• Well, this was quite a week. I did a little bit of comedy stuff over the past eight days but more interestingly, I had my bachelor party in Oregon. I went with five of my best friends Ben Levy, Sam Levy, Clayton Russell Porter, Nate Abdo and Evan Sorosky (all fellow ASU grads and great people). It wasn’t your typical bachelor party. The first day, we hit the Nike HQ (Russ Westbrook has a parking space), the Nike employee store (very easy to drop a ton of coin in there; we all did), hooped (since it was my bachelor party, Evan let me score way more than I had any right to), had a steak dinner (just five bros sharing beignets for dessert) and went to a dueling piano bar to close the night (I made a fool of myself). Days two and three, we went to the Pickathon Music Festival. Day two of the trip at the Fest was incredible. There were three different stages at the festival campgrounds and each one was cooler than the last (see attached photos). The food was exceptional (it was a bummer that you had to pay $10.00 for a bowl and $6.00 for a cup but it was way more environmentally conscious than every other fest I’ve been to). As for the entertainment, we saw semi-obscure bands like Bodega, Miya Folick, B Boys and bigger groups like Lucius and Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats. Every act felt incredibly authentic and no one came close to phoning it in like you might usually see at a festival. Couldn’t have asked for a better day. Day three was a mess though. It’s my fault. I burnt out fast at the fest (dehydration, lack of sunscreen like an idiot...other factors) and my friends nursed me back to health at the hotel. It was a lame ending to the trip on my part but in terms of friends looking out for you, it couldn’t have been nicer.
• As for comedy this week, I hopped on a very cool weekly show in Portland called Earthquake Hurricane at Ford Food and Drink hosted by Alex Falcone, Mohanad Elshieky and Katie Nguyen. I was late to the show and brought garlic bread for the hosts as an apology. It was a valuable lesson. If you’re running late to something, come with food. People will immediately forget that you inconvenienced them in any way. As for the show itself, it was on point. The room was packed, filling up a huge space which would be daunting to pack out in New York and the lineup featuring Portland comics and Sam Jay (who I had JUST listened to on a podcast that day) was top notch too. The quality of comedy in Portland from the mics I went up at to the shows I did really blew me away. It’s cool seeing the next wave of people that will be moving to NY and LA kill it before they go East or Southwest.
• After being alive for 31 years, I finally got around to seeing “Revenge of the Nerds” (featuring a young John Goodman as a football coach). As always, comedy ages in really strange ways. Some of the jokes in the movie felt just as fresh today as they probably did when the movie was released (making them all sleep on cots in the gym and giving the jocks their dorms was very funny). However, this was a sex comedy made in the 80s which immediately means a lot of it will feel unbelievably dated. There’s spying on women in states of undress (don’t think that would fly as a joke today), slurs, stereotypical characters and major male entitlement to women. The craziest thing is this movie probably felt progressive in the 80s. Can’t wait to see how the comedy of 2019 will hold up in 2050. Watch out, “Stuber.” You may be considered the most offensive movie of the future.
• Hosted Sam Zelitch’s monthly Pete’s Candy Store mic this past Tuesday with Anna E. Paone at my side (she even volunteered to do crowd work for comics at a mic which was saintly). Damn, that mic is always fun. It’s a combination of the space being so tight and the quality of the comics. There were some old favorites of mine (too many to name) but this is a great mic to discover new people I haven’t seen before. There were maybe six comics at the mic whom I’d never seen that all felt like seasoned vets. It’s also possible I’m just out of the loop too.
• Don’t have much planned this week comedy-wise other than seeing Catherine LaMoreaux and Anna Paone’s Dragonfly production of “Inspector General” at Metuchen High School. Hopefully, another thing or two pops up.
Peace 'til next week
