• One of the most surprising parts of NYC comedy is that there is a thriving competitive rec sports scene from wiffleball to flag football (maybe touch football? I don’t play) to pick up hoops. The centerpiece of this sports world is the March Madness-style annual Big Walkowski put on annually the Saturday after Labor Day by Jake Marshall Head and Joel Walkowski. The Big W has been going for four years and I played in my second one last Saturday. It all starts with a draft on Friday night (didn’t make it out this year. My excuse? Rewatching Season 2 of “Breaking Bad”) and games at Bushwick Park on Saturday. This year, I was drafted by Mike Coscarelli’s Brick City Razor Blades. Our team was comprised of number two overall pick and Zion Williamson-esque Noah Savage, team rock Patrick Schroeder and defensive bruiser Ronnie Lordi. There was a guy named Brian too but I didn’t catch his last name. He had a man bun and hit two clutch threes. Our team made it to the Final Four of 16 teams but lost in a 12-10 heartbreaker. That’s not what matters though. The whole event is such a brilliant way to bring comedians together and the attention to detail (everyone got a jersey, Richie Tolway shooting footage with a drone, a GoPro and a DSLR, oranges with basketball lines drawn on them and a National Anthem where almost everyone kneeled) makes it even better. It didn’t go unnoticed. Long live the Big Dub.
• Last Thursday, my tiny wife Anna E. Paone and I attended an ingenious mic/hybrid show called Stoked run by Amber Rollo, Kelly Bachman and Davidson Boswell at Mad Tropical. It might be the smartest set up for a bar show I’ve seen in New York. What they do is simple. They host a mic before the show. Then they have pizza. The open mic’ers (I was one of them) stay and enjoy the show. Crowd comes in because it’s already packed. The show was electric and all three hosts had standout sets. I will be back (the room rules, there’s pizza, the hosts are great, can’t ask for more) and you should make it a priority to go to this one too if you haven’t already.
• Some great stuff on streaming. First of all, you should definitely check out the Mindy Kaling movie “Late Night” on Amazon Prime if you haven’t already. There are some fantastic bits built into the movie and although the storyline is telegraphed from a mile away it’s more enjoyable than almost any other variation I’ve seen on this story. There are a few cringe-y moments that feel a little out of touch (the dudes in the writer’s room make up almost all of them) but don’t let that stop you from checking it out. Equally great is the 2014 Netflix doc “Battered Bastards of Baseball.” It’s very brief clocking in at 80 minutes and is a zippy sports doc detailing the can-do spirit of an independent minor league team run by Kurt Russell’s dad Bing (who was in 100-plus episodes of “Bonanza”). There are a ton of great 70s moments like Jim Bouton (“Ball Four” author who pretty much invented this writing style I’m using right here) appearing on the team and the guys on the team inventing Big League Chew. If you like baseball, it’ll be the easiest watch in the world.
• Hit three very interesting open mics this week that were all very different. The first was Felicia Madison’s Westside Comedy Club Friday Feedback mic. I rarely participate as someone that gives feedback because I don’t want to sound like an idiot but I should. It’s essentially a chance to exist in a writer’s room. Also, you are exposed to comics that you don’t really run into because it’s noon on a Friday. After I went to that one of Friday, I went to Otto’s Shrunken Head for Jimmy Peoples’ new challenge mic. You have to get six laughs per minute (LPMs, baby) or you get booted off the stage. Jimmy will actually give you a thumbs down and kick you off if you don’t make it. If you DO make it five minutes, you get five extra minutes. It’s a real challenge AND Jimmy streams the entire thing. Somehow, I made it to the five minute mark. I didn’t want to go past that because that’s painful for anyone sitting through a mic but it was a cool honor. Finally, I hit up the Sunday Queen Vic Mic on the Lower East Side on Sunday at 7. It’s the first mic I’ve been to since Late Mic that had live music at a mic and these dudes playing jazz (a band called Contemporary Adult) classed up the joint. Very cool that all these different kinds of mics can exist. Makes doing comedy so much less of a slog and something to get excited about all the time.
• How Brooklyn am I? I spent $90 to see Malcolm Gladwell have a chat last night at King’s Theatre. I’d listened to a few episodes of his podcast “Revisionist History” and was curious to see what he would be like live. Well, he was interviewed by Brian Lehrer for 60 minutes and there was a Q & A and it was really nice to see someone be funny at the top of their intelligence for so long. A few of my favorite excerpts from the interview/Q & A were him talking about how dumb it was that the LSATs were timed since lawyers are encouraged to spend all the time in the world to work on cases; how he spends most of his time in NYC in coffee shops avoiding talking to people; he discussed how he has no sympathy for those swindled by Bernie Madoff because who is dumb enough to give someone all of their money; lastly, he talked about how biased interviews were which led to a great moment where the interviewer said if you don’t believe in interviews or the LSATs, how would anyone go to law school? I haven’t said this since 2009, but he PWNED Gladwell.
• Got zero comedy things planned for the week. Freedom.
If you read this, you’re the real hero.
