• I’ve officially got a new weekly show under my belt. This past Sunday, Veronica Garza and I produced the first edition of our show FREE FRIES at SugarBurg. Before every show I host, I like to go around and warn/invite all the people in the bar to said show. Usually, they have no idea it’s even happening. Not this time. Veronica promoted the show so hard across all platforms that every person was there for the show. Nearly all strangers too. This is unprecedented for me. I used to send 100s of people individual Facebook DMs inviting them to “It’s Everybody’s Birthday” and never got a turnout like this. Super impressive. The show itself was OK. As host, I failed to get the crowd onboard and had first show jitters when jokes didn’t land like I thought they would. In fact, I didn’t even do my whole eight minutes. Looking forward to rebounding this Sunday. Everyone else did fantastically well. Matt Koff, Veronica, Bryan Yang (not on Facebook but has the best Twitter handle with Conan O'Bryan Yang), Kristin Manna, Kristin Seltman and Camden Pollio all braved a loud crowd/bar that desperately wanted free fries and made them laugh. The show is a great comedic challenge and everyone was more than up to it.
• In a strange turn of events last Thursday, a coworker who I’d never met ended up having extra tickets to see Stephen Colbert and his staff at Carnegie Hall. In fact, he had four extra tickets so I went with Anna E. Paone, Ben Levy and Tiffany Wood. I’d never been to Carnegie Hall before and it really is as grand as advertised. The staff is dressed like 30s bellboys, they have cough drops ready to go for you in the lobby with a small trash can to avoid any crinkling sounds in the actual performance space and the stage itself is larger than life. Oddly, the show was a bit of a letdown though. It was Colbert and his coworkers talking about a day in the life at the show. There were fun moments for sure (one producer said that most Colbert pitches get in the show because, “You know, employment.” Also, Jon Batiste said he writes 100 songs at the beginning of each season which is unfathomable) but overall it just felt like I was at a “New Hire Event” at work. It was impressive to see Colbert integrate every single staff member onstage (there were a dozen or so) and made them all equally important. Things livened up toward the end when they had a Q and A session. Hands shot up everywhere; everyone thought they were going to get a staff writing job from a witty question. I didn’t get chosen but I did have a great question prepared if I do so myself that would have gotten me hired FOR SURE. It was about the two empty chairs onstage (two staffers didn’t show up). I was going to say, “I see there are two empty seats up there. Do you mind if I sit with you guys?” Would have slayed and I’d be writing for the show for sure now had I been picked.
SIDE NOTE: Carnegie Hall is right next to the Russian Tea Room. Crazy expensive but worth visiting since it's a New York institution and all.
• Had two fun comedy experiences the week before this last one. The first was one of the final shows (there’s a few more) at Randy Epley’s hostel show at Jazz on the Park. The hostel is being bought out by a hotel company which marks the end of an era. Randy has been giving ample stage time to comics for years and entertaining handfuls of tourists from all over the world. It truly is one of mine and Anna’s favorite shows and I hope Randy finds a new space soon to toss his bits on the ground. Also, had the distinct pleasure of hosting Sam Zelitch’s Pete’s Candy Store mic. Another comedy destination off the beaten path everyone should make their way out to. There’s a great mix of Creek regulars, folks you don’t see as often and then alt-comedy folks you don’t see anywhere else. Plus, the mic moves at the speed of light because Pete’s books the room out 90 minutes after the mic begins. You’re guaranteed to get stage time in in a reasonable amount of time in a room that is always high energy.
• Watched an unreasonable amount of comedy content these past two weeks. Here are my quick snippet reviews:
“The Art of Self Defense.” Saw this on a plane. It’s a perfect, low-budget comedy with a very tight, well structured screenplay. Well worth catching on streaming, tv or any other platform. Jesse Eisenberg’s third best performance IMO (hard to top “Social Network” or “Squid and the Whale”).
’s “25 Sets” on Amazon. Man, what an incredible doc about the NY comedy world. I don’t think I’ve seen anything like this that stresses the NY urgency to get as much stage time in a day as you humanly can. Also, nice to see the Creek’s downstairs room in 2015 in a film.
“Parasite.” This movie is one of the best farces I have ever seen. Everyone is calling it great satire but it is also very silly. Scary too. This movie is a lot of things and I won’t say anything about it to entice you to see it in theaters. Go experience this one with an audience.
“Big Mouth” Season Three. Aside from the occasional misfire (the episode about pansexuality caught heat for representing it incorrectly but it should have been called out for being mad preachy), this show is on point. The Duke Ellington origin story, Kristen Wiig cameo and the character development (Missy, Jay, Coach Steve, Lola, etc. make up the best characters on TV) brought the show to new heights. Don’t sleep on this one. This is Kroll and Mulaney at their very best.
“Bojack Horseman” Season Six Part One. This might be the most emotionally taxing of all of the above but it’s definitely worth watching. The show tackles addiction with such precision (a throwaway line about how rehab is made to make addicts keep coming back really struck me) and also does silly (puns about Raven Symone got me lol’ing pretty hard). It’s a strange tonal balance that I’ve never seen anywhere else.
• Got a giant week of comedy ahead. On Thursday night, I’m doing Jason Planitzer’s 8 PM show Comedy at the Counting Room November 2019 and on Sunday I’m at SugarBurg for Free Fries! (a comedy show): Episode Two at 7:30 PM and Comedy Fight Club at 10:00 PM at The Stand.
Anybody else listening to the new Kanye? I can’t get enough
