Comedy Stray Notes February 9, 2020

• Think back to the time before you moved to New York (and if you never moved to the City, imagine your perception of the City). What did you think it would be like? Busy, indifferent to you and expensive? Yeah, those are all accurate. As for me, I imagined myself rubbing shoulders with the sketch making elite and joining their inner circle, becoming great friends and then we all worked at SNL together in like two years. Well, that didn’t happen. Still, glimpses of what I imagined it would be like still flicker from time to time. Last Friday, I attended “Always Happy/Never Sad” sketch show hosted by Jed Feiman and Nehemiah Markos at the Chelsea Music Hall that featured one of my sketches. I don’t know how they did it but they completely packed out this large showroom and had 100+ people attentively watching internet sketches. It felt like a dream. My favorite sketch of all is in the comments and about a start up “about to disrupt the industry” aggressively recruiting a developer. The link for that sketch is in the comments.

• Went to Mo Amer’s headlining show on Thursday night at Carolines with Anna E. Paone. Mo absolutely destroyed with material about America’s co-opting of Hookahs and Hummus. Even better was his absolute destruction of a heckler toward the end of his set. Mo was talking about how he recently did a show in Montana and the heckler said something like, “You don’t even know where Montana is on a map.” Mo took him apart pretending to be scared of this know it all. Really wish it had been filmed. Even cooler than Mo’s set was seeing Nataly Aukar and Dina Hashem open the show. They both did very well and got the ball rolling for what was a great show. You gotta book both of them as soon as you can before they start headlining on the road themselves.

• OK, this is extremely nerdy but I have been trying to read as much about 80s SNL as I can and while doing research stumbled upon a website called OneSNLaday.com. Basically, some dude named “Stooge” got his hands on every single episode and writes a review of every single sketch. Boring to most, fascinating to me. Really fills in the gaps of my SNL knowledge. For example, I had heard about the bizarro 85-86 episode hosted by George Wendt and “directed by” Francis Ford Coppola but I didn’t know about the actual sketches. This tells you about the quality (based on his opinion) of every single piece. A lot of them aren’t great and don’t age well but it’s fascinating to read about what the show put out in its lowest moments that aren’t written about in “Live From New York” or “Saturday Night: A Backstage History.”

• Was honored to perform on two shows this week. The first was Drew Drevyanko and Stewart Fullerton’s show out in Ridgewood at a bar called Sweet Jane’s. The place is kind of a classic rock bar and a great hang show. I’ll be completely transparent though. I had a very weak set. Sometimes, you just don’t have it. And it wasn’t the room to blame. Micah Walsh went up right before and had a standout set. Went up cocky and just never got them. Commented on the bar’s menu and sounded like a Coastal Elite. Never really won them back. But that’s OK. My next show went a little better. On Friday, I did Koshin Egal and Alexander Ryu’s show at 2A and went first since I had to leave early. Had way more fun and while my set was hit and miss, there were a few really good moments. Still came across as a Coastal Elite though. Also, want to give props to Nick Whitmer who followed me and had a really tight, fun 10 minute spot. Haven’t seen him go up in awhile and was really impressed.

• Would like to go on the record and say that everyone needs to see all of “Bojack Horseman.” Finished the second half of Season 6 this week and was floored by the quality. They mix unbelievably stupid with poignancy in a way that I’ve never really even seen any other show attempt. 100 years from now (if global warming doesn’t come for all of us), college comedy courses will be teaching their students about the show. I look forward to them explaining who Zach Braff is.

• It’s not exactly “comedy” per se but the satire in the Miley Cyrus episode of “Black Mirror” was dead on too. It’s called “Rachel, Jack and Ashley, Too.” I kind of loved it. It’s a nice coming of age story from the perspective of a fan mixed with the tale of a pop star who is over her fake public persona all with a futuristic, tech bent. Not at “San Junipero” level (not sure if “Black Mirror” will ever reach these heights again but I hope they do) but it’s definitely one of the better episodes I’ve seen for sure.

• Matthew Tenenbaum and Alexander Payne’s webseries episode that I plugged last week is now available to watch online! DEFINITELY give it a watch. Gets better on every viewing to be honest. The link is in the comments.

• Comedy stuff going on for me this week is pretty limited. There is no FREE FRIES tonight (pushed the lineup back a week) because of The Oscars. I gotta be honest- I wouldn’t want to hear me doing crowd work over the show either. Only show I have this week is doing the New Talent night at Carolines tomorrow. First time on the stage. Will report back on it next week.

Like a Grateful Dead cover band might say, “Keep truckin’, my friends” (Would they say that? Sounds right)

Comedy Stray Notes February 2, 2020

• More than anything, I identify as a comedy nerd. You know the type. The guy who corrects you about what year a Monty Python movie came out as if that matters. Will never stop being that guy. Anyway, Anna E. Paone showed me an incredible Twitter account that makes me laugh harder than any I’ve ever seen. It’s called “Trump Comedy Nerd” and is run by Matt Koff and a comic I don’t know named Brendan McLaughlin. Basically, it fuses Trump’s voice but instead of bashing liberals, this account spews out pretentious comedy opinions. They’re brilliant. For example, the latest Tweet is, “Liddle’ Lorne is now negotiating to get even more CELEBRITY GEUSTS to “drop in” during SNL “cold opens”. This is sometimes done, but really not fair to the current cast!” If this is your thing as much as it is mine, the link to the account is in the comments. It’s a very worthy follow and gets a laugh from me every time I read it.

• Last night, Anna and I went to the premiere of Matthew Tenenbaum and Alexander Payne’s webseries “Uninspired” that I did sound on last year (I’ll admit we showed up an hour late last night because I wanted to stay through the credits of the new “Star Wars.” There was nothing after the credits, smdh). This show was in a totally packed out SoHo Playhouse and was a true banger (way more entertaining than “Star Wars” too). From Andrea Allan’s dirty, crowd work heavy jokes that the audience couldn’t get enough of to Michel Francoeur, Natan Badalov and Stephen Sihelnik’s dirty song to Brian Morris’ avant garde-theater like performance as ChairFeet (yes, a guy who uses chairs as his feet which must be seen to be believed) to Andre D Thompson’s brilliant take on how we use Google to Dominic Leonelli’s impassioned storytelling, the whole event felt more like a house party than a typical comedy show. On top of all that, the webseries itself was a masterpiece. I won’t spoil it because Tenenbaum is releasing it this Thursday but if you weren’t there, make sure to check it out. Not a spoiler but his parents both have small roles in it and steal the show.

• Went to not one, not two but three shows at Carolines this week. Them’s the perks of the gig. First show, I went to was the Monday New Talent show run by Ray Gootz and hosted by Sheba Mason Page II. What a show. There were 100 people there! Got to see a nice grab bag of performers I haven’t been exposed to and a few I have flex their muscles. This is a great hang show and there ought to be more familiar faces there on Mondays. On Thursday, I did a doubleheader and went to two shows at the club. The first was the first of Amanda Seales’ headlining weekend at the club. This was hosted by Kenice Mobley and had an opening spot by Reg Thomas. Now, this was a Hell of a headlining show where everyone on the lineup rose to the occasion. Applause breaks, audience going nuts for everyone type stuff. Amanda has a dedicated fanbase and it was very cool to see these fans get exposed to Kenice and Reg who both complemented her act nicely. Last show I went to at the club was the Thursday edition of “The Funniest Show On Broadway.” It’s a great showcase of local talent to tourists and this week was no different. The lineup was fantastic and there were too many quality acts to shout out anyone. The real lesson here is Carolines is the place to hang. There’s so much great stuff happening there, come be a part of it.

• Didn’t get a chance to watch a ton of comedy this week (I don’t count the new “Star Wars” or “Miss Americana” both of which I did see and thought were just OK) but I did see two things.

The first was last night’s JJ Watt hosted-episode of SNL. This is the requisite one episode a year that hardcore panders to the right. Makes me wonder if they booked this back in August and this is what they hired Shane Gillis for? Politics of the episode aside, there were a lot of great sketches. Fun Cold Open about how the impeachment SHOULD HAVE gone (featuring Pete Davidson as Hunter Biden on a Hoverboard), mannequins called “Food Dudes” that make it seem like you aren’t eating a meal by yourself commercial was brilliant, the other commercial for eye black make up from Olay for athletes killed me and the 10 to 1 about a pizza place losing money because the delivery guy has sex with everyone he delivers to brought a hacky concept to its logical conclusion in a smart way. The true highlight though was the EA Sports sketch though where Watt had to record lines that a loser version of himself might say. The episode was all over the place but it wasn’t without its victories. These sketches were all fantastic.

The other major comedy content I caught this week was the eight episode second season of Aidy Bryant's show “Shrill” (full disclosure- Aidy and I went to middle school together. She was the seventh grade president while I was the fifth grade president. True story. We used to go to student council meetings together). Reviews haven’t been kind to it saying it’s a weaker version of Season One that isn’t as focused on empowerment but I think it’s a more than worthy successor. The episode entitled “WAHAM” is a major standout about a women’s empowerment conference that shows that while it has its pros (the attendees get to bond once a year) it also has its cons (the whole thing isn’t about empowerment; it’s about hawking products to the vulnerable attendees). I like that nuance. Also, Julia Sweeney’s Mom character has a fantastic arc throughout about going back to her hometown and reconnecting to her youth. I would RECOMMEND this show for sure. It’s got great performances, is an excellent critique of Generation X trying to stay relevant, what it means to be a good partner in a relationship and one of the funniest sex jokes I’ve ever seen in the first episode. The writing is smart, for adults and doesn’t speak down to its audiences in any way. (streaming on Hulu).

Side Note: I was in Portland this summer when they were filming this show and stayed at the same hotel as some of the cast members. One day, at the hotel gym, I was on the treadmill and Jo Firestone was on the bike next to me. Didn’t say anything.

• Took part in two shows this week hosted by dudes named Gabe. The first was a rare headlining set (this was because I was late but I’ll take it) on Gabe Mollica’s Tuesday show at QED. The show is called “Funniest People I Met This Month” and was a really nice, intimate showcase of comics doing a little more time than usual on showcase shows. This is one I’ll definitely be going back to; I want to see who Gabe meets and thinks is funny- the dude has great taste (he booked me after all). Second Gabe show I went to, I filmed. It was Gabriel Pacheco and Sameer Naseem’s show “Fun House” at the Brooklyn Comedy Collective which most know as Cantina Royale. The lineup was out of control. All people that will be huge in just a few years. I was there to tape Jake Flores who has the best joke about 18-year-olds fighting overseas that I’ve ever heard. Just really well developed and smart. Don’t sleep on this weekly show either. This is going to be the next big thing.

• Hosted my show “FREE FRIES” with Veronica Garza last week and it was the perfect size audience. For once, it didn’t feel like an ambush. The crowd was there to laugh. Especially three audience members near the front. Turns out they were Sherm Jacobs’ high school teachers and they really wanted to see him. The entire show weirdly started revolving around them but they were good sports and made it fun. If anyone wants to send your high school teachers to my bar show, please do. Made for a way better time.

• This week is gonna be a busy one. After chilling all day today for the BIG GAME, I’m gonna be doing a show at the new Brooklyn location of Old Man Hustle tomorrow night at 10:15, then Tuesday, I’ll be hosting Sam Zelitch’s mic at Pete’s Candy Store and doing a spot at Sweet Jane’s for Drew Drevyanko and Stewart Fullerton’s show. Finally, on Friday, I’m on Koshin Egal and Alexander Ryu’s show at Bar 2A. It’s on Second Street and Avenue A. Best bar name in the City.

Brb c u next week

Comedy Stray Notes January 26, 2020

• New York is the place where up and coming comics hustle, get chops and speed up the “ten years to get good/find your voice” process since you get so much stage time. However, the major downfall of NYC is that comics on the verge rarely get a chance to spread their wings and actually learn to headline like one might in other parts of the country. That’s part of what makes the Carolines “Breakout Series” so great. They put on this show every Tuesday or Wednesday that gives comics who need that one last piece of the puzzle to grow an opportunity to put on their dream headlining show. This week it was the very funny Kenice Mobley’s turn to take part. Kenice did an admirable job and the crowd ate her up for her entire set. About 30 minutes in though, she hit a fever pitch and started crushing super hard. She dialed it up to 11. That’s exactly what the Breakout Series exists for IMO- it gave a deserving comic the platform they needed to craft their hour and get them to the next level. On top of that, the headliner for the series gets to select a host and two openers. Major props to Caitlin Peluffo for killing it in her hosting set plucking out a 19-year-old and doing fantastic crowd work with the youngin’ and Rohan Padhye and Fumi Abe for extremely fun opener sets. The whole thing was a blast. Already looking forward to this Tuesday when Camille Theobald does her Breakout Series. You should definitely hit the club and support. Who knows? Someday, you might be doing your own Breakout Series at the Club. Go see how it works.

• My show FREE FRIES was pretty insane last week. As noted many times before, an ambush show is maybe the hardest thing to pull off in stand up comedy. It’s an uphill battle (especially when the NFC Championship is on) where it’s really hard to get the crowd who wasn’t expecting a show on your side. You really have to be a dynamite performer to make it happen. Last week, I did everything I could to set up the show for the best possible results. Beforehand, I went up to every audience member and told them, “Hey, we’ve got a show about to happen.” Still people were ambivalent. On top of that, it was so crowded that we had audience members on the stage. It was pretty much insurmountable. Still, things worked out. There were rowdy audience members from Tempe who kept the show afloat and Josef Anolin tamed the crowd in a way I was incapable of. Once again, a noble experiment. Plus, people got fries.

• Been fairly busy this past week but I did get a little bit of comedy viewing as I always try to make time for it. It’s only my favorite thing in the world so it’s not that hard. Here are some quick synopsis’ of those things:

“Bombshell” (2019): Anna E. Paone and I had really wanted to see this when it came out last month but somehow didn’t quite get around to catching it. Yesterday, when we went we expected we’d be the only people in the theater. Nope. It was completely full. As for the movie, it deserved its packed house status. Directed by Jay Roach of the “Austin Powers” trilogy, the movie is satirical, light on its feet and packs a major punch. The message “Speaking truth to power really outweighs the potential consequences” is especially powerful in 2020. Still, it’s interesting to root for the women of Fox News because as right as they are about taking down Roger Ailes they are ostensibly still the mouthpiece that helped create the stubborn beliefs of the modern Republican Party. Either way, I would easily RECOMMEND this one. There’s too much to like to downgrade it for the minor hypocrisy it employs (In theaters now).

Leslie Jones’ “Time Machine” (2020): I’ll admit I’ve never actually seen any of Leslie’s stand up outside of SNL. Maybe a clip here or there but never her hour. Well, now I have. And wow. This is one hell of a special. She has POWER onstage. She’s at that level where it doesn’t matter what she says, it’s just the way she says it. That doesn’t matter though because the special is beautifully written detailing each decade of life from what your 20s are like to 30s to 40s to 50s. It culminates with a 10-minute closer involving a time machine that I’ll admit I had written myself long ago (I’ve seen many people use the joke structure of talking to their younger self) but she does it the best of anyone I’ve ever seen. This is an hour EVERYONE SHOULD SEE (streaming on Netflix).

SNL (Adam Driver Episode): As a self-described SNL obsessive, I am not a huge fan of the show reusing hosts in fast succession. I love seeing what the format does with new blood hosts like JJ Watt and Rupaul in the coming weeks. This was Driver’s third stint in four years which is a lot by SNL standards. Luckily, he upped his game last night from his first two gigs and it made for one of the best episodes of this solid season. The Cold Open with Alan Dershowitz (played by Jon Lovitz!) in Hell was a nice break from the standard form, the monologue was delightfully free with Driver wandering into the audience (I love when the crowd is shown and they all cannot stop laughing even though nothing super funny is happening) and Weekend Update was on point with the best take on Mr. Peanut’s death plus a very funny guest correspondent spot from Aidy as the Seventh Grader who tells us about her vacations. On top of that, sketches were great too from the return of the Kylo Ren “Undercover Boss” to the ketchup bottles being married to the Medieval Times Method actor. This felt like an instant classic of an episode that I definitely RECOMMEND (streaming on Hulu now).

• Had the opportunity to check out Hari Kondabolu’s headlining set for his weekend at Carolines this past Friday which, as mentioned before, is the best place to learn about how to make that jump from being a hobbyist comic in the City to being a truly working comic. Hari’s hour was fantastic but I had a few takeaways from it that really struck me. The first is how incredibly different the room was from last week when Donnell Rawlings hosted. The place was just as packed but the audience was not the same. Very cool how this room can morph into the sensibility of the comic performing. Secondly, Liz Miele opened for Hari and was great but she closed her set with a really brilliant explanation of her app. I’ll try to do it justice here. Basically, she got tired of people illegibly writing their email addresses after shows when trying to get audience members on email lists. So, she put business cards on every table and told people to text the number on the card to get on her mailing list. Infinitely smarter than the old way to do a mailing list. Glad to see comedians moving into the tech space in a way that benefits their actual comedy. Made me proud to see that.

• Wanted to give a shout out to Matt Starr. He’s been teaching a pilot writing class for some time now that I’ve always wanted to take part in but I never had an idea for a pilot that I would love devoting time to. Recently, I came up with an idea for a play but wasn’t sure how to structure this concept or make it happen. I hit up Starr and he helped me figure out what the thing was. If you have an idea floating in your head for your dream project, get in touch with Matt. He can help you make it into something that actually makes sense to you for how to get it done. Or take his class. The guy is going to help you get your idea on its feet.

• Got a little bit of comedy stuff ready to go for this week. Tonight, I’m doing my show Free Fries (A Comedy Show): Episode Nine as always. Tuesday, I’m on Gabe Mollica’s show at Q.E.D. which I’m really excited about and I’m not sure what other comedy adventures the future holds but I’m psyched for whatever they may be.

Perhaps a mic?

Comedy Stray Notes January 19, 2020

• BIG NEWS for 24-30 people. Comedy Stray Notes is moving to Sundays. That’s right, put aside your giant copy of the New York Times so you can curl up and read a review of the second season of “The Last OG” here instead (sorry, I don’t have a crossword puzzle like the NYT). As for the move to Sundays, more on that later.

• As you might remember, I put out a sketch called “Winter Symphony: An Ode To New York” a little less than two weeks ago. In that time, it’s garnered 323 views PLUS two comments from strangers. Not bad. However, something very cool happened with the video. It was featured on one of my favorite shows in all the land RightThisMinute. The show is a “Tosh.0” meets “The View” hybrid where they have a roundtable comment on internet videos. Basically, it’s if the comments section on YouTube videos were civilized and actually funny. Full disclosure, I worked as an editor on “RTM” from 2011-13 and loved it there. Very nice of them to feature my sketch and you can see their take on it at the link below. Also, if you have any cool videos (sketches or whatever), DM me. I can pass it along to the producers for you.

• Once again, another NYC scene favorite had a late night set last week on Corden and it was a damn good network TV debut. This week’s standout performance came from Raanan Hershberg and he completely owned. Wall to wall, big laughs for 6:19. Just no filler. Short setups and strong punchlines. From stories about performing at a prison (which was the most popular “I bombed” story from the group of all time I think) to what it’s like having a twin sister, to his Mom teaching, to his all-time great bit about his grandpa being from a different time, he had the crowd in stitches. This is basically a template of how you should do a network set. Be fast, be funny and have a strong point of view. When James Corden said, “That was so good” at the end, I couldn’t have agreed more. I remember seeing Raanan kill it back at Revision Lounge at the Thursday two-minute mic (the true barometer of whether or not you’re worth your salt in NYC) when he moved here and he’s just one of those guys you knew had the chops and TV was in the near future. Can’t wait for Raanan’s inevitable special. Mazel, my friend.

• Watched just a tiny bit of comedy stuff on the tube since I’ve last written. It’s only been a few days. Would love to shout out to these two TV triumphs though. They are:

“The Jeopardy Tournament of Champions:” You may say, “That’s not comedy!” but if you didn’t watch, you wouldn’t know any better. This was hilarious, fun and a nice sendoff to three of the greatest to ever play the game. Not to mention Trebek may be leaving soon. If you’re not familiar with this, basically, “Jeopardy!” had its three best players ever (Ken Jennings, James Holzhauer and Brad Rutter) compete against one another for $1 million. However, these guys are so comfortable with the format that they’re throwing out joke answers left and right, messing with Trebek and dunking all over Rutter who got murdered by the other two. Anna E. Paone and I watched all four episodes and loved every second of it. Serious MAJOR RECOMMENDATION (streaming on Hulu and my Dad’s DVR).

“The Last O.G.” Season Two: If you missed Season One on TBS or Netflix, I’ll get you up to speed (even though you should watch because this is Tracy Morgan at his best). Basically, Tracy’s character is unfairly put behind bars and fifteen years later, where the show picks up is where we begin. His girlfriend and mother of his children (played by Tiffany Haddish) is married to another guy and Tracy is in a halfway house. It’s not nearly as dark as that sounds though. It’s great satire of someone seeing 2017 or 2018 with a 2002 perspective. Like a time traveler. Season 2 is deeper, maybe even better and only ten episodes that are like 20 minutes each. Storylines like Tracy starting a prison-based food truck (full of puns like “Tossed Salad”), having his son pursue a career as a barber, a home invasion gone wrong by Haddish’s character and a fight with the police in the finale made for an emotionally satisfying and very funny season. This makes for an easy watch. Totally RECOMMEND (both seasons streaming on Netflix. Maybe my Dad’s DVR; I didn’t check).

• Spent a lot of time at Carolines on Broadway this past week as I am working there now (that’s why I write on Sundays). I will be taking over for the irreplaceable Carolyn Gitomer who is moving to LA (LA comedy folks, get at her- she’s a formidable booking talent) and have started going to as many shows as I can in the building to soak in all the great that they put on. The first one I attended on Thursday was the “Funniest Show on Broadway” and had a fantastic time seeing all the great acts doing their thing for a crowd made up of fun tourists from all over the States. Second was a super fun edition of the radio show “Sway in the Morning” where people lined up mad early to try and impress Sway and his panel to get a future spot at Carolines. The show was like an amazing party. Final show I hit up was Donnell Rawlings’ headlining set last night. The place was filled to capacity. Not a seat to be had. It was electric and what every comedy show should feel like. Can’t wait to see all the great shows they have lined up.

As for this week, I have my weekly show Free Fries (A Comedy Show): Episode Eight tonight featuring a stellar lineup of Koshin Egal, Sonja Savanovic, Josef Anolin, Fluke Human and a special guest. Come by at 7:30 and when it’s over, you can go to the Knit. Win win. Don’t know what happens after tonight for me this week but I can’t wait already.

Oh! One last thing. It’s pretty self serving but why not. @Mattlevy51 hit 3000 followers on Twitter this week. If you don’t follow me, do it! I’ll follow back and like three of your Tweets. Let’s help each other out

Comedy Stray Notes January 15, 2020

• Spent the last week in Phoenix (my hometown) for a family emergency. My grandfather Glenn Friedman passed away at the age of 90. He was a wonderful grandpa and a pioneer in late 20th century medicine. My grandfather was one of the originators in attachment parenting (the practice of keeping your children as close as possible for the early stages of their life), an early adopter of vegetarianism and helped prevent high cholesterol in children before that was normalized. Glenn was a special human being and the weekend was a wonderful celebration of his long, storied life. There was not much comedy this past week to write of but there were laughs remembering his commitment to health. He was known to wake the kids (my Mom) up at 5 AM for runs around the block. Grandpa also had the kids bring body parts from his medical practice to show and tell. Glenn did things his way and his influence will live on. We all love and miss him. If you’re interested in learning more about him, the link to his wonderfully written obituary (by his kids) is in the comments.

• Well, this is a bit of a tonal shift but I am committed to writing this weekly newsletter. I write it to praise my peers, discuss what I’ve seen and faintly pepper in my accomplishments. This week, I’d like to shine a light on two stellar late night Colbert sets from NY-based comics Kate Willett and Pedro Gonzalez. Their sets were not at all alike but each loudly announced a unique voice ready to headline across the country. Kate’s set takes on commitment-phobic dudes and how in the past committing might have been a mistake. It’s such a smart take and feels sneaky that it’s even on CBS. This is not the safe material the network is known for. Also, watch until the end of the set for the hilarious chatroom bit. On the other end of the spectrum is Pedro’s masterful, joke-heavy, misdirect rich five-minutes. I’ve known Pedro my entire time in NYC and have watched him hit more mics than nearly anyone in the five boroughs. He just works jokes out until they’re perfect. This is another amazing set that feels like a nice throwback to a set from Carson back in the 70s that would make a comedian’s career. It’s just a star-making performance with a voice you don’t usually hear on TV. Also, I can’t recommend the joke about “The song that was playing when…” bit about 2:20 in. I remember hearing it at Karma Lounge years ago and loving it then. Even more special to hear it on a major network. You can find the links for both of these in the comments as well.

• Saw a heck of a lot of movies this week (took multiple flights on Delta which really has the best selection). Tried to catch as many comedy features that I missed as I could. Here’s some quick hit reviews of what I saw:

What A Man Wants (2019): Well, this has 43% on Rotten Tomatoes which is my favorite kind of film. SOME people liked it but most hated it. I had to know why. After finishing, I got it. 43% is right. If you don’t know, the movie is a gender-flipped retelling of the 2000 Mel Gibson “What Women Want” (just like “Little” was a retelling of “Big” came out last year, this appears to be a trend). This one is certainly less sexist than the surprisingly charming original and features a strong lead performance from Taraji P. Henson and inspired turns from Erykah Badu as a crazy psychic, Tracy Morgan playing the Dad of the star athlete Henson’s agent character is trying to sign and Jason Jones from “The Daily Show” way back when as the jerk coworker who tries to steal her client. There are some great observations about what men think but the movie is mostly formulaic with everything tying up in way too neat a bow. I BARELY RECOMMEND (streaming on Hulu).

The Farewell (2019): This movie was hardcore snubbed by The Academy. Not a true comedy but I’m compelled to recommend it to anyone that hasn’t seen it that’s still reading. Watched it on a flight and was incredibly moved by the simple and heartfelt tale of a family reconnecting with an elderly family member (I don’t want to spoil the story too much; it was a great surprise). Awkwafina showed a ton of depth as a misfit in the States and China, feeling lost in both countries. The grandmother steals the show though. What a fun movie that captures family in a way that feels true to life but completely fresh. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND (streaming on Delta flights and for pay on Amazon).

Zombieland: Double Tap (2019): Yes, I wrote a heartfelt note to my Grandpa and it also included a review of the “Zombieland” sequel. That’s just who I am. I hope he would understand. I think he would. I don’t think he would like this movie though. I didn’t think I would either. Happy to have been proven wrong. Followed “The Farewell” with this one and I thought it would be too slight and it kind of was but had great jokes and deserved more fanfare. The movie pays homage to Elvis, features doubles of all the leads (Thomas Middleditch for Jesse Eisenberg was especially funny) and there is an amazing set piece in the third act that calls back to a throwaway joke that opens the movie. Stay after the credits too- Bill Murray gets a VERY extended cameo. You don’t need to have seen the first one to get this although I recommend you do; the movie cleverly comments on that movie’s casual sexism in a pretty funny way. So yeah, I RECOMMEND (streaming on Delta flights and for pay on Amazon. Sorry!).

The Upside (2019): My Mom recommended this movie to me. My brother makes fun of me for being a comedian and not loving Kevin Hart (for the record, I think he’s just OK). I was compelled to watch it and see what they were so into having seen the original French version of the movie years ago. Pulled it up on my flight home with Anna E. Paone and I gotta admit, it’s pretty damn good. Bryan Cranston is reliably excellent as the quadriplegic, millionaire author and Hart is nicely understated as his ex-con with a heart of gold caretaker that is pushed into the job because he’d be the worst at it. Once again, the movie hits all the familiar beats but does so with style. The melding of opera and Aretha Franklin (the two dudes’ tastes merge!) was a nice touch and if you’re looking for a movie to watch with the family anytime soon, this would be perfect so I would RECOMMEND FOR THAT (streaming on Delta...sorry).

• Leaked screenplays do not go viral. People don’t like to open PDFs and read them. I know I don’t. However, when Tom Scharpling’s 50+ page “Grown Ups 3” went online I was curious. There was praise left and right. People were calling it the funniest thing they’d ever read. Opened the PDF. Tore right into it. The folks were right. This is an amazing send up of Sandler and his buddies and the type of movies they make. It starts as a parody of the franchise, becomes a mockery of their true personas (kind of like “This the End”) and turns into something entirely different. Read it for free before it’s taken off the internet. Link is in the comments again.

• Not a lot going on for me this week. FREE FRIES returns this Sunday at SugarBurg. Other than that, I’m chillin’. See you at the mics.

RIP, Grandpa. I love you.

Comedy Stray Notes January 8, 2020

• Almost exactly one year ago, I wrote a sketch about all the noises that you hear on the New York City train. I called it “Winter Symphony.” It was unlike anything I’d ever written and was super pumped to shoot it. For a year, I agonized about making this sketch a reality going from draft to draft, struggling to find the right location (Pete’s Candy Store in Brooklyn wanted $300/hr to shoot there!) before finally making my dream a reality. Thanks to my talented cast (Jeffrey Gurian, Anna E. Paone, Veronica Garza, Joe Gorman, Steve Girard, Joan Kaufman, Jay Welch and Myles Toe) and crew (Kate Nahvi, Matthew Tenenbaum, Matthew Benjamin and a girl named Julia who showed up to help), it’s finally here! This is my first foray into musical sketch and I’m really proud of it. The thing is only 2 minutes and 16 seconds and it would be my dream come true if you watched the whole thing. Leaving a comment and subscribing to my channel as grossly Millennial as that sounds would be the nicest thing in the world you could do. In fact, if you do, I’ll subscribe right back to yours or do some social media favor for you! Just tell me where you need to be followed and I’m on it. Anyway, you can find the link in the comments. Please view!

• Well, other than my sketch I’ve been editing (see above), I’ve watched a nice little batch of comedy things on streaming platforms this week. Here are my reviews, whether or not I think it’s worth your time and where you can stream said content:

Norm MacDonald Has A Show: This freewheeling, lo-fi, refreshingly candid 30-minute “talk show” was panned when it came out as only for “Norm fans.” Well, I’m a Norm fan. I bet you are too. And I loved every second of it. Each of the ten episodes are basically the same. Norm and his trusty sidekick Adam Eget enter with the guest from offstage and grab Red Bulls from the fridge. Norm says whatever comes to his mind, interrupts the guest, forces them to tell intentionally corny jokes his staff wrote and finishes by singing a Rat Pack-style crooner ditty to sign off. But it’s so much more than that. He talks to Judge Judy about her dog. Being intentionally mean to David Spade. Hitting on Jane Fonda. Behind the scenes SNL stories with Lorne Michaels. Michael Keaton performing old stand up of his. It’s even more offbeat than a podcast but somehow has a budget of $2,000,000.00 an episode. Allegedly. Who knows with Norm. I can’t RECOMMEND this enough. If you love Episode One, you’ll love the whole thing (Streaming on Netflix).

Plus One: The mainstream comedy feature film has been in a bit of a rough patch. We had a boom from the 90s to the late 00s but it’s hard for a little rom-com make a splash in 2020. This one didn’t get much fanfare but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be on your radar. Released in April 2019 in just a few theaters and then dumped unceremoniously on Hulu, this movie delivers. Essentially, it’s about two mismatched single friends (Maya Erskine from “Pen 15” and Jack Quaid from...Dennis Quaid. It’s his son) who have a ton of weddings to attend and no one to go with. They decide to be each other’s plus ones for like ten weddings. Sounds standard enough, right (and expensive; attending weddings is not cheap)? Well, it is BUT is incredibly funny. They make fun of every kind of wedding toast you’ve ever heard and skewer the wedding industry inside and out. The two leads have a strange chemistry that I never truly bought as romance but found endearing. While we’re in the January movie doldrums (if you’ve caught up on all the Awards contenders that is), check this out on Hulu because I am RECOMMENDING, dawg.

Mel Brooks (Unwrapped): While scrolling, I came across this 70-minute documentary and immediately turned it on. It’s a really strange portrait of Brooks in that it was supposed to be released in the 1980s and features a ton of footage of him goofing around for this doc back then. Yes, it’s fan service (I still can’t get enough of clips of the “Puttin’ on the Ritz” routine from “Young Frankenstein”) but if you’re a hardcore fan, it’s great to see all of his achievements back to back. Dude did SO much. He might be the most important living figure in comedy and you should pay your respects. I am very happy to RECOMMEND (Streaming on HBOGo).

Dan Soder’s “Son of Gary:” I don’t know why but I went into this Soder special with low expectations. Seen him live a bunch of times in the City and he’s always been so funny but I watched this right after the Mel Brooks doc and I didn’t think it would have the same comedic gravitas. Well, I am happy to report that I was very wrong. Dan goes super deep talking about his Father’s death, L’il Wayne lyrics (not even in a hacky comic dissecting rapper lyrics way either), being raised by a single Mom and edibles in a super real way that was disarmingly funny. Really happy I saw this and I definitely RECOMMEND (Streaming on HBOGo).

The Degenerates Season Two: This was kind of a mixed bag. For six episodes you see B-list comics (sorry but it’s true) doing semi-dirty stuff for 15-22 minutes. Jim Norton does his entire set on Ted Bundy docs which feels outdated already, Ms. Pat delivers her shtick about being a sexually active grandma which is a step up, Robert Kelly kills it talking about his wife fantasizing about him (he should be as big a deal as Burr I think), Nikki Glaser was fantastic with new material already after her special about being on “Dancing with the Stars” and how hard it is to date which she somehow makes all her own, Donnell Rawlings is easily the best performer here doing his entire set devoted to ripping on “Old Town Road” but the jokes aren’t quite as strong as the others and the whole thing is headlined by the best set by far which was Adrienne Iapalucci. She’s one of those quiet comics with more to say than anyone else. Her take on R. Kelly and Michael Jackson was honestly the most inspired I’ve ever seen. I PARTIALLY RECOMMEND this series (Streaming on Netflix).

The 77th Annual Golden Globes: Say what you will about Ricky Gervais being hypocritical but he did his damn thing. I loved his “I don’t care” attitude. He was practically screaming, “CANCEL ME.” It was a nice change of pace. Otherwise, it was kind of painful to watch celebrities read cue cards. Stellan Skarsgaard’s speech was hilarious though. Everything else was more on the long and/or heartwarming side. Realized I am reaching an age where I don’t like Tarantino as a person though. Never thought that would happen.

• Did two shows this week. The first was a banger called “Who Books This” at Offsides Tavern hosted by Lauren Culp and Kristin Seltman. If you don’t know Offsides Tavern, you may know it as formerly Bunga’s Den. I actually haven’t been there since Bunga’s closed and loved it. The space has changed and is way more conducive for comedy now. Had a bit of a weird set that night too. I mean, I know you shouldn’t do material you wrote on the train but it felt so much better to not just do a normal set for once. Then I didn’t do any other comedy until Monday since I was looking for jobs all week and Sugarburg cancelled our show this week due to a last-minute company holiday party. So, on Monday, I did my second show at the Grisly Pear. The show is called Hobo Cop and expertly run by Candyce Cook. Love how much of a well-oiled machine the Pear is now. Candyce ran the show incredibly smoothly and the stacked lineup made a room full of tourists from Nashville, the UK, Phoenix (!) and Jersey come together to enjoy a nice, late night show.

• Don’t have any comedy things planned for this coming week. I am heading to Phoenix for a family emergency and should be there until Tuesday. Don’t know if I’ll have time to hang but hit me up! I just might. If you’re in the City, still go to FREE FRIES on Sunday. Veronica will be holding down the fort.

You made it to the end. If you watch my sketch and subscribe to the YouTube channel, I’ll like any post, anything on IG or Twitter you want. Just tell me and it’s done.

Comedy Stray Notes January 1, 2020

• If you’re reading this, you made it to 2020. Congratulations. If you read Comedy Stray Notes all the way to the end last week, you saw that I offered spots to people that read the whole thing. Eleven people reached out. All of them will get spots from me in some capacity over the next year. The lesson here is I will wield my extremely limited power in extremely arbitrary ways.

• This past week, I appeared for the fourth time on Frank Terranova’s Terradome Podcast which puts me one appearance shy of joining the Five Timers Club. Truly an honor. My pal Charlton Jon Villavelez was a guest as well. This week on the podcast, the three of us discussed Frank’s upcoming Feature Film debut, our favorite movies of 2019 (you can hear me openly hate on how much I disliked “JoJo Rabbit”) and as always, Woody Allen. We all will be talking about him until we’re as old he is. The podcast will be dropped sometime mid-January.

• Well, with it being no man’s land time of the year where everyone hibernates, you better believe I stocked up and viewed as many things as I could. Excluding everything that doesn’t qualify as comedy, here’s what I saw, where you can watch it and whether or not I recommend it:

Girlfriend’s Day (2017): This 70-minute barely a feature film curiosity starring Bob Odenkirk is 1000% worth checking out. It starts as a twee indie film about the greeting card industry and turns into a sinister noir that never forgets it's about greeting cards. Folks, I RECOMMEND (streaming on Netflix).

The New One (2019): Anna E. Paone and I saw Mike Birbiglia perform this special live back when it was on Broadway last year. There’s a shocking revelation halfway in that just bringing it up here kind of spoils it but should at the very least inspire you to stream this. This special is moving, affecting, hilarious and maybe even better as a taped special than live. It’s about 68 minutes. RECOMMENDED (streaming on Netflix).

The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976): Anna’s Dad had her whole family and me watch this on Christmas Eve. I’ll admit I’ve never finished any of the original Peter Sellers/Blake Edwards movies except for maybe the first one like ten years ago? Honestly, can’t remember. Either way, this is the fifth entry in the franchise and has some really cool comic setpieces and great physical gags like Sellers ballooning up and flying outside an apartment but there was no way to follow the story. NOT RECOMMENDED (can be found on DVD).

The Naked Gun (1988): Well, this is easily one of the funniest movies of all time. Can’t believe I completely overlooked it and just got around to seeing it. Honestly, it feels like the precursor to the greatest comedy of all time “A Night At The Roxbury.” Leslie Nielsen is perfect, the jokes mostly all hold up and...OJ Simpson is a decent actor in it? The final sequence at an MLB game was a perfect cross section of baseball and comedy. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED (Streaming on Hulu).

The Sack Lunch Bunch (2019): Caught this on Christmas Day with Anna’s family and loved it. The musical bits (“Grandma’s Friend Paul” is one of the best musical comedy songs ever), the knowing winks to New York culture, Mulaney’s plain faced candor with the kids, special guest Richard Kind, Jake Gyllenhaal’s kooky acting...I could go on and on. In fact, I will. The noodles with butter song, the People Magazine “What is this?!” feature all added up to one of the warmest, best specials I’ve ever seen. Mulaney is on a new plane. Can’t wait to see what he does in the 20s. This is a HIGH RECOMMENDATION (streaming on Netflix).

Michelle Wolf’s “Joke Show” (2019): Wolf’s new hour is crazy tight. She employs the Michael Che joke writing technique where she makes you see something familiar in a totally different light. For example, the Mother/Son relationship. And otters. Seriously, she does like eight minutes on otters off the top. Yet, another special that makes you want to sit down and start writing more again. Definite RECOMMEND (streaming on Netflix).

Detective Pikachu (2019): Never been super into Pokemon (as much as I might look like I am) but I was curious about this cool take on the genre. It was fine. Ryan Reynolds’ smartass shtick is getting a little old for me but the story where no one is quite who they seem was kind of fun. Would not RECOMMEND but Pikachu is cute (streaming on HBOGo).

Uncut Gems (2019): Not a true “comedy” but damn. If this is what the future of Oscar-nominated movies (fingers crossed that this happens), that’s a great sign. Sandler is great in this, Kevin Garnett is EVEN BETTER and the scene at the high school play was incredible. The Safdie Brothers write amazing screenplays, direct with sheer intensity and purpose and make entertaining anxiety creating flicks. My only complaint is that this movie doesn’t exactly make my people look great and portrays us as greedy. Hopefully, that’s rectified in their next one. Would easily RECOMMEND. Even my grandma saw it (In theaters now).

Knives Out (2019): Always loved Rian Johnson since “Looper.” He does really cool stuff like releases his director’s commentaries as podcasts so you can listen to them in the theater and treat yourself to a second watch of his movies. This one was spectacular. Starts like your typical whodunit but he puts what is your usual, safe third-act twist at the end of Act One. Daniel Craig (who I opened the door for at Momofuku one time) turns a familiar Southern caricature into something iconic. Christopher Plummer and Toni Collette are secret MVPs of this movie. There’s a lot to like here. It’s funny, suspenseful and three steps ahead of you. HIGH RECOMMENDATION for sure (In theaters now).

Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead (1991): Had always been curious about this one and I saw it was leaving HBO at the end of December. Well, here’s what goes down. Umm, the babysitter dies and then Christina Applegate, a high schooler has to get a full-time job in an office and then just keeps failing up. Her younger brother plays a Mom type flipping gender roles. The kids are stupidly precocious in this movie that you feel the screenwriter laughing at how “Adult” the kids are but it kinda falls flat. They just sound like nine-year-olds with crazy vocabularies and doesn’t feel as earned or subversive as it did in “The Sack Lunch Bunch.” The movie is a fine 6/10 and if it was 1991, I bet I would give it a 7.5/10 but standards are higher now so I DO NOT RECOMMEND (not sure where it’s streaming since it left HBO).

I Love You, Daddy (2017): Remember Louis CK? I’ve been curious about this feature he made that never got released a few years ago and after digging online with Anna, she found a link that worked. It’s a weird movie that Louis should honestly be happy wasn’t released. Charlie Day gives maybe his worst performance in it, the script is stilted, there’s a lot of recapping things that just happened, Louis mansplains feminism (I remember 2017 too), he says the N word and there are a ton of allusions of what’s about to happen to him (being cancelled) before it did. Somehow, the movie has moments. John Malkovich (playing the Woody Allen surrogate) is creepy and interesting. The arguments for and against Woody are oddly kind of fascinating and the whole thing kind of works if you view it through the lens of it being a parody of Woody’s self serious stuff. Not sure how I feel about it, I said it’s a 5/10 kind of movie but one you have to see to believe. Very CAUTIOUS RECOMMENDATION (streaming online with popup ads and digging around).

Peanut Butter Falcon (2019): This popped up on a number of people’s “Best of 2019” films lists. It’s certainly good. Not great. Fun Bruce Dern cameo. Thomas Haden Church has a nice turn in the third act. Mick Foley is in this thing too. It should be noted that the lead actor and Shia have great chemistry. Honestly, I feel like Shia is going to be the biggest actor of the 2020s but I could be way off. Overall, this is a charming piece of cinema. I BARELY RECOMMEND and I had to pay to watch it on Amazon since it’s not streaming for free anywhere.

Bumblebee (2018): Great companion piece to “Shazam.” Very thematically similar and just as fun. Other than the typical “Transformers” storyline and action the relationship between Hailee Steinfeld and Bumblebee was pure joy. The gag with the robot communicating via the radio in the car is brilliant. Pamela Adlon as the Mom was an inspired choice too. I’d give this a RECOMMENDATION for sure (streaming on Amazon Prime).

• FREE FRIES was rough this week. We had a great lineup, the place was packed. Somehow, things went haywire. First, I got chewed out by the staff for giving out TOO MANY fries. Also, I may have told people to move seats to a different part of the venue when that’s the job of the staff. So things were tense to start. Then, the crowd was anarchic. They didn’t stop talking once. I mean, the biggest laugh of the night was when I asked an audience member if she was engaged and someone from the crowd yelled, “DON’T DO IT!” It’s my job as the host to get people to quiet down but I couldn’t do it. The show was all over the place and I feel bad for the booked comics but that’s the price of an ambush show with a built-in audience. Some of the shows will be a tough uphill battle. Chalk it up to another good learning experience.

• Last year, I had TEN Comedy New Year’s Resolutions. This year, I have just one. I want to release 12 sketches this year. If you want to collaborate in any way, let me know! I’d love to squeeze anyone into a sketch.

• Finally, this is not comedy but I saw The Strokes with Anna for New Year’s Eve last night. They are my favorite band other than Girl Talk. Julian Casablancas is maybe my all-time favorite singer. Either way, he really didn’t want to be there at the show. A lesson to any and all performers. No matter how big you get, want to be there. Julian ruined the show for me by treating it like it was a bad bar gig. It seemed like he made the audience feel dumb for being Strokes fans.

• Got a huge comedy week this week! FREE FRIES is back on Sunday and I’m also on Who Books This tomorrow January 2 (8 PM) at Offsides Tavern, Hobo Cop at The Grisly Pear on January 6 and So You Think Stand Ups Can Dance at The Pit on January 7 at 8:00 PM.

Well, you read this far. You deserve something. Leave this post a WOW react and I’ll DM you about a spot if I’ve never given you one before. If I have, we can talk about it!

Comedy Stray Notes December 25, 2019

Comedy Stray Notes

• Happy fourth day of Hanukkah and...Merry Christmas. This is the final Comedy Stray Notes of 2019 (there will be more weekly installments on Wednesdays next year). Enjoy.

• Every year, I write out “Comedy New Year’s Resolutions.” Didn’t do incredibly well this year. I achieved four of my ten goals, half achieved three and didn’t do anything for three. This is what they were and how I fared:

01.) Perform stand up 365 times: Only got up around 280 times in 2019.

02.) Shoot one sketch a month: Only completed two sketches.

03.) Record five new episodes of my old podcast “We Didn’t Die:” Did zero episodes.

04.) Write another feature film: I did this! It’s about speech and debate!

05.) Revive my old show It’s Everybody’s Birthday: I started two new shows! The Comic’s Table (since cancelled) and FREE FRIES with Veronica Garza. Come on a Sunday night!

06.) Go to 52 shows I’m not on: Want to say I achieved this without actually checking.

07.) Perform on six roast battles: I did five. Went 2-3.

08.) Write a late night packet: Did not do this.

09.) Find an agent: I tried incredibly hard, cold emailing a ton of agencies. Didn’t hear back once.

10.) One strong Tweet a day: Check out @mattlevy51 to see. I think I did it.

I also got married to Anna Paone. I feel like I should mention that.

• On a much smaller scale, I hosted a fun edition of our FREE FRIES show this weekend. As mentioned here before, it is an ambush show. I don’t know if I ever truly expressed that to the comics on the show in the preliminary email with all the information about the lineup, etc. Having told comics to go in and “Be loose and not married to their material” really helped a lot. Honestly, a great philosophy for any show set I think. Every time I think “This is a big one and don’t want to screw up,” I end up projecting a robotic feel where I don’t have a good time. Anyway, back to this show. There was a baby named Luka in the audience and once said baby left, no joke, another baby came in in a stroller. The show now has a one-baby minimum. Had my friend and coworker Hong Xu, whom I’ve never seen perform before (just recently found out she did standup!) on the show and she crushed it. Please book her if you can! Had lil Anna P. do a party trick in between comics that you have to come see to believe. Finally, we ended the show on a high note with a set from Joel Walkowski. He’s been one of my favorite comics since I’ve moved to the City and he had a joke that blew my mind when I moved here. After he closed out the show, I brought him back up for an encore (an unprecedented move and also kind of a dick move since I didn’t tell him I was planning on doing this) to do said joke one more time. The joke was even better than I remember.

• Well, it’s been two weeks since I’ve written anything here. In that time, I’ve seen a ton of comedy stuff. Here are some snapshot reviews:

Derren Brown’s “Secret:” This show is on Broadway for just another week or so. It’s pretty affordable at around $70.00 or so and is an adventure through the mind. Anna and I went and sat fourth row. The show is incredibly interactive and has Brown throwing frisbees into the crowd to get audience members onstage, there’s an improbable painting and he can read your mind. The show is 2.5 hours but I was genuinely bummed out when it was over. In fact, I was actually part of the show making my Broadway debut in sweatpants (Anna’s line). I know the secret behind secret. If you’ve seen the show, DM me and I can tell you at least one thing about the end of the show.

”Avengers: Endgame:” Not a traditional comedy but certainly has laughs in it. At three hours, it’s probably an hour too long but when you have 38 storylines to pack in to the second three-hour film to close out a 22-movie series, I’ll allow it. Either way, the method in which they closed out this series was very innovative and a nice homage to previous films. Other than a hokey funeral (won’t say for who but they are a former SNL cast member), this was a rollicking good time. Streaming on Disney Plus. I watched it on TWO different Delta flights since I couldn’t finish it in one.

”Long Shot:” If you haven’t seen this Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron-starring movie, this is my Christmas gift to you. Very funny, somewhat relevant and proves once again that Rogen might be the most underrated comic actor/writer in the game. The story is simple and original- writer gets fired for being too opinionated, was babysat by the Secretary of State (Theron) and they meet again by chance at a party. She hires him because he’s an edgy Vice type-writer. Go for that but also go for a great comic turn by Bob Odenkirk as President and SPOILER a Boyz II Men cameo. This one is on HBOGo.

“Astronomy Club:” This brand new sketch show was sort of unceremoniously dumped on Netflix recently. Didn’t see a ton of fanfare but wow. This show comes out swinging. It feels like if “Key and Peele” had even more courage. I will say that two of the performers on the show were former UCB teachers of mine (Caroline Martin was my Improv 201 and James Dwyer was 401). This might be why I like it so much. Not because of their performances (which are great) but the ethos of the UCB comedy philosophy runs throughout. They play strict game (improv term) and heighten very well. Plus, it has a social conscience. And it’s mad funny. Some of my favorite sketches I’ve seen in ages. If you haven’t seen it, look out for the Robin Hood sketch in Episode One. Maybe my favorite of the year. This is also on Netflix and only six episodes.

“Ready Or Not:” This is kind of a thriller but I thought I’d throw it out there since it sort of qualifies as a black comedy (I saw “The Irishman” too but didn’t write about it here because it ain’t comedy). This flick has a novel premise where a rich and powerful family makes a new bride who has just married into their clan play a deadly game of hide and seek. It’s part “The Most Dangerous Game,” part “Get Out” (the most oft-copied movie of this generation; I see its influence everywhere now) and all very fun. Great soundtrack and comic performances from actors I’d never seen before. Plus Andie Macdowell. Not sure if this is streaming (saw it on Delta; this is all just an ad for Delta) but great viewing if you’re near a RedBox.

“Lion King:” I swear this is the last movie I saw on a Delta flight. Once again, not a traditional comedy but if you haven’t seen it, it’s the same plot as the original almost down to the word but plus Beyonce. I’m solely here to mention that Rogen (quietly a big year for him) and Billy Eichner are so damn funny as Timon and Pumba that it’s worth mentioning. Can’t believe I’m shilling for Disney Plus again and I don’t even have it but you can stream there.

“Marriage Story:” Yet another non-traditional comedy but I’ve been a Noah Baumbach fan since I saw “The Squid and the Whale” way back when and I think I’ve seen all of his stuff save for the screwball comedy he made in the 90s after “Kicking and Screaming” which has the same title but is not the 2005 Will Ferrell/Robert Duvall soccer coach movie. This two-hour fight of a film is a powerhouse. Driver and Scarlett kill it. Frank Terranova called it a Lifetime movie but this has so much specificity and heart that calling it that is an insult. Laura Dern, Ray Liotta and Alan Alda all deserve Oscars for their turns as divorce lawyers. This is on Netflix and I’m pretty sure if you got this far, you know about it.

Eddie Murphy hosting SNL: I was stupid excited for this since they announced it at the beginning of the season. It more than lived up to expectations. Eddie still has the charisma to make any sketch sing. No one is really talking about the pre-taped short film where they cross-cut between a serene Christmas dinner and the reality of the weekend dealing with grandparents and fights. That was my favorite. And Gumby. I will say as a person who never misses SNL, it saddened me to see people write that this was the only good episode in years. Folks, I hate to be that guy but as great as this episode was, the Will Ferrell one from last month was funnier. You heard it here first. Even the cut sketches were better. Please come at me.

To be fair, I also saw the Scarlett Johannson episode these past few weeks. It was fun but didn’t compare to Eddie although it certainly had moments. The children’s clothing ad from the Scarlett episode was fantastic. Celebrity Sighting with Bowen Yang (maybe the season’s MVP so far) playing the guy from the Heimlich Maneuver posters was money. And the “I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus” sketch with the great reveal. Honestly a very good episode too.

• The reason I didn’t write last week was because I went on a cruise with family. We were on the Royal Caribbean and I’ll spare you the details other than my thoughts on the cruise comedians. There were three comics and the most important takeaway is that if you want to do cruises you need two hours. One family friendly and one “dirty.” Playing cruises ain’t easy. The first was Ralph Harris. He was actually on our last cruise but we didn’t see his “dirty hour.” It was OK. My parents walked out because they were tired. This cruise had a “Comedy Hypnotist” as well which intrigued me since I was hypnotized on a cruise (I faked it to be honest) back in 2003. This show’s comedy was completely dependent on audience participation. These people were truly hypnotized. One genuinely thought they were getting pinched in the butt. Another had a true disgust for the hypnotist (which might have been genuine from the get go). It’s gotta be a tough act if the people can’t get hypnotized but we went on a good night. The final act we saw was a lifer comic named Kivi Rogers who had allegedly been on “Everybody Loves Raymond.” He had a ton of stage presence and called out the spotlight director for missing him saying, “Who’s up there? Stevie Wonder?” Felt genuinely bad for the guy in the booth but it was the biggest laugh of the night and maybe the whole cruise. Also, major props to Rogers for performing while the ship rocked back and forth violently. Never seen anyone perform under such wild weather conditions and do it with aplomb.

• For this week, I’ve got just one comedy thing coming up. Our show FREE FRIES this Sunday at 7:30 PM. Come for the fries and loose sets!

Finally, if you read this far, DM me. I will book you (if I haven’t booked you in the last calendar year). If I have booked you, I’ll do you some other comedy favor.

Comedy Stray Notes December 11, 2019

• I have done 30 minutes of comedy exactly one time. It was a cheat too. I broke it up into six five-minute sets so I could have six tapes (didn’t really get a usable tape out of any of them to be honest). Either way, I really admire comics who can do a lot of time; it’s not an easy feat to keep the crowd’s attention and continually be spontaneous for longer than 30 minutes. Well, I got to witness an old pro do it this past week twice. Last Thursday, I taped Dan Perlman’s hour twice. I had filmed Dan’s breakout show at Caroline’s in February 2018 and no offense to that show but Dan has completely leveled up since then. Bits I remember from before have been tightened, extended, punched up, become more thoughtful, introspective, precise and fun all at once. I don’t want to spoil anything because this will be a big album release, but wow. This is how you do it. Most impressive of all, was after performing the hour a second time (a feat in and of itself; it was amazing to see Dan meticulously do act outs in the exact same way as the previous set and both sets came out to roughly 64 minutes), Dan had a bonus chunk ready to go. That’s an entertainer.

• On Sunday night, Veronica Garza and I had our fourth installment of FREE FRIES (we really do give out free fries; it used to be a logistical nightmare to determine who would get fries but it’s almost figured out. They’re really great Cajun fries if you were wondering) and it was easily our most successful show yet. SugarBurg was incredibly generous this past week and set up curtains for our show to give the stage more of a professional vibe. The crowd was light which is much preferred for a show where the audience can be unruly/disinterested. There was a couple visiting from Sweden who had come to NYC just to see the Nets play (they must be the only Nets fan in Sweden) and the husband was celebrating his 30th birthday. We sang “Happy Birthday” to him in Swedish. I wish every show here could be this fun but that just ain’t how bar shows work.

• Didn’t take in a ton of comedy adjacent movies and TV this week but I finally got around to seeing “Shazam!” (streaming on HBOGo). It’s a fun play on the superhero genre and there’s a 20-minute stretch in the middle where the lead kid gets to be a superhero that is incredibly inspired; the scene at the convenience store makes the movie worth watching alone. It was also a smart screenwriting touch to make the story about group home kids. There are some surprisingly touching moments here. The rest of the movie is pretty standard superhero stuff though. Either way, I’m consistently amazed by the evolution of this genre. I thought I was tired of these movies in 2009 post “Dark Knight” but somehow they’ve stuck around in a meaningful way.

• I’m an avid “You Made It Weird” fan. I listen almost every Wednesday to the podcast and was delighted this past week to see the guest was Kenny DeForest (my brother Ben Levy’s favorite comic). It’s extremely cool to see comics that I know show up on big name podcasts and then name check other comics that I know. Makes me feel like an industry insider. The best part of the episode though was definitely Kenny’s spot on Bill Burr and Louis impressions. I was blown away about how Kenny D. captured the nuance of the voices. Either way, if you know Kenny or don’t this is a great, funny three-hour (!) episode that never once felt draggy.

• Hit two shows this past week at Velvet Brooklyn. The first one I taped was Jora Nefferies and Paige Smith-Hogan’s Sweet Treats show. It’s really the smartest show in the City still. They book around 10 or so comics and everyone does exactly five minutes to get a tape. The room is very supportive and creates a great environment for comedy. Special props to Tom Achilles for having one of the most inventive sets I’ve seen this year with a bit involving envelopes. Will leave it at that. You’ll have to see Tom’s tape to get it. The second show I attended was that same night and is called We Put Jokes In Your Face. It’s hosted by Mark Volinski and Marisela Gonzalez. Embarrassed to say I’m that guy that left early during a hang but I still really enjoyed myself. They run a really great show and book top notch comics (Pedro Gonzalez and Bret Raybould on the same lineup is a powerhouse show) and I hope to be back at their next installment.

• Finally wanted to give major props to Sarah Murphy for her show “The House We Never Lived In” that Anna E. Paone and I attended last Saturday. It’s an immersive, interactive theater piece featuring miniatures that ran for three days over the weekend in Long Island City and is a little bit “Twilight Zone,” a little bit gripping short story, a little bit “House Hunters,” a little bit choose your own adventure and a lot of fun. You know how you move to New York to go to unique, intimate, mind altering art and theater shows and then it gets away from you and you never do it? This was that. It was a welcome reminder that if you put enough love and thought into your art that something truly different will emerge.

• Ain’t got any comedy stuff planned for the next week. Going to be on a cruise (for the second time in two months) with my family for the next week. I wish I had an assistant to write this for me while I’m gone but I’ll be back with more stuff on...Christmas.

Happy early Hanukkah to you and yours

Comedy Stray Notes December 4, 2019

• There’s nothing better than going to the first iteration of a new show. The first one is always the best in my experience. Everyone you invite comes to support, you book the best comics you can and the people that run the venue think you’re an incredible promoter. This week, Anna E. Paone, Matthew Benjamin and I went to the first of what I hope is the start of many for Willie Zabar’s new show/mic hybrid that takes place in an artist’s co-op space in Midtown. The place had a great, supportive after school vibe with artist types in the crowd and free wine for all (which would be a sweet addition to an after school program). I got to see a few great show sets from Natan Badalov, Mary Martin and Usama Siddiquee before the mic portion of the show began. The actual mic was just five comics but most of the audience generously stayed. Everyone did well including a comic who went up for the first time. This is a show you should watch out for if you’re looking for quality stage time; I could see this being a great hang with a great built-in audience.

• Watched three 2019 comedy releases this week. The first was “Good Boys” on a very early morning flight from Phoenix to New York. The reviews for the movie were not promising but the trailer was fun and it looked like a nice reboot of sorts of “Superbad.” It’s actually way better than expected. The kids are hilariously wholesome (the scene in the frat house had me LOLing in my aisle seat at 8 in the morning), the storylines come together nicely and the movie has the best comedic usage of a drone I’ve seen in a feature yet. If you’re looking for one that is fun for the whole family this holiday season, you could do a lot worse. Second movie I caught was “Brittany Runs A Marathon.” Jillian Bell is a revelation in this one. She’s been stealing scenes in comedies for the past decade but she totally owns here. The storyline itself is nothing special (20-something gets her life together and runs a marathon) but the details are great. For example, the fake British accent Bell used to cover her insecurities was a very smart screenwriting touch; funny and insightful. It’s streaming on Amazon and is a perfect, easy watch. The last thing I saw was fine but not great. Jeff Garlin put out his new special “Our Man In Chicago” a few weeks back. I admire Garlin for going on inspired riffs where he imagines an audience member’s entire love life but overall it was more fine than special-worthy. A lot of stories about “Hell gigs” and then the last 15 minutes is about him getting his life together. The best part was the very end when he encourages audience members to watch John Mulaney instead saying, “He’s much funnier than me.” He’s right.

• Got a few recommendations for good comedy things on the internet if you’re looking. If you’ve missed it, please check out ComedyWire’s Medium articles. They have a feature called “A Week In The Life of a ____ Comedian” and they cover the daily minutiae of a comic’s life from Monday-Sunday. I binged the entire thing. You get to read about comics’ day to day from touring comics to comics that don’t go up at all in the week they wrote it. It’s a great, honest slice of life that really accurately depicts the life of a comic. The link is in the comments and makes for great content to pass time. The second thing I’d like to recommend is Amamah Sardar’s sketch “Mahershala Ali Yoga Studio for White Women.” It’s less than five minutes, incredibly funny and could honestly be made into a great movie. The link is in the comments as well.

• As for this coming week, I expect it will be better than this last one. One of the major highlights from this past week was me holding it in and not pooping my pants before a Creek mic. This week, I would recommend you check out Rhett Sever’s show at the Creek on Thursday night (link in comments) or my show Free Fries (A Comedy Show): Episode Three on Sunday night at SugarBurg. Can’t lose with either.

Cyber Monday and Giving Tuesday are OVER. Glad you could celebrate Comedy Stray Notes Wednesday with me

Comedy Stray Notes November 27, 2019

• In Phoenix for the week, feeling a little under the weather. On a steady DayQuil/NyQuil schedule at the moment. I still had the wherewithal to do the one show I was booked on in Phoenix. In fact, it was an interesting hybrid Show/Mic hosted by Matt Micheletti called “Hot Mic!” at Crescent Ballroom which is typically a concert venue in Downtown Phoenix. I showed up to the venue an hour early with my Mom, Dad, brother Ben Levy and his fiancee Tiffany Wood and Sam Levy and his girlfriend. When I do shows in AZ, the ENTIRE family comes. My friend Douglas Morehouse from my old job Right This Minute showed up too which was a really nice surprise. As comics know, when your family comes to see you, there's pressure to do jokes they haven’t seen before. So I did almost all stuff they had never seen (other than using my typical opener as a crutch). It went OK. I give myself a 5/10. The room was kind of tough but that’s no excuse. Micheletti killed it and worked the room. Looking forward to coming back and doing this one again when I visit Bird City again. I love seeing the scene evolve from what it was back in 2013.

• Pretty slow week for consuming comedy stuff for me. On the plane to PHX, I watched “Stuber.” I don’t know about you, reader, but I love plane rides. It’s a completely guilt-free time dedicated to watching movies. I look forward to them. I plan what movies I’ll watch in advance even. This one was high on my list. It’s actually much better than reviews suggest. Kumail is fantastic and Dave Bautista does a great job playing a guy recovering from Lasik. The movie has all your standard twists and turns but this is a good studio comedy in a landscape where they are dying. Wish I had supported it in theaters so this genre doesn’t collapse.

• Also, finally caught this season’s “Treehouse of Horror.” It was a little behind the times with parodies of “The Shape of Water” and “Stranger Things.” The parody was called “Danger Things.” Yes. Really. The most disturbing thing I caught this season though, wasn’t from this spooky episode. I just caught that Harry Shearer no longer does the voice of Smithers. It’s Dan Castellaneta. He’s great (voices Homer) but it is really not the same. As much as I love the show, it would have been much better had they ended it long ago before dragging it down and ruining the show’s formerly spotless legacy.

• This week’s SNL with Will Ferrell was easily the best of the season Anna E. Paone and I thought. So many great sketches from the monologue with Ryan Reynolds to the Heniz product placement commercial to the music video about the teacher that parties with his students to the first Thanksgiving to the family doing a pizza commercial to the cut scene from “Wizard of Oz.” All of these are instant classics in my mind. If you have Hulu, give it a watch. There was one truly outstanding cut sketch too. The link is in the comments (it’s supposedly a parody of “90 Day Fiancee” which I didn’t know. Either way, it still works on its own).

• Listened to a great, new podcast this week. The first was the pilot of Matt Maran and Anthony Passaretti’s new sports comedy pod “Who’s on First.” It’s a brisk listen at an hour and really hops from sport to sport with ease. I loved hearing hockey stories I knew nothing about (the dude who didn’t exist that was drafted) and the segment at the end with the producer who also doesn’t know anything about sports. Definitely going to listen to more.

• There is no FREE FRIES show this week to keep it nice and chill after the Thanksgiving weekend. We’ll be back the following Sunday.

This year, I’m thankful for you reading my completely earnest “Stuber” review

Comedy Stray Notes November 20, 2019

• This was arguably my busiest comedy week of 2019. Like most people in the NYC comedy world though, I still feel like I didn’t do enough. I’m not speaking for everyone, but for me there’s always a sense you didn’t get enough stage time, enough writing, enough showing face even when you do all that you can. This may just be a mental illness. Who knows.

Either way, my favorite thing I did this week was getting around to shooting a sketch I wrote way back in January. Since I haven’t directed anything since early April, I was more than a little rusty. The sketch just didn’t have that rhythm I was looking for and it was all my fault for not communicating my vision effectively with the very talented cast of actors I assembled (Anna E. Paone, Jeffrey Gurian, Jay Welch, Veronica Garza, Myles Toe, Joe Gorman, Steve Girard and Joan Kaufman to name them all). Luckily, I had a crew made up of Kate Nahvi, Matthew Tenenbaum and Matthew Benjamin that helped me bridge the gap (in film school, we learned the term “bridging the gap” which means executing what you envisioned when you wrote your screenplay) with punch-ups, a musicality I lack and creative shots that synthesized the thing. It’s tough to admit that things aren’t going your way but when you open yourself to other people’s ideas and collaborate, comedy can flourish. Sketch should be released on Christmas Day. You can see for yourself if it works then.

• Hit up two completely different but equally ambitious shows from NYC comedy vets (once you’ve been here for a year, you’re a vet in my eyes- sound off in the comments about how I’m wrong).

- The first show I attended was Kevin Froleiks’ Maude Team’s “Best Of” for this past season. It’s been over a year since I’ve been to UCB Hell’s Kitchen - the location is so far is my weak excuse - but every time I go, I wonder why I don’t make the trek out more often. Froleiks’ team, House of Birds, was fantastic. Sketches ranged from straight up performance based silliness (an apocalyptic wasteland is saved by the power of rock n roll) to the personification of a Chia Pet and computer (separate sketches) to absurd office grievances about air conditioning. There were well earned callbacks and the show hit my comedy sweet spot. I genuinely feel bad I didn’t go to more shows this past year. Already looking forward to the next season of Maude.

- Filmed alt comedy auteur Ben Wasserman’s SIXTH hour last night (NOTE: It was his sixth hour in the past four years- a breakneck pace that would make Louis himself sweat; yeah, I referenced Louis). Each hour of Ben’s has a different conceit and last night he did something I’ve never seen any comic or person attempt before when he tattooed himself (stick and poke method) with tattoos based on the hour of crowd work he did. What the tattoos were is not important (“a bat” was the most popular suggestion) but the performance was. Ben is fearless in a way we all imagine ourselves to be before we get onstage and mumble. He drinks ink, has whipped cream put all over himself and does an hour of crowd work (no pre-written bits for an HOUR) that never wavered. The performance was so self-assured that when the show ended no one wanted it to be over. And this was a room made up of a lot of comics. Usually after a three-minute set, people are glad the person onstage is done. Not last night. We wanted Ben to run the light. Industry, keep an eye out.

• Another excellent week for funny TV and movies. Are we in a comedy boom? It seems like we have been for awhile, so much so, that it’s hard to actively keep up with all the good stuff on streaming, network TV and in the theaters, not to mention live comedy. I might just be seeking it out. Anyway, this is what I saw this week.

- Jenny Slate’s “Stage Fright” (streaming on Netflix). I’d call this an interesting, experimental hour mixed with footage from Slate’s family that gave bits she had just performed or was about to perform extra context. It wasn’t exactly super funny but did have moments of real jubilation like whenever Slate lets out her scared squeal. She is an extremely talented performer and I’m excited to see what she does next with stand up but this is not essential viewing.

- Gilbert Gottfried documentary “Gilbert” (streaming on Hulu). This movie has been on my radar for years but it didn’t seem like something I NEEDED to catch in theaters and kind of forgot about. Well, it’s on Hulu so I saw it. Basically, it’s a peek behind the curtain of Gilbert’s brash persona. Turns out he’s a penny pinching, shy guy that keeps referring to having a wife and kid as something so surreal it feels like it’s out of “The Twilight Zone” for him. None of the behind the scenes revelations are too shocking or really much of anything other than a contrast of who he is onstage but the performance footage is fun and really shows how much he can turn it on. Some people are just so different onstage and off and this documentary is proof.

- “Little” (streaming on HBOGo). An inverse of the movie “Big” (38-year-old woman played by Regina Hall is transformed into her 13-year-old self Marsai Martin) with a fun trailer (I’m a new Issa Rae fan) that I had wanted to check out back in April. Finally caught it this weekend and I’m happy to say the movie delivers. The child actor, Marsai Martin is on-point as a high maintenance supervisor at her job and there’s even a fun cameo from Mikey Day (one of my all-time least favorite SNL cast members). Sure, the movie gets preachy in its third act but I expected it to. Check this one out if you’re the least bit curious. You’ll be pleasantly surprised.

- Did a double feature Friday night seeing “Joker” which I learned pretty fast is not a comedy. It’s really more of a rallying cry to action for medication for those who need it. Still, the comedy adjacent things in the movie were a nice touch like seeing Gulman, Maron and Morill in bit parts and the obsession with Robert DeNiro’s talk show. Honestly, the movie did some cool stuff with the restructuring of the Batman universe too. I don’t know. I kinda liked it. The scene with the stairs ruled too. I’m a sucker.

- The second movie I caught was “JoJo Rabbit” which had fun moments but with the nonstop Nazi imagery (this kid doesn’t get that Hitler is a monster! Hilarious!) and heavy handed message (we Jews ain’t so bad), it got a little tiresome. The final shot was great though. Gave me chills.

• Did three shows this week. Pretty good for me (even if I run one of them). First, I did the final edition of Jason Planitzer’s show at the Counting Room in Williamsburg. There was a very solid turnout, everyone had fun sets and it’s sad to see the show come to an end. It’s a great spot AND the venue serves bags of warm croutons.

The second show was at SugarBurg and was the second edition of FREE FRIES. We brought in Joe Gorman to host and he reined in a raucous crowd. The place was cooking but it’s an ambush show (meaning we’re performing in the bar and not in a back room) and getting people’s attention would be tough. Luckily, one standout performance from Joe and an audience materialized. I also learned one of the best tricks for an ambush show is forced applause. “Giving it up for this side of the room” and “that side of the room” are tricks everyone should have in their arsenal. Once clapping, people want to know why they’re clapping. Show them.

Final show I did was Comedy Fight Club at the Stand against Jacob Lie. I lost. None of the judges or the audience voted for me. Anna, who was sitting in the crowd did. She always does. Didn’t bother me though. I spent hours preparing, waking up at 5 AM to write jokes one day for this battle. All the jokes did reasonably well which is all I can ask for and Jacob had some gems plus an extremely strong comeback to one joke of mine that sealed the deal. Dude is just funny. To plug the show, if you haven’t been in awhile, go back to Comedy Fight Club. Matt Maran puts on one of the most fun shows in the City and when comics are on it (which they are every week), they’re always trying their hardest to succeed (no one phones this in IMO, Maran feel free to correct me), cause you know. No one wants to bomb a roast.

• Finally, shout out to Nick Pupo for putting together the “I bombed.” Facebook group. Just joined this past week and I spent hours reading comedian’s stories all of which made me laugh, cringe and relate to stories of my own bombs that I tried to block out of my memory. It’s an amazing group to lurk in and is already my favorite Facebook group.

Second shout out to an article I read on Vulture listing “Every Netflix Original Movie, Ranked.” Sure, it sounds like a listicle. No. It’s so much more. The writer, Charles Bramesco (who I do not know), ranks 300 movies that premiered on Netflix and some of the reviews of the bad ones are on part with Roger Ebert’s famous pans of bad films. This is excellent reading and will also expose you to movies I guarantee you did not know existed. Link is in the comments.

• Got a nice week ahead for myself. Going to Plainfield, NJ on Friday to see the comedy stylings of Catherine LaMoreaux and Anna Paone’s theatre troupe Dragonfly perform four one acts and then on Saturday, I’m headed to Phoenix for the week (unfortunately, missing FREE FRIES this week which is still happening- Go to it! It’s Veronica’s bday show!). In Phoenix, I’m doing Matt Micheletti’s Crescent Ballroom show on Tuesday which I’m stoked for as well as for Thanksgiving and family time and whatnot. I’m stoked for that too.

As they say, writing 7,000 words about comedy is the soul of wit

Comedy Stray Notes November 13, 2019

• 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”).

Aaron Berg

’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

Honeymoon Stray Notes November 6, 2019

• Got married to Anna E. Paone in late September. It was a fun, rollicking time. Happiest day of my life. Luckily, the party didn’t stop that night. Our honeymoon was a month after the fact. We’re planning on going to India sometime in 2020 but we wanted something soon after to whet our post-wedding appetite. The two of us decided on a cruise because it seemed like relatively little planning (the cruise literally has an app with an itinerary on it for you), relaxing and you can hit multiple destinations on one trip. This is a quick account of what going on a cruise in 2019 is like. Feel free to read. If this feels classist in any way, please know that it’s not! I’m not bragging about going on a cruise- they’re pretty affordable actually when you get down to all the amenities that come with your room and board- I just want people to know about it and know what the experience is like. That’s all. This is a light travelogue; like an Amazon review but longer and with bullet points and anecdotes. You’re still reading? Sick.

• One of the best parts of a cruise is you don’t REALLY need to be anywhere at any given time. It always made me laugh to see people walk with purpose on the ship. Like, bro. You’re going to be late to a free throw contest (which was outside on the windiest part of the ship)? No big. I digress. In any event, like I said, you don’t have to be anywhere. You can finally sleep in guilt free. There was no alarm clock, light source or anything in our room. We HAD no idea what time it was at any given time which was such a blessing. Oversleeping wasn’t met with frantic delirium; more just like a, “Hell yeah, I slept in until 10:45 and feel good about it). On the flip side, you may be awoken by the constant movement of hangers and drawers opening and closing (Anna noticed that’s what the sound was; I couldn’t identify it) in the closet because of the ship’s rocking so if you go, look out for that.

• The most obvious stereotype associated with cruises is that there is food and it’s free and it’s abundant. I’m happy to report, all of the above is true! On the Celebrity Equinox, they had four or five FREE places to eat:

1.) A semi-upscale restaurant called Silhouette with two servers who gave us detailed life stories about their children as well as updates on the cruise’s voyage (we also had a maid in our room that cleaned our space up three-five times a day. Unlimited towels. It was unbelievable and totally free of charge. We tipped her handsomely). Typical meals included steak (decent), chicken breast, duck. Always a bread basket with rotating dips, appetizers (escargot was an option) and dessert.

2.) A buffet called Oceanview Cafe that had a rotating menu so I made sure to check out all of their options before every dinner. Surprising variety of Indian, Asian and American food with fantastic fajitas and pastas. Ton of desserts but not much in the way of quality.

3.) Mast Grill was just a place that served burgers, hot dogs and fries all day. All free.

4.) A little health place that I didn’t catch the name of (never ate there since they had very limited hours for some reason) had fruit cups and tuna salad.

5.) Assorted dessert spots with gelato and pastries existed on the ship at all hours as well. Not a bad assortment.

6.) Room service 24 hours a day. Limited to burgers and cake and things like that but not bad for free at all.

On the flip side, they had true upscale dining as well with fancier menus. We went the final night and it was worth it. Better steak, better pasta, better bread baskets. They had a few variations on upscale ranging from sushi spot, Italian eatery, place where there are animated chefs on your plate (interactive experience that was crazy expensive and the menu didn’t look like anything special) and gourmet American. Do it one time if you cruise and you have $45.00 or so to spend.

It should be noted that if you want to drink on the trip, it’s $70.00/daily (WiFi is $27.00/hr and $55.00 a day; I didn’t indulge so I didn’t know what the charge was for the whole trip). The charges are nuts. Doesn’t make sense to me why they would charge so much for alcohol and just give us food for free. They had a ton of strange things that weren’t free and others that weren’t; I don’t understand their logic but it should be noted tangentially they also have AA on the ship.

• Got injured the first day on the trip with my bad knee (on my way to a hot tub to make small talk with old people underwater). Slipped at the pool and felt extraordinary pain. No need to worry. They have a doctor’s office on the ship. Many people’s injuries were slip related too and there were beers in the waiting room because everyone drinks all the time (suckers buy the drink package). The actual appointment with the doctor was underwhelming (a knee brace and Ibuprofen and a “Take it easy”) but they did send Anna and me a mystery bottle of wine and I deduced that they were hoping we wouldn’t sue (as minor as my injury was). Maybe it was related to us being on our honeymoon. I don’t know BUT they did call a few times asking if I was OK too which was a nice gesture.

• Another big part of the vacation was the visiting different countries aspect. We were mostly in the Caribbean Island so after we left from Fort Lauderdale (home of a Publix) we went from Puerto Rico (did an overpriced tour where we “made” mofongo meaning we mashed plantains) to St. Maarten (saw a “Star Wars” museum curated by an assistant makeup artist who calls himself the Yoda Guy) to Virgin Island (home of Magen’s Bay, the most beautiful beach I’ve ever set foot on BUT we had to take a mad scary ride to get there) to the British Virgin Island (just hung at a bar since we didn’t have much time there) to the Bahamas (swam with dolphins for $100/person. Worth it). There are excursions like swimming with dolphins at every destination but they are overpriced and can be a major waste of an experience in an island you may never visit again. Many of them were super Americanized and touristy but there were local charms when we visited grocery stores (my favorite thing to do in other countries- in Puerto Rico we saw Cinnamon Toast Churro Crunch). Also, the greatest part of cruising is definitely that you don’t have to go through customs or immigration every time you dock. You just show your board pass and you’re free to roam. *Miscellaneous note: We saw another cruise next to ours that had a water slide on the top of it and one that had a zip line. Pretty damn cool.

• There was a lot of entertainment on the ship and Anna and I attended pretty much every show they had. We saw two singers (a guy named Jesse Hamilton Jr. who was a crooner and murdered it with crowd work and a woman named Savannah Smith who was equally talented but didn’t engage the crowd in the same way), two comics (Rich Aronovich and Ralph Harris; both very, very funny. Honestly, tough room too as packed as it was; it’s a diverse crowd made up of mostly older people), Broadway type shows with musical medleys that were bizarre and not exactly my thing but still saw them all and a Beatles cover band that made me weep they were so good. Never thought I’d see the Beatles do post-’66 stuff together and it was awesome. On top of that, they had movie screenings every day. We saw “The Hustle,” “Aladdin” and “Where’d Ya Go, Bernadette” with like seven people at a time. No one was there for these screenings. Interestingly, we attempted to see “Rocket Man” twice and went to two separate screenings of it and it was “Yesterday” both times. Didn’t make sense. I asked the projectionist (dude who put the DVD in) why this was happening and all he said was, “Reasons, sir.” He didn’t elaborate.

They also showed trailers before the movie and one time it was just the trailer for the movie “Widows” on a loop. They weren’t even showing “Widows” on the ship.

Other more non-traditional entertainment onboard included trivia, a Newlywed game with cruise attendees (sexist questions were asked and when someone called out the cruise director, he said, “You need to drink more!” Anna wrote a strongly worded letter to the staff about this) and dances/silent discos/Halloween costume parties where the DJ played the same, inoffensive songs over and over. Makes sense. They want to please mostly older people who are there to gamble. Not gonna reinvent the wheel, I get it.

• Finally, with all the free time on the ship, I learned how to play chess with Anna (been putting it off my whole life since I didn’t get it when I was in Second Grade). I even won my first game on a fluke. Lost every other one. Also, played a ton of Scrabble and we even attempted a 550-piece “Polar Express” puzzle. We did not finish and many elderly folks applauded us for trying.

• Will update all comedy stories next week (what movie did I see on the plane ride? Tune in next week to find out) but I did want to put out into the universe that I have a weekly show called FREE FRIES (with free fries) starting this Sunday with Veronica Garza. Event link for it in the comments.

Come sail away

Comedy Stray Notes October 23, 2019

• My good friend/funny comic/super producer pal Danny Braff generously asked me to host his monthly show at Verve last Friday in Somerville, New Jersey. It’s a long way out (you have to take two trains on New Jersey Transit to get there; Anna E. Paone guided me there) but once you arrive, it’s totally worth it. Danny packed the room to capacity not once but TWICE. That’s right. Danny produces a 7:30 PM and 9:30 PM show, charges paying audience members and has repeat customers. On top of that, he brings in touring headliners each show. This is a model we should all aspire to. This show had Kevin Downey Jr. from “America’s Got Talent” headlining and he lit the room up. Very strong one-liners that made me a fan for life. As for the experience of hosting, the first show went really well. I did, ya know, “A” material for ten minutes and most everything hit in a good way. The second show, I told myself, I wouldn’t repeat any bits from the first set. This was a bit of a mistake. A rowdy, late night crowd appreciates a looser set than me trying to work through bits I hadn’t done in a minute. The laughs were there but they were tepid. It was a good learning experience in reading the room.

• After a blah show set, I find myself watching a lot of specials to see what works and what doesn’t. This week, I watched three. The first one I checked out was Mo Amer’s “The Vagabond” on Netflix. I wasn’t super familiar with his work but I kept hearing his name pop up and was curious. I’m a converted fan. If you’ve never seen him, this hour is a great place to start. It’s pretty much his story about fleeing from Kuwait to Houston, Texas and all of his international experiences in between. There are great voices/accents thrown in, callbacks that pay off 30 minutes later and strong joke writing. It’s a perfect hour. Somewhat emotional, very funny and personal. It would work for an early or late crowd. Deon Cole is the same thing. He works everywhere. His new hour “Cole Hearted” is a bit more shallow with many observations about “big women,” silly asides about Arby’s and relationships. It may not have the same heft to it but is fun nonetheless. Also, finally, caught Bill Burr’s “Paper Tiger.” Burr is uncompromising and sometimes it comes across as a bit much but when he tones it down and expresses himself in a way that shows his humanity (arguing about his wife and cultural appropriation and his love for his dog), you can’t help but be astounded by what a master he’s become.

• Open mics can go for a very long time. You sit around, the host doesn’t time comics properly, people run the light, you go at the end of the mic, a number of factors could make you sit at a mic forever. Luckily, there is one mic that bucks the trend. It’s on Thursdays at 7 at Bushwick Public House. The mic runs for exactly an hour and the time is split up evenly by however many comics are in the room. There’s a projector behind you that shows exactly how much time is left in your set and displays who is performing next as well. You have ten seconds to get to the stage. If you do less time than you’re allotted, that time is evenly split back into the room. It’s a beautiful system. Unfortunately, the projector went out midway through the mic (computer battery died that was connected to it) but other than that it was incredibly efficient and lived up to its title.

• Finally, special shout outs this week to a few things. First of all, I love the Ringer (Bill Simmons’ controversial former ESPN personality/writer that people are split on) and they put out an amazing six-part series about comedy in the 90s which was catnip for me to read. It concluded today. If you’re interested in checking it out, there’s a link to it in the comments. Also, started watching this season of “South Park” on a whim. Best satire around. Amazing that Season 23 of a show can be sharper than ever and take on the Chinese Government in a way that is funny and doesn’t feel heavy handed. Also, listened to some friends’ podcasts this past week. Really enjoyed Billy Procida’s “Manwhore Podcast” (I was too afraid to Google it at work but listened on Spotify) and Sam Evans and Jordan Scott Huggins’ “Up Your Butt and Around the Corner” which made me laugh a bunch (it was the Leland Long episode and the section about all the weird foods Leland’s eaten over the years is really disturbing and hilarious). If you want me to listen to your podcast and it’s on Spotify, I’d be more than happy to do so.

• Anna and I are doing the honeymoon thing this week starting Friday (Celebrity Cruise to the Caribbean) so there will be NO Stray Notes next week for the Stray Notes faithful. Maybe a pic of me at a buffet though. Keep your eyes peeled for that.

I wonder if Facebook will still be a thing in three years. I bet it will be

Comedy Stray Notes October 16, 2019

• One of the most important hurdles of comedy is finding and growing your audience. Some comics are really great at this and foster a fanbase right off the bat. Others, such as myself, literally give away merch. So, it was inspiring to see that building a passionate fanbase while also having a message IS achievable when I filmed and attended the “standing room only it was so crowded” Goth Socialist Variety Hour alongside Anna E. Paone this past weekend at Littlefield. The variety show was hosted by a bunch of socialist podcast/comedy folks I was not familiar with as well as pals Alex Ptak and Anders Lee and honestly it was a totally different kind of radical, leftist comedy experience. There was stand up, podcast recordings, panel, a lip sync dance thing and the show concluded with the entire crowd singing about unions uniting. The show really was a great lesson. Find a movement you believe in and make comedy about it. You’ll start producing great shows like this because of it.

• People forget about it but before “Between Two Ferns” there was Martin Short’s brilliantly oblivious interviewer Jiminy Glick. He once asked Mel Brooks, “What’s your deal with the Nazis?” and had a very funny Comedy Central show in the early aughts. Much to my surprise, I found out that there was a Jiminy Glick movie sitting on HBOGo called “Jiminy Glick in Lalawood.” It’s 90 or so minutes of slightly outdated showbiz satire but I loved every second of it. Especially Martin Short playing David Lynch. There are a few very funny interview bits with Kurt Russell and Steve Martin in there too.

• Also, came across Chris Rock’s doc “Good Hair” on Amazon Prime. I’d been meaning to see it for like ten years. I loved it. Well worth the wait. The flick is an amazing showcase for Rock to do his thing and also educate his audience about the origins of women’s hair (occasionally comes from India) and how dangerous it is to have “good hair” (you can seriously burn yourself). It flies by and there are so many great, real moments in barbershops and salons that make it worth the watch alone.

• Filmed another fantastic show hosted by Rachel Kaly on Monday at Union Hall called “Ellen is the Only Ally.” It was some of the most subversive satire I’ve seen in NY. If you don’t know the conceit of the show, I’ll break it down. Rachel hosts the show as Ellen and as you know, Ellen happened to be in the news this week. Rachel wrote and performed so many great bits in between comics about this but my favorite of all was the pilot she performed starring Ellen and Bush living in a WMD. Also, Bush as a blow up doll. Check out this monthly show at Union Hall for sure if you haven’t already. She’s doing something really different and we should all be doing stuff as fresh as her.

• Got a pretty cool show this Friday out in Jersey produced by my brother from a New Jersey mother Danny Braff. I’ll be hosting the early and late shows (the early one is sold out!) and if you want in, let me know. The link for the event is in the comments and you get a discount with promo code “MATT.” Seriously. It's the first time I've ever been a promo code.

Hope you liked this one. I give it a 6/10

Comedy Stray Notes October 9, 2019

• Bringing this up WAY late but I finally had a meal at The Stand almost two weeks ago. After visiting the first time, I knew I wanted to take my family there for dinner when they visited (it’s exactly the upscale vibe my parents are into) and the place did not disappoint. I love that there are so many great comedy venues in the five boroughs that double as top-notch restaurants. The food itself is surprising, not in that it’s tasty (which it is) but in that the flavors are original. The biggest stand out for me was the waffle fries with the banana-flavored ketchup. I didn’t know that’s what I was into but I haven’t stopped thinking about it. Also, it was very cool that the night my family went was the night Dice was performing. The place was straight jumpin’ with dudes in fedoras (assuming that’s Dice’s fanbase). Also, want to give props to Joe Harary working that night and making the place run so smoothly. Definitely going back for another meal; gotta try the burger next.

• This was a truly excellent week for new comedy releases. The highlight for me was easily Gary Gulman’s new hour on HBO “The Great Depresh.” Not only is it an amazing examination of depression, but it’s also full of compassion, vulnerability and great jokes about why basketball is the best sport if you’re depressed. It’s an amazing companion piece to Chris Gethard’s HBO special “Career Suicide.” Check it out; I’m sure it will be atop all of the year end lists. Also, released this week was Nikki Glaser’s “Bangin.’” This is a bit more traditional a special but just as good. Chock full of sex jokes with hard punchlines, this is more of your traditional club set. It’s a different flavor but full of laughs too. Was very cool to see Andrew Collin and Ahri Findling show up in the “Special Thanks” at the end as well. Very happy for the dudes. Other new comedy releases to keep up with are the new NBC show “Sunnyside” (currently only two episodes deep) about a disgraced city councilman who helps immigrants gain citizenship and features NY comic Joel Kim Booster in a great role as a super wealthy non-citizen who pays his way through everything. As always, very cool to see a peer shoot through the stratosphere to the mainstream. You know you’ve made it when my Dad’s DVR’d you. Finally, check out “Bless The Harts” on Fox. It’s a great, little animated show and a nice, female companion piece to “King of the Hill.” You’ll be happy you checked it out.

• Did two shows this past week that were both great times. The first was last Wednesday’s Trivia Show at the Creek co-hosted by Kattoo King and Nate Borgman. It’s a very crowd participation-heavy show and the audience comprised of Anna E. Paone, Amalia Schiff and Pratap Chumble did not disappoint helping keep the show chug along at a steady clip. We answered comedic trivia from Devin Harris, Joe Gorman and myself (mine was about the history of the Creek) and at the end, Nate bought everyone drinks and gave out money gifts. Go to this show. You’ll probably make money (it is laminated). Also, did a packed hostel show this last Sunday uptown with master showman Randy Epley. The turnout was comprised of audience members who lived in Colombia, China, the Ivory Coast, Belgium, etc. It’s one of those things where you just have to somehow figure out how to make your jokes relatable. Ya know, I did all marriage material. It went OK. I’m definitely easing into being that guy who only does jokes about proposals and weddings and I gotta say, I’m happy to stay in this lane until the well of jokes on the subject has run dry for me.

• Finally, I wanted to point out that I did something that wasn’t exactly comedy this week but felt a lot like a weird, little brother to it. On Monday night, I played Dungeons and Dragons for the first time with friend and Dungeon Master Nate Abdo at the head. Other players included Anna, Clayton Russell Porter and Jesse Swatling-Holcomb. I wasn’t expecting everyone to do funny voices and the game to be so improv-heavy (it’s all improv) but it’s way more fun than you might expect. If you’ve never played, try it. Expand your mind, bro.

• No comedy stuff planned for me this week. That’s OK. I still need to see “Joker.”

Thanks for reading. Use promo code “Stray Notes” to get $0 off nothing

Wedding Stray Notes October 2, 2019

• I got married to the perfect Anna E. Paone this past weekend. Pretty sweet. It took a long time to get there. I proposed back in February 2017 at the Baseball Hall of Fame and here we are more than two years later. The whole event was better than I could have ever imagined (that’s mostly thanks to the hundreds- maybe thousands of emails Anna sent; I say she did 94% of the work and was tireless in her efforts to make everything happen; I did the other 6% tirelessly) and getting to spend my life with Anna is the greatest reward of all. However, I did want to share a few thoughts on my experience for those in the process of getting married, the wise folks who have gotten married and those who have never considered it who are morbidly curious. Here goes.

• First off, wanted to point out that when getting prepared for your wedding, I recommend learning how to dance. You will have to do a first dance (unless you really don’t want to do it) and it’s uncomfortable to watch two amateur dancers for at least 90 seconds. In our case, Anna’s Dad (not on Facebook) and Mom and Catherine LaMoreaux, had us take dance lessons and we learned some very cool moves. I still have flat feet but it was very cool that we didn’t just do a slow dance. We had some style.

• Another thing I recommend to all is having a talking point when visiting your guests at each wedding table while they’re eating. It’s hard to make the same small talk over and over. In our case, Anna and I came up with giving everyone Topps Baseball cards of ourselves to every guest and when we made the rounds at the tables we acted like we were professional baseball players (a narcissistic fantasy of mine) and we signed them for all the guests. It made for a fun bit and we didn’t have one, “So, ya having fun?” conversation.

• It’s always pretty incredible when people make their way out for a destination wedding. Being from Phoenix, it was pretty amazing that so many people from my past who live far from New York came from my groomsmen like Clayton Russell Porter, Jesse Swatling-Holcomb, Nate Abdo and Danee Garone (not on Facebook) to my High School Teacher Shigeko Toyota but the craziest guest to show was my friend from high school Pratap Chumble who was an exchange student from India. On Friday (the day before!), he called in and asked if he should still come to the wedding. I said, “We’d love to have you, but no pressure.” Pratap took an 18-hour flight. He made it to the reception after his flight, going through immigration and booking a hotel. That’s an A+ guest.

• You gotta love all the speeches you get at weddings. Anna’s parents and sister Laura Paone were all hilarious, my Mom (not on Facebook) and brothers Ben Levy and Sam Levy were all heartwarming (it was also hilarious when they all walked down the aisle together barely about to fit) but my Dad Andy Levy went for the most unusual. He started his speech by having the DJ play the “Hawaii Five-0” theme song and he and I proceeded to do 22 pushups. It was a Pavlovian response. If he hears THAT song, he has to do pushups. Then he followed it with a speech. That was sick.

• Our wedding was held in a beautiful Catholic church BUT was an interfaith wedding with a Priest and a Rabbi. It went very smoothly even if the Rabbi didn’t attend the rehearsal (rehearsal was rough; I think a dozen people told me, “Bad rehearsal means a good show!”) but was interesting in that it felt like the Jews (my people) were playing an away game and the yarmulkes were our uniforms. The most interesting aspect of the interfaith wedding was certain parts of the Jewish side were held under a chuppah off to the side since it wouldn’t fit on the stage. At one point, a few, select married women from both sides of our family circled me as is part of Orthodox Jewish tradition. Everytime, my Grandma Arlene Friedman circled me, she pinched my butt.

• Yeah, I closed my speech with, “I’d like to thank the cast, crew and most of all, Lorne.” Lorne, I hope you’re reading this. Really, I hope you’re reading everything I write, dude. Speaking of sketch, I dreamt of shooting a sketch for months at the wedding. My logic was when else would I get so many extras, props, location, production value, costumes, my favorite cinematographer Joseph Lao etc. Well, it didn’t work out. You can’t really ruin a wedding with that. Also, speaking of sketch again, it was amazing that our wedding fell on the night of SNL’s season premiere (you better believe we watched it in the hotel room; that’s as romantic as it gets for me; also, not a bad episode, I thought!) and the final regular season game for the Mets. Kind of poetic.

• Wanted to shout out Anna’s uncle and aunt James Lamoreaux and Bridget Lamoreaux (both not on Facebook) for leaving a dog biscuit at our head table. It’s a sort of long story but when Anna was young, like 13 I think, she ate a dog biscuit because James said he would propose to Bridget if Anna did it. That’s a top-notch callback if I’d ever heard of one.

• One of the coolest aspects of the wedding, is you finally get to enjoy the fruits of your (or in my case, Anna’s) labor. When we were at the reception venue, servers treated us like royalty, bringing us food, whatever drinks we wanted etc. For just a few short hours, I knew what it felt like to be a one percent-er. It’s good.

• When I returned my suit to Men’s Wearhouse (yes, that’s where I rented from), they didn’t even check to see if I brought everything back. Could have kept my cuff links. Smdh.

• As for the postscript, the past few days, we have been in a bit of a wedding hangover. Anna and I are tallying gifts, writing thank you cards and reliving the event as much as we can. It really was very incredible. Kind of like your bar mitzvah but you get to share it with someone and you’re actually celebrating really becoming an adult. I did NOT become a man on August 25, 2001 for my bar mitzvah. This was much closer to it.

• Finally, gotta get my ring resized. I find when I don’t eat for a bit, it gets loose. If I do eat or down sodium (after a night of ramen especially), it gets tight.

• As for this week in comedy for me, I’m back. Doing a trivia show at the Creek tonight and getting back into the mic game too.

If you read this far, you’ll get married someday. Congrats!

Comedy Stray Notes September 25, 2019

• I love a good, themed-comedy show more than your average, old chap. There’s something about adding an extra wild card-like element to a show that gives it that extra oomph. Whether it’s a roast, a benefit, a New Year’s-themed party disguised as a show, just anything that separates a bar show into something that makes it different. That is certainly the case for my friend Brandon Daniel Garner’s show “Let’s Be Friends” at the Starliner Bar in Bushwick that I did with Anna E. Paone in attendance last Wednesday (best part of the show was the bartender asking Brandon if he minded if she CHUGGED a cigarette before the show began). It’s a really novel concept which is great cause, as mentioned before, I love theme shows. Basically, Brandon wants to be friends (hence the name of the show) with everyone he books. So, after you perform, he interviews you about your budding friendship with him. Fans of the show (yes, fans of a show!) have a drinking game based on how Brandon acts in the interview. It was his girlfriend’s birthday. Jeff Scheen, David Piccolomini and Amber Rollo were all hysterical on the show (the other comic was too but I don’t know her). Go and check this show out. Then become friends with Brandon. It’s the smartest decision you’ll make in comedy.

• This last Friday, I was a little too excited for the release of the new Netflix original “Between Two Ferns: The Movie.” How excited was I? I read a total of TWO listicles ranking all the episodes of the webseries that I had seen before. How was the movie? It was fine. There are laugh out loud moments (mostly the celebrity interview portions with Paul Rudd, Benedict Cumberbatch, Matthew McConaughey and Tessa Thompson come to mind) and the plot being so thin is humorous (if you’re not familiar, check the trailer) but the movie as a whole, never quite gels. His crew is just kinda...there (although Lauren Lapkus has moments). Will Ferrell is just kinda...loud. Ferrell’s my favorite comic actor of all time but between this and “Holmes and Watson” his chops seem off. The subversive, absurd, poignancy he brings to the table seems gone. Makes me sad. Still, I recommend seeing this flick. Just for the interviews.

• One of the coolest parts about moving to New York is a lot of your coolest colleagues from wherever you’re from end up here too. When I first moved to the City in 2013, Courtenay Gillean Cholovich, my TA from ASU was here which was such a relief. Someone who had been in Arizona was already figuring out NYC which made it so much less daunting. It was also just as exciting to learn this week that Courtenay does stand up now and was visiting the City. So yeah, we hit the Creek together. I don’t know how many people have done stand up with one of their educators but it is an experience I highly recommend. Very cool to see very funny jokes written by someone who in part helped mold my mind (the class was Acting for TV and Film. I did a monologue from “About Schmidt” at the end of the semester. I still haven’t seen the movie).

• Caught up on all of the Emmy winning “Fleabag” the past two days. That show rules. I had no idea Olivia Colman was in it and Phoebe Waller-Bridge has some of the best fourth wall breaking of any show on TV. Don’t sleep on the show; it’s only twelve episodes and you’ll get through it fast. Also, watched “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” for the first time. Man, peak Steve Martin is so good but I also didn’t know Michael Caine and Blythe Danner were so funny too. Sad to say I didn’t see the twist ending coming either.

• Not booked on anything this week other than my wedding with the beautiful, funny, kind and talented Anna Paone on Saturday. Wedding Stray Notes to come next week. Yes, I am planning on hopefully filming a sketch during the wedding reception. Fingers crossed that it happens. Also, I’m very excited for the marriage!

That’s all, folks.

Comedy Stray Notes September 18, 2019

• When people ask me where the best place to run a show is, I always say Under Saint Marks. First of all, it’s a great way to brag and say I did my half hour there. Secondly, it really is a swell place to do a show. It’s intimate, has a classic showbiz feel and the laughs sound incredible in there. It’s even better when there’s a fantastic show inside. That was the case on Monday night when Max Weinbach and Nicky Weinbach put on the two-year anniversary show of their monthly “Vintage Basement.” This one was special. The room was totally packed out (had to stand on the side) and the performances were top notch. Max and Nicky opened with an audacious powerpoint (don’t want to spoil it) that got an applause break and then kept going. They sing, they dance, they whistle, they do one-liners, they do slapstick. They’re a comedy total package. As for the rest of the show, it was all headliners. I only saw two (Phoebe Robinson and Judah Friedlander, since it was getting late and the L train had limited service) but they both brought the house down as well. Judah’s crowd work where he tells the crowd he’s running for president and asks people to yell out issues to hear his stance on them is so fun and genius that I wouldn’t mind seeing it every day because it would be different every time. Go hang at their next show if you get the chance (and stay longer than I did), it’s a great time.

• Everyone’s talking about SNL. To be fair, I’m always talking about SNL but right now everyone in particular is talking about the hiring and subsequent firing of Shane Gillis. Should he have been fired? I don’t know (but probably yes, we don’t need to give such a negative voice a platform) and don’t really care to debate. My major takeaway is a.) as a major fan of the show, I’ve never seen a new hire get attention like this ever. Maybe it happened in 84-85 when Billy Crystal, Christopher Guest and Martin Short after they’d already been well known joined the cast or when other celebrities joined (Janeane Garofalo, Chris Elliott, Anthony Michael Hall come to mind) but those are for totally different reasons. This had to have been a stunt move by Lorne and co. for sure. We’re all going to watch the premiere to see how they handle it, right? Secondly, b.) Shane Gillis getting SNL (whether or not it is legitimate) shows all of us that average stand up comics can get on the show. If anything, we should all be pumped to know that you don’t need to be a master impressionist or virtuosic improvisor, they’ll just hire a guy that might be forgettable on a bar show. This should be a glimmer of hope. Finally, c.) Gillis will be fine. Dude will definitely get a special and has more of a fanbase than he would have had as a one season-and-done cast member. I’m not bringing anything insightful to the table here but these are the genuine thoughts of a guy who cares way too much about SNL.

• For a person with so many thoughts about the industry, I did shockingly little comedy this week. What I did get in was a very fun, packed mic at Halyards hosted by Kyle Turner and Clayton Williams which is one of those sweet cool kid mics that’s also a welcoming environment. Also, Library Mic is back in full swing. In related news, my pal Seth Pompi who graciously runs the mic from the library will be out for awhile on paternity leave (his wife is due soon). That’s a good a reason as any to not host a mic.

• Had a big weekend watching HBO (if that’s how you define big weekend) and saw the hourlong pilot for “The Righteous Gemstones” with Andrew Tavin and Liz Michelle (we also had a nice Thai dinner). It has some really nicely realized moments about the hypocrisy and excess of mega churches and then surprisingly veers off into thriller territory toward the end of the episode. I would definitely recommend if you have time- plus you get to see John Goodman kill it as the patriarch. For pure curiosity factor, you can also stream “Welcome to Marwen,” a movie Anna E. Paone and I really wanted to see in theatres based on how strange and potentially bad it looked. Well, after having seen it, I can confirm it was both of those things. Still, I cautiously recommend. You can see Steve Carell do some wild overacting and a lot of famous actors made up to be miniature dolls. Finally, not HBO, but I watched the official finale of NBC’s “Bring the Funny.” Surprised SNL didn’t just use these people as this season served as a season-long audition for sketch troupes essentially. Either way, the final episode came down to a sketch team vs. a stand up and America voted....and the sketch team won. They were fine but not necessarily better. I guess the five of them had more people voting than the comic (who is just one person).

• Finally, big shout out to my pal Brian Bahe getting featured in Vulture (it's a great interview about his great Twitter). His Twitter is fire (I just said that, I know) and you should definitely read this piece on him if you missed it. It’s just as funny. I mean it’s hard to top “Brian Bahe Bases His Comedy on His Long, Wide Nipples" as a title for an article. The link is in the comments.

• Happy to announce I’m doing my pal Brandon Daniel Garner’s show at Starliner tonight at 9 PM. Other than that, I have a lot of HBO watching planned.

Can’t believe you read this again.