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Last night was an interesting night at The Stardome.   It was a chatty crowd, which can often spell doom for a comedy show.  And for part of the show I felt doomed.  In a room of 425 patrons it takes a lot of people to make it feel like you are killing, but only a few chatty tables to ruin it.  But I got through the set and thought I did fairly well.  However I did not want to sell merchadise after the show.  I had a great set and crowd on Thursday and sold a big donut.

When you are trying to sell merchandise after a show and people are avoiding you you feel like an ugly prostitute: sacrificing your dignity and people still aren’t interested in what you are selling.  I think that is why I feel bad for some of the ugly whores on the HBO series Cathouse when they don’t get picked for a “party,”it’s like insult to injurious STDs.

So I was not going to sell CDs/DVDs during the headliner’s set some 15 year old kid came up to me and said, “You were really good.” And like Adrian saying to Rocky in Rocky II, “WIN!!!!!” I decided to swallow my pride and stand with some CD/DVDs.

One of the first people out said to me “That crowd was stupid and talked to much.  Everyone who paid attention thought you were great.”  That felt good, and then a miracle happened – I started selling stuff.  8 in total – not quite Platinum, but the most I’ve ever sold after a show (and bringing me 7 away from the magic number of 15 sold).  I also received several R-rated compliments, which made me feel less like a comedian and more like a man walking by an all-female construction crew (possible porn plot?).

So I am hoping tonight’s show is better, which at the rate this week has been going would mean bigger laughs, more CD/DVDs sold and probably autographing cleavage.  Woo hoo!

Last night’s show felt like a breakthrough.  It was a really fun crowd and I felt sharper than the previous two nights.  And that was a good thing because I had CD/DVDs to sell, so having a strong performance I hoped would set the stage for some decent sales.  Turns out I was wrong, not to say that I could not have yielded other benefits from my strong performance/muscle t-shirt.  After the show it was clear that I genuinely had a better chance of scoring a threesome (emcee put it at better than 50/50 based on the suggestiveness) after the show than selling a CD (and posed the fleeting hypothetical to myself – if offered a threesome and you reject one and hook up with the other, do they cancel each other out in terms of relationship culpability).  Perhaps this is an odd complaint, but when one is settled and happy in their female companionship situation and looking to advance their career, CD sales are more important (somewhere a past or current member of the Williams College hockey team just involuntary shouted “FAG” and has no idea why).  Right now the hottest thing a chick could do right now is buy my CD and then e-mail me telling me it is awesome.

After the show I went out with the emcee and two of his friends, one of whom is a drummer in a band.  The guy resembles a cross between Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue (the look he was hoping for) and Adam Lambert (the look he is not going for).  We went to see another band, an 80s-90s cover band at a bar/club that just opened.   The funniest thing about the band that was playing was that their bass player was a dead ringer for Johnny Depp (he probably does not have any luck with women – except maybe for his ex-girlfriend who appeared in Playboy who was at the show), which is why his band refers to him as Depp.  The catch is that he looks exactly like Pirates of the Caribbean Johnny Depp (the look he is going for).  I am not kidding – I am very sad that I did not have my camera to prove it.

The bar was having a special – $15 cover for free beer all night.  Another interesting thing about Birmingham, from my limited experience, is the women.  The women are either stunning to look at or stun you with their apparently considerable appreciation of food.  There seems to be very little middle ground.  Except maybe for the mildly attractive woman who had a large cursive “69” tattooed on the small of her back.

My favorite part of the evening (possibly even more so than having a strong set) was that the emcee, myself, Nikki Lambert and Captain Jack Sparrow went out to eat after the show.  Keep in mind I thought a few suggestive compliments after a show made me feel slightly rock star-ish, albeit a rock star having a hard time pushing merchandise.  One of the two rock guys’ bands opened for Candlebox and Hinder (two bands who have each had one viable hit – the comedic equivalent of saying I opened for Gallagher on the road and the bitches loved the fruit smashing!).  Here is a sample of some quotes that they offered:

“That was such a bad threesome.”

“That guy’s girl came on our bus and blew so and so.”

This quick sample indicates that even up and coming or aspiring or just decent musicians can live rock star fairy tales.  When you can rate your threesomes comparatively you are living in a different, probably clinic-filled visit world than most people I know.  I then jokingly added, “Yeah, there was this one time my girlfriend came to my show and she thought I was really good so we did it back at my apartment and then snuggled.”

Night 3 in Birmingham definitely the most interesting and fun.  But now just 3 nights left to sell at least 15 CD/DVDs.  Perhaps if I offer cuddles free of charge with every purchase I will do better.

Sequels are often worse than the original, even if excellent (soshut up Godfather II fans).  Last night at the Stardome was no different.  The difficulty is that for Tuesday and Wednesday shows the club sends out like of promotional invites for things like birthdays so that crowds are there for free comedy, not necessarily because they are devotees of the particular comedian(s).  On Tuesday it did not matter – it was a rock solid crowd that laughed their asses off.

Last night it was a tougher crowd – I kept making segments of the crowd laugh at different things, but only a few times felt like I had the whole crowd.  Some lessons I learned that may be helpful for comedians:

1. Good anal sex jokes are universally funny in the South, even for a tougher crowd.
2. If you are a tall, relatively fit comic do not put jokes about obesity close to the front of your set.  It will make the audience that fries their oreos, snickers bars, salads, etc. not like you as much.  The joke that really lost them was when I said: “Big and Tall Stores treat tall and fat like one big group of circus freaks.  The store had jeans with 30 inch inseam and 56 inch waists?  The only thing that should come in that size for humans is a casket because you are not long for this Earth with those dimensions.”  Not appreciated.
3. In a room of 400+ people, you need a lot of people laughing.  50 people dying of laughter on one joke may seem good, but when 350 people are just smiling or frowning it sounds like silence.

So I would rate the overall feel for myself a C+.  The three comics (myself, headliner Tim Pulnik and emcee Matt Mitchell) then headed to Hooters after.  I continued to amaze them by not drinking, but having a piece of chocolate cake (I have decided my rap name would be German Chocolate), which Hooters should really be publicizing over their wings.  We were then treated to a story by our waitress about the time a fellow waitress attacked her in the bathroom and beat the sh*t out of her because she slept with her man.  I just got up in my chair and started shouting “JERRY, JERRY, JERRY!”

Tonight I open for Reno Collier, who, among other things, has been the national opener for Larry The Cable Guy.  The good news is that means the crowds will almost definitely be consistent in their tastes.  The bad news is I may have to wear a flannel shirt with no sleeves.

And tonight begins my need to sell at least 15 CDs by Sunday night.  Seriously it will be funny/tragic if I don’t.

So yesterday was my first day in Birmingham, Alabama.   Big plane to Charlotte.  Tiny plane to Birmingham.  I have noticed that the little planes that I am forced to take to smaller cities are always piloted by guys who look like they just left a boy band.  My guess is that you have to be old and experienced to fly a big plane and that younger pilots get their wings (yeah pun) on the little planes.  The problem is that the little planes are much scarier.  I just envision these two bros in the cockpit high-fiving each other and talking about tag teaming chicks when they get to Birmingham while the turbulence is causing me to soil myself.

Also, even the flight attendant seems to be half-assing the small planes.  The big planes usually have two women and one gay dude, to show that they care about service and style, and they are always in uniform.  On little planes, like yesterday, the flight attendant was basically in sweats and a USAir t-shirt.

The club has a car service pick me up, which made me feel like quite the baller.  I checked into the Courtyard where I am staying which is conveniently located about an eight minute walk from the Stardome Comedy Club.  The only problem is that I have to sprint across what is basically a highway to get there.

The show last night was fantastic.  I thought I had a very good, but not great set, but was truly surprised by Birmingham comedy fans.  They laughed at anal sex, 9/11 analogies and even cheered for Obama, which I asked them not to.  Fortunately one older woman was nice enough to balance it out by saying, “he’s stupid.”  I think she was talking about Obama.  I think tonight will be great (sadly I often take one night to get used to a new room).

But the venue is amazing.  425 people in stadium-style seating – and it was packed on a Tuesday night!  The only drawback was that the most common look-alike for me (see my bio pie chart on my website) from people last night was Vin Diesel.  And many people wanted pictures with me based solely on my height.  But other than that great start to the week.

Funny future storyline here is that I will HAVE to sell at least 15 dvds/cds before I leave.  I will let you know Monday if I did it.

Tomorrow I head to The Stardome in Birmingham, Alabama for a week of work.  I have nothing to write other than that today, but I anticipate having stuff to write about it once I get there.  Questions that will be answered sometime this week:

1. Will the nice Birmingham couple I met in Destin, Florida actually bring a huge group to the Stardome as they promised they would when they told me I looked like Adam Sandler, Ben Affleck and Vin Diesel a month ago?
2. Will I pass out running and jumping rope in Alabama Summer heat?
3. Will I finally go to a WalMart?
4. Will the Perfect Push-Up prove to be the answer to my road fitness woes?

Stay tuned.

I saw an ad recently for One-A-Day (the multi-vitamin seller) Gummy Vitamins.  These vitamins are for adults.  Because after all haven’t you ever been having a multi-vitamin with a glass of juice, coffee or water in the morning and just thought, “God, if only there was a way to get my vitamins and minerals without putting up with all the fu-king bullsh*t that comes with a multi-vitamin!”  Well now, finally, grown adults don’t have to suffer the indignity and hardship of maintaining a healthy lifestyle for 1-3 seconds without enjoying a piece of candy.

I thought purchasing condoms, lube and childrens’ toys at the same time at Duane Reade was the most demeaning thing I could do at a pharmacy, but I don’t think it’s anything next to purchasing adult gummy vitamins.  And why are scientists working on this?  Who is not taking a multivitamin because it’s just it’s just too unpleasant an experience?  Chewables already exist for those people with poor gag reflexes or traumatic step father incidents so why are the gummies necessary?  Is there even one person with decades of mineral deficiencies who is treating these vitamins like a Kathy Griffin fan club that just found out a cure for AIDS has been found?

I also just read an article in the NY Times style section about how people in my age group are clinging to their youth (the most offensive example was of colleges, including Princeton and Williams College safety school Middlebury partaking in Quidditch tournaments).

I have been told that I am too negative sometimes with my blogs and comedy.  First off, fu-k you.  Secondly, if you open your eyes and ears for all our technological advances it keeps looking like we are going backwards.  Adults playing Quidditch and eating candy vitamins may not seem terrible, but it just reminds me of those early 90s Jenny Jones or Jerry Springer episodes where mothers in their 40s would walk out dressed provactively (known today as business casual) their embarrassed daughters would cringe as the mothers did turns shouting things like, “You wish you was as hot as me!  I can have any man in here!  That’s right baby!” and other white trash affirmations.

Now that we have moved beyond demonizing these trashy people and have given them more respectable terms like “cougars” and “middle school teachers,” we have to continue to compete with youth so we don’t feel older and responsible and like our time has passed.  So we have gummy vitamins for adults only a few months after Flintstones released their gummy vitamins (who the fu-k are these 6 year olds that think they can have all this fun?) and we play Quidditch as college students.  Granted, I am sure these kids are still properly considered losers, but since plastic surgery can only keep you young on the outside while your soul decays underneath I guess now is the time to start acting the age we wish we were.

Time to get back to my Nintendo Wii.

This weekend I was in Asheville, North Carolina for the Laugh Your Asheville Off Festival.  Here is the whimsical recap:

I woke up at 530 AM to get my flight from Newark.  Not my first choice, but when it is a free flight from American Express you go to Newark.  For anybody that doubts the toughness of Newark, NJ you need to look no further than their TSA agents.  A woman in her early 50s obviously gave a Napoleanic TSA agent some guff when she was told that she would need to have a separate screening.  I did not hear what she said, but she received a “you got something to say?” from the TSA agent.  Actually she received about 4 “you got something to say’s,” with each one drawing the TSA agent closer until he was literally in her face, which was followed by her silence.  He then said, “that’s what I thought,” and started walking away, to which she started saying something, which was followed by TSA agent turning around and walking back saying, “Don’t start talking when I turn around baby girl.” Now to clarify the tension this was not some sassy black queen talking to this woman, but a slightly more thuggish young man, so it probably didn’t help when I kept muttering, “hit the bitch.”  When it was my turn I looked at him and said, “You think you bad?  You ain’t bad!  You ain’t nothin’!”  So my trip started with an inauspicious start, as I thought of something that sounds like a tag from a terrible horror or thriller movie, “The TSA protects you from terrorists, but who will protect you from the TSA?”

So I arrived in Asheville on one of the smoothest small plane rides I can ever remember and had plenty of time to kill before my 930 pm show.  I had lunch with the producers of the show, which was nice and allowed me to get the scoop on the Asheville scene (bottom line – if you are a comedian and get a chance to do a show there – do it).

Then I spent the next few hours in my Super 8 Motel room working on my set, but then I got hungry. Seeking an authentic Southern experience I went to the only non-Waffle House across from my motel: Hooters.

There are several things strange about my trip to Hooters.  I brought a book to read, which already can indicate homosexuality to certain neanderthal thinkers at anytime, but bringing a book into Hooters is like going to a Neanderthal meeting and saying I prefer tales of Richard Nixon’s election in 1968 to breasts.  But I brought the book simply to avoid gazing into the dead eyes of the waitresses.  Another strange thing was that the televisions were playing That’s So Raven on the Disney channel.   It seemed ironic to me, but maybe Hooters can be a family restaurant,considering that signs at the restaurant indicated that today was Conceive Your Daughter At Work Day.  I kid the Hooters waitresses – but I felt like I should be pimping them to come to New York, “Ladies you know what pretty girls with big boobs can get in NYC?  Anything you want!  But you’ll want to lose that cheerful attitude.”

Then it was time to go over for the night’s shows.  The shuttle from the Motel was basically a golf cart, but less masculine and cool (my door closed by Velcro).  It would have been less humiliating to arrive at the show dressed as Professor Dumbledore riding a Big Wheels truck.  This was at 6 pm, which only meant that I had 6 hours until my set.   After waiting for what felt like an eternity I went on and had a great set in front of an amazing crowd.  Really amazing.

After the show a guy came up to me to tell me that he thought the Obama impression was really good and that he is an impressionist and is struggling to get an Obama.  I very much wanted to go Kenny Powers on him and say, “Actually I don’t understand you.  I’m a comedian, not trying to be the best at imitating,” which is a lie since I like doing impressions, but it would have been funny to me to say that.

The next morning was Waffle House time, where I ate a ton of food for $7 before getting on my flight back to Newark.  it was very bumpy the whole way back and then I realized that we had a female pilot and co-pilot.  I have never seen that before, but other than the emotional instability of the flight it was pretty much a normal flight.

Whenever people talk with fear about radical Islam in the Middle East they speak about how it is a fringe element of the faith that wants to bring modern society back to the 9th century.  We fear this because it comes with repression of women, suicide bombs, etc.  But the more I look at American pop culture it seems we are hell bent on doing the same, but with our own American style.

The fastest growing sport in America is Mixed Martial Arts. I know defenders of this sport will call  the guys great athletes, but that doesn’t cover up the fact that it is basically just brawling for the enjoyment of a mob.    It reminds me of the scene in Gladiator when Derek Jacobi’s character is discussing how Rome is the mob and Caesar will be applauded by the mob for giving them bloody games.  Well, I guess we’ve come full circle.  Watching highlights of these MMA events convinces me that we are less than a century away form Gladiators coming back.

Twenty years ago, prescient film pioneer Jean Claude-Van Damme did a movie called Lionheart about underground fighting clubs for big money.  20 years later the clubs are out in the open and cleaning up on pay-per-view.   Are we 20 years from the number of movies that showcase races or fights to the death (usually involving prisoners) becoming reality?

Frenemy, ginormous and staycation are now in the dictionary, so this is not just a testosterone fueled movement.  Idiots of all classes, races and genders seem to growing exponentially and continue to win.  The movie Idiocracy, by Mike Judge, shows, through two accidental time travelers over the next 500 years, society getting dumber and dumber to the point that a porn star is elected US President, popular shows on television simply involve people getting hit in the nuts and people can barely speak properly.  Judge may have overshot with 500 years.

Twitter has shown us the way to communicate with each other in short bursts.  So in 50 years perhaps we will simply communicate with emoticons or high-tech equivalents of grunts, believing technology automatically means better, but not realizing social skills have eroded to the point that we are more at ease instant messaging each other than actually communicating in person.

Last year I thought there was hope when The Dark Knight elevated a traditionally mindless genre, the action/comic movie to something artistic and elegant.  But this year’s #1 movie is Transformers 2 which appeals to the basic attraction to visual and aural stimuli with base humor and nothing else.   So after a year that gave us Obama and The Dark Knight (my two favorite things from 2008) it appears that tales of the idiot’s demise were greatly exaggerated.  Time to go tweet.

Last night I went to see a midnight show of Bruno.  Perhaps my expectations were not as high as they were for Borat (I believed Borat had the potential to be the funniest movie of all time), but I thought it was insanely funny.  There is a lot more sexual crudeness in this film (I will refrain from saying anything that might spoil surprise/horror/shock/laughter), but it is the hardest I’ve laughed this year (apologies to The Hangover and Drag Me To Hell, especially).

But in a movie that featured many shots of male genitalia and several explicit scenes from a swingers club the most shocking thing I saw last night was about four minutes before the show started when two sets of young parents (late 20s/early 30s) came in to the theater with three small children (none older than 4).  There are a couple of problems with this:

1. It’s midnight – you could be coming to watch Veggie Tales and it would still be wrong (I’ve often wondered about theaters with 10 pm showings of kids’ movies).
2. It’s Bruno – not to seem all puritanical, but 3 and 4 year olds probably should not be watching anal penetration and blow jobs.

When are movie theaters going to finally step up and start helping parents be parents?  I mean if a movie is R children must be accompanied by adults.  If a movie is NC-17 (not really sure how Bruno got an R rating) then children under 17 CANNOT see the film, which is why the movie industry tries to avoid those ratings at all cost.  Why can’t theaters say – no children under 10 after 10 pm?  Why don’t they?   And why not say if you are under 10 you cannot see an R rated film?  I was once at the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and a man brought his 2 year old in.  naturally when a woman pulled a gun out of her vagina in the opening scene and killed herself the young child began bawling.  Clearly the tot knew he shouldn’t be there.  Parents can have plenty of time and opportunities to fu-k up their children.  But movie theaters do not have to have to help expedite the process.

It’s simply being responsible for parents who clearly are not and it helps consenting adult movie goers enjoy the film without hearing children talking and/or crying.  To the credit of the kids they did not say anything during Bruno, possibly because one of the fathers responsibly said, and I quote, “Shhhhhh, you need to be asleep right now.”  I agree sir, but in a bed with stuffed animals, not in a theater with images of bleached, stuffed anuses.

The movie is really really funny and I recommend it highly.  And I also recommend movie theaters start taking a modicum of responsibility for their viewers, both the ones that should be there and the ones that shouldn’t.

I remember as a 2nd grader (give or take a year) at Riverdale Country School some Columbia psychology grad students were allowed to use us for experiments.  Simple ones, maybe some of you have been involved in them (there is actually a commercial parodying them running on television currently, but it involves ponies) where the experimenter would tell us we could have 3 Hershey Kisses if we waited for an indefinite amount of time (could be 5 minutes, could be 50) or 2 Hershey Kisses at any time when we said we wished to stop waiting.  I distinctly remember waiting for only a few minutes and then requesting the two Hershey Kisses.

I did not realize that more than two decades later this mindset would bite me in the ass when everyone else would adopt it.

With the advent of YouTube and similar media outlets the viewer’s attention span is both demanding and being molded for nothing less than ten minutes of humorous bursts.  The shorter the better.  If something is 3 minutes try to make it 2, etc.  But comedy, I believed, was open to all sorts of styles and thoughts.  My jokes generally come in the form of intermittent punchlines during the course of stories or opinions with (hopefully) a big punchline at the end.  That is one style – it is not changing the world, but iI hope the content and perspective I have is unique enough.  I am no Bill Cosby or George Carlin, but I wonder to myself sometimes if those legends started out today would they even be considered comedians or would they be placed under the more nebulous “spoken word” category, meaning I may have to listen to some set up or opinion or allow a person to develop something before I get to a more substantive and funny payoff.

I really believe YouTube, for all its convenience is going to have a very detrimental long term effect on comedy.   I was recently told in the course of a rejection for something I auditioned for that I “needed to get to the jokes faster.”  This was in response to one of the best sets I’d ever had in my life.  Now maybe that means that I suck.  But I do not feel that is the case.  So, despite telling what is my best material in crisp formats that had just gotten me passed at two well regarded national clubs, I was taking too much time getting to the punch.   But this may just be what the comedy fan market is demanding.  But

This trend has a doubly deleterious effect on my nascent career because at the time that young storytelling comics with points of view may or may not be getting shunned (or at least fewer opportunities) for more quick hit style comics (nothing against them at all if they do it well), it also seems that this is the dawn of new dominance for the slovenly/nerdy comedian.  Seth Rogan’sascendancy may be the biggest moment of this trend(or re-trend), but also in successful movies like The Hangover the two guys getting the biggest laughs are Zach Galifianakis (slovenly) and Ed Helms (sort of meek and nerdy).  Shows like Important Things with Dimitri Martin and the new porn for alt comedy fans, Michael and Michael demonstrate that the nerdy and alt scene is where the comedy businsess seems to be mining for its new talent.  Perhaps Dane Cook cashed in all the alpha male chips this decade for comedians.  But these two trends (shorter bits, stranger comedians) make me feel like a 2009 General Motors SUV.  That is why instead of getting what I think is a half-assed critique of my audition I would have preferred to hear, “Fu-k you,” or “We don’t want you,” or “You are not what we’re looking for.”  Those I can understand, but if the gates to the comedy kingdom require admission fees in the form of alternative looks or sounds or rapid fire punchlines akin to Rodney Dangerfield or Robin Williams then my days in the business are numbered.  It’s just not what I do.

And people are becoming more and more programmed to expect or demand certain delivery devices like YouTube – the internet is no longer enough.  Not too long ago I told a waiter at a restaurant that I was a comedian.  He seemed to be a big comedy fan so I gave him my card which has my website on it.  He then asked me if I had any clips on YouTube and that he’d look me up on YouTube.  I just gave him a sh*t eating grin because I did not want saliva in my food, but in my head I was thinking, “Yeah maybe you could check out clips of mine if I put them on YouTube, but wait, I think I know where you might also have a chance of seeing some clips – the FU-KING website I just gave you that has all my stuff you pre-programmed moron.”

And to show that this is not sour grapes or some small potatoes gripe, all entertainment is feeling this decrease in attention and creativity – even porn!  See the link below.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/business/media/08porn.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=plot%20in%20porn&st=cse

Now if even porn stars are craving more substance to their work something is going dreadfully wrong with our pop culture.

I really feel like at some point down the road YouTube will have some video Twitter equivalent where things can only be 15 seconds long and will just consist of people taking dumps in public places or near children and we will all be competing with that stupidity as comics.   I just hope this is a phase of comedy and not a permanent direction because if it is I’ll just take my two Hershey kisses now.