• Everyone remembers their first set in New York City. I certainly remember mine. It was August 2013 and I had just moved to the City. No job and I gave myself “three years to make it in New York.” The only thing I really knew was that I HAD to go to the Creek and the Cave. Weeks before I left for the City, I went to the Tempe Improv with my friend and former fellow Improv coworker Rico Lee to see two of my favorite comics, The Sklar Brothers. Their opener was the very funny Nate Fridson who did a jaw dropping 30 before the twin brothers’ headlining set. After the show, Nate generously chatted me up telling me that “if you’re moving to New York to pursue stand up, the Creek was the place to be.” I left AZ, with two years and change of stand up experience, if I’m being generous, under my belt.
I sucked.
Three days in to my New York residency, I had to go onstage. It had already been too long. My good friend Clayton Porter took me out to Long Island City which seemed like a million miles away from my Upper East Side apartment at the time to this mythical Creek I had heard about weeks ago and forced myself to remember.
I thought I’d never be able to find the place again. It felt like a million miles away from my apartment. There were the biggest puddles I’ve ever seen in my life outside the Vernon-Jackson intersection next to the Creek. I hopped over them and looked up. I fell in love with the venue upon first sight. The marquee read “Free comedy.” It was classic, wry and had a DIY spirit. I knew I moved to the right place.
River Clegg was hosting the Wednesday 11 PM “Bucket of Blood” mic (I think that’s what it was called) that fateful night and there were 40-50 comics there. I felt like I had found “the scene.” Grabbed a slip of paper, scribbled my name on it and tossed it into the bucket for the first time. Bucket mics weren’t a thing I’d ever done before. I had no idea what was in store. Clayton and I took our seats. He had my camera at the ready. I’ve taped every set (except for maybe 5-10 ever out of thousands) and this one had to be documented.
Somehow, I got called first. I didn’t know this was extremely rare at the time and had big game confidence coming off a fun, packed out farewell show in Tempe, AZ. The first thing I did was make the classic rookie move of saying, “This is my first New York set” and proceeded to do the greatest hits from my going away set in Arizona. One or two lines were met with a polite reception but it was mostly indifference. What a wake up call (in hindsight, it’s especially painful because I was in that dream first group- the Creek would later raffle off “First group” tickets- that’s how coveted that first group was there). These were jokes I loved. Here they were old hat, dull, people had heard them before. So, I stuck around that night and was blown away by the quality. I wanted to learn. I recall seeing Jay Welch, Evan Williams and Shak Standley have such inventive three-minute sets that I knew I was totally out of my league and had quite a bit to learn.
Actually, that’s what the Creek was. The best place to learn. I’ve often said comedy is like school. The only way to get good is to have perfect attendance and pay attention. The Creek made that possible. When you were/are new to the New York comedy scene, you lived at The Creek. You bomb, you bomb, you bomb, you riffed on the piano next to the stage, you saw the downstairs build a garage-like cage to make it so the back of the room not ruin an entire mic, you stay until 2 AM waiting to go up in group after group after group of not having heard your name called and your hot riffs on the last group become irrelevant, you start to get to know people and Daniel and John Field take you to Petey’s Burgers a few blocks away and are so quick witted, you can’t keep up with their secret language of funny. You watched comics that were a little ahead of you like Dan Perlman, Eli Sairs, JP McDade, David Spector, Usama Siddiquee, Rachel Lenihan, Andrew Casertano, Rachel McCartney, Jennie Sutton, Rufat Agayev and Justin Flanagan become the most potent comedic voices you’ve ever heard. You saw Subhah Agarwal and Billy Prinsell go in first group after first group and wonder, “How can I do that?” (I don’t mean this as a slight- they earned those spots). You looked at the photos in the kitchen and think, “Damn, I’d like to be up there but I’ve never even done a show. I haven’t been in the third group even since that first mic.”
Your parents visit you for Christmas but leave day of, and you feel silly for moving across the country because you don’t even know if you’re good at comedy. You’re really not. You go to the Creek with your brother Ben Levy and try your best to fit in with comics who seem like seniors and you’re an eighth grade exchange student that doesn’t belong.
After a bit, people start to recognize you. You’ve stuck it out. That’s kind of New York for you. The first six months is a test. Do you have what it takes and give enough of a shit to go in the last group of every rigged bucket? We want you to leave. But you put in the hours and show that you care- the scene welcomes you. The Creek is where this happened. I’ve watched scores of comics (classes if you will) show face enough that they BECAME part of the scene. Your Nate Borgmans, Talib Babbs, Brian Bahes, Dan Harumis, Bob Hansens, Blair Dawsons, Camden Pollios, James Pontillos, Ajani Thompsons, Brandon Sagers, Jon Moskowitzs, Jared Schwartzs, Joe Gormans, Myles Toes, Greg Cardazones, Rob Cardazones, Benel Germosens, Peter Wongs, Ronnie Flemings, Mark Kings, Barak Zivs, Matthew Benjamins, Anders Wykow Hansens, Brett Hikers, Koshin Egals, Harrison Tweed, Scott Nossens (what happened to that guy?), Alex Davenports and a billion others, lived at The Creek. I found Joseph Roberts sleeping on the couch at every other mic from 2014-16.
Over the years, each day of the week, different mics belonged to different comics. There were Patrick Hastie Thursdays, Adam Suzan Saturdays, Andrea Allan Sundays, Kattoo King Mondays, Shalewa Sharpe Fridays, Colin DiGarbo and Lizzy Cassidy Tuesdays, James Hamilton Fridays and a billion more that I feel like a jerk for not remembering off the top of my head. Feel free to remind me if you’ve gotten this far.
After five years in New York, with little traction in the comedy world, you move to Long Island City to be close to the Creek and get more reps in. The place is the lifeblood of New York comedy. There was nothing better than just popping in for a late set at midnight. It didn’t matter if it was the last group. You wanted that stage time. You wanted to try the new bit you wrote on the 7 in that perfect three-minute ride from Grand Central to the Creek. It never worked. You still had to say it in front of Ben Katzner and Sam Evans. Just to see if it had legs. Maybe a fragment meant something. Great. You had five new seconds of comedy. That’s all you needed.
You take a Tootsie Roll edible at a backyard all-you-can eat Creek event that Andy Sandford gives you which is a big deal to a no-name comic like yourself while your cousins are in town. It’s 2016 now and you’re trying a weird bit where you have an audience member roast you with jokes you wrote for them. You’re so high it doesn’t matter what happens but somehow it’s one of the most fun sets of your life and you can hear Jordan Temple and Alex Ptak laughing on the tape who are two of your favorite comics. You treasure that tape (and it’s linked in the comments).
You meet your wife. She’s a brilliant filmmaker and is shooting an elaborate 20-minute short. She needs to stage a concert sequence set in the 80s. You tell your wife Anna E. Paone she has to do it at the Creek because they generously rent their space out for cheap to aspiring filmmakers. The scene has a heart and authenticity to it that FEELS like the 80s in no small part to the talent of the writer/director but also the location. You even finally befriend Lupe Rodriguez-Goodman after being too shy to say hello since he’s always around. This upstairs location where Anna shot her scene was also home to some of the greatest and saddest comedy shows I’ve ever been to.
You do a handful of shows up there (I was booked to do Waters Jared March 24 show this year and still have the email left as unread in my inbox because I was so excited to do it) like Jackknife hosted by Patrick and Gideon Hambright, Ready To Crumble with Jack Comstock where Jack roasts you while wearing a unitard and an America’s Got Talent audition that never turns into anything. You rub shoulders with the JFL booker thinking he’ll remember you. You watch every JFL audition and see Sarah Kennedy destroy a packed room. You go to Invasion of the Bawdy Snatchers and wish you had the courage or skill to write jokes in a comic’s voice and impersonate them.
You’re still afraid to talk to Rebecca A. Trent even though your wife has done it. You know she’s run Kabin and The Creek and you don’t want to say the wrong thing. When fellow Arizona comic Matt Anderson moves here a year or so after you and tells you “Rebecca is really chill” you tell him, “Dude, you are so much braver than me.” One time, she walks in on your set because it’s leaking in the impossibly hot basement one day and you somehow make her laugh with a one-liner but then squander it with your next joke that you wrote that day. You dwell on this for weeks because you’re an open micer and think every one-liner has meaning.
You secretly shoot the one and only episode of a web series you’d planned for a bit called “Micumentaries” mostly at The Creek featuring some of your favorite comics like Micah Walsh, Ryan Papazian, Matt Fishman, Igor Martinez, Andrew Harms and Hans Kim. It’s about rigging the bucket and seems like it might be the start to something big. It’s not because you never get around to shooting the second episode. If you haven’t seen this little love letter to the Creek, it’s also in the comments.
You make innumerable friendships on the three-minute train rides from LIC to Manhattan. It’s odd approaching other comics but this was the perfect ice breaker and I’m pretty sure the spot where I befriended Elsa Eli Waithe and Charlton Jon Villavelez. This was the place where you gossipped about your favorite Creek regulars like your Alan Shains or your Sherry’s. Your go to story about Sherry (the stripping comic who always went topless downstairs) you always told on the train was that she would play her set back at full volume right after performing. Comics loved this story. I loved this story. The other favorite was about the time three models showed up for a random Friday night mic. Every comic decided to do their A material. 12 comics in a row crushed (it might have been more). This was not normal. The 13th comic (not me) didn’t know there were models there. He ate it by doing new stuff. You don’t do new stuff in front of models.
Friends from festivals, Arizona and other parts of the country would visit New York and want to know where to go to see great comedy while they were visiting New York and The Creek was the only answer. You get your friend Courtenay Gillean Cholovich onstage, you take your pal Danny Braff, you have your wife’s friend Amalia Schiff participate in a trivia show, you have your family come see you eat it on the main stage and then immediately be wowed at the skill that Nick Turner has when he headlines the show.
You call before you go. The mic is never cancelled. You tape every set and you see the backdrop change over the years. It was green at one time and then became black and white and adorned with photos of the Legion of Skanks dudes. You love the place. Every new feng shui change, you love everything about that downstairs open mic room. There are absolutely silent, absolutely soul crushing mics but you keep coming back. You go to some of the most fun, raucous banger mics of your life. The ones hosted by Davidson Boswell, Greg Warner and Pedro Salinas come to mind.
You don’t go enough even though you live close by. You make excuses. You think in your heart of hearts, the Creek will ALWAYS be there.
The pandemic hits.
The first time you go outside other than for groceries is in April for the Creek’s Thanksgiving with your wife. It’s chilly but comics are there. You see Maddy Smith, Andrew Schiavone, Robert Dean and things feel normal for the first time. People are still clanging on pots and pans at 7 PM. We’ll be out of this by July you think.
In June, you go to Rebecca’s socially distanced Michael Che and Friends Show and you think, “Holy shit. Comedy might come back stronger than ever.” You leave with your friend Jason Planitzer and feel great about the state of comedy. David Piccolomini is running the sound and you’re proud to see the scene having made something so impressive happen. It felt important. They mention the Creek onstage and you beam. You know the Creek. You love the Creek.
They say the second wave is coming. You hear Rebecca on Will Carey’s podcast telling you not to order from GrubHub because it takes away from small businesses and you vow to never do so again. Places start to close and you say, “I won’t get sad over a business. They’re corporations and don’t care about you.”
You receive a text on Wednesday of this week from your friend Dan Fitzpatrick asking if you’ve heard the news about The Creek. You haven’t. You’re at your work from home job. You check your phone. You read Rebecca’s heartbreaking status and your heart sinks like you’ve been dumped. Your favorite thing is gone. In Arizona, your favorite Mongolian BBQ YC’s closed and the spot for your birthday parties Laser Quest have shut down but it doesn’t affect you like this. You feel like you want to cry but have a meeting with a coworker. While making small talk with them, you mention you live in LIC. They lived in LIC! You ask if they ever went to The Creek. Of course they did. They’re just as heartbroken as you mostly for the dirt cheap PBRs they used to cop there.
You thought the Creek would last. You thought it would never go away. You think it would be the only thing that made it through the pandemic. You knew the Creek would fight and push and scrap. All the other clubs are in it for the money, for the prestige. You know the Creek exists because there is such a twisted love for comics that the chips and water are always on the house and there’s pinball to help you through your antisocial tendencies (even though you love the spotlight in three-minute bursts).
You feel empty. You don’t believe it. You feel like your identity has been erased. You walk past on a Saturday night with your wife and want to get a photo in front of the marquee that says “Free comedy.” You’re wearing your mask and Rebecca is moving out with her staff. You feel silly and walk away without even saying hello. You don’t know what to say. You feel stupid for taking a photo. In fact, you never take the picture.
You feel sad. You donate $25.00 to the Creek’s GoFundMe (Thousands of people have liked the Creek’s status about their closing but only 125 have donated. Seriously. Think about all they did for you. Throw at least $10.00 in. You never even paid $1.00 for a mic). It doesn’t feel like enough.
It won’t be. There will never be another Creek. I love The Creek like a person. It wasn’t just a building or a business. It was the scene. It was the community. It was everything. Michelle Wolf, Laurie Kilmartin, Dan St. Germain, Liza Treyger, Mike Lawrence and Mark Normand dropped in for mics. They loved it as much as we did. This was our comedy mecca.
You can’t wait for the oral history and documentary. You know there will be pale imitations. You know there will never, ever, ever be another Creek.
You love the Creek forever. And you still remember your first New York set there. Forever.
Thank you, Rebecca.
Creek GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/ne-york-will-miss-the-creek-and-cave?utm_source=customer&utm_campaign=m_pd+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link_all
Roast set I did while on edibles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rKuqp4sPb4&t
Micumentaries: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVUDdGigwu8&t
