because I am headed to Boston for… you guessed it – the first round of the 2010 Boston Comedy Festival.  God help us all.

This weekend I worked a few shows in Long Island.  The crowds were typical Long Island – politically conservative (finally I got to see some Carl Paladino signs!), comedically crude (with obvious exceptions within each audience).  My clever jokes got polite laughter and any joke that I had that included the word fu*k or sex received much more positive feedback.

The real dilemma for me, however, was the late show on Saturday night.  I was sitting at the club bar pre-show watching the Knicks game and Knicks bearded forward Ronnie Turiaf was on the screen.  Here is what I got to hear from one of the caucasion bar patrons, who was waiting to go into the late show:

“Can anyone teach these guys to trim a beard!  Look at this guy – he’s like the other guy with the beard… (NY Jets receiver) Braylon Edwards – these guys can’t trim their beards! (Pointing at the screen) Maybe if this guy got another stint in jail they could teach him to trim his beard!  (mumbling with his friend) – Nigga please! (back slapping laughter)”

Now, as far as I know Ronnie Turiaf is not a criminal, but he is a black man playing basketball, which to some people is the same thing.  But I have to go perform comedy and try to entertain this obviously racist piece of sh*t?  Of course my joke about my Mom sponsoring my father for 46 cents a month got raucous laughter, which it generally does, but after many years I can start to tell when an audience is enjoying it too much.  I do not mean to make this seem like Dave Chappelle, who quit his show, in part because he felt like he was giving white people too much license to gang up in mean spirited laughter and N-word dropping on satires of black people.  But it certainly felt a little like that.

I never really considered leaving the club because it was one audience member and I am in no position to burn comedy bridges, but the fact that that man and his friends and many of his ilk sat in judgment of my comedy and may have been entertained by me makes me want to vomit.  I thought as I got older I would see less racism, but it seems the more I meet people and see different groups of people as I perform comedy, the more I see the uglyside of people.  I am in the unique position of looking fairly white to the untrained or underexposed eye and I have always been privy to hearing real racism – not the rants of wild-eyed racists who want to lynch negroes, but the prejudicial jokes and bad taste that go with the everyday, ordinary racist who thinks he or she is outside the presence of minorities.  It is still ugly in America, but this weekend was the first time where this reality infected my comedy career.

When I got on stage and told the crowd I was half-Haitian, half-Irish, a Caucasian male in the front row shook his head and said, “no way.”  And I laughed and said, “Maybe you are right – perhaps my Dad has been lying to me my whole life.  Or maybe you are just wondering if you said anything racist near me.”

The deafening silence that followed that line in the club was the best thing I heard all night.