Friday, September 27th, 2013
I’m assuming I’ve lost my audience at this point, because of infrequent posting of my progress. I must say that I cooled my heels on the whole blog posting, because of a tiny seed of doubt planted by both inner and outer voices. But as I mentioned earlier, I’m not going to stop, and I haven’t. I just go to a mic, or two, or five. I work out the kinks of something. Polish material. I scrap that ball of clay and start from scratch, or I improvise my way through a bit.
THANK GOD FOR IMPROV! And if any “comic” out there that thinks that improv is worthless, let me just say that if you don’t learn to embrace improv you will have a very short life as a comedian.
I finished my 90 day challenge by completing 60 shows.
I’ll take it.
I did 99.9% of it on a bike and mass transit. My challenge was a personal one and I am very proud of myself for the outcome.
I performed in a couple of great shows leading up to day 90:
Show#59
First, was the Flappers Show on Friday the 13th. What a great day to do comedy! Feeling lucky? I brought my girlfriend and her sister to the show. Jenny, Kerry’s sister thankfully had comps that she won! What are the odds? (Really good actually. Flapper’s gives away a lot of free tickets) It was nice to do a booked show! Will they have me back? We’ll see. I liked my set. The Prison Break guy liked my set. It was well received. I’m pretty sure I ran the light by 15 seconds which is a “no, no”. Shows have to come in on time, and I take time from other comics when I run the clock. If I were playing fantasy football, I’d probably have points deducted. All in all a good experience, that took a lot out of me apparently. I didn’t go out until the following Monday.
Show #60 Monday, September 16th, 2013
A crazy Karaoke/Open-mic brought to you by the boys of the Bomb Shelter John Silver and Ryan Pfeiffer. They are an open-mic juggernaut. This show makes three they weekly produce together. Monday and Wednesday their home is a The Lexington Theater in Downtown LA and Thursday night at The Hollywood Hotel on Vermont. That night I brought out “Hello” (once again) for my karaoke. I serenaded the vibrant Candice, who was the bartender of the evening. I did my three minutes. I settled my tab and I went home. Yay, me!
There was a going to be a ‘Show #61’ at Mouthypants on Tuesday night, but I had a callback (that became an avail…and nothing more) the next day, and it looked like a long bucket night. I surrendered the night without doing my time. I was fine with my choice.
CUT TO:
A WEEK LATER. I hadn’t touched a mic. I didn’t review my material. Gratefully I came into three days of work in a row. I got the crap beat out of me by the sun, plus I was on avail, and I turn into phone obsessed maniac fearing to go anywhere that my signal would be compromised. So I end up at monday Karaoke at The Lexington Theater. Once again I take my turn at the mic bringing Hall and Oates “I Can’t Go For That”, and once again it was dedicated to the fair Candice (which will be a running theme until I get a free drink out of her) Then I went to do my 3 minutes.
I locked up. I wasn’t feeling it. I didn’t want to do my bits. Shut down. Total deer in headlights. I smoothed my way out of it, but it was unsettling. The treat of the night was seeing a buddy Tony Bartolone. He’s a young funny guy I knew when I was doing murder mystery dinner theater (haven’t we all?)
Next night, Tuesday, September 24th, 2013, Mouthypants
I had a slot. #2! Which is what I almost took on the stage. I got 2/3 of the way through, then….fizzle…I forgot my third act. I was in my last minute anyway, but I had to get that bit out of my mouth. To add insult to injury Kym Kral tore me an asshole for being a Chiefs fan, and she was mean about it too…like ‘drunk aunt’ mean.
Wednesday, September 25th, 2013 Eavesdropper and H.O.T.
I love both of these mics and I’m thankful that they are a 7-10 minutes away from my home. I was at HOT a whole hour before the mic even started and I still managed to be at the bottom of that list. #25. Still not used to the where the list gets started and who’s in charge, enough to get a head start, so I’m not always rushing to close the Eavesdropper mic.
But of course I did! I raced down Wilton to Eavesdropper in time so Luis Limon, would add me to his list. I do love this room. I’ve mentioned it before. The place looks like a hoarder starter kit. The longest running show in LA “Eavesdropper” is shown in there almost nightly I think! It’s such a cool and unusual place with seizure producing, lighting, but what I like is the clubhouse feel. It’s so feel good and I needed that, and I got all my thoughts out in both my sets and received starkly different responses to my set which is exactly what I wanted. Now, I’m getting somewhere!
Thursday, September 26th, 2013, The C Word Show, The World Famous Comedy Store, The Belly Room
What I didn’t mention was that I impulsively accepted a slot at this show, earlier in the week, and I didn’t want to do my Flapper’s set (even though I probably should have, if only to recall it) Instead I did light sports and politics…talked about my hemorrhoids(briefly). All the stuff I was trying to get out of my face all week.
The C Word Show is run by three stunning females: Kristal Oates, Jodi Miller and Sunah Bilsted. Kristal is my audition buddy. I see her out on commercial auditions from time to time and we tend to get paired up. Imagine, a tall leggy, green eyed, light skinned black woman who is a model standing next to a short, “receding” (yet svelte) white guy, with glasses. What a 21st century pair. When I first met her we had instant chemistry. Very fortunate to have made friends. Now, I’ve known about this show for at least a year but I didn’t feel I could just get in there and take a stab at it, but after this Summer it became the goal: To ‘triumphantly’ return to the Comedy Store. Quite frankly, this week was me hurriedly trying to put up stuff I know will work if I can just hear it. I had decided I was ready to book another show outside of open-micland. Well the night had come, and so had my turn to the mic. So many strong sets that night, and mine fit right in along with them. Friends, Chris and Kristen had joined the audience, after I had begged them. My loyal and beautiful girlfriend, Kerry, was by my side threatening to break-up with me after the show to another comic…aw, love. Comedy won, last night. Stay tuned for another epic in a couple of weeks.
******* HUGE ADDITION******
So a week prior to the last nights show, I was in Venice performing musical improv as part of the Venice Art Crawl!
Thursday, September 19th, 2013, Danny’s Deli, Venice, CA
Around late July, my friend and former lover (not true) Sasha Gary contacted me and asked me if I was interested in reassembling some friends for one night only of musical improv for the Venice Art Crawl. Why not?! Of Course! In fact, we called ourselves “One Night Only” and performed a one hour musical short form (like all musical ‘Whose Line’) at Danny’s Deli right there at the entrance of the boardwalk. Needless to say, we killed! Even in a place with impossible acoustics, we still managed to knock the socks off a very supportive audience! Big shout outs to Sasha Gary with whom none of it would’ve happened at all! Andrew Johnson, you are a genius accompanist. Thank you for making time to play! Ratana, I’m very glad I finally got to perform with you. I recall our first meeting at Westside Comedy and we talked about getting you to play with us, well welcome, you are an ‘us’ now. Dan Wiley, you are a fearless attack dog! Fun playing with all of you. Thanks Josh Tariff for renting a keyboard to me! You truly saved the day.
Final thanks to Kerry McKenna for being so loving and supportive. You have been my car service, my roadie and my groupie. Thank goodness that you’re a good laugher and sound sleeper. The 30 days I didn’t do shows was filled with an excellent Summer full of incredible adventures with you that I will not soon forget.