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The Cleveland Recap and Salon Backlash

This weekend I was at the Cleveland Improv emceeing shows.  My math, which is probably good for the present bottom line and horrible for future earnings is, “Will this gig net me more than sitting on my ass this weekend?” If the answer is yes, then I usually take the gig.  I was supposed to be featuring at the Cleveland Improv since a little while back, but just after logging half a dozen emcee spots (as in weekends, not shows) I was told that the feature booking responsibility had been shifted the main Midwest outpost of the Funny Bone/Improv chains (just like the Mob in Casino had Kansas City as a critical control hub between the East Coast and Vegas, so too does a town in Ohio control the fate of many working comedians.  And instead of adding (and earning) a club to my roster of places I feature I effectively had to take one off and be content emceeing.

The shows were fun and I ended the weekend with a 5-1 record (the Cleveland Improv is a largely urban club and I would compare my experiences there to playing organized basketball – you only have fun at the end of the game if it turns out you won a/k/a won over the crowd – but every show feels like work.  This is not shooting around or pick up basketball – it is adversarial and it partly feels, especially as the emcee (the three shows I have featured at the Cleveland Improv have always been my best), like you have to break the will of the crowd to laugh at you.  And before this sounds too much like a slave master analogy, let me remind you at this time that my father is black.  At best I am a house slave chiding field slaves (now the featured pic makes some offensive sense).

On more fun notes, AKA the time spend off stage, I must say downtown Cleveland is beautiful.  This is not a joke.  I think my purpose in comedy is not to become a successful or even marginal comedian – perhaps this adventure has just allowed me to scout many American locations so I can choose a place to live and work when I hang up the microphone.  And I think I identified the exact location in Cleveland.  Near the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame (recap of that next paragraph – WOW) there is a Catholic Church, an Amtrak Station, a football stadium (OK – the Browns, but still), a beautiful, expansive lakefront view and all the municipal buildings, presumably where prosecutors who did not get into comedy go to work every day.  If Cleveland were willing to throw an IHOP and a Cheesecake Factory into the area I would gladly plunk myself down there and die of happiness and trans fats sometime in my early 40s.

Sunday I went to the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame.  Holy sh*t that place is even better than I remember.  If you like music at all or do not suck as a human you must go here.  You learn so much (Les Paul should have a movie made about him already if there isn’t) and the place is chock full of great music, interactive exhibits, memorabilia and more.  Right now there is a two story exhibit on the Rolling Stones and for me the highlight is still the (now 90 minute) montage film of all the Rock n Roll HOF inductees.  That place should be on everyone’s bucket list.  Most readers of this blog would not believe how much I was smiling while inside the museum, but my face hurt a little bit when I left for overusing muscles I never use.

So thanks Cleveland for having a very underrated city and I hope that rumors of a comeback and rejuvenation are not wrong.

In other, probably more significant news I was featured in a piece on the popular site Salon.com.  The article was the work of Daniel Berkowtiz (no relation to David) a Columbia journalism student who met with me over many months to write a 6500 word tour de force about a respected, but failing comedian in the age of social media (me in case you do not respect me).  One of the interesting things about my peers and I that often gets overlooked is that I am part of the last generation of comedians who really invested themselves in comedy right before YouTube and social media completely changed the game of stand up for better and worse.  The article captures that very well, but when Salon took the article they required it cut down to 2500 words (though I did appreciate Salon using a photo of me from before comedy took my jaw line).  The big loser in that was probably my mother who was interviewed for the article and who gets a lot of praise from me for her support and is one of the biggest reasons I feel guilty for potentially squandering a law degree/career to pursue a more selfish/self-centered career.  The biggest winner was probably my ex fiancée who was not spared in the original version for being a terrible presence in my life at the very point when my career may have been poised to take off.

But the article has driven new traffic to my work and of course most comedians are respectful, appreciative or even encouraging, but some “comedians” and many heroes in the Internet Commenter Community have come to trash me.  Part of the problem is the title of the article Salon chose “YouTube Is Killing Comedy” was overbroad, sensational and completely inaccurate when compared to the substance of the actual article.  It probably primed some readers (those with poor reading comprehension) to view it under a totally false framework.  The original title “The New Life of a Stand Up Comedian” was a better choice, but perhaps would not have generated as much traffic (ironic that an article about a comedian having to bend over backwards and devote efforts to other pursuits to satisfy Internet business models had to adjust to a title that was more sensational and inaccurate to drive Internet business).  But I enjoyed all the negative comments (cue Nas’ Hate Me Now, but with all the wealth references replaced by sarcasm).  People that still insist on defending Louis CK from an impression as if he is their child (and attack me because I am not famous – had the sketch been on SNL it would be exempt from scorn) or people trashing my comedy – one guy shot up my Ferguson set with no real ammo, but wrote with self-important authority so I guess I should heed his non-advice – these folks are the backbone of Internet comedy!

So on to Breaking Bad week.  This week I will record a new video – a Breaking Bad parody to promote my new album.  Looking forward to everyone telling me I don’t look like Walter White (I won’t be in costume – I’m playing myself – but I assume at least one comment will say “This was OK, but Bryan Cranston is a much better actor”).

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes. New Every Tuesday!  This week’s episode will be all BREAKING BAD so subscribe or follow today to get it Tuesday.

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The Cleveland Show – 2013 Edition (plus the worst…

Dispatch from BWI.  Today I left NYC on a 3:00 am Amtrak to catch a 915 am flight from BWI to Cleveland (travel for free will make me do annoying things to myself, but I have Amtrak points to cover the train trip and I had enough points on Southwest to get to Cleveland for free round trip from BWI, but not from NYC.  But it is not all bad news.  Thanks to some good luck I will be staying in a nice hotel instead of the comedian condo.  Perhaps this is just luck, or perhaps my no-holds barred, bridge burning, career destroying blog tactics have gained me a measure of fear among bookers and managers (to paraphrase Walter White – I AM THE ONE WHO BLOGS)!  But probably just luck.

Either way, I am too tired to write much, but I have already experienced something funny, or at least memorable. Because the diner was closed (July 31st-August 1st – great timing) I had to eat breakfast at McDonald’s when I arrived through security.  There is no level of satire that could parody the experience of a 645 am trip to the BWI McDonalds.  I feel like the service style was one of such hostile apathy that it would make the most hardened fast food employees stop and take notice.  I know it is McDonald’s and the pay sucks, but to combine apathy with hostility takes some effort.  Saying “can I help whose next would you like to try the egg white surprise” in the form of one word, delivered in monotone and just repeating it with increasing volume so that some intimidated Midwestern couple in their 50s hop to attention takes a real dedication, as do the dozens of tattoos adorning the arms of the women of BWI McDonalds.  The best is when the food is ready they drop it off to a spot 3 feet from you and no matter how many people reach to be handed the food it was consistently placed just outside of the reach of the customer, yours truly included.  It felt like the whole staff were women who were deemed “too tough and nasty” to play Snoop on The Wire.  Oh well, time to get on the flight to Cleveland.

Review of 2 Guns tomorrow.  Shows all weekend starting tonight at the Cleveland Improv.

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes. New Every Tuesday!

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San Antonio Recap – Week 1

A fun week is in the books in San Antonio, but it was not without its ups and downs.  The lineup consisted of a clean, Christian, 47 year old Mom of three headliner (the shows were billed as “clean” so I said no curses all week, though I did say “cockblock” in three of my seven sets), a 54 year old male father of three emcee who was getting back into the comedy game and a 34 year old comedic genius featuring.  It felt like Major League, with the emcee as Lou Brown, the headliner was Harris – the Christian pitcher at odds with Cerano, and myself as Rick Vaughn minus the invigorating entrance music or the groupies.  So the shows were an interesting mix – here are some other interesting tidbits related to the shows.

1. Clean comedy audiences do not buy merchandise like regular audiences.  Jews and Blacks – time to welcome a new group into the cheap stereotype fold – Evangelical comedy fans.  I sold a ton of CDs last time I was at this club (LOL Club), but this week it was like I was passing around a 3rd collection plate at Church.  I also lost one sale because of my parental guidance sticker on the album cover.  She asked me if the CD had “D’s” or “F’s”  and I said it has a few “F’s” but look out for my new alum this Fall which will have some “C’s”.

2. Attached women are devious at comedy clubs.  A lot of clubs have bars within their property, but not in the showroom.  I had a woman come up to me drunk at the Sunday show during the headliner’s set while I was sitting at the bar, which often happens, and say great set and then flirt a little bit and go back inside.  She then did the common thing in these circumstances – she went back in and emerged at the end of the show with her boyfriend or husband and said nothing as they left (e.g. “good show”, “you were funny,” “thanks for the quickie in the bathroom”) – nothing!  Comedy club attendees of the world – don’t trust your chicks if they take too long at the bathroom at the comedy club!  Though, I must admit this is still preferable for me to the chick that is inappropriately huggy (hand on chest of comedian versus a more neutral hand on arm or shoulder as an example) or flirty in front of their man after the show.  I often think, “Don’t get me mixed up in your husband’s future murder-suicide of you! I don’t want to be on his hit list when he realizes you are a skank!”

3. The manager of the club is a nice guy named Jeff.  Very pleasant to talk to and to work with.  One problem – he is a soft spoken British man and he has the worst hype game of all time.  When he gets the crowd pumped up for the emcee it sounds like a shy butler from Downton Abbey asking if anyone wants more tea.

4. A young woman gave me a weird look when I referenced The Godfather in my set – 2nd time in two weeks – now this was not to the joke, which was admittedly obscure – it was when I explained it to laughs and the chicks still looked at me like “How the fack would I know what the fack The Godfather is?”  I am not asking young women (and especially attractive women who in America are often so uninformed because the market of partners does not require them to know or think anything – still waiting to meet a hot woman under 35 with a subscription to a newspaper  – print or digital – I am not sure she exists any more) to quote The Godfather, but recognize that if I reference that movie I am referencing a cultural touchstone and not some obscure flick.  You don’t have to know quotes from Charles Dickens, but you should not look at me weirdly when I say Charles Dickens and go “Who???”

5. Last, but not least I did very well.  Here is a clean 30 minute set of mine from one of the shows if you are bored, have time or know anyone at Comedy Central:

Rounding out the usual road news I also saw three movies (for free MOM) this weekend so here are the quick reviews:

The Conjuring – excellent.  real throwback to well acted, occult terror of 1970s horror movies.

Pacific Rim – amazing effects – too much bad acting.  still worth the visuals.

RIPD – Ryan Reynolds is now down to his last 6 chances to succeed in Hollywood.  Funny Jeff Bridges, bad effects, lazy movie and the worst performance of Kevin Bacon’s career.

So now I have a big week ahead of me.  Here is a preview of what is to come in JLComedy world

  • The launch of Comedian Esquire – a new Facebook page, twitter account and section of my website dedicated to legal humor and booking law school gigs.  In case you did not know I quit Comedians at Law a while ago, so please do not associate me with them any longer.  You want funny humor with legal knowledge look no further than me.
  • Scared Straight: New Comedians Edition – the JLC video of the month goes up Tuesday – it is AWESOME
  • The Dog Yoga episode of the Righteous Prick Podcast goes up Tuesday also.  Coming off the big week of downloads for my Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman analysis I am back to debate and humor discussing and dissecting a woman who runs a successful dog yoga practice in Florida.  Another win for the state of Florida!
  • And before the end of the month my criminal law-comedy web series with Investigation Discovery “Dumb Criminals” launches.

And if you are one of my 10 fans in Texas or know someone near San Antonio, remind them that I am at the Rivercenter Comedy Club this week from Wednesday to Sunday.

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Comedy Recap: Early Wake-Ups, Soccer and Stand-Up in DC

This weekend I was in DC to emcee some shows for Sebastian Maniscalco, which meant, per my usual DC arrangements, rooming with my 5 year old nephew for the weekend.  He has been pretty cool about me cramping his bachelor lifestyle in the past and this weekend was no different.  Of course arriving at home at 1am each night and then waking up to a fully alert nephew at 615am each morning to discuss soccer and/or dinosaurs (my nephew’s two favorite topics, though showing him highlights of Vince Carter on YouTube may have given my nephew a new interest to supplant his Carmelo Anthony/JR Smith fan club membership) is not ideal, but so be it.  My younger nephew’s motto is “I do more before 9 am than my lazy, underachieving uncle does all day.”  My older nephew, who is up even earlier on a consistent basis, which is why the two ‘phews don’t share a room, has been described as Mel Kiper Jr. as having a “great motor.”  I feel like Shaq the Buick salesman trying to keep up with two Russell Westbrooks.

On Saturday I went to watch the younger nephew play soccer where he has been dominating (they instituted a rule, based on his dominance, that if you score two goals you then need to go to defense). However, I was meeting my brother at the game and I arrived before him, which was a real wake up call.  Like most adult males I have a hard time coming to grips that I am a grown up.  I am 33 years old, but it still feels like an insult when people call me “sir.”  My brain keeps telling me that I am just out of college and still a young buck, but the fatigue under my eyes and expanded waist line tell me I am a man.  But it is a true rude awakening when you arrive at a park by yourself and are watching a bunch of 5 year olds that you don’t know play soccer.  That is when it hits you, through a series of curious stares from parents, that you are in fact an adult man.  Thankfully my nephew arrived shortly thereafter and I stopped handing out Second Mile Charity fliers.

My nephew dropped a hat trick, including a coast-to-coast third goal after being placed on defense (I particularly liked it when he said “fu*k your rules losers” or that might have just been me yelling that).  I am now searching for whoever the youth soccer equivalent of Bela Karolyi is so I can get this kid to maximize his potential.  His initials are JLC and it is high time a JLC bring pride to our family, instead of shame.

But the main point of the visit to DC, other than to buy discounted cigarettes for my mother (I assume at some point Mayor Bloomberg is going to make me a poster child for a crackdown on people circumventing the NYC cigarette taxes), was to host shows at the DC Improv. I was opening for Sebastian Maniscalco.  It was a really fun week.  The crowds were great and I was really surprised by Sebastian.  I had watched a couple of clips on line before working with him, but in a way that really underscored how important the live show is to stand-up comedy, even though the live show is starting to become just part of a comedian’s package instead of the major selling point, Sebastian’s live show was fantastic in a way YouTube clips cannot capture.  One of my great aversions is when someone tells me that I need to develop my character.  I always want to say, “my character is that I am a funny person with good, original material.”  But watching Sebastian was cool because he has a definitive character on stage, but it works hand in hand with the material, rather than trumping it.  With the help of a buddy who came by and watched one of the Friday shows we determined that Sebastian was a combo of Boardwalk Empire’s Gyp Rosetti and Brian Regan.

So the comedy was great this week.  My sets went great, the feature, Francisco Ramos, did great, and Sebastian crushed each show.  Both guys were cool to chat with and it was nice to see crowds appreciating different sensibilities all on one show (but DC always has some of the best crowds in the country).  Made me feel happy to be doing live comedy.

Now the good news – my calendar is empty of road work until July 18th.  So do the right thing and get tickets to my CD recording in NYC on May 18th HERE.

For more opinions, comedy and bridge burning check out the Righteous Prick Podcast on Podomatic or iTunes

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Hipster Pancakes, Testicle Jokes & Jared from Subway –…

Last week I toured some of the South with members of Comedians at Law.  We never officially decided on a name for our Southern tour stops, but since we were visiting clubs in Nashville and Atlanta and Vanderbilt Law School I had thought that perhaps “Southern Places with Teeth Tour” would have been a solid choice.  I was closing the show at Zanies in Nashville on Wednesday, going up first after the emcee in Atlanta on Thursday and middling at Vanderbilt Law School on Friday.

Wednesday, after the smoothest flight I have ever been on, the three of us went to see Mama.  There were four of us in the theater.  Three comedians and a random guy who came into the theater and sat 4 seats away from me.  I know this pet peeve has been beaten into the ground, but seriously, why in a theater of 500+ seats would you have to sit within the top .5% seats away from me?  The movie had a good premise, was scary for about an hour and twenty minutes and then fell apart in the last twenty.  This is also known as JJ Abrams-ing something.

The show at Zanies was solid.  The green room was stocked with lots of delicious candies, at least before I arrived.  I ate so much candy my set list got diabetes.  The crowd was medium sized, both in quantity of people and waist-line measurements.  I had a very good set and sold a couple of CDs and a couple of “LiveANGRY” wristbands.  And the night ended with me getting a bed to myself in a two bed-three comedian situation (this was the case for two of the three nights, but when traveling with two Jews who have a combined weight of less than one massive gentile, getting the bed to yourself is a perk).

It should be noted that with two Jews and a man of (some) color driving around the South I thought “Mississippi Burning” would have been a decent name for our Southern Tour, but the other guys thought it too offensive.

The next day we headed to Atlanta for our gig at The Punchline.  We stopped in Chattanooga, TN for a late (1pm) breakfast and it was delicious.  Chattanooga, TN, as we would surmise from our two trips through the town, is basically the Williamsburg, Brooklyn of the South (they hate black people ironically).  In all seriousness it seems to be a growing town with a mix of Williamsburg and a generic college town.  The only disappointing thing about the place where we stopped, the Bluegrass Grill, was that they were out of biscuits.  We felt it was our obligation to eat some biscuits in the south and were denied.  That is like walking into a NYC steakhouse and being told they are out of rich, fat white men.

The Show at the Punchline went well, as far as I could tell.  But that is because I did my set, left to laughter and then went to IHOP on an immediate solo mission.  I was starving and the other two guys had already made their IHOP hatred known, so I knew a post-show trip was unlikely. I sat down in IHOP and ordered my usual (milkshake, sausages, pancakes and an extra large casket).  The food came and I ate happily until, towards the end of my meal, the waitress asked me something that only one other human had ever asked me:

“One of the guys wants to know if you are the guy from Subway?”

Sadly they did not mean Justin Tuck or Michael Phelps.  This mystery person meant Jared.  Fu*king Jared.  One other person has ever come up with that comparison.  There are certain factors that contribute to these rare instances:

  • I have to be wearing my glasses.
  • I have to have grown out my hair – no buzz cut
  • The person who makes this observation is incredibly stupid.
  • The person who makes this observation has nothing to live for.

So for only the second time in my life all four of these factors must have been satisfied.  So after two good shows in the South (which is now my personal record for most good consecutive shows in the South) I was immediately put in check by IHOP.  It is not enough that they kill me physically with a heart disease-diabetes 1-2 punch, but now they have brought the fight to my emotional doorstep.

But Atlanta was not quite done with their punishment.  I sold a couple of wristbands after the show, no CDs, but got a piece of incredible advice from a patron:

Patron: That was a really great set.  I  mean really great.

Me: Thanks so much. Glad you Enjoyed.

Patron: But if I can suggest one thing…

Me (internally): Fu*k.

Patron: When you do the Lance Armstrong thing, say “He didn’t have the ball…” you know… because he has one testicle.

Me: Ohhh, hahaha, ok ok.

My eyes: I will fu*king end you.

He liked my set a lot, but thought I could have used a little bit more nuance with an original take on Lance Armstrong’s one testicle.  Comedy rules!!!

The next day we left back for Nashville to perform at Vanderbilt Law School.  We stopped back in Chattanooga for lunch and went to another web-recommended spot called Aretha Frankenstein’s.  We were greeted by a short Indian woman in a knit hat and thick black glasses, a red-headed waitress with a short haircut and several neck tattoos and a cashier with a beard big enough to book him two Comedy Central specials.  The food was delicious, the biscuits (we got them!) were large and tasty and the food only took 50 minutes to prepare.    They literally took up our entire time difference in the Atlanta-Nashville time zone change with their hipster pancake tardiness.

The Vanderbilt Law show was awesome.  I have destroyed in my life, but this may have been a top ten performance by me.  And it was a good thing too, because just before the show I overheard a law student say (not recognizing me from my poster on campus), “This better be funny.” Right, because you are drinking a free beer at a comedy show that you have paid zero dollars for at your law school on a Friday evening, so if anyone is entitled to be demanding of excellence it is you.  I started my set by reminding the students that I went to a higher ranked law school and I now tell jokes and wear $50 New Balance sneakers so they should not feel too hopeful.  The show was really great though and I sold some more CDs afterwards.

And then I went back to the hotel to watch Bill Maher on HBO, to find out that that the La Quinta Inn we were staying at gets only Showtime.  That is like walking into a restaurant to find out they only serve Hunt’s Ketchup.  Other than sharing one hotel room with two other men, including one with IBS, this was the low point.  But like any comedy trip, no matter how good it always ends badly.  Either you are saying goodbye to a nice club, or being called a homely sandwich spokesman or someone is trying to insert hackery into your joke or you just sit on a bed watching Fox News for laughs because Bill Maher is not available.  But we made money, we made people laugh and did not get murdered and that is what I call a successful trip through the South.

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The Best Terrible Trip to San Francisco

Last week was a historic week for half-black people of America.  Barack Obama became the first two-term half-black President, breaking his own record of one term.  Then, just two short days later, I performed at Cobbs Comedy Club in San Francisco for the first time.  You all probably know the story of Obama’s re-election so I will spend the remainder of the post re-capping the story of how a horrible trip to San Francisco became a terrific night of comedy.  Like the reverse of delusional right-wing pundits I started with horrible expectations and left victorious.

Seat 44F – The Worst Seat in the World

Being 6’7″ tall with knees that have been semi-crippled from a combination of basketball, squats and Dunkin Donuts the only seats that I can survive in on a plane are Emergency Exit rows, or, in a pinch, aisle seats, which allow me to crack my knees when I stretch them in the aisle.  And these are for flights of 3 hours or less.  As you may know, the trip to San Francisco from NYC is approximately 6 hours, which if my knees had a bladder, hearing that information would make them urinate involuntarily.  Then I looked at my seat assignment: 44F.

If you do not know, 44F is the last row window seat of a Delta 757.  It is literally the worst seat on the plane for various reasons:

  • No reclining capability.
  • Last to get off the plane on arrival
  • In the movie Flight, only the people towards the back of the plane got severely injured (with exceptions of the crew)
  • Enough legroom for a 13 year old version of J-L, but no older than that

I sat down for about five minutes, with the corners of the trays digging into my knees and my nuts crushing with the combination of the tiny width of the seat and size of my legs.  I then contemplated that there were only 300 more 5-minute increments (assuming the flight would take off on time) and immediately got out of my seat and begged the flight attendant to bribe another passenger with my money or her mouth for another seat for me.  Fortunately a kind, older Australian couple sat down in seats D and E next to me and offered to switch D and F with me.  I thanked them profusely and told the flight attendant she would no longer need to re-up her mile high club membership for my benefit.

Of course the flight was then 90 minutes delayed from that point as we waited for the food and beverages to be delivered (I would rather have that delay than the “checking out some mechanical issues” delay).  So I ended up standing for about an hour chatting up the two Atlanta based flight attendants.  This chat would subsequently earn me a free meal, M & Ms and free booze for the couple sitting next to me because the flight attendants felt so bad for my soon to be destroyed knee cartilage and so good about their Aussie benevolence.

This is what my legs look like in coach WITH an aisle to spread out into.

Am I Dreaming?

When we finally reached our cruising altitude I stood up (I spent about 3 of the 6 hours standing) and continued chatting with the flight attendants.  I never got either of their names, so I will call one the 48 year old and one the 58 year old.  We began talking about television shows and the 48 year old said her favorite show on television was Breaking Bad.  And just as I was about to climax in my pants, the 58 year old one brought up Six Feet Under as one of her favorite shows.  (for the record these are two of my 3 favorite dramas of all time – The Wire being the third).  So as I am enjoying these entertainment-enlightened, free food and beverage goddesses they then asked me what I did for a living.  I told them I make my money in human trafficking because I constantly shuttle myself around the country to be underpaid and abused, but other people call it comedy.  They replied with “get out of town” type reactions and then started asking me who I enjoyed in comedy.  I told them Chris Rock and Bill Burr.  The 48 year old then told me that there was a “popular guy who everyone talks about, but she doesn’t really get all the hype.”  I then asked, with the same tone as a man asking a woman to marry him, who is unsure of the answer, if she meant Louis CK.  She said yes and said “I just don’t find him as funny as everyone.”

At this moment I slapped myself in the face because I assume the plane had already crashed (Lost style) and I was already in some sort of afterlife of goodness.  A Breaking Bad enthusiast, Louis CK skeptic flight attendant?  I have actually written a porn with these exact specifications for the female lead!

But the dream had to end and when I arrived in San Francisco it was time to say goodbye to these generous angels of Delta and make my way to Cobbs Comedy Club.

The Night I Blew The Mic So Hard Even San Francisco Was Uncomfortable With It

So the lineup for the Comedians at Law show for the night at Cobbs was CAL member Alex Barnett leading off, then a guest spot for a chick comedian, then me, then a guest spot for a guitar playing comedian, then CAL-er Matt Ritter closing.  So to sum it up I was between a woman and a guitar, two things I have been a vocal supporter of in comedy.  So I went up and was slated for 30 minutes.  I did 39.  One of the strongest sets I have had in a long time.  Did a new bit on law school relationships that I wrote on the the plane ride when I was not making wedding plans with the 48 year old flight attendant.  Did some other newer bits and a host of older ones and it was awesome (the new bit is basically that women in law school should lock up their law school man immediately because life is going to get worse for them and that men in law school should avoid getting locked up under all circumstances because life will get exponentially better for them).

My name up in lights. Sort of. Not really. But I am one of them.

So despite blowing the light so hard that Harvey Milk rose from the dead to support me the show was a huge success and I sold a bunch of CDs. I then got to hang out with some friends, including one of my best buds from law school.

Skyfall Day

I decided to stay an extra day in San Francisco to hang out with my friend, but as it turns out, like almost every other graduate of Georgetown Law Class of 2004, he has a day job so I ended up just walking around the shopping district of San Francisco and seeing a matinee of the new James Bond film Skyfall.  I then filmed my weekly movie review show in the guest room of my friend’s apartment, with his two gay fish as co-hosts.  Here it is:

The Myth of Preferred Seats on Delta

With nothing else of note to report from San Francisco it was time to fly back to NYC.  I had a 615 am flight and arrived at the airport at 410 am. I then noticed upon checking in that there were a few open seats in the “priority category.”  For only $29 I might actually have just enough room to sit only slightly uncomfortably?!  Amen!  So I bought the seat (27C) and got ready for extra leg room.

Side note as a tall guy.  I understand that the diminishing width of seats is my fault.  When I was trim seat width did not bother me and my love of cookies and hate of self has started to make it a more snug fit.  And I understand that airlines like Southwest want to charge double for fat people, because to a large extent (pun intended), weight is an issue of personal choices.  But height is immutable.  I am tall and cannot become shorter if I want. So why are all these airlines charge more money for leg room?  I NEED THOSE SEATS!  My height practically becomes a disability on airplanes, but am I allowed to board with other people who need special assistance?  No!  This sh*t has to stop!

Now when I got on the plane I was looking forward to my extra leg room, especially since I actually have bruises on both knees from my flight out to San Francisco (always suspicious as a heterosexual man to show back up to NYC with bruised knees after a few days in San Francisco). So imagine my surprise to sit down and see that I had no extra room whatsoever.  I asked the flight attendant why there was a mistake in my seat.  As it turns out I had only purchased a preferred seat (translation an aisle seat not in the taint of the airplane), but not an “economy comfort” seat (translation seat that would fit me), which cost $80 extra dollars.  At this point in aviation, there is going to be a guy whose sole job it is to ejaculate on 100 seats on an airplane and then there will be a “semen free seat” upgrade for $100 for those few seats without ejaculate on them.

Fortunately no one sat next to me so I guess it was a preferred seat, because I prefer to not sit next to anyone! BAM!

So that is the San Francisco recap. Videos from the show will be up on my site and YouTube page soon.

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The Mega San Antonio Recap

Sorry this recap is a bit late in arriving, but it was quite the epic journey.

Wednesday – The Arrival

When I arrived in San Antonio after two uneventful flights I was driven to the airport Holiday Inn.  I was nervous about the location (the areas around airports usually suck in my experience), but this was different.  Within walking distance: the comedy club, The  Cheesecake Factory, a Barnes & Noble, a Chick Fil A, a Best Buy, a Planet Fitness and Perfect 10 – a gentleman’s club.  I don’t think a hotel has ever been more perfectly located for a comedian’s needs.

The show the first night was pretty well attended.  A large percentage of the audience was an office having their Christmas party.  The office head honcho came up to me before (I was on the website as closing the Wednesday show) and said he liked my stuff on line, but because he had some older people he was wondering – and I interrupted him and said I would leave the F bombs out.  That was before the chatty military folk up front started interrupting me.

The show went well, except for the two tables of military up front (two dudes and one chick kept interrupting, even after I compared them to Billy Zane and the iceberg to my Titanic).  And I probably dropped 6 F bombs, far exceeding my promise of zero.  But everyone else gave me the same compliment after the show, “Great stuff and I wanted to kill those two tables,” which a few times came from guys who were also in the military.  I hope someone got a Code Red for talking through my show.

Thursday – Coyote Ugly and CD Sales

On Thursday I began my stretch of featuring when headliner Jeff Dye arrived.  Worked out at Planet Fitness – this is the “no judgment” gym.  You know what we need more of in gyms? Judgment. First – women, nothing says awful self esteem than walking into a Planet Fitness or a Curves – if these are the only gyms you feel comfortable in then just get an eating disorder – there is more dignity in it.  On the flip side, dudes who come to Planet Fitness with arrogance also need to go.  To the dude I saw with a gallon water jug – this is usually a douche move in a regular, judgment-filled gym, but in a Planet Fitness – unforgivable.  This should be a gym of convenience, not a gym where you hide your problems or strut like you own the place.

Anyway Thursday’s show was a great crowd, largely because the San Antonio Coyote Ugly was having their Christmas party. Now if I told you twenty scantily clad women in their 20s from Texas, with more tattoos collectively than the 2009 Denver Nuggets were at a comedy show you would probably say, “Yikes, that is going to be an awful show,” but nothing could be further from the truth.  Perhaps because of the semi-stripper nature of their job, they had a respect for performance and never made a peep except for laughter.

But the best moment was when a guy who had been at the show on Wednesday showed up again with his wife/girlfriend and two other friends, based solely on how strong I’d been on Wednesday.  No greater compliment in comedy than repeat business.

To cap a great first two day run I sold out of almost all my CDs on Wednesday and Thursday.  So of course I went to sleep that night angry that I did not bring more.  Glass is always half empty and broken with jagged edges to cut you for me.

Friday – The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and Another Woman Calls Me A Fu*king Asshole

The highlight of Friday was unquestionably going to see Sherlock Holmes at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema.  This is the best theater I have ever been to.  You can order food and drink during the movie.  I know there are other places like this, but the menu was huge and the stuff I ordered was delicious.  The movie was ok, but I would see a terrible movie there just to go to the theater. Which I did the next day when I watched The Sitter with Jonah Hill.

The early show Friday was great, but the late show was dreary.  And there was a woman who would not shut up.  I gently insulted her and she playfully yelled, “I can take it!” She then called my sweater a Christmas sweater (it is Navy Blue – no patterns, design, anything – just blue) and then when she went to the bathroom I took about 40 seconds out of my routine to sarcastically beg her to come back until she left.  This must have pushed her over the edge because she said nothing the rest of the show.  However, when she and her party left towards the end of the headliner’s set, he asked where they were going and she replied, “You are fine, but the guy before you was a fu*king asshole!” I then started clapping from the back of the showroom.

Oddly enough I sold zero CDs after selling a ton the first two nights.  I then went home, watched the previews for pay per view porn films and fell asleep.

Saturday – The Stood Up Chick At The Stand Up Show

As I already mentioned I went to see The Sitter on Saturday and nothing else really happened.  The shows Saturday went great, both of them.  Weird thing transpired towards the end of the show.  An attractive woman approached me (normally it is  not the case, because I think women assume because I am the poor man’s Rock physically and the poor man’s Adam Sandler monetarily that I am fair game for their so so looking friend) at the bar outside the showroom as she was leaving the bathroom to go back into the showroom.  She said she thought I was really good and wanted to ask me a question.  When a question is prefaced like this it means only one thing, “Do I have a girlfriend?”  I replied yes, but like a pro she said, “Oh that must be really difficult travelling all the time.” I replied, “Sometimes, but fortunately I am not very successful so I am home more than I want to be.” She replied, “I got stood up tonight.” And I said, “Well that guy is an idiot – sorry to hear that.” She then left and went back into the showroom.

After the show I sold a few more CDs and then the stood up woman walked out. With her date.  Not that it would have made a difference, but what exactly was her plan?  Did she want a good rogering in the bathroom and then would claim that she just met this guy with twenty minutes left in the show?  Very weird and very awkward.

Sunday – No Chick Fil A & 1 CD left

Sunday’s crowd was the second smallest of the week, but the best overall.  Great great crowd and I sold my one remaining CD.  I think Philadelphia in May may have been the last time I felt this good after a week of comedy.  I had 6 great shows and one where I got called a fu*king asshole, which is a great way to sacrifice one show.  Ate Chick Fil A and cheesecake until my heart started hurting, and worked with some great comics and a great staff at LOL.

Epilogue

This was my last paid gig for 2011.  And looking at my 2012 calendar it appears the Mayans were talking about my career when then predicted the end of the world.  So off to the gym – time to start planning for my life after comedy, which apparently began two days ago.  Starting in January you can catch me on the Righteous Prick podcast on iTunes every Tuesday, J-L’s Movie Life movie review show on YouTube every Monday and on this blog every Wednesday and Friday.  Additionally, my new CD arrives in late January.  Thanks for a good year and for reading this blog and watching my comedy.