New Bit: Memento-ing Movies

I think it would be cool to blog new jokes that I'm working on.  Definitely check me out live and see how these jokes play in front of real audiences!

There's an easter egg on the DVD of the movie, Memento, that lets you watch the movie in reverse.  How much better would movies be if you could watch all of them backwards?

* The Godfather would be about mobsters who come back from the dead and attend a wedding.

* Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory would be about a child who owns a chocolate factory, gives it to an adult, and then becomes poor.

* The Curious Case of Benjamin Button would be about a man aging normally living in a world where everyone ages backwards.

* Superman is about a superhero who saves the world, gets the girl, and then gets on a rocket and leaves Earth for his home planet, Krypton.

* Friday the 13th is about a man in a hockey mask who, after using his magic machete to reverse people's gruesome deaths, becomes a boy again and goes to summer camp.

* Rocky would be about a fighter at the top of his game who gets worse and worse and ends up a normal guy.  In other words, The Wrestler. 

Cartoon

Here's a photo comic Craig Carmean snapped of a cartoon comic Kenny Ortega (who's also a tattoo artist, so is great at sketching) drew:

(That's me with a quote from my act.)

MAD About Comedy

I finally uploaded a .pdf of my first major article in MAD Magazine ("If Different Comedians Told the Same Joke," May 2008) to the Press page of my website.  (You can also download the article here.)

I can't tell you how much of an honor and a thrill it is to be a contributing writer for MAD.  As a kid, I used to crouch over a decaying cardboard box at my grandparent's house in Brooklyn, poring over my dad's yellowing collection of old MADs.  Fast forward to the summer of 2005 - when I participated in MAD's six-week internship program - and I was now actually helping write and put together the magazine that informed the childhoods of both my Dad and me (not to mention countless others).  That summer, the summer of my freshmen year at Harvard, I learned not only about the technical aspects of comedy writing (the editors of MAD are all brilliant comedic minds and just watching them come up with ideas is a master class in itself) but that comedy writing was what I wanted to do with my life.  Combine that desire with a desire to perform and express oneself on stage and - presto! - you have a stand-up comedian.

The bottom line: as a kid, MAD influenced and shaped my sense of humor.  As an intern, MAD influenced and shaped my life.

Fire and Flood

One of the reasons I love stand-up comedy is because anything can happen during a show - and you're expected to be able to deal with it.  That's what makes stand-up so amazing as an art form - each time a comedian creates on stage, he/she has the opportunity to create something entirely unique for that specific audience.

Last week, I was truly able to see what "anything can happen" meant.

On Friday, as I approached HA! Comedy Club, I saw lines of fire trucks and police cars lining 46th St.  Nervous, I called Cisko (the manager and all-around great guy) at HA! in order to find out if the fire was at HA! and, if it was, if everyone was okay.  It turned out there was a small electrical fire in one of the showrooms, but everyone was safe, the theater was still intact, and that shows would continue as usual on Saturday.  After offering my help, I went back home.

I went back to HA! on Saturday (46th St. seemed so much quieter without the FDNY and NYPD blaring their sirens and crowding the street!).  For the first show of the night (the 6:30 PM show), I was slated to be the opening comic, the first comic to follow the host.  Right before I gave the host the light (the "light" being a wave of a cell phone in the back that signals the host to begin ending his set and get ready to bring the first comic up), I heard a huge "WHOOSH!" sound, followed by what sounded like waterfalls.  Rushing into the room, I discovered that water was streaming from what appeared to be the ceiling, soaking the host and his audience.

We re-directed everyone to the third showroom, a large theater, the only room untouched by fire or flood.  Since the host was also the manager, he had to attend to cleaning up the water (the source of which, we discovered, was a pipe burst due to the rapidly decreasing temperature outside).

Turning to me, he said, "You're the host now.  Let them settle for a second, then start the show."

I was now hosting a show in which the audience had just been ambushed by water.  Soaked and shocked, the audience was not probably thinking about what would happen to the rest of the show.

I got on stage.  "Thanks for coming to HA! the ride.  It's like the Earthquake ride in Universal.  Hope you enjoyed the first part of our adventure - now for the real show..."

Although previous omens would not have portended this, the show went really well.  The audience seemed to actually relish the action - what an amazing story to tell the family back home, right?  The comics also all came through, delivering great sets with sly winks to the deluge the audience had just been exposed to.

In the end, it was a great night - for the comics at HA!, who showed how professional, amazingly talented, and able to deal with everything they were; for HA! Comedy Club and its staff, which proved how incredible a venue it was by surviving fire and flood, fixing everything at an incredible speed (all showrooms were up and running by the next day!), and for making sure everyone was safe and enjoyed themselves; and for comedy itself, which proved once again that "anything can happen."

Over-the-Counter Comedy @ EastVille Comedy Club

Sam Morril and I have been producing Stand-Up Comedy: LIVE at the Sage Theater every Thursday at 10 PM at the Sage Theater (711 7th Ave., between 47th and 48th St.) for more than a year and a half now.  In order to expand and give people additional opportunities to see unbelievably good comedy for unbelievably low covers in New York, we have started co-producing a second weekly show every Monday at 9 PM at the EastVille Comedy Club (85 East 4th St., between 2nd Ave. and Bowery).  Over-the-Counter Comedy: A Cure for the Mondays features amazing talent (this week we had Todd Barry!) and is only $1 (the club's two-drink minimum still applies).

We sold out this week and have some INCREDIBLE special guests lined up for next week, so make sure to make reservations on our VIP reservation line (206.312.2954) to guarantee seats!

Records

It's funny how quickly things change.  A little more than a month ago, I posted about doing 21 shows in 14 days and how that was a personal record for me.  I just looked at my calendar and realized that, since moving to New York 9 days ago, I've performed on 26 shows!  Living in New York - which drastically cuts out most of my commute to comedy clubs  - definitely has its advantages!  

I should note that the reason the number of shows is important is not so much for the number itself but the amount of material I can work on and polish with the stage time I have available.  I look at every performance as a means for making my act and me as a performer better, so the more shows I do, the better my act and me as a performer gets.  Over the last 15 or so shows, for example, I've managed to add several new jokes I really love, tweak some classic stuff and add some solid laugh lines, and redo my on-stage look a bit.  I've also I also have been hard at work carving out a solid 30-45 minute feature set, firming up jokes, adding them to a master set list, and then putting them aside for a bit to free up room for firming up new jokes.  Yesterday at HA!, I did a 20+ minute set that went really, really well - I love what you're able to do in that amount of time in terms of character development and the relationship with the audience you're able to build.  As I gear up for road work and touring, I look forward to more and more of these longer sets!

Thanks to everyone who has come out to see me perform - you're the reason I'm able to do this crazy awesome job (can I even call it a "job"?) every night, so I can't thank you all enough!

Happy New Year!

It's the last day of 2008 and I can't but help being thankful for an incredible 2008 and excited for even more incredible 2009!

One final comedy story for 2008: On Monday, I was scheduled for a bunch of shows at HA! Comedy Club in NYC.  I've performed at HA! many times before and always look at the headshots on the wall when I go down the stairs towards the two showrooms.  However, on this particular day, I was in such a rush to get down to the showrooms that I didn't even check the wall.  I started to notice before each of my shows as I waited in the back to be introduced that some of the members of the audience kept looking back at me, like they recognized me from somewhere.  However, I didn't recognize them, so I didn't know where they knew me from.  On the way up the stairs to make a phone call between Show 2 and Show 3, I saw my headshot on the wall and everything made sense!

My headshot is now on the wall of a real NYC comedy club and I can't thank HA! enough for the honor!