Langdon James - STAND UP COMEDIAN

Comedy Shmomedy

Tue, 6 Dec 2005 19:43:53 EST

Ok, I had to look it up online. The definition of a blog is "Blog is short for weblog. A weblog is a journal (or newsletter) that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. Blogs generally represent the personality of the author or the Web site." The last time I updated this was May. It is now December. I guess that I can't really call this a blog if it is infrequently updated. It is more of a "It's kinda fun to do this every once in a while, but then I forget about it for half a year then come back and try to be funny in it...log." Ahh well, here it goes.

So yes, it has been a while. Let's see, where did I end off last time. Oh, yes, talking about absolutely nothing. So why stop now? Over the summer I got kinda burned out with comedy. I played the same two rooms all summer long. The audiences never got above 15 people, and that was the good night. Good comedy needs a bigger audience. If you are playing to 10 people, nobody wants to laugh out loud and possibly be heard by the comic who will then pick on them for the show. So everyone kinda laughs to themselves and the comic goes home and contemplates suicide again, calling himself a pussy for not being able to do it the previous week and maybe now he can be a real f-ing man and finally finish something he started. At least, that is what I have been told.

So anyway, I have taken a break. I am not out actively seeking gigs or hitting the open mics trying to be seen. Rather, I am just staying at home and wondering why I am not out actively seeking gigs or hitting the open mics and trying to be seen. I will do gigs when friends of mine ask me if I am interested in doing a show with them, but that's about it. And they aren't asking very often. It was kind of nice at first having my Friday and Saturday nights free, but then I really started to miss it, especially lately. I have been trying to write some bits, but I just can't seem to get motivated. I have a lot of what I think are funny premises, but when I sit down to try to write out the funny...nothing. I get this really bad A.D.D. where I am distracted by anything and everything. Oh, look! There is a dog across the street taking a crap. Oh, hey! There is the mailman across the street taking a crap. Look at that! There is a mailman taking a crap of a dog taking a crap! Damn this A.D.D.! How am I supposed to get anything done?

I guess that I should sum up what else I did over the summer...I got a new job, I went to Germany for two weeks, and I didn't update my blog...The End. I just need to sit down and force myself to write these new bits. No matter what is taking a crap across the street, I just need to write it all out and hope that the funny comes. Now that I have started to write in this blog thing again, I will try to keep up with it as often as possible...even if it is to just tell you all about what is happening on the lawn across the street.

Gotta love them drunks

Tue, 10 May 2005 12:40:50 EDT

So the shows this past weekend were the same as almost every other weekend... one really great show, and two that I could have done without. Friday night I was in Skippack, PA at one of Chuckle's Comedy Clubs. I was kind of worried because at about 15 minutes before show time, there were like 7 or 8 people there. So I went down to the bar for about 10 minutes, and when I walked in, there were about 30-40. Much better! Not 20,000, but better. Besides, it is a small room, so it doesn't take too many to make it a good audience size. The show ran kind of long that night with Regina Smith Kyle Hoffman, Jason Flowers, Bruce Larkin, Marlon Martinez, Ed O'Hanlon all performing as well. I did get a great compliment with one guy telling me that he couldn't breathe during one of my bits from laughing so hard and was hoping I would stop so that he could breathe. I guess the ultimate compliment a comic could get is if someone passed out during a show from not breathing due to laughing to hard. That is my new goal. I want to see someone fall out of their chair and onto the floor passed out from not breathing. I have seen drunks pass out during shows which is always a crowd favorite. Especially when they go from standing to flat on their face. Then their friends come over, "Dude, you ok?" With the drunk responding, "Of courth I am ok fucker! Leave meeee alone. Get awayyy from mmee. I'm fiine. I love you man." Ahh yes, the good old days. Damn, I forgot to tell a good drunk story that happened a few weeks ago. Ok, I'll tell you all now you lucky bitches.

Ok, so a few weeks ago I was performing in Carlisle, PA at a pizza and subs shop. You can read more about it in my archives from May of 2005. Anyway, I was just about to go up onstage and I was watching the crowd to see who was there, what kind of people were there, anyone that might cause problems, etc. I see this one woman who is clearly wasted. She is about 5 feet tall and about 140 lbs. She was sitting at the bar with a full glass of beer in front of her and she is swaying in her barstool trying not to fall off of it. I see her go to the bathroom, and she has a hard time getting there even though it is only 10 feet away. I do my set and I don't hear anything out of her. During the next guy's set, she sits down at one of the tables near the stage with who I am assuming is her husband. She has another full glass of beer that she spills all over the place while trying to sit down. She sits down and is facing away from the stage. She is staring blankly at the wall opposite of where the stage is. She has no idea what is going on. Throughout the show, she just yells out obscenities for no reason and at random times. "Go to Hellllllll" she screamed out at one point catching many off guard because it was a quiet moment in the show. Everyone laughs at her but she has no reaction. "Bullllshit" she yelled out at another time. She is obviously a mean drunk. At the end of the show, she needs to use the bathroom again and this time she has a really hard time getting there. She stumbled over imaginary things in front of her was hanging on for dear life to each bar seat that she passed. She gets inside and is in there for a few minutes. A couple little girls come strolling out from the back room, probably the owners children, and they need to use the bathroom. So they go over and try to open the door but the drunk woman had locked it. They wait there for about 10 seconds when she opened the door, stuck her head out, and yelled at them. "You little bitches, I am trying to use the bathroom!" Now, these girls were like 10 or 11 years old. One of the girls start crying and ran back into the back room. The other girls followed her. A few minutes later, the drunk woman came strolling out like nothing had happened. She sat down at the table, faced away from the stage and every once in a while yelled out a random obscenity. "GO TO HELL YOU BASTARD!" Her husband just sat there ignoring her. She eventually fell out of her chair and was carried outside by her husband. Oh how I live or those moments. A few weeks earlier I saw a few drunks being carried out of the club in a choke hold by a gigantic bouncer. I'll save that story for another time.

Ok, back to this weekends shows. Saturday was supposed to be a two show night. The first was again in Skippack, PA and it turned out to be a small show. About 12 people small. But they were a decent audience so it wasn't horrible. The next show was in Audubon, PA for Chuckles again, but only 2 people showed up for that, so it was cancelled. The comics and I instead went to the bar and saw a couple that had been at the first show that evening. They came over and over the course of about 45 minutes talking to them, I found out that they had met over a phone sex line. The conversation became even more interesting when we found out that she like anal. I discovered something very interesting this weekend. It doesn't matter what a girl looks like, if she mentions that she likes anal sex, guys will want to talk to her. Now this girl was pretty good looking, but I noticed how all of guys became more interested in what she had to say after we found out. Plus, she was completely open about it (no pun intended) and gave us all tips to make it better for the woman. Believe me, if I could get anal sex, I wouldn't be in a bar in Audubon, PA getting tips from you on a Saturday night. Plus, I glanced at the TV while Saturday Night Live was on and saw a guy that I know from the Second City in Vegas. He was a writer for SNL and is now a featured player. Congrats to Jason Sudeikis. He will be an awesome performer on SNL for many a year to come. Later Baters.

Welcome to Geekdom

Mon, 2 May 2005 23:39:35 EDT

I am not booking any shows for the weekend of June 3rd -5th. Why you ask? Ok fine... why I pretend you ask? Well let me tell you. That weekend I get to get back to my ultimate geek roots by attending the Wizard World Philadelphia 2005 Comic Book Convention. Now I am not going to get dressed up like a Wookie or like any of these assholes, but I am going to get geeked out. The reasons for me to go to this convention keep getting growing and growing. First, I have wanted to go to a comic book convention since my buddies back in Vegas, Barry and Paul, told me about the big one in San Diego...Comic-Con. They sound like a lot of fun, and they always have some really cool people to meet. First, this year, the convention here in Philly will have Lou Ferrigno, King Kong Bundy, Richard Hatch (from the original Battlestar Galactica, not Survivor, dumb asses) and from the new Battlestar Galactica, the gorgeous Tricia Helfer. There will be a shit load of other famous faces from the comic book world and smut world (these geeks are the perfect audience for it). But the main reason for my going is to meet my childhood hero. Well, Christopher Reeves was my childhood hero, but this guy came in a close second. The one the only...Sam J. Jones. What do you mean who? Flash Friggin' Gordon, that's who. I must have watched Flash Gordon about 1000 times as a kid, and as an adult. I love it so. Sweet sweet memories of Flash, Dale Arden, Hans Zarkov, Ming the Merciless... yes I am shedding a tear. I can't wait to meet him. It will probably be a quick "Hi, I'm Langdon. I am a huge fan." Then a "C'mon on, move it along" from the security guard, but it will be worth it. Sometimes, you just have to let your inner geek come out and sing at the top of your lungs... FLASH! AAAAHHHH AAAAHHHHH! Flippin' Sweet!

Finally... Redemption!

Mon, 2 May 2005 18:03:54 EDT

This weekend's shows were supposed to be a couple of easy one's. Friday, I was supposed to perform at Chuckles Comedy Club in Skippack, PA. At 3:30 pm on Friday, I got a call from a booker whose shows I like doing because they pay more than most other's pay and most of the time I get to perform in front of crowds that have never seen me before. I have performed at Chuckles Clubs a lot, so there is some repeat business. Anyway, I get a message from the booker asking if I am available to do a show that night. So I call up Chuckles and see how many performers they have on the show. They can get by without me, so I cancel with Chuckles to do this other gig. I call the booker and tell him that I am available to do the show. I ask him where the gig is, and it is in a town 2 hours away called Carlisle, PA. Plus, I have heard some negative things about this place. There is no way I am going to do this gig. I'll just tell him that it is too far away and that I am doing something later on that I can't miss. Then I will call back Chuckles, reschedule to be there that night, and everything will be fine. That is all I have to do. Piece of cake.

So I am driving to Carlisle, PA to do the gig. By the way, I thought of all of that excuse to cancel on the way to Carlisle. Hey, better late than never. Anyway, 2 hours later, I get there. It is a small pizza shop called Red Devil Pizza and Subs. They have a small corner and a sound system, so why not offer comedy every week? Well, I showed up there and met the headliner for the evening which was R. Bruce. A very funny guy that plays song parodies with his guitar. The audience loved him. The ride back took too long. Two hours in a car by yourself at night sucks. Especially in a state where radio sucks. I need satellite radio. Which one is better? Anyone have any thoughts? Anyone even reading this?

Saturday night was a great show. I was at Chuckles club in West Chester, PA. They are running a contest over several weeks to find the Delaware Valley's funniest educator. When I first heard of this contest, I didn't think that it would fly. Holy shit was I wrong. There were three teachers competing last night, each one doing about 5-6 minutes of stand up. One of the teachers brought 30 people alone. This tiny room had standing room only. Plus, since they were mostly teachers, they were an educated crowd, quite the opposite of the previous night's gig. So I was the MC for the evening. I got up and did about 2 minutes of warm up, bull shit stuff then I brought the first teacher up. He was surprisingly good. Though it was his first time on stage, he looked like he had been doing it for a few months. Still a bit nervous, but good stage presence and funny material. The next teacher looked like Larry Davids of Curb Your Enthusiasm. His material was pretty good. Very wordy though. Too much setup for not enough punch line. The third guy got up and did a character name Mr. Kickass. Mr. Kickass was the teacher of a special ed class. It was amusing to watch a guy try to do this character. It wasn't really stand up, more like a humorous monologue that someone would perform at the graduation of an acting class. Well, the first guy, Jason Armstrong, won for the evening and gets to move on to the next round. The audience for the rest of us comics was awesome. The other comics there, Ed O'Hanlan, David James, and Peter Jung, did an awesome job and no doubtedly loved the audience as well. This was the kind of audience that I really needed after the shows that I have had over the past few weeks. The kind of audience that makes me say, "Oh yeah, that's why I am in this business." The kind of audience that makes me say, "Oh yeah, that's why I left my old life of hookers and blow." The kind of audience that makes me say, "Oh yeah, that's why I escaped from the clutches of the Chinese mafia after they threw me into slavery inside their vast network of the sex slave industry. Sure, at first it was fun and lots of partying, but then one day I realized that it wasn't for me. So after I gnawed my own arms off in an attempt to unchain myself, I used my arms as weapons to defeat the prison guards and run out of that camp only to realize that I wasn't in China but instead in Duluth, MN where the sex slave industry is thriving." Damn it! Again with the too much info! I need to learn how to delete.

The Comedy Dick of Death

Mon, 25 Apr 2005 16:26:02 EDT

Many people don't know what the comedy dick of death is. Probably because I have only heard one person ever use the expression before. But I sure found out what it was this weekend. Let me start at the beginning.

On Monday, I was reminded that I had signed up for Rascals new talent night. I went to the one two weeks prior, but had recently found the video camera, so I thought that it would be a great place to shoot my act. I set it up, and waited my turn. A few people that went before me did rather well. Most of their material was on the dirty/vulgar side, but whatever works. I get up on stage and do ok. Not my best show, but certainly not my worst. Ok, so I got a decent show on tape. And it wasn't even my full act, but a hurried 5 minute segment of it. Well, it's something to look at and see what I look like on stage.

Friday, I am booked in what I thought was a church in Westville, NJ. Hey, you gotta take what you can get. I get there and find out that it isn't a church, but rather the Most Holy Redeemer Grammar School. Shit, I hope there aren't any kids there. I find out that it will be an adult audience. I also find out that the booker will be there. Great. Not only do I have to clean up my act a bit since it is the Most Holy Redeemer, but the booker will be there as well. The booker asked the priest that was there if it is alright to use the word "shit". The priest said "Shit, I use the word shit all the time." Sweet. So my set goes all right, again. Nothing to write home about. Ryan Maloney was the middle act and Peter Jung was the headliner. Both of them kicked ass. Well, I thought they did, but a woman came up to me and told me about how offended she was because Peter talked about adding cheese to a communion wafer. She explained over a 25 minute conversation about how sacred that is. Apparently, alcohol is sacred to her as well because she was blitzed.

Saturday brought a new club I hadn't played before. In fact, it was in a state that I hadn't ever been to. My buddy Glen Jensen was performing at Tracy's Comedy Club in Baltimore, MD and asked if he could bring me along to do a 7 minute set. The owner of the club said ok, so we car pooled down there. Glen told me on the way down that Larry, the owner of the club, "will be the host of the show and open with 10 minutes of local reference jokes and then bring you up. Now, it is really hard to follow that. Especially with straight material. The audience isn't used to hearing material yet, so it will take them about 4 minutes before they will start to respond to your material." Bullshit. I am going to get up on stage and knock a home run. Well, it went EXACTLY as he said. The first 4 minutes on that stage was probably the worst 4 minutes of my stand up career. For those first four minutes I "Ate the Comedy Dick of Death". I friggin' sucked. After about 4 minutes they started laughing and I finished up mediocre. Holy crap did I learn a lesson from this. My lesson...DON'T EAT THE COMEDY DICK OF DEATH. It leaves a really shitty after taste until you can wash it out with a good set. Great! A whole week of dick of death on my breath... and I promised myself that I would give that shit up.

Feed Me Seymore!

Mon, 18 Apr 2005 16:47:16 EDT

For all of you uber-geeks out there, I just wanted to let you all know that I installed an RSS feed for my news/blog updates. So if you have an RSS feed reader or a browser that supports RSS feeds like Firefox, then you can easily see when I have updated this lovely page. Whether you have a PC or a Mac, you should get Firefox anyway. Microsoft's Internet Explorer is a piece of crap and allows spyware into your computer without you ever knowing it. Thanks Billy Gates. So to sum up, get Firefox, then subscribe to my RSS feed. Bitches.

Fight Night

Sun, 17 Apr 2005 22:28:55 EDT

Saturday night. Doylestown, PA. In one corner was me, confident, cocky, and ready to throw down after a good previous weekend of comedy. In the other corner were 45 people, most of which were age 50+. The setting, an upstairs room in a Moose lodge. I sit in my corner anticipating the bell, just waiting to come out swinging. My opponent, sitting there with that smug look on their face, was drinking beer, snacking on chips, and ready to get on with the show. The announcer enters the ring. He recites the tale of the tape and introduces yours truly. I stand up, walk up on stage and start jabbing. I get a few good punches in right up front. Nothing that will hurt, but it does sting. I step up my game and start to throw some punches that should leave a mark. Oooh, I missed a few. No problem, I'll get them with a flurry up against the ropes. Hmm, they are tougher than I expected. Ok, I'm tired of this. Time to show them who the hell I am. I throw a huge right uppercut...and miss. I am taken aback. How did that not connect? How is it that they weren't knocked down? Did my opponent last week just have a glass jaw? Were they some kind of chump that was there to fill my ego just so that I could get it crushed? How the hell am I supposed to recover after throwing that giant punch and missing? I am suddenly weak in the knees. Cut me Mick! I throw some more jabs hoping that one of them will connect. I get a few more jabs in and prepared for my special move. The move that won me the nickname of "The guy that does that one thing". I go for it and only slightly connect as they were moving away. Then I hear the final bell. It looks like this one is a split decision. There will be a rematch Doylestown Moose...oh yes, there will be.

The two other fights for the evening are easily won by Stan Stankos and Keith Purnell. The press event afterward showed that my opponent wasn't as tough as I thought. Perhaps I just didn't give 100%. Who knows. What I do know is I still hate that fucking woman in the front row. Why sit up front if you aren't in the mood to laugh, if you aren't in the mood to play along, and if you aren't in the mood to act like a fucking human being for an hour and a half and try to enjoy something.

So now I need to wait a week before my confidence level has a chance of raising up just a bit. I guess that next week, I will just half to throw a sucker punch below the belt right up front just so that they know that they are my bitch. Holy crap! Reading back on what I just wrote made me realize that I need to stop watching The Contender.

4 Show Weekend

Mon, 11 Apr 2005 11:00:54 EDT

So, Thursday night I had the pleasure of performing at Rascal's New Talent Night at the Rascal's comedy club in Cherry Hill, NJ. Two weeks ago at the previous New Talent Night, 138 people attended the event and supposedly they were a great crowd. This one had the makings of a great show. A funny headliner, a funny female MC, decent new talent night comics, there was just one thing missing... the friggin' audience. Damn it! What is with Rascal's and me on Thursday nights? The last Thursday night show that I was a part of at Rascals, 8 people showed up, six of whom I had invited.

So when show time came, there were about 10-12 people in the crowd. They delayed starting the show and by the time they started, the audience had doubled. Ok, I have performed for much fewer, and they weren't too bad before. Hopefully they came to laugh. Well, it turns out that they didn't. Traci Skene was the MC and did a good job even though the audience wasn't always with her. The audience blew. It just sucked. There were 8 new talent comics including yours truly. I was the last to go, and by the time I got up there, the crowd loosened up just enough to let out a few laughs. The headliner, Brian McKim, had a tough time with the audience as well. After my set, a woman who comes to these shows, tapes the comics and sells them copies of their performance on DVD came up to me and said she loved my act, which on a night like this is well appreciated. She said that when I first got on stage, my head is a bit out of frame, so she will give me a copy for free. Sweet! I have never seen myself perform... on stage. And this was a good show to see, simply for the reason that at one point I completely went blank on stage. Right in the middle of the joke. Right at the punch line... nothing. I couldn't remember any part of the punch line. I thought that it was pretty funny, especially when watching it back. Good times, good times.

From a shitty crowd, to the best one of my career, Saturday night was incredible. The room at Ruffini's was completely packed and the audience was ready to laugh. And they laughed hard. I had to wait after every punch line for the laughter to die down a bit. So that's what a real audience is like. Kind of nice.

The second show of the evening was at The Courtyard Inn. The headliner was Keith Purnell who did a great job at both shows. The crowd at the second gig sure as hell couldn't compete with the first, but they were still pretty good.

Then there was the Sunday night benefit show to help raise money for a woman with a lung disease. All 7 or 8 comics had volunteered their time to be there, and we outnumbered the audience. We had a good time joking around in the back of the room and making fun of audience members while on stage so it wasn't a complete waste of time. Hell we even helped to raise some money for the woman's family... even if it was only $17.

Mitch Hedberg

Mon, 4 Apr 2005 11:01:52 EDT

I forgot to mention the passing of an incredibly funny and talented comedian. Mitch Hedberg was one of those comedians that could make everyone in the room laugh. You didn't need to like his style or agree with everything that he stood for, but you were guaranteed a laugh when you saw him perform. He had so many great one liners that I would find myself repeating them for days after hearing one of his cd's. I wish I could have seen him perform live in person. His website is saying that he died of a heart condition, but there are rumors that I am hearing from other comics that it was drug related. In either case, Mitch will be sadly missed by his fellow comics and his adoring fans. What a damn shame.

The Garbage State

Sun, 3 Apr 2005 23:27:55 EDT

April showers, don't always bring May flowers. They bring April floods. It has been raining a lot here lately, which sucks to drive in. Especially when driving over a few hours to different gigs in a state that I am not used to driving in. New Jersey roads try to screw up folks not used to driving in the Garden State. The roads don't stay consistent at all. Sometimes, you have to turn right, in order to make a left turn. But the very next intersection, you can turn left, but not right. new Jersey has these things called jug-handles where in order to make a left turn in an intersection, you need to make a right handed turn onto a street that loops around and allows you to go straight, which is now the direction you wanted to go in the first place. Hmm, that didn't make any sense. Anyway, it sucks. And trying to drive in blinding rain while lost and not knowing where and when I can turn just adds to the madness.

Luckily, the gig I did this weekend was worth it. It was in Hamonton, NJ at a Fire Company. The Hamonton Fire Company #2 to be exact. It was a fund raiser to help raise money for the volunteer fire company. The room was full with about 200 or so people, and they showed up ready to laugh. Unfortunately, the middle act never showed up. This seems to happen to me about once a month. But the headliner, Buddy Flip, did a bit over an hour and I did about 22 minutes so the time that the middle act was supposed to do was pretty much covered. My favorite part of the evening was a conversation I had with a midget. He works there at the fire company (I assume that he answers the phones or does the bookkeeping) and he had a request. He asked me to pick on this one guy who drunk off of his ass. "He is a plumber, and you could say, how are you supposed to fix pipes when you are that wasted, or something like that." I love it when audience members try to give me punch lines that I can use in my show. It's like me walking up to Kobe Bryant and saying "Next time, you should rape them in the ass so that they shit out all of the evidence." Thanks for the advice, but I know what I am doing. But the best part is, the midget is telling me who to pick on. I have waited over a year to get a midget in one of my shows, and he wants me to pick on someone else? Damn it, I find out before I go on, that he is kind of running the whole event, so I better be nice and pick on the drunk guy instead of the midget. But the audience was great and very responsive. I wish they all could be like that...especially with midgets.

I forgot to post about last weeks shows, so I will make it quick. Both shows were in Delaware...woo hoo? The first was at a place called the Volare Lounge, a hip martini bar, and was put on by a very funny guy named Geno Bisconte. The audience wasn't too responsive because they couldn't really decide if they wanted to talk with their friends or watch the show. I met a very funny guy named Mike Rainey who had some awesome bits. The audience seemed much more appreciative after the show that actually during the show. But it was still a fun gig.

The next night was at Stoneys British Pub in Wilmington, DE. The crowd was a bit rowdy at times, but they were a good crowd. Especially for a bar, where audiences can easily get out of control. I was able to bullshit with other comics and try out my Terri Schiavo joke, which went over surprisingly well. What a bunch of sicko's! I love 'em all.

Little Rascals

Tue, 22 Mar 2005 21:24:37 EST

So go ahead and guess who performed at Rascals comedy club this weekend. Go ahead, guess. More about that later. But first...

Ok, I haven't posted here for a few weeks so let me get you caught up. Two weekends ago, I had the distinct honor of performing for about 200 people. Ok, so it was in Vineland, NJ...but it was still for 200 people. Apparently, girls softball is huge in that area and every year they have this big fund raiser to raise money for the girls to travel to Virginia and compete in a big softball tournament. For $30 a person, they got unlimited beer, a buffet style dinner and an hour and a half long comedy show. All proceeds go to the Wildcats girls softball team. I performed with Jay Black and Mike Siscoe, both of whom friggin' rocked the joint! It was blast to watch both of these guys, especially Mike Siscoe's finale when he let audience's members yell out any country, and he demonstrated what the native people of that country looked like during an orgasm. It was hilarious.

A few weeks ago, my friend Glen Jensen got me a spot at Rascals in Cherry Hill, NJ. I told some people at work about it and some wanted to come. So I was able to talk a total of 6 people into coming out and seeing me. The night that I was to go up was Thursday, March 17th...yes, St. Patrick's Day. So I write a new bit about St. Patrick's Day the day of while in the shower. I ask a few people what they think of the new bit, and they like it. Cool. I will do it that night. Well, that night, I am nervous about this new bit. I am under a time restraint, and still don't know if I should do it. It is an untested bit. I am back in the green room making myself nervous thinking about this new bit. This is like an audition at Rascals, so I don't want to screw it up, but I think that it is a funny bit, and it would be perfect since it is in fact St. Patrick's Day. About 10 minutes before show time I peek out to see how big the crowd is. Is it 100 people? 200 People? How many people will see my big debut? I stick my head out of the door, and I see my buddy Joe and his three friends that he brought. And that is all that I see. The rest of the room is empty. AAACK! Five minutes go by, and two more people I know show up. One more couple shows up before the manager cancels the show. Great, there goes my shot. "How would you like to come back on Saturday for both shows" I hear from the manager. SWEEET!! So I go back on Saturday where the crowds were great. I gave it my all, my St. Patrick's Day bit worked great, even on Saturday, and the manager of the Cherry Hill Rascals recommended me to some other Rascals clubs. Sometimes, I love the way things work out

This weekend, I am performing in two different places in Delaware. Friday night will be with Geno Bisconte and some kick-ass comics he is bringing down with him from NYC. There is no better way for my ego to come down of this high like realizing how much better everyone else is. Sometimes, I hate the way things work out.

Forgetful whores!

Tue, 8 Mar 2005 21:32:48 EST

Damn it! My web hosting company suspended my service last night after giving me a bill 5 days before. I had 5 days to pay it. But, it was for the past year because they forgot to bill me for 12 months. 12 months! That is their business. How can you give something to someone for 12 months and forget to charge them? That's like a whore going down on 12 different guys and forgetting to collect the crack rock while wiping him off of her mouth. Sure, even I have forgotten after 2 or 3 "clients" but certainly not 12. Umm, disregard that last comment.

So this past Saturday I performed at a place called the Bent Elbo. A comic named Dan Glammer co-produced the show. I had a fun time their and the room was close to full. This was actually the first show that Dan and his partner have put on there, with many more in the future. It sure makes a guy feel good when you're asked to perform in the premier show for a club. The other comics in the show were Dan Glammer as the MC, Jim Burns, Martha Gay, and Geno Bisconte was the headliner. I love to watch Geno. He comes right out and insults a guy in the front row, but does it in such a way as to not get his ass kicked. Every time I see him I am amazed at how well he takes control of the audience and makes them love him while throwing slapping them in the face. I love every minute of his act.

So I am slowly adding new things to this site. Soon, you will be able to read all of my past ramblings here, instead of just the past 5 entries. I am trying to make everything automatic so that everything gets updated properly when it is supposed to. I love PCP...sorry, PHP.

Ooof!

Fri, 4 Mar 2005 23:07:40 EST

This cracked me up. Everyone is raving about Jamie Foxx right now. "He is such a great actor", "He is the best actor of the year", blah blah blah. Mr Foxx has one of the crapiest movies ever thought up coming out this summer called Stealth. When you see the trailer, tell me they didn't just combine Short Circuit and Top Gun and try to pass it off as a summer blockbuster. We will see just how good of an actor Jamie Foxx is when he is promoting this movie and he is trying to convince America that this movie is worth spending two hours and $10 a person. He would have been better off just signing on to do "Ray 2: I Still Can't See Shit". Also, listen for the AOL guy to make his feature debut in the trailer saying "Good Bye". You'll get the reference when you see the trailer.

The ol' switcheroo

Tue, 1 Mar 2005 23:00:34 EST

I got tired of the layout of my website so I changed it just enough to feel like it was different. Kind of like moving your dresser to the left by a foot and feeling you have a whole new room. Well, maybe not. Anyway, I took down the front page where you fine folks could choose between a Flash version or HTML version of my site. Now, I just give you the HTML version and let you decide if you want the Flash version by clicking the link at the bottom of each page. I might just do away with the flash version all together. I haven't decided yet. I'm sure you all are on pins and needles, quivering with anticipation, awaiting my decision. Well, I have come to a decision...and my decision is... to think about it a bit longer.

So this past weekend's shows went fairly well. I was booked in the fine towns of Skippack and Audubon, Pennsylvania! Actually, it was with Chuckles, the clubs that I started out performing in. Friday's show was on track to being a crappy show. At show time, there were about 12 people in the room, and they were all pretty quiet. Suddenly, a group of 8 or 9 lively people came walking in. Thank the comedy Gods for them, because they came ready to laugh and helped the rest of the audience get in the laughing mood as well.

Saturday's first show was packed. Sold out. Standing room only. Sweeeet. That was a great show, until one of the comics got booed and yelled at by an audience member. BOOOO!! YOU SUCK!!! GET OFF STAGE!!! I felt bad for the comic because no matter what you say back, you still got booed at. The comic wrapped up and got off stage. The audience was a bit unruly at first, but came back around and really enjoyed the other acts, including the headliner Glen Jensen.

The second show, which takes place about 20 minutes away in a different club, was not packed by any means. The room holds about 80 people, and there were about 14 scattered mostly along the back wall. Towards the end of the show, they came around, but it wasn't the best way to end the three shows. You do find out very odd things when you are playing to a small audience. For instance, one woman complained because her husband apparently yells out her sister's name during sex. That same woman also holds a patent on a salad dressing. Who the hell knew that you could patent a salad dressing?

So I am doing a show tomorrow (Wednesday) for a private party with a few of my comedy buddies. I think that they are a bunch of salesmen or something. It would probably help if I knew that. Then I was asked to perform at a new club just getting started. In fact, it is their premier show. Quite an honor that I was asked to do it. With all the crappy comics in Philly, they picked me. Quite an honor indeed. More about it after the show. It could go good (lots of promotion and the first show at this club) or bad (not much promotion until they see how the show goes). It is in a bar/restaurant, so we will see. Seacrest out!

Just for the record...I HATE SNOW!

Life on the road!

Wed, 23 Feb 2005 19:00:00 EST

Alright, I am finally coming down off of my Spamalot high. I can finally get back to what I normally do...think that I am almost funny.

I spent damn near every weekend of last year performing in the same few clubs every weekend, and it was great. Crowds came and went, hecklers came and went, my creativity and motivation came and went. I learned a lot and was able to try a lot as well. I will forever be indebted to those clubs for giving me opportunities that most clubs would not. But lately, I have been getting some very interesting work on the road. In fact, I became an official road comic last weekend by staying overnight in a little motel in between gigs. Allow me to begin from the beginning.

I booked two shows for the weekend that were in different parts of PA. Friday night was a show in Danville, PA. I left Philly at 5:00 hoping to get there around 7:30. Mapquest.com said that it would take about 2 hours, 17 minutes. That is, of course, without rush hour traffic on the Friday of a three day weekend. D'oh!! After doing 80 mph trying to make up for lost time I make it there just before 8:00. The show starts at 9:00, so I decide to go check into the room that was set up for me. It was a room at the Red Roof Inn. Not a bad room, but it was clean and had everything I needed. Just before I checked in, I see Alan Marx, the headliner that I will be performing with. We decide to go to the show together. Peggy Wink, another funny comedian and Alan's girlfriend, joined us. We walk in, and there are about 30 people. By the time the show is supposed to start, there are 14. We do the show, the energy level never gets above 0, but some folks still come up to us and ask for our autographs and say that they enjoyed the show. Fine. Kinda crappy? Yes. Still getting paid and learning from each experience? Hell yeah. Moving on.

The next day, Alan, Peggy and I went Geocaching. That is where you have the latitude and longitude of some sort of treasure. It can be anything from a child's toy to something rather valuable. Once you find it, you are supposed to leave something in its place. And you are supposed to find it using a GPS locater. It is a high tech treasure hunt. Very cool, especially while you are on the road with nothing else to do during the day. So this hunt led us to a very small cemetery with about 30 or so graves many dating back to the revolutionary war. We found the lock box, and it was full of all kind of stuff like childrens toys, playing cards, and money. The dollar bill that was in there was one that was registered on WheresGeorge.com. So Alan took that to update it on the internet, and left some kind of child's watch that Peggy's daughter got out of a happy meal. It was a lot of fun and a great way to waste time while on the road.

Saturdays show went much better than Fridays. It was for about 100 people in Chamberburg, PA. Very nice people and great laughers. The headliner, Keith Purnell never showed up though, even though he had confirmed with the booker two days before. From what I was told, he always shows up early, so I hope nothing bad happened to him. The middle act, John DelVecchio stretched out his act and made up for Keith not being there. The audience had a great time, and so did I. It was a great way to end a performing weekend.

Yes, I'm still alive

Tue, 22 Feb 2005 23:19:40 EST

I haven't updated this section of my website for a while and for the two other people that read this (hi mom and dad), yes, I'm still alive and kickin'. I have been doing a lot of shows lately, mostly private events all over the state of PA. This last weekend was a blast. One, because I had a great show on Saturday, a mediocre show on Friday, but mostly because of Monday. Can you say Spamalot? Yes, I had the grand honor of enjoying Monty Python's Spamalot on Broadway. It was friggin' unbelievable? Don't believe me? Ask Jude Law. He was about six rows up from me. Eric Idle, the genius behind it, was there as well. Go buy tickets for the next available show, wait the two years, and go see it. It probably won't have Tim Curry, Hank Azaria or David Hyde Pierce in it like it does now, but I am sure that it will still be unbelievable. I will write more about my shows from this past weekend in a bit. I am still taking in everything Monty Python. RUN AWAY!!

Out of my slump

Sun, 10 Oct 2004 20:32:29 EDT

I was in a baaaad slump. For the last month and a half or so, for some reason, my shows have not been going well. Sure, some of my recent shows have been for six people in friggin' Wagontown, PA or for 25 depressed assholes at another club, but c'mon! It is weird how I can do seven or eight awesome shows in a row, and then do seven or eight shitty shows in a row. Well, I have crawled out of my slump, finally. And who would have guessed that it would happen at the Valley Forge Beef and Ale? Yes, the very establishment that I made fun of in my last post. The sold-out crowd there was awesome and both the comics and the audience had a great time. In Vegas, the summertime is a busy time for shows and comedy clubs. In PA (and I am assuming most places other than Vegas) everyone leaves for the summer to go on vacation...to Vegas. So everyone is back home and the crowds around Philly should really start to pick up. And with big crowds come better crowds. And with better crowds, hopefully this slump won't rear its ugly head until next summer, when I plan on going on vacation with the crowds...to Vegas.

Top of the World!!

Mon, 30 Aug 2004 21:43:59 EDT

I just hit the pinnacle that a comic can hit. I was just booked at the Valley Forge Beef and Ale! The friggin' Beef and Ale!! They couldn't decide if they wanted to be a bar or a steak house. So...what the hell, we'll just combine the two. I think that they could have come up with a better name though, you know, considering that the place is in a town called Audubon, but it is called the Valley Forge Beef and Ale. But what about a Beef Leg and Keg. Or Moo's and Brews. Even Steers 'n Beers. But Beef and Ale? Oy! But it's a paying gig, so who am I to complain? Then again, a Crack Whore gets paid, and there is no way that I am doing what they do...ever again.

Holy Crap!

Wed, 18 Aug 2004 01:21:31 EDT

Ok, I figured that I have put off writing in this silly thing for long enough. When was the last time I wrote in here? March? Holy crap. I suck at this journal thing. Well, a lot has happened since I last wrote in here. But nothing exciting. The really exciting stuff is coming up within the next few weeks. In one week I am starting a new job. Unfortunately, the $.35 a night I make doing stand up doesn't pay all of the bills. So I am starting a new job in the heart of Philly as a computer geek writing code. Yummy. In a week and a half, I am moving into a house. The day that the papers get signed will be exactly one year to the day that I moved out here to PA from Vegas. Weird. Not really. I also just got accepted into Temple University. I need to finish my degree to get it over and done with. Damn it. I am realizing that this section of my website is called NEWS, but it isn't news at all. It is more like a journal. But, NEWS fits better, so I guess that I will just leave it. I have been doing rather well at stand up lately. I am getting a lot of people coming up to me after the show and shaking my hand telling me how much they enjoyed my set. A woman came up to me this past weekend and told me that she thought that I was just as funny as Dat Phan, last season's winner on Last Comic Standing. Thanks, he isn't funny. But I took it as a compliment anyway. I wish that I had something funny to say to end this little journal entry...poop.

Harrisburg Competition

Wed, 31 Mar 2004 23:49:37 EST

So, I went. Steve Balbier, a standup comic buddy of mine, and I went to the competition in Harrisburg. We met some cool comedians there, and it was my first competition, so I was a little nervous. The first contestant got up on stage and started singing the same two lines of a song over and over and over and over and over again. All the while he has a giant purple condom with a whipped cream can shooting whipped cream all over the stage and asking if anyone wanted a pearl necklace. Nobody laughed. It was disturbing. There were 12 comics in total competing to go on to the final round. I was getting a bit nervous until I walked outside, and went over my act in my head. For some reason, I felt much better. I went up, gave it my all, and waited for the laugh's. Nothing. Well, I shouldn't say nothing. A few people found a few things slightly humorous, but not much. In the end, a very cool guy named Randy Latini (www.RLComedy.com)won for the evening. He had a very funny act, and he seemed like a cool guy. I would have been a bit upset if the whipped cream jizz-meister had won. I would have dropped out of comedy on the spot. Yes, that is all that it would have taken. You lucky bastards!