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Roaches vs. Man – My Alamo in the Comedy…

Week 2 of my San Antonio journey officially began yesterday as I moved from the outskirts of San Antonio into the heart of downtown to work at Rivercenter Comedy Club.  A quick breakdown of the two clubs – The LOL Club gets you free admission to the best movie theater in America (Alamo Drafthouse) and quick access to a Cheesecake Factory and a Chick Fil-A.  On the downside you are sort of isolated and the only gym you can workout at is Planet Fitness – a gym that bans jump rope and heavy weights, but does have tootsie rolls and pizza parties.  Now I am at the Rivercenter Comedy Club.  Pluses – near the Alamo, which could be defeated by an athletic high school basketball team (if the tall Dutch were attacking instead of miniature Mexicans it would have been taken faster – the thing is small and short), near a Fogo De Chao (a Brazilian steakhouse that serves unlimited filet mignon) and a free week pass to the Gold’s Gym.  There is a movie theater, but it is not free and not as good, though it is a solid AMC.  So at this point it is hard to draw an overall winner.  Each club has its strengths and weaknesses.  The tie breaker is simple:

LOL Club – comedians get a hotel.  At Rivercenter – comics get the condo.

Whenever a comedian gets booked on the road there are three possibilities: one is the club provides a hotel, the next is they provide a condo – an apartment the club owns or rents and have cleaned once a week for the incoming comedians (do yourself a favor and DO NOT bring a black light – better to live in ignorance) and the last is that the club provides nothing.  Shockingly the lack of any lodging is sometimes preferable to the condo.

The first time I performed at Rivercenter was in Fall 2011 and I did not see one bug the whole week.  So despite other comedians ripping on the condo I had no problem coming back to it.  And during the day I saw nothing.

I did the show that night and had a great set – excellent crowd.  Had fun chatting with the emcee George and the headliner Cory, who was my condo-mate (the headliner gets the room with the 14 inch tube television – BALLER).  However, as I walked back with Cory to the condo after the show he began telling me haunting stories about his last time at the club (which was Fall 2012 – so more recent and relevant) and the high quantity of roaches he saw throughout the apartment (to be fair there are a lot of combat traps and 2 bottles of Raid in the condo).  And like Beetlejuice or Candyman it was as if Cory summoned the evil spirits of roaches and waterbugs by saying their name because when I got back to the condo I saw a large roach climbing the side of my dresser. I promptly smashed it (#hero), but was now convinced/paranoid that the apartment was teeming with them.  I put all my stuff into my suitcase and sprayed every inch of the room with Raid.

We then went out where I decided a few beers might put my already tired ass into a coma so I could pass out without thinking about my new roommates.  We ended up going to this excellent place Mad Dog’s British pub, which featured outstanding karaoke hosts (they looked like an older Amy Poehler and Mya Rudolph performing a sketch about two older women hosting karaoke).  When Cory and I walked in we got great looks of “who ARE these guys” because Cory is short but very jacked and bears a little resemblance to Michael Vick, while I look like a back-up long snapper for an NFL team (hey we both made this fictional roster).  One of the karaoke highlights was one guy wearing a Roger Staubach jersey who did a phenomenal version of Cherry by Franki Valli and the Four Seasons.  The staff was hot, the crowd was fun and the hosts were great (singing, dancing and joking around – I guess women in their mid forties do have something to contribute after all!) and I started to relax.  After a thoroughly enjoyable couple of hours we left to go back to the condo.

We were talking in the kitchen area and I was starting to feel comfortable (all the lights on in the apartment) and then a roach just sauntered out towards me in the light of the kitchen.  This roach was like Blade – it was of the night, but could also walk in the light.  I then noticed one on the wall and Cory informed me that a stain on the floor was his handiwork earlier in the day (dead roach stain, not a Cory stain).  I promptly stepped on the one approaching me and declared “I’m out of here.” I felt like those brave souls at the Alamo that I was now so close to – outnumbered by aggressive, tiny, brown creatures.  I then booked a room at a nearby Doubletree for a surprisingly low rate (this blog is sponsored by hotels.com).  When I got to the Doubletree at 3 am the man at the desk looked at me and said “No offense, but you look deathly tired.  Here are a couple of cookies.”  And then I fell asleep in my beautiful room at the Doubletree.

Remember the Condo!

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 Karma and the Connecticut Comedy Nightmare

I have been delinquent in my blogging duties this week for a variety of reasons, but I am back on this glorious 4th of July to celebrate that most American of professions… stand up comedy.  July will be the busiest month of my year so far and it kicked off with a July 3rd feature gig at Foxwoods for my buddy (who will become “one of my best friends” once he hits it big, which is what all comedians seem to do these days), and hilarious comedian, John Moses.  He asked me to feature for him for one night (he is the feature for someone else the rest of the weekend).  The gig only paid $50, but John was driving and he thought it was a good opportunity to get me in front of the people from Comix to possibly get work down the line.

Side Note on John – he is an extremely talented comic, hard working and like me, someone who is not caught up in the mutual admiration society that has become the world of stand up comedy.  He just does his work, makes people laugh and moves on to the next opportunity or job.  But, at the risk of sounding like what I hate, that is why John is one of the few people I trust in comedy.  So I headed up to Foxwoods with John and his fiancée.  I lugged my podcast equipment to record an episode with John before the show, but in a sign of worse things to come the drive took about 6 hours with holiday traffic and we arrived only 30 minutes before show time.  No time for the podcast.  Not even time to ice my shoulder from lugging aforementioned podcast equipment.

The club at Foxwoods, Comix, is really nice and just walking around the casino I kept thinking two things – one, I wish all the casino gigs I got were not one-nighters and two, I wish I was not a struggling comedian because I would love to go to a casino for a nice weekend vacation.  Being a comedian is like being permanently on a working vacation.  You are not tied to an office, but you are always sort of working on stuff.  I was taking two vacations a year when I had a regular job.  I have not travelled anywhere that was not comedy-related or family visit-related in 4 years.   So if you consider play station marathons vacations then I am the most relaxed man in the world.

The gig went great.  I did 22 minutes, taped a really solid set, sold a CD to the one guy who was buying merchandise from anyone and also had J-L fan (and Dexter superfan from Tuesday’s podcast episode) Jon Butler show up to the show with a buddy.  Then the booker came up to me in the green room and told me he enjoyed my set.  Perfect – done.  Good set and even at $50 I was going to turn a profit on the gig.  And then Comedy Karma (CK?), like some sort of villain from a Stephen King novel, intervened. Martin Luther King Jr. said that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” (this could have also been a pick-up line he told to his side action referring to his penis)  Well according to J-L Cauvin, the arc of comedy is sad, and bends towards fu*king you over.  Here is a timeline of what happened from that point on:

9:52 pm – I accompany John and his fiancée to Fuddrucker’s next door to the club for dinner.  I ate at the club already, but the two of them were starving and with John willing to drive me 1 hour to the New Haven train station I had no intention of being pushy.  Important detail: the last Metro North train to NYC from New Haven was scheduled to leave at 1135pm.

9:55pm – a woman cuts in front of John and his fiancée on the Fuddrucker’s line.  This is a great move that people should try more often, especially women.  I have been cut on line several times in my life and I do what most people do – I huff and I question and I semi-speak up, but then I sort of reach a confusion level where I half doubt if I was ahead of the person on line, simply because the conduct of the person cutting is slightly out of my frame of normal behavior that I know how to respond to.  The three of us did that to this woman’s cutting.  She took two minutes with her order.  Like The Usual Suspects you will want to review this timeline when you finish this blog to see all of the things that contribute to its tragic ending.

10:18 – Dinner is finished.  Just as we are saying goodbye to John’s fiancée who is headed up to the room, John realizes he left his valet parking ticket up in the room.

10:26 John hands the ticket to the valet

10:31 I get in the car with John.  I turn on the GPS and it is giving me an estimated 1144pm arrival at the New Haven Metro North station.  What then transpired was the first installment of a potential film franchise known as The Crass and the Furious, starring John Moses as Paul Walker and J-L Cauvin as Vin Diesel.  John Moses proceeds to shed 12 and a half minutes off of that time, all in a 2001 Malibu.  The unfortunate part is that he needed to shed 13 and a half minutes for me to catch the train.  When we arrived at 1136 pm there was no sign of the train.  John had basically pulled a Rocky I – he made it closer than anyone thought possible, but in the end Comedy Karma had received just enough help from a Fuddrucker’s skank and a momentary lapse in valet card placement judgment.

11:52pm We decide to look for a bus station to see if there are any midnight buses.  My GPS leads me to just a random public bus stop in West New Haven, where skinny black and white men wear lots of tattoos and no t-shirts at night. We arrive at the bus stop at 12:01 to see that it is a bench with a Rite Aid in the background.  Despair begins to set in.

12:07 We drive back to a La Quinta Inn, which had a sign out front saying “Rates from $95 a night.”  Considering I needed something walking distance to the train in the morning this was the most affordable choice.  I have stayed in La Quinta Inns before.  They are a solid chain, but not all La Quintas are created La Equal.  This felt more like a housing project that had been converted into a La Quinta Inn.  I go in and the lobby (and as it turns out the hallways) have no air conditioning.  I sign up for a room and John Moses says to me “You can’t quit comedy… not like this,” apparently reading a look of despair on my face that Helen Keller could have seen.  I bid him safe travels and went upstairs to my room.

12:20am If you have seen the movie Heat then you know the character Waingro (also cinema’s best representation of comedy karma).  He is a psycho who ruins everything for Robert DeNiro and when DeNiro has a chance to escape he decides to pay back Waingro, which eventually seals his fate.  This hotel and hotel room felt like the hotel in Heat where Waingro murders a prostitute. The room is sweltering so I turned the air conditioning on full blast.  I waited until my body had reached a decent level of cooling and then pulled down the sheets to reveal (no exaggeration) blood stains and some grey-ish brown streaks.  So in fact a murder may have actually taken place here, or at least a miscarriage.  Needless to say I slept on the other side of the bed.

12:47am I look up on Amtrak.com the trains in the morning.  I might as well travel in modest style home if I am already losing significant money on this trip.  And then what I saw truly horrified me.  There was a 12:35 am Amtrak for $39 that I had just missed and had forgotten even ran. It reminded me of the Stephen King movie The Fog, where Thomas Jane opts to kill his son in an act of mercy before he starves to death, only to have help come minutes later.

2:00am I fall asleep, ending the nightmare.  Well played Comedy Karma.

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

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Comedy Recap of the Week: You Don’t Look Half…

This weekend I travelled to Hartford, CT for gigs at Brew Ha Ha Comedy Club at City Steam.  This is one of the most convenient and best set ups in the whole country.  The shows are Friday and Saturday, so one does not have to take any days off from the day job to work the club if you are in NYC. The hotel is a Holiday Inn Express, which given current comedy club accommodation standards, ranging from no room to body fluid stained comedy condo, is basically the Ritz-Carlton to a comedian.  The hotel is 400 feet from the Amtrak station and a ten minute walk from the club.

Interestingly enough, the hotel has a free breakfast, but no waffle iron, which is a big problem because as any comedian knows, the waffle iron has been the great equalizer in comedy accommodations.  “Four people were murdered here last week,” used to be what you would hear at a comedy club condo/hotel, but it now sounds a lot better as “Four people were murdered here last week, but our continental breakfast features a waffle iron.”  Like the personal computer for individuals, the waffle iron leveled the playing for hotels. The Econo Lodge closed the gap with the Gansevoort thanks to the waffle iron.  There is also a Subway near the hotel so that you can eat something halfway healthy for lunch and the club provides free food and a few free drinks per show for dinner.  In other words it is the perfect set up for a comedian looking to have a comfortable weekend.  When I was at the club in Summer 2012 I had three great shows and was happy as could be.  But this is 2013 and I am working on a new hour, which will set the world on fire, but as a majority of the crowds taught me this weekend, it is not for everyone.

The Friday show was the worst I had all weekend.  It still went well, but I blanked on several bits (including two of my new best) and had to retreat to some older bits to keep the flow going, which is exactly what I did not want to do.  And I felt guilty since two of my 28 nationwide fans, Jon and Laura (it was fate J-L has fans J and L) were at the show and I had promised newer material.  They still thought it went well, which was probably them being nice.  But most people greeted me nicely, except for a group of girls who sprinted past me, well sprinted might be generous – they waddled in a frightened manner away from me.  The only really awkward thing about City Steam (aside from the fact that half of the ceiling over the stage is too low for me to stand under) is that merch sales for features is at a narrow corner right next to the stairwell, which creates a gauntlet for audience members to pass through.  I shook many hands and was told “good show” by a lot of people.  I sold very little and got the awkward exchange that would become the theme of the weekend.

An elderly couple walked up to me and said, “Very funny stuff, but I just don’t believe that you are half-black.”  I have not figured out the right way to react to this.  I literally spend 5 minutes of my set recalling the unique experience of being half black, but generally looking white (or at least not-half black, even if some other ethnicity).  Now perhaps comedy audiences no longer believe they are getting humorous truth on stage anymore because of all the geeks and act out-specialists that comprise comedy now (of course the audiences all believed the headliners Mad Lib-esque bits where he simply placed me into interchangeable stories of smoking weed on the road, even though we met for the first time 2 hours before the show – THOSE were all believable to the audience as they kept asking me about our “tour.”).  But do people think anymore?  There are only two possibilities to the statement/question about my ethnicity – either you are calling me a liar or a panderer or you are saying my parent’s’marriage is a fraud (it is full of hostility, but it is not a fraud).

Saturday I recounted the story on stage to some laughter (mostly from the 10% non-white crowd members) on the early show.  Then after the show a guy came up to me and here is the exchange:

“You don’t look half-black.”

“I know.  That is what the bit was about.”

“Is it true?”

“Yes.”

“Well, really funny stuff man.” (he said this sort of nervously because the look in my eye was probably that of a half-Black Panther)

See the problem with the material I am working on is that it is not for everyone by definition.  Speaking of all the subtle and not so subtle racist things I still experience and observe to audiences where half the people could be guilty of some of the experiences I recount is not a recipe to winning a whole crowd.  But instead of laughing or not laughing the mirror has to be turned on me instead of on themselves.  Because if I am making up my race for material then the jokes have no relevance or meaning.

As if this was not enough of an annoyance, there is also the “your wife is being uncomfortably flirty with me right in front of you dude” scenario.  After the first show Saturday, which was my second best set of the weekend, but my lowest audience response, a woman came up to me gushing and not removing eye contact for a good 15 seconds.  I did the thing I always do in these cases which is shake her hand and then immediately engage her husband with a hand shake and a “thank you.”  But this guy who was a pretty big guy in his own right gripped my hand and he had some serious paws.  They weren’t longer but his hands were very thick and engulfed mine.  I can palm a basketball, but this guy felt like he could deflate a basketball with his hand.  Then he said, “not very big hands for a big guy!”  I replied like a court jester, “Well that is why I am telling jokes instead of playing in the NBA!”  What I wanted to say was “You know what they say – mediocre hands, mediocre cock, but that does not seem to be stopping your wife from wanting to ride on it.”

This is the joy of my career until I can draw my own audience – people either question my race without thinking of how weird/offensive it is or they need to drag me off of my high horse of feature work in cities like Hartford.  Either someone is telling you that their friend is really funny too, so you know that they know you are not special or they get into a pissing contest because their wife or girlfriend enjoyed the show.  The headliner is accorded a decent level of respect (not always, but odds are better), but the middle is the best place to deposit your issues for any audience members.  And don’t worry I also got a hearty helping over the first two shows of “pretty good,” the worst compliment in entertainment.

But there is a happy ending to this story.  I banged that guy’s wife.  Just kidding.  No, the final show was fantastic.  The average age of the late crowd was 30 instead of “Do Not Resuscitate” and they appreciated the new material.  And even though no one bought merch after I received no “pretty good”‘s, and no “are you really half-black”‘s.  It was nice to end on a high note.

And then like a horror movie, where you think all is well but a horrific thing happens at the last minute, as I was leaving, and standing right next to the emcee, a woman walked by, in front of the emcee and 4 feet from me (hard to miss – my action comedy movie biopic title) and said to her, “You were the best one.”

Well played Comedy.  Well played.

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

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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.

Blog

Comedy Hits Back in a Big Way

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog called “The Death of Stand Up Comedy” (https://jlcauvin.com/?p=4382).  Well apparently I was wrong because comedy woke up and beat the sh*t out of me in the last 6 days.  So maybe comedy is a zombie – sort of dead, but still able to inflict pain and humiliation.

Last Friday night I worked a room in Connecticut.  It was in the back of a restaurant opening for a ventriloquist.  And that was the highlight.  Upon arriving back in  New York City around 1:30 am I went to a bar near Grand Central Station to have a beer.  About halfway through my beer I felt a rub against my leg.  It was a seductive touch that immediately piqued my interest and seemed exactly like what the doctor ordered after closing my window of hope by opening for a ventriloquist.  Here’s a picture:

This slut tried to pick me up at a bar.

That is right – a dog was getting awfully frisky with me at the bar.  Perhaps it was my animal magnetism, or the peanut butter I use to wash my genitals or he just confused me for a tree to urinate on. Any of these would have been palatable alternatives to the truth.  The truth was that the dog’s 80 year old owner was about to begin courting the young, depressed buck known as Righteous Prick.  That is right, the gay dog slut was only playing wingman to Cruella DeVille.   She just sat next to me and kept asking me questions, including where I lived.  Naturally, when she went outside to let her dog urinate (at least the urine it had not already left on the bar room floor – what a sloppy drunk) I asked the bartender what her deal was.

Bartender: She is rich.

JL: Really?

Bartender: Big time.

JL: Do you have any date rape drugs?

Bartender: For her?

JL: No, for me.

Fortunately, my better angels won out and I went home alone, but I hope my moderate kindness got me into her will. Though asking people at the bar if they saw her also, to make sure I was not seeing dead people, could have been interpreted as insulting.

Then after the weekend I headed to New Orleans to perform for the Conference of State Bank Supervisors.  The show was exactly as exciting as it sounded.  It was myself and two other members of Comedians at Law performing down there and we made a pact after the gig that our next gig should be for 9/11 widows because we need a more feel good show to participate in to pick up our spirits.  I already wrote the gig up for the Comedians at Law site so enjoy it here – http://comediansatlaw.com/2012/08/01/well-alright-comedians-at-law-go-to-the-big-easy-the-hard-way/

If any comedians want the short story and a tip to walk away with from the New Orleans gig it is that when the organizer of an event greets the three comedians after the show with, “Well… alright,” then something has gone horribly wrong.