Monday’s blog was such a comprehensive diatribe on the pitfalls and borderline corruption permeating stand up comedy that today I am happy to take a break from long-windedness. In today’s post I am sharing a video that my buddy, sometimes road companion and baseball fan Joe Pontillo made. I play Mark Teixera, who I don’t really resemble, but the keys to the part were that the person be equal parts apathetic and mean. When my agent got the call for the role I asked how much it paid and after some very tense negotiations I agreed to a one-way train ticket to Valley Stream on the Long Island RR. Not to brag about my acting ability, but in the sketch (which is for comedy fans who like baseball) I am actually wearing a Robinson Cano jersey, but because of my Meisner technique I was able to channel the spirit of Mark Teixera and make the audience forget I was in a Cano jersey. Also, one last note, realizing that Teixera has a horse’s mouth I borrowed a comedy technique Jim Carrey utilized to play Vera De Milo on In Living Color in the 1990s, known as the “horse laugh.” I hope you enjoy the sketch and the finely honed instrument that is my acting craft.
For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes. New Every Tuesday!
In case you still have Internet in the aftermath of Hurricane/Storm/Bitch Sandy, here is something that will make you wish you had lost your Web access: a blow-for-blow account of life on the road last week. I have not been chronicling my road life as much in 2012 for a very good reason: I have not been getting booked as much. But last week my luck turned around and my cholesterol went way up thanks to a week that took me from Gotham Comedy Club to Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin to “The Comedy Room” in Wyandotte, Michigan (pronounced “where the fu*k am I?”, Wyandotte is an old Native American term for “Where all the white people from Detroit ran away from blacks”). All in all it was over 2,000 miles of driving, over 4,000 grams of trans fats and over $20 in profit! Just kidding, made triple digit profits this week, which means that if I am a victim of Hurricane Sandy’s aftermath relatives of mine will have to divide $125 amongst themselves. I just hope that the nastiness of the ensuing litigation does not tear my family apart. OK – here is the epic tale of comedy domination from NYC through the Midwest.
Tuesday Night – Gotham
I went up first on the Comedians at Law show at Gotham because we are experimenting running comedy shows like athletic events at progressive middle schools – everyone gets to close shows like they are participation trophies. Couple that frustration with some financial arrangements with former group members and I thought it was a bad start to a week (without going into details please watch Michael Corleone in this scene for how I would have chosen to deal with former members):
So I retired for the evening after a surprisingly good set because the next day was the trip to Coldwater, Michigan. Road work is like a cleansing of the comedy palate – leave and forget everything at home for a week or so at a time.
Road Trip – Day 1 – Joe Pontillo: Road Comedy Warrior
On Wednesday I was picked up by Joe Pontillo. I have done several road gigs with Joe Pontillo and here is why Pontillo is a great road comedy companion:
He has a seemingly unlimited capacity for driving, which is good because I do not drive (I have a license, but consider it a serious danger to be behind the wheel).
He is a funny dude.
He is a small human being, which always means he has to sleep on fold out couches instead of beds in the event of limited bedding.
We set of for Coldwater, MI which is about 70% of the way from New York to Appleton, WI. Among the things we learned was that Pennsylvania is the worst city to travel through – it is dark, full of trees and devoid of quality rest stops. Of course Ohio is the exact opposite – their stops are pristine, contain 24 hour Starbucks and are so safe that the staffs consist entirely of 90 year old women at 2am. I also began my futile quest to eat at a Buffalo Wild Wings (I always try to eat at places that I see advertised a lot in NYC, but can never find in NYC – I AM TALKING TO YOU SONIC!).
Comedy Warrior Joe Pontillo always multi-tasking on the road.
We arrived at the Red Roof Inn (the GPS led us to a quiet abandoned road about 2/10 of a mile from the Red Roof Inn, which was temporarily terrifying and then a great relief) at about 2:30 am and for $48 it was a pretty solid place.
Red Roof Inn Continental Breakfast of Losers
Road Trip Day 2 – Appleton’s Reckoning
Joe and I set off for Appleton around 9 am the next day and as we were pulling out I realized that there was a Buffalo Wild Wings behind the hotel (the first of about 5 we would miss by a few feet and/or a few hours of being opened). We stopped at Wendy’s for lunch where I had a burger, fries and milkshake and was served by a woman whose name tag said “Ms. Nique$$..” We arrived at the Hampton Inn in Appleton around 4pm and I then met up with my law school buddy Pat Blaney. We continued a law school tradition by eating dinner at Fuddrucker’s (when my Steelers and Pat’s Packers met in the Super Bowl a couple of years ago we dubbed it the Fudd’s Bowl and bet a $50 Fuddruckers gift card) and I had a burger, fries and soda (because only an animal with a death wish would have burgers, fries AND milkshakes two meals in a row). Then it was time for the show at Lawrence University.
Lawrence University is a pleasant looking liberal arts college of about 1600 students, not unlike where I went to college. And when I arrived at the location of the show I was not surprised to see I would be performing at the campus snack bar. There was a sign of me in the bathroom and I took it as a good sign that there were neither urine stains nor a glory hole cut out of my mouth on the poster. Then one student came up to me and said:
“Are you J-L? I saw your poster and watched your videos on YouTube. You are really funny!.” And then he left ten minutes before the show and never returned.
I met the student liaisons who seemed intimidated both by my size and my 1970s birth date, but were very pleasant. Also, to the credit of a small school in the middle of Appleton the student body appeared incredibly diverse. Either they were taking photos for the campus brochure at my show or it is a very richly diverse student body.
But it was not all good news. I was sadly told that there was a campus wide free screening of a small independent film called The Dark Knight Rises at exactly the same time as the show. So we ended up having 30-40 students at the show and they were a great audience. Joe did a great job warming them up and then I worked my ass off and had a great set. And then, like most college gigs it ended in the most anti-climactic way. You get a hand shake, a few nods from students and then walk out and head back to the Hampton Inn as the students realize that there are more important things than a comedian, such as everything for one example.
Road Trip Day 3 – White Detroit
The next day we headed out around 830 am and passed at least one more Buffalo Wild Wings nearby. We had lunch at Panera Bread where I had a salad which confused my body which had been trained to survive on trans fats and sugar alone. We made it to Wyandotte and went to Portofino’s Restaurant, home of the cleverly named “The Comedy Room.” The show was packed with people because it was a fundraiser for a high school hockey team. So just in case a few black people had snuck into the suburb and were going to attend the show, “hockey fundraiser” probably lowered their numbers even more to a manageable zero.
The set went well, except when I mentioned President Obama, which became a clash between a table of older, pro-Obama women and a table of younger, female mullet having anti-Obama women. Sold a bunch of CDs to top it all off for a very successful evening.
The hotel room had one giant bed and one fold out couch and Pontillo gladly took the fold out couch when I passed out on the large bed.
Road Trip Day 4 – Cloud Atlas and the Olive Garden
I woke up the next day to see Cloud Atlas, but had to call a cab to get to the theater (I decided waking Joe up early after him taking the sofa bed would be too much to ask). So I called a cab at 915am and the dispatcher told me that she would send a cab. At 950am I called back and said I was hoping to get a cab before 10 and she replied, “Oh, we can’t get you one til after ten.” So if anyone is calling for a cab in Michigan tell them “Please send me a cab whenever the fu*k you feel like.”
Watched Cloud Atlas later, thanks to a ride from the Stockton to my comedy Eaton (gotcha hoops fans!), Joe Pontillo, and here is the review I posted later that day:
Pre-show Joe and I went to Olive Garden (add another item to Joe Pontillo’s skill set – Olive Garden gift card at the ready). I ate 9 breadsticks, which left me with garlic breath for the next 14 hours. As we pulled out of the parking lot to head to the last show we of course saw a Buffalo Wild Wings a few storefronts down. DAMN YOU WILD WINGS!!!!
Final show was pleasant, lightly attended and I performed in a semi-coma. From there we got in the car and got on the final drive of the week – Detroit to NYC.
Road Trip Day 5 – Truck Stop Sexual Predator?
My bladder picked an interesting time to age +/- 30 years because I could not stop pissing. Joe continued his monster driving going 7 straight hours until he finally decided he needed to tap out for an hour at a random Pennsylvania rest stop. I opted to walk inside and charge my phone and give Joe an hour of uninterrupted sleep. But when I got in the rest stop it was just a small room with two bathrooms, a few plugs, three vending machines and no seats. I was wearing an LL Bean field coat, a flannel shirt and a sporting a no sleep look in my eyes. And it was dark outside. So for the next hour I became the worst nightmare for approximately 17 travellers who at random times would come in and see a giant bi-racial dude sporting Sea Bass’s wardrobe sans trucker hat, standing in the corner of a rest stop doing absolutely nothing.
But much like my time as a youth int he Catholic Church, my look turned out to be unappealing to yet another stereotypical pocket of sexual deviants. Joe removed his Roger Dorn sleeping eye mask when I came back to the car and we made our final 3 hours back to NYC.
Just in time for the beginning of Hurricane Sandy. Always a happy ending with comedy.
Last Friday I had a big pay day. I had a gig at Holy Cross, a Catholic college in Worcester, Massachusetts. This was a big show for me, not just because of the pay, but because it was a chance to finally exorcise the demons of Medgar Evers, which is the worst show I have ever been paid for (I have had to make this paid distinction because of a non-paying bar show I did in Park Slope, Brooklyn in late August of this year. The Medgar Evers show made me want to kill other people, whereas the show in Brooklyn made me want to kill myself).
Joe Pontillo, who I asked to open for me, picked me up in midtown at 3:30 pm which the GPS calculated would get us to Worcester a few minutes before 7pm. With the show at 10pm that would be plenty of time to eat, prep my set and be creepy around college girls for an hour or so. Unfortunately thanks to New York traffic and one of the worst traffic slow downs I have ever seen, which we encountered in Connecticut, we arrived at 9pm in Worcester. It actually could have been a lot worse, but Joe actually drove on the shoulder of the highway, passing approximately 100 cars, while I hid my face muttering “we are such assholes.”
So we arrived at the Holy Cross campus and my contact was a kid named Matt, who was a very nice fellow. I asked him what my content restrictions were (an e-mail I received informed me that I would be told of some minor restrictions) and they were” no priest abuse jokes” and “no contraception jokes”. I was ok with that since I was never abused by a priest and don’t believe in condoms either. I have no jokes on either (but I assume the spirit of the restrictions and did not tell any abortion material – even though Catholic teaching is that that is more murder, not so much contraception).
My information was that I was performing at Hogan Ballroom. Sounded very promising. When I walked in to the building I saw the Hogan Ballroom and it was a massive, elegant room, that was already full of people (apparently it was Homecoming weekend so there were lots of events and extra people). And then, like in the movies where someone is excited about something elegant, only to have it revealed that there item is actually the dirty thing next to the elegant thing, Matt said, “OK, well let’s head downstairs.”
We descended several levels of stairs and entered a lounge/cafeteria that had a stage and chairs set up. Another student liaison named Mike hooked me and Joe up with his meal card and we got some dinner down there. While waiting for my chicken fingers, two guys came up to me and asked if I had been a DA. I found this interesting and flattering that someone had seen me on a flyer and I guess had researched me. Of course he and his friends ended up sitting far away from the stage talking, but they did not disturb the show so I guess I broke even.
The show went well. We were competing with a very loud gathering at a pub area directly outside the cafeteria. It was loud because the doors were open and as Matt said to me, “I have never seen those doors closed” when I asked if we could close the doors. That was enough of an ominous statement that we left the doors open. There were probably 40 people in the vicinity of the show paying varying degrees of attention, mostly very good. Joe opened and did yeoman’s work wrangling the crowd to attention for 13 minutes. I then did 50 minutes to a pretty strong response, but I will be the first to admit that transitioning from 30 to 50 minutes is not as easy at it seems. I have an abundance of material, but doing different lengths of time is not merely the act of adding on minutes – it is a different pacing and intensity. I would compare it to being a great 200 meter runner and then running the 400 meter race. Unless your name is Michael Johnson, it is a transition that requires some practice and training. I was still fairly happy with the way the set went and I only counted 7 gasps and looks of judgment on sexual topics. The post show reactions were what really defined the show though:
0 CD sales
0 facebook friend requests
0 twitter followers added
One kid came up to me and looked at the CDs and said, “Oh sweet, just take one?” Yeah kid, just sign up for this credit card – get the fu*k out of here!
My high school friend Scott, who I have not seen since 2001-ish, works near Worcester and came to the show. He said to me post set, “I don’t think you’ll be back here, but if you are ever performing around here again I will get my friends and co-workers out. You were hilarious.”
So thanks to the people who did watch and laugh and hopefully the check doesn’t bounce. Hopefully I will prove Scott wrong (either by going back to Holy Cross or finally deciding that I am not funny).
So after a few weeks of dominating Call of Duty: Black Ops while stationed in my man-cave, AKA studio apartment, I headed back out onto the road Wednesday for a two week comedy trip. The first gig was a spot at the Turning Stone Casino in Verona, NY, which is somewhere near the north pole.
The Casino
Wednesday I drove up (well, rode shotgun) with comedian Joe Pontillo to perform at the Turning Stone Casino. It is my third time performing at the casino and I am glad to say that the gig keeps improving with each trip. The first time I went there was a crowd of 25 in a room that sat 400. Then the casino re-configured their night club into a comedy room that was much smaller and more conducive to comedy. The last show I did there probably had 50 audience members and Wednesday night we had about 80! At this rate I will be a world renowned comedian sometime after my 147th birthday!
But the show actually went really well. Fortunately Joe and I did not perish in what has become a traditional, Act-of-God weather phenomenon on the drive up to Verona. Last winter we drove up and encountered three separate snowstorms. However, none scared me as much as the thunderstorm we passed through on the way up Wednesday. I actually thought we were witnessing the end of the world. But I’m sure everyone upstate would attribute increasingly severe weather to it’s obvious cause: the onerous tax burdens on wealthy Americans and businesses.
After my set a young man bought me a drink at the bar and told me he thought my jokes were awesome. Then after the show he came up to me with his girlfriend and said, “Awesome stuff man – I didn’t buy you a drink like as in ‘I’ll suck your dick,’ but (gesturing to his girlfriend) she might suck your dick – hahaha.” I told him, “Yeah that was so weird and awkward until you clarified it. Now no one feels strange.”
But speaking of sucking dick I observed something even more bizarre towards the end of the show. Three women, who on average were a 9.3/10 (and not in that stupid way where most women assume they are already a 7 or an 8 when they are 4s and 5s – these chicks were Hollywood 9.3s). They were accompanied by a few men all of whom appeared to be 2-3 times their age. This brought up several thoughts/questions for me:
Attractive women can be found anywhere where there is the possibility of money, except for candy stores selling lottery tickets.
The Turning Stone Casino in Verona, NY has prostitutes? And hot ones?
Why are comedians not offered prostitutes in lieu of cash and/or hotel room?
Is it possible these women are not whores? Or even if they are, has living in Verona, NY made them unaware that being a 9.3 (or a flat out 10 in the case of the woman wearing the white dress – if you are reading this blog) carries a much higher exchange rate in major cities? Old men in Verona can offer you what? Applebees’ gift cards and discounted hunting permits? In the city you are looking at a 1 bedroom apartment on Central Park West and a purse dog.
Well the gig ended – I got a good night’s sleep and then made my way to the Syracuse Greyhound Station for a 7 hour ride from Syracuse to Cleveland, Ohio while the haunting opening chimes of AC/DC’s Hells Bells played in my iPod.
The Bloody Toilet Seat
It should be no secret to the readers of this blog that like Republicans in Congress I am waging a war to cut benefits on the neediest citizen I know: me. That is why I seek to end up in the black on every trip I make. That means the cheaper the gig, the longer and cheaper the transportation. I have taken 18 hour Greyhound trips and this fall I will add a 20 hour Greyhound trip and a 30 hour Amtrak trip to my Joey Chestnut/Kobayashi of self-destruction through transportation. But Syracuse to Cleveland was only a 7 hour bus ride. I can do that in my sleep. But shortly into the trip I was yelling “This was supposed to be an exhibition!” like Apollo Creed’s trainer right before Apollo is killed by Drago.
One of the great things about America is its diversity, especially in cities like Washington, DC and New York City. It means people of different backgrounds, hot women of all varieties, etc. But these are the positives of diversity. Taking a Greyhound bus for any significant distance (more than 100 miles) demonstrates how awful diversity can be. Here is what one would learn from the diversity on my Greyhound yesterday:
Amish people travel in large packs and not one of them has a stick of deodorant. There is also no such thing as a handsome or attractive Amish person (sorry Kelly McGillis). And even if one were accidentally handsome or pretty, lack of sunlight and grooming products would nurture what nature tried to fight.
People of all races who appear to have felony records prefer Greyhound.
Black woman having a conversation asked the following questions: a) “Her son is dead? They was playing with guns?” b) “Them black vitamins was omega threes?” I enjoyed this because as a heavy set black woman she endorsed two negative stereotypes (poor grammar and gun violence) but also showed that she does care about her heart and joint health.
Only angry tall people read on Greyhound. Everyone else maintains hour long phone conversations or listens to their iPod so loud that I can actually understand lyrics from three seats away (oddly a dude that looked like he was an extra on Sons of Anarchy was listening to No Scrubs by TLC).
But sometimes you learn something on a Greyhound bus that you already knew, but the magnitude of it shocks you to the core. It should not come as a shock that bus bathrooms are gross. For me they pose an additional challenge. First, I have to duck in most (they seem to be about 6’5″ at best and I am 6’7″). Second, the bus drivers prefer the stop and start motion as if they are in bumper to bumper traffic, and third, I try not to hold on to anything in a bus bathroom. So under ideal circumstances a simple piss turns into a p90X level core strengthening and balance workout. But the bathroom on this Greyhound had a special surprise for me:
Blood on the toilet seat.
Let’s do some soul searching. I am not always the best bus and train bathroom person. 9 out of 10 times I will take a wad of toilet paper to lift up the seat, but sometimes the damage is so severe that some J-L urine may actually sterilize whatever the hell has gone on previous to my visit. But those are all within what the reasonable person would expect. But blood on a toilet seat? Personally I think it was the Amish, but who knows? One of my fellow passengers might have been fleeing a shoot out with law enforcement. But in any case it was the most disgusting thing I’d ever seen. And then I felt the most disgusting thing I’d ever felt. As I was leaning and twisting to keep balance in the bathroom my back (which was only covered by a t shirt) made contact with a gooey, gel-like substance which quickly seeped through to my skin. The next three seconds seemed to last an eternity as I believed that the blood was just a diversion to get me to inadvertently slap some ejaculate on my upper back. Fortunately it was just some gel soap from the soap dispenser that someone had smeared on the mirror (hell soap anywhere is an improvement at this point). As odd as that sounds it is what I observed and it is what I will tell myself to go to sleep for the next 6 months until the trauma of that bathroom subsides.
Cleveland Improv & The Birth of Vanilla Coke
By 730 last night, after I had scrubbed my back with alcohol and sandpaper it was time to perform at the Cleveland Improv. What is normally a fairly diverse crowd (on average the crowds I’ve had at the club have been 60% black, 40% white + other) was almost 100% black. And female. And that can be a tough crowd for me. If I don’t say some things that bush buttons racially (while urban crowds are still determining whether to consider me one of them or too close to a white dude talking sh*t) I will generally push some buttons gender-wise. But the crowd was fantastic. The last time I was in a room of black people that happy I was at IHOP with my Dad. As I have always said there is no greater feeling than killing in a black room and no worse feeling than doing badly in a black room. And last night felt great.
Here are some of the highlights (because this weekend will probably provide me with five opportunities to experience the full spectrum of urban comedy):
I finally came up with my stage name if I decide to go the BET circuit. Vanilla Coke (alluding to my half-black, Algerian-at-best appearance). At least half a dozen women shouted it at me as they left the club. I will gladly change that to my officially name if Coca Cola wants to pay me $250,000 annually for the next 30 years.
When I said my Mom was white a woman shouted, “You look good anyway!” Never has a compliment felt so weird.
When I discussed how my Dad was a tough disciplinarian when I was a kid there was no response. I then asked, “Anybody know their Dad here?” Huge laugh. When in doubt, in a room of 200+ black women, it is safe to rip irresponsible black men, as long as they already like you.
It is a weird phenomenon, but when you kill with mostly white crowds you feel like they want to buy you a beer or bang their girlfriend in Verona, NY. But when you kill with a black crowd it feels like they want you to join their family. Hopefully the good times keep rolling.
So that has been the trip so far, but with gigs spread over the next 10 days in Cleveland I am sure there will be more to discuss, but hopefully no more bloody toilet seats.
After a tough start to the comedy week things have been looking up. First, my dust-up with PMSports.com has been resolved in a favorable fashion (I will be paid and have been told that it was an accidental oversight). Second, I got to feature at the Turning Stone Casino in Verona, NY on Wednesday.
Last year I emceed a show at Turning Stone in December. The show was in a theater that held several hundred people, and with an audience of twenty-three it was near capacity. It was like having sex with Madonna – you are in the space, but if feels cavernous and lonely.
Well after a 4 1/2 hour drive up to the Casino, through 3 brief snowstorms, I arrived to find us performing in a much smaller venue. The crowd was about 40, but the capacity appeared to only be about 150 so it was a much more fulfilling experience than last year. Considering that we were competing directly with Kenny Rogers at the same casino I think we did pretty well. After the show a couple was kind enough to pick up the tab for me at the casino bakery because they thought I was hilarious. Or they were swingers. Either way it was a rewarding evening.
Special thanks to Mr. Hunt, father of my friend and college teammate Matt Hunt, who made it out to the show. As a resident of nearby Clinton, NY Mr. Hunt’s attendance proved the virtue of having spent a quarter of a million dollars on a B.A. and a law degree – friends and friendlies all over the country to make lightly attended shows slightly less lightly-attended.
Yesterday my schedule appeared to be a typical day in the life of a stand up comedian. I started the day off splitting a pair of games with the Tampa Bay Rays in MLB The Show 10 on PS3 and finished up some comedy sketches I’ve been writing. Then I headed to Roosevelt Island to perform comedy at a hospital and lastly to Long Island for a club audition. It would not be typical.
Now the gig paid $30 and like prostitutes, comedians will often perform anywhere where payment is involved, no matter how emotionally or physically painful. It was offered to me by Brian McGuiness, who was going to host the show. The show was to be one hour long and each comic would do 20 minutes (the third 20 minutes was to be provided by Joe Pontillo). When you arrive on Roosevelt Island on the F train you are greeted by a man who is lying on a cot who has only a torso (unknown is it waist down or cock down, but in any case it is rather impressive).
They were warned.
When I met the other two comics we drove to the hospital, the name which escapes me, but what Joe Pontillo referred to as “Shutter Island.” Whatever ward or wing of the hospital we were performing in seemed to only include people with severe phyiscal disabilities, coupled with slight mental disabilities and all exceeding 60 years of age. In other words, my prime demographic.
Now I know I am supposed to feel good about bringing laughter and joy to people who do not always get entertainment, but it just did not feel that good. Intellectually I know they probably liked to have the monotony of the day broken up by an activity, but the comedy aspect of the show was brutal. McGuiness got up there first and got some tepid laughter and a couple of boos from patients who could barely speak. I was unsure if it was light-hearted or if the people booing would prefer the sweet embrace of death to McGuiness’ humor.
Visually it was like performing in a Civil War infirmary.
Next was Joe Pontillo who actually had a pretty good set. I hesitate to say “killed,” because there is a 25% chance someone actually died during the show.
Then it was my turn. Here are some highlights:
That was it – those were my highlights (not a misprint – there’s nothing there). One of the most awkward sets of my life. Not the worst, because at least a couple of staff members and one or two patients laughed a couple of times. But I did not know what silence was before this set. It was like the hatred of Medgar Evers College for me (the worst show) was replaced with indifference of Shutter Island. (here is the link to the write up 4 years ago after the Medgar Evers show – https://jlcauvin.com/?p=140)
So after the show on The Island of Dr. Moreau I was off to Governor’s on Long Island to audition for work. The audience was pretty good, but there were a couple of issues with the crowd. One was that several of the Long Islanders at the club were joke echos – a term I think I invented, meaning that they have to repeat every punchline they find funny for their table. It is incredibly irritating if it goes on for an entire routine. The other group were the Obama boo-ers, who felt the need to boo me vigorously before getting into my Obama routine – which is completely non-political and not going to be on Saturday Night Live 🙁 As I went into the Obama it actually felt sort of like the scene in Goodfellas when Joe Pesci is yelling at his girlfriend for overly praising Sammy Davis Jr. “I get it he’s talented, why do you keep going on about it!”
But the good news is I got passed to get work at Governor’s and I never have to go Roosevelt Island ever again.
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