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Kobe Beef

Last night I watched the Boston Celtics get out-hustled and out-played by the Los Angeles Lakers.  As if it wasn’t enough to see Kobe Bryant have a solid game I was forced to swallow my own vomit several times as I watched Sasha Vujacic and Jordan Farmar make quality contributions.  Rumor has it in the off-season they will be filming a buddy cop flick called Euro Trash and Shrek Ears.  But as much as Kobe has played the villain in my NBA story for the last 4 years, last night it got personal.  Because of the Laker victory, they will now play Game 7 on Thursday, my first night in Atlanta at The Punchline.

The Punchline is a big club and a chance for me to atone with Southern audiences for a minor debacle in Birmingham last Summer.

Backstory – Last Summer I featured at The Stardome, a huge club owned by some nice people.  6 of the seven shows went somewhere in the B- to B+ range, but one show, the Saturday show led to only the second time I have been boo’d on stage (the other time being Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn – a disgrace to higher education and the Civil Rights’ Leader’s memory, whose student attendees thought it was “boo every comedian that dares step on stage – like Amateur Night at The Apollo, without the credit of The Apollo. To put it in television analogies – if my comedy career was the show Homicide – Medgar Evers College would be Adeena Watson).  I said nothing offensive at The Stardome – I was just neither BET nor rednecky enough for the racially diverse, intellectual bottom feeders that occupied a few of the tables at the club that night.

So going to Atlanta was to be a bit of redemption for me and I actually booked the gig on the strength of my Always Be Funny/Glengary Glen Ross spoof video, which also restored my faith that YouTube was not entirely useless for my career.

But then the Lakers won because they seemed to finally discover that Rajon Rondo has the jumpshot of Shaquille O’Neal.  So that means Thursday night’s show will be empty of just about all basketball fans.  Now my routine has very fewbasketball references in it, but there is a correlation between people who are aware of basketball and people who enjoy my comedy.  Those people will not be there Thursday because Kobe & Co. won.  So who is going to be there Thursday night?  Southern comedy fans who do not like basketball.  Hmmmmmm, I just hope after the show I don’t have to tell anyone, “In New York they call me Missssster Cauvin!”

But the obvious point is that Kobe Bryant is to blame.  (I just wish LeBron James was at Game 6 and walked up to Kobe a la Maximus to Commodus in Gladiator and said, “The Time for honoring yourself will soon be at an end.” Because Kobe should know that when the LeBron James era will begin the moment LeBron gets a teammate(s) that is/are not terrible or fu*king his Mom…

Sidebar – For those of you that do not know – LeBron James mother is rumored (strong rumors) to have slept with LeBron’s bipolar, shotgun-carrying teammate Delonte West.  However, not a word has been uttered on this by ESPN , which is rather frightening.  My theory is that ESPN has marching orders from Nike not to say another word (what would ESPN be without Nike athletes and Nike advertising dollars?).  The story was discussed all over the Internet and on The Huffington Post, but not a peep from the premier sports news network in the world about one of the 10 most famous athletes on the planet?  Just makes you think if people including “The People’s Sports Reporter” Bill Simmons a/k/a The Sports Guy can be silenced (he gave a token – “absolutely false” comment on the story even though when I was in Cleveland everyone seemed to believe the story) by corporate titans (my friend Mike told me this has all the makings of a Michael Mann sports themed sequel to The Insider), what chance is there that news isn’t corrupted all the time by even bigger corporations (obviously it is).  And if you think this has nothing to do with sports – LeBron James disappeared against the Celtics after the rumors started flying, so unlike Tiger Woods’ Blasian fallace, LeBron’s story actually has sports-related salaciousness.

Back to Kobe- Is there anything more absurd than Kobe’s wife and future stripper daughters (when your Mom is a hot gold digger and your Dad is a wealthy rapist aren’t your employment prospects limited psychologically?) standing in the tunnel at halftime to greet him with adoration before he goes into the locker room?  “Look Nike and McDonald’s I am done with the butt rape and the cheating because here is my family right here.  But at the same time I am so driven to win that I take time out of halftime to greet my family?”  Anyone else’s wives or girlfriends meeting them in the tunnel?  Did Michael Jordan have Juanita waiting at halftime? No – he was too busy thinking about winning and killing the other team.  Now he might have had sex with his opponent’s wife in the tunnel as a competitive advantage, but he would never waste time to kiss his own wife mid-game.

So now for this horsesh*t I have to see potential fans not show up tot he first show in Atlanta.  It looks like me and the Celtics are going to have to put in a strong effort Thursday to make sure Kobe does not win.  Odds are the Celtics will have a tougher time than me.

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Rocky Mountain High

Last night completed a great set of shows at Wits End Comedy Club, just outside of Denver.  I sold a career high 13 CDs over the course of the 5 shows, so now I can finally achieve that dream of paying my cable bill this month.  But I have never had a streak of good shows on the road like these.  And I was at this club two years ago and I did well, but it is true what bookers, club owners and evaluators of comedy talent say, both the genuine ones who really do see your potential and the lying manipulative ones who just hide behind it without giving you a fair shake – there is no substitute for time and experience as a comedian.  These shows were so much better than the ones I did two years ago so it feels gratifying to have hard work pay off.

So other than seeing and feeling great improvement as a comic, here are my other highlights from my Denver trip:

  • Being offered to smoke up with an attractive young lady and her friends after a show.  Sorry young lady – you can take the comic out of the DA’s Office, but you can’t take the DA’s Office out of the comic.
  • Having a single mom come up to me after the show and tell me how funny it was hearing my jokes about dating a single mom, while her boyfriend looked on with a look that said, “I can’t use comedy as an outlet, so how do I deal with this kid? Please help me!”
  • A woman came up to me after the show and said her son;s father is black (she was white) so she found all my multiracial humor very funny.  I told her that her son could now grow up to be a comic.  She said, no his father left us.  So I said, oh so your son could be president.  She laughed.
  • Denver is absolutely beautiful and is much more conducive to walking and running than say, Birmingham, Alabama.  Colorado is known for being a pretty fit state and the fact that there are sidewalks and bike paths seemingly every where makes sense.  Contrast that with Alabama where everyone was either pretty or fat and I did not see a sidewalk in my time there.  You have to drive to cross the street there (or run across the highway like I did) whereas in Denver I was able to run 4 miles to the gym and walk almost 5 miles to a movie theater without fear of getting run over by a motor vehicle.

Looking forward to returning to NYC today, but this was a great trip.  Thanks Denver and Wits End.

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Bye Bye Birmingham

Last night was the final show in Birmingham.  I was very happy with my set and was hopeful that I would sell the five CDs I would need to cover overnight shipping of the CDs to Birmingham because I left them at home, unaware that Stardome customers tend to buy merchandise after shows.  However, the nation’s second worst economy after Detroit and not headlining were two factors working against me.  I sold zero so had a net loss of $50 on the CDs.  Must remember my CDs next time so my comedy career does not become a Ponzi scheme where I am the only victim.

For a good show you want everyone to laugh and have a good time – like a 2008 Obama rally.  However, I am thinking that to sell merchandise it helps to be be more 1996 Clinton or 2004 George Bush – anger some people so that the people who really like you in the crowd will rally to you even stronger, in the form of CD/DVD purchases in my case.

I will miss you Birmingham, but we will always have di-k in the ass jokes.
I will miss you Birmingham, but we will always have di-k in the ass jokes.

Overall I had a really good time in Alabama.  Thanks to everyone at the Stardome, Matt Mitchell, Tim Pulnik, Reno Collier and the comedy fans of Birmingham.  Also thanks to the people on the highway who did not hit me with their cars as I sprinted across the highway a few times a day to do kill time at Chipotle and the Galleria. 

Next stops – Denver, Boston and San Francisco.

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Birmingham Show 5 – Night at the Apollo

Yesterday was a really good day.  I sent out my first round of petitions for bookings, read a little, finally made it to the gym for a good workout and ate healthy.  It was Saturday so I expected the best show of the week.  I would give Tuesday, Thursday and Friday thumbs up with only Wednesday being sort of dead for me.  Feeling good I went to the club ready to kick ass.  Then the wheels sort of fell off.

I gave the sound guy my iPod so he could play Sexy Back for me (like Church and the Democratic party women are my largest fan demographic has been women down here I figured I’d get them in a happy mood with some Timberlake).  Well as an omen of bad things to come, the sound guy managed to hit something wrong and play an incredibly awkward slow jam.

So my first set of jokes were all going well, despite two tables to my left that literally did not stop talking during the show from start to finish.  Then I lost the crowd on two jokes that I did not expect to lose them on.

  1. “I’m Catholic – any Catholics out there?  (woo from about 10% of the crowd) Well, I should be honest I am half Catholic – devout Catholic from the waist up, complete atheist from the waist down. (lots of delayed laughter).  I actually went to confession recently, where you tell the priest all the bad sh*t you’ve done.  In movies they always use the screen so the priest doesn’t see you face to face.  But there is a face to face option that I prefer because I like to high five the priest after the really awesome sins.  But this priest kept pressing me, “Son, are those all your sins, are those all your sins and I had to tell him, well father, what goes on in Vegas stays in Vegas.”  I’ll admit this is a B joke, but it got a combination of confusion and silence as if I had just advocated blow jobs from 6 year old boys.
  2. Prison rape joke – biggest laugh I got on this was when I said “My anal virginity is the only thing keeping me from committing half a dozen felonies.  But there was a general unease during this joke (that has consistently done well for me for 4 years), which made me feel like I had suddenly been transported to Folsom Prison to be the opening act for Johnny Cash. 

After those two bits which took about 3 minutes total I lost larger portion of the crowd (most of whom must have been encouraged by the 2-3 tables that did not stop talking).  My difficulty is that I do not know how to deal with people disturbing the show – my only response is “WILL YOU SHUT THE FU-K UP!!!” which will help you lose the rest of the crowd.  What I wanted to say to the few tables (infer what you will) was “Do I look like a movie?… No, then why are you talking?” 

Then as the chatter built I could feel myself getting antsy.  Then as I went into my closing bit on half black people and Obama, something happened that has not happened since the massacre at Medgar Evers College for me over 2 years ago.  I started getting booed.  All it takes is a few cowardly tables out 400 people to ruin the show and for the first time my Obama impression did the comedic equivalent of blowing a save.  It was about 40/40 in closing shows on a high note until last night, regardless of what kind of set I was having.  Sometimes those Southern manners are great, but sometimes you need a self-policing NYC audience that will tell a heckler to shut the fu-k up so a comic doesn’t have to. 

I then got a Bronx cheer as I was leaving, to which I just smiled.  I have never felt more deflated after a show.  I literally felt like falling asleep in the Green Room because I had no energy.  I had no interest in going out to sell merchandise, but I had to, because if I don’t sell CDs/DVDs, the comedy terrorists win.  

So I went out there and literally stared down at least one person I knew was talking.  Not surprisingly, he wanted no part of a face-to-face encounter.  But then one guy came up to me and said – “You were great.  Don’t worry I got it.” Then I realized he was a black man dating a white women, so I joked with him that he just liked me for personal reasons not humor.  Then two people came out and bought my CD/DVD, so that was cool.  Bringing me to do or die tonight – sell 5 or else…

I handed out several business cards (never forcing on people) after the show and then as I approached the emcee’s card (he’s my ride around town) I noticed two of my cards on the rain soaked ground.  Fantastic.

Between congratulating me on a show and 20 paces to the parking lot these two people said, "Hey, you know what? On second thought, fu-k this guy."
Between congratulating me on a show and 20 paces to the parking lot these two people said, "Hey, you know what? On second thought, fu-k this guy."

Tonight is the last night in Birmingham.    Have to kill it.

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Birmingham, Part Threesome

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.

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Letter From A Birmingham Comedy Club – Part 1

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.