• I met my wife Anna E. Paone in September 2016 and have attended every one of the plays she’s been apart of since then. I’ve loved them all! The latest one that she’s co-directed with her mom, Catherine LaMoreaux, may be the best they’ve done yet. Their theatre company, Dragonfly Multicultural Arts Center, put on the show “Death in San Francisco” this weekend at the DuCret School of Art. If you’re not familiar with the play (I wasn’t), it’s about an Indian-American family dealing with the death of a patriarchal figure who spent most of his life in the United States but wanted a traditional Indian burial. Really doesn’t sound very funny, does it? Well, the script along with the acting and direction turned this concept into something simultaneously light and heavy like a great meal. From the slapstick of the family trying to move the big body to the instantly familiar infighting between mothers and sons, to the mention of Starbucks and Costco as resources to aid the traditional funeral process, the play really struck a chord with the audience. Very cool to see my wife helm such a unique, funny and moving project.
• Saw two guys named Pete headline at Carolines this past week. Both were wildly different experiences. The first was Pete Davidson headlining a midnight show last Sunday. The place was filled to capacity. It was so packed that the staff had to bring out extra tables and chairs. Pete was doing his thing where everyone had to put their phones in Yondr pouches to eliminate filming or photos. As for the performance, it wasn’t what one might expect. He came out with crumpled up notes and treated this big headlining gig almost like an open mic. It was fascinating to sit through. The ideas were a bit half baked but 20-somethings sat fully engaged at 1:00 AM(!) listening to Pete try stuff out. Some hit, some didn’t. That’s why he called it the “Trying Stuff Out” show. Kind of cool that no matter how accomplished you are, you still gotta try stuff out. This was his version of Chris Rock dropping into the Cellar and doing his material with no energy to see if it holds up on its own. I respect it.
The second Pete I saw is the rising Pete Lee. He’s mostly known for being the first comic to get a standing ovation on “Fallon.” A year from now, he’ll be at Bargatze level. The guy brought everything he could to his headlining gig treating it like it was a once-in-a-lifetime showcase. He treated every fan like they were family. One fan even seemed too passionate about Pete. Before the show began, I watched this late 20s guy come up to Pete and whisper how he’s “seen everything he’s done and loves him” really close to his face. It was definitely a line crossing moment for a fan but Pete treated the guy like an old friend. My favorite part of his set though was the very end. The merch plug. Usually a major slog in comedy. Pete did ten-plus minutes making fun of his Facebook, his Twitter, his Instagram handle, his TikTok, his shirts, etc. I was blown away. He had material for every single piece of self promotion and it felt almost more fun than the rest of the show. This is the way to do it. After the show everyone stayed and hung with him. He’s doing this headlining thing right.
• I did more shows this week than I’ve done in my entire time in New York. Five. Never did five shows in a week ever. Here are the stories of all five. This past Friday, I went to Oppa for YouJean Chang’s show. YouJean said it was a “workout show, feel free to have fun up there.” I arrive and there are 100+ audience members! That does NOT happen in New York. I instantly changed my set list from newish stuff to try on a show to tried and true “A” material. It went fine. My opener fell kind of flat but I rebounded in places. Really can’t think YouJean enough for the spot and if you’re reading this you should go hang at his show. This is one of the great shows of the City that isn’t talked about enough.
Did my show (yes, that was one of the five) last Sunday at SugarBurg. Since I had two shows that night, I had my pal Matt Vita host the ambush show in my place. In a room that is NOT easy, he excelled. Warmed a fairly raucous crowd up to the idea of a comedy show. Had an OK set but started HORRIBLY (a theme is emerging). Sang “Happy birthday” to an audience member who we established was celebrating that day. Got to the end of the song and sang, “Happy birthday dear Courtney” and that was NOT her name. One of those moments that we should all be able to laugh off but came off as more uncomfortable for all parties than anything.
Had to leave after that set pretty fast to go uptown to do Narinder Singh and Max May’s hostel show at Hi USA. Now that is a nice hostel. The place has a deli, a number of TVs and a nice, downstairs showroom for comedy. The show itself was wonderful. Narinder opened it up with about ten or so audience members there and the crowd steadily grew. I took the bullet spot, went first and dove into crowd work. It was all fairly standard (asking a woman from Spain about the salad she was eating) until I got to a man visiting from China. He bragged about buying a new sweater. I had him model it for everyone. He got a bigger reaction for showing it off to everyone than I have for any jokes in years. Debating bringing that dude to all of my shows. Max closed the thing out and really broke the crowd. Everyone before did well but Max showed the ceiling for what you can get out of this room. Always nice to see what it takes to really GET an audience.
Had two shows this past Wednesday as well. When it rains, it pours. The first was Sheba Mason’s free pizza show at Greenwich Village Comedy Club. I have kind of a strange relationship with GVCC. I did the old song and dance "getting passed at the club" thing with them (not naming names for who made me do this but it was a guy who teaches classes) where I brought 11(!) people to a show in December 2018. Had a very good set too. Then they said they needed me to do ANOTHER set where I got “wall to wall laughs.” I said, “Fine” and brought three people. Had maybe one of the best sets of my life. They said they needed one more. I didn’t do it. Just didn’t know when it would end. So it was nice to go back to GVCC and do a show with no strings attached. This one was fantastic. Great crowd. Can't say enough good things about how Sheba runs this room. The only trouble was following Roberto Garcia. Never seen the guy before but holy schnikees, he’s a murderer. Super high energy and crowds love him. This is another person whose level I aspire to get to. Great to see just how many masters there are among us.
Final show I did this week was at The PIT and also hosted by Matt Vita. It was one of those shows that was half improv/half stand up. Was a true relief to do something a little different and mix up the material. The improv teams were great (I loved the group “Hot Milk”) and I could riff in inside baseball ways and try stuff I had always been a little too scared to try on “real audiences” (read: jokes that are probably too offensive). This is another one of those great hang shows you should stop by at- fun to see a different form of comedy and then watch comics do their thing in a space where they can experiment.
• Didn’t watch a ton of comedy stuff this week but I saw a little. The only movie I caught was “Bad Boys For Life.” Anna and I went on President’s Day (she hasn’t seen the first two; I never saw the first one and saw the second one in theaters with my grandma seventeen years ago) and kinda loved the movie. It has your classic aging buddy cop storyline where one guy (Martin Lawrence) wants to leave the force and the other (Big Willie) wants to take care of one final case. He really was a “Bad Boy For Life” all along (they must have said the title of the movie like 20 times in the movie). Sure, this thing was overly long, had one too many shootouts in a club but the screenplay has genuine heart and some surprising turns. Would definitely RECOMMEND and not just for the dumb DJ Khaled cameo (still in theaters).
• For my birthday in July, I was given “Ball Four” a very famous baseball book. I had started it in Cooperstown at a bed and breakfast run by Quakers but couldn’t get through all 546 pages in a weekend. So, I’ve been reading a few pages before bed every night for the past seven months and I’ve loved everything about it. Not only is it full of great baseball stories in diary format but it’s very, very funny. Some of the stuff in the book is wildly outdated (it’s maybe the most sexist thing I’ve ever read in places and Jim Bouton, the author, posits himself as super woke throughout the whole thing) but it’s cool to see what groundbreaking sports comedy writing was like in the 70s. There are some interesting historical footnotes in the book as well like Bouton creating Big League Chew. If you’re a baseball/comedy nerd and you’ve put off reading this, definitely GET AROUND TO IT. It’ll take a minute to finish but it’s well worth your time (in...bookstores?).
• When I moved to NYC in 2013, Pine Box was the hottest mic in the game. There was No Malice Palace in 2014-2015 with its two-minute mic flying by. Over the Eight held the crown for awhile. Late Mic is amazing too. Bushwick Public House kind of has that thing going now. But one that I’d heard about a lot but never actually made it to was Bob Gurnett and Sam Bourne’s Tuesday at Branded Saloon. The fun and good mic. A true rarity. Can’t believe I took so long to make it out there- they run a mic where they have the balls to do character bits in between (does not happen at mics ever!) and it moves at a good clip in a room where it feels like everyone does well. Kudos to the dudes for doing something special with an open mic.
• Finally, I would be absolutely remiss if I didn’t talk about the untimely passing of one of the scene’s heroes: Steve Whalen. I loved the guy. We all did. If you don't know about Steve go to his Facebook page and read the countless amazing tributes. The guy created stories every day for us all to re-tell. As a comic, Steve was fearless onstage and his persona alone made any mic or show better. You knew you were in good hands when he was up there. There was no bombing for him. He could save anything. My absolute favorite thing that Steve did was after a set, while shaking the next comic’s hand, he would whisper, “Follow that, Motherfucker.” Like something Don Rickles or Alan King might do in the 60s to a new comic. Made me laugh extraordinarily hard every time I saw him do it.
But ya know, the thing no one is talking about is how amazing Steve smelled. No joke. Seriously, EVERY single time, I would run into him, it blew me away. I had to ask what his secret was. He told me that he put vinegar in the dryer with his clothes (I hope I’m not messing his instructions up) which I believe gets sweat out of the clothes. I’m going to miss that scent. Brings a smile to my face just thinking about how he smelled better than Charmin.
A few more Steve memories before I get out of here. In 2017, I asked Steve to do a paid spot at SeatGeek for a show in the office. Got a budget where I could pay him $75.00. I told him it was a “corporate gig” as a joke. He took this as a challenge and REFUSED to do material. He did 15 full minutes of crowd work on my coworkers in what was one of the most impressive comedic feats I’d ever seen. Steve wanted to make the crowd feel like they were getting a once-in-a-lifetime show and they were. He really never phoned anything in.
My last and favorite Steve memory was early last year. We had just gone to the screening of “Hysterical” the Alan Shain and Gary documentary directed by Seth Pompi and Paul Higbie. Robert Smigel was in the crowd. To the best of my knowledge, only Steve and I geeked out over this fact (Smigel is top five all-time comedy heroes for me). Well, Steve did me one better. He had had an in with Smigel since he worked on “The Week Of” with him (a wildly underrated Sandler/Rock movie that Smigel directed). As we left the theater, the two of us were chatting about the movie and saw Smigel leave. Steve and I ran after him. Like stalker level ran after him. Like that guy to Pete Lee earlier this week. Then, Steve made showbiz small talk with him. Like they were old friends. It was amazing to see him rub shoulders with legends like they were pals. It didn’t matter who it was- if they were in comedy, they loved Steve. I just sat back and marveled. My friend was a legend himself.
I love and miss you, Steve. As others have said, Rest in Punchlines. I know you’re in a better place doing bits about the Pearly Gates. As Mr. Jokes often said, he had a joke about everything.
