Syracuse Recap: 6 Shows, 5 Botched Intros, 4 Good…

The title of this post is basically the Cliff Notes of what you need to know. But for further detail here goes something:

I arrived in Syracuse on Thursday after a relaxing, and by J-L travel standards quick, 5 ½ hour train ride at 3:50 pm and was greeted by the welcoming weather that calls central New York home:

Thursday’s show would turn out to have the smallest crowd of the six shows this weekend, but they were not half bad.  And the show was also notable because it was the only time my intro was said correctly in all six shows.  I will give you the correct into and then the not so correct ones I got:

• This guy has been seen on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and performs at clubs around the country – J-L Cauvin (correct)
• This guy, he was on The Late Late… which one is it The Later Night Late Show?  J-L Cauvin
• You may have seen this guy on The Late Late Show his name is… what the hell is his name? (picks up my card) J-L… Cauvin
• Give it up for D.L Cauvin
• You have seen this guy… he just did a guest spot on Leno… J-L Cauvin

I messed up one intro as an emcee in my life at the Cleveland Improv.  I was mortified and would have been OK if the headliner told me to fu*k off and asked me to be bounced from the lineup.  That said, I of course never messed up the intro the rest of the week.  But Wise Guys this weekend had three different emcees for the four nights. And none of them had a perfect record. I don’t really care except when your intro is messed up (especially on purpose as one emcee did twice because I think he thought it was funny) it just diminishes the modicum of energy and respect the crowd may have for the entertainer.   It’s like instead of having the dignity of a stripper, he was demoting me to Hooters waitress.

Friday I went to the Mall and joined Bally’s for three days.  I always enjoy my interactions with gym personnel in different towns.  I usually say “I am a comedian in town for the weekend and was hoping to use the gym for a few days,” and they always respond, “Oh really, what’s your name?” And usually I say, “You have never heard of me.”  See, as a feature you do all the travelling of a headliner at a fraction of the pay and much more pride swallowing.  By the end of a typical day on the road it becomes a battle of how many people will I have to tell I am a non-famous comedian that does not play pro sports while enduring looks of disappointment in people’s faces like I threw the 1918 World Series versus how much to I still want to live.

So working out in Syracuse I realized that the same way small town girls seem to have taken to tattoos and oral sex as their singular identity in a post-industrial America (I am guilty of looking at well-inked women the way many white women look at black dudes – Sure I find you attractive and want to have sex with you, but I will probably never introduce you to my parents), men seemed to have embraced the MMA model for life.  Everyone in the gym looked like they were working out to be extras in a sequel to Warrior.  It would be nice if America could start employing people and creating things so that our only inspirations are not from reality television  America is quickly becoming a land where men and women either look like they belong on Jersey Shore or The Biggest Loser.

Anyway, like I said only four of the six shows at Wise Guys went as well as I wanted (which based on Twitter account reading will now be known to all comedians performing in Syracuse as “pulling a Jason Good”).  The early show Friday and
the late show Saturday had all the fun of a Tea Party rally watching Obama fu*k their white daughters.  But the other shows were great, especially Sunday’s crowd, which provided me the rare opportunity to leave a city on a high note.  Normally I leave gigs the way Shooter McGavin was forced to run at the end of Happy Gilmore.

Not only that, but I sold five CDs Sunday night, which brought my total for the weekend up to five.  Thank you to three people that bought those five CDs (two went for one copy of each of my CDs) – your money has already gone to purchase breakfast for a starving comedian.

As far as non-comedy entertainment I saw Puss In Boots and In Time, which were both great ideas for movies towatch on TBS on a rainy Sunday afternoon on the day a year where the only sports on television are cheerleading competitions.  And also a note to Regal Cinemas of Syracuse: You are a town with a Mall. How dare you charge $10 per ticket or $8 for a matinee.  You are a $6 movie ticket town!  At least Indianapolis had the decency to know that their matinees should only cost $5.

I also had a lot of fun hanging out with headliner Jaime Lissow, whose name I had heard many times, but never actually met.  We even managed to kill at Denny’s late Friday night.   We went in after a late night of shows and drinking.  I was immediately drawn to a stuffed toy plane in the claw machine (the impossible ones that take people’s money without mercy) because I am immature and Jaime said “I am going to get that plane for you,” which is slightly more impressive than calling a home run if you can pull it off.  I turned my back and walked toward the table and following behind me, to the awe of two customers up front, was Jaime with a the toy, which looked sort of like what an airplane would look like in a Pixar film.  So, to the delight of a few waitresses and patrons I re-enacted 9/11 as a Pixar movie using the stuffed toy as one of the hijacked planes.  Might not have been my finest moment from a decency standpoint, but was one of my best improvised
moments of comedy for sure.

Then there was the Henry Winkler sighting, which was probably the most surreal experience I have had in a while.  If you don’t know who Henry Winkler is you are stupid, but I will let you know anyway – he played the Fonze on Happy Days and most notably to me, played the Bluth Family attorney on Arrested Development.  I was at the Syracuse Amtrak station on Saturday waiting for my girlfriend to arrive.  Once she did we got on line to exchange our Monday return tickets for an earlier train.  And then running through the door of the empty train station is Henry Winkler.  I just stared at him and elbowed my girlfriend to look.  It was not that I was star struck as much as it was, “What the fu*k is Henry Winkler doing in Syracuse looking frantic at the train station.  He seemed to be in a hurry to get on the train that was about to leave.  He was with who I believe was his assistant or a colleague, but he was incredibly polite.  He was not technically cutting us, but he seemed concerned that we not think he was a dick so he apologized and then thanked me and my girlfriend, giving her a gentle tap on the shoulder, which I was OK with (I believe that is the first in a long line of steps that ends with asking a large black man to fu*k your wife while you watch during a mid-life crisis) as he ran off to the train.  And then the station was empty and quiet again.  The only person more in awe than us was the train clerk, who looked sort of like the nerdy guy from Party Down.  He had to be a big fan of Arrested Development (and probably comic books and Dungeons and Dragons also) and it was nice to have shared the moment with a mutual fan.

 

I am sure Henry Winkler was on the train going, “That was crazy!  We just cut The Rock and he was so nice about it!”  Thanks to the Wise Guys staff, the staff of the Maplewood Inn and the 5-15 fans I made this weekend.  Now off to San Antonio.