Only One Mic

 

Tuesday December 16^th, I had the opportunity to perform at Ric Branson’s House of Comedy 5350 E. High Street Suite105 Phoenix. The club was very fun to do a set in, a high-tech, cutting edge feel-- of which I’m neither. Nick Paul schedules the weekly show; it’s a booked open mic, with a few “show up, go up” spots for unexpected guests, most evenings have seven minute sets. Guest host Ben Vitoff did a great job of pointing out that I was traveling with two older fat guys. I knew this, I just don’t know if they knew it, because one was not too old and the other was not really that fat. We were slightly older than the average age of most mic-ers, but those other two guys are funny. I was a little nervous, maybe not so much nervous, just a bit uncomfortable, new venue, real venue. Genevieve Rice had me laughing with a solid 15 minutes to finish out the night.

Over the weekend Outliars Comedy Club – Awautukee had Tamale Seel headlining; she was raised in the Valley and her friends and family packed the house both nights. She went to Chicago eight years ago to train improv at Second City.  She is a graduate of the University of Arizona with a degree in agricultural science which she isn’t using to grow hydroponics for medicinal use--what a waste of an education. She travels internationally, just returning from the UK and Europe, performing comedy and burlesque shows.  She shared her improv and stand up skills with us. Improv in the hands of the right performers is a beautiful thing.  What a fun time to perform to a full room, with a spot light, and a mic. I performed stand up both nights, using a different 5 minutes each night.

Tuesday December 22^nd, Copper Blues Tempe 930 E. University Dr. Tempe, hosted Copper Comedy Ugly Sweater Show.  My family was in town for the holiday, I was looking forward to performing for them. I can’t thank Matt Storrs enough for having me on the show.  It was my first appearance since the show relocated from Copper Blues Phoenix a few months ago.  It’s my favorite mic stage, set up behind the 60+ tap handles, in front of a painting of Keith Richards it’s always a thrill for me. I know my sweater was a beauty-- Donna crafted some Santa’s shaped like trees with a nice Christmas tree to a favorite old sweater of mine.  Matt, Eric Beaz, and Roman Grigsby host a booked seven minute spot, showcase type show every Tuesday.  Holiday week is always a great time for mics because you never who is in town visiting friends and family. We were treated to three out of town comedians. Bri Giger from San Diego had a great set.  Following the booked show each week is a fast paced 3 minute show up go up segment called the speed round. First timers to booked feature performers were in the speed round tonight.

Outliars Comedy Club – Awautukee over the weekend, Friday night we got to do a set followed by an opportunity to do a long form improve scene with Outliars Director Dave Thurston. We were given the suggestion of back talking to your grandmother, I took the grandmother position and Dave was an 18 month old back talking baby.  I struggled with the scene, it was exciting just feel short in the laugh trace. Saturday had fun with the stand up set, struggled with the warm up exercises.  My thoughts were expressed by others, and I wasn’t coming up with 2^nd or 3^rd thoughts.  Enjoyed my short form inspired by the day of a fun young lady in the audience.  I tried to be a lady in both scenes the grandmother and a high school aged girl.  

 With the New Year approaching, I wish each of you the best as you pursue your dreams.  Let’s make them laugh in 2015 and figure a way to at least cover our transportation costs for the year.

Jessica Walking

Dos Gringos Mexican Restaurant 8000 S. Priest Dr, Tempe hosts a great mic every Tuesday.  Jill Bryan’s Comedy Fiesta, makes sure that if you show up, you go up. She allows five minute sets most of the time, seven minutes with a crowd that is listening and receptive.  These “Taco Tuesdays” are a comedy night favorite at Dos with their hard shell beef tacos $1 being a very tasty value.  The wait staff provides the best service on the open mic trail.  A very good mix of mic-ers, first timers, and paid professionals show up at this Comedy Fiesta.  You never know who will show up, and tonight’s line up was no different.  Being the first comedian up for the night at a mic is my favorite position, and tonight it was available.  Perfect, just working my five minute set, nice and easy. Now, I just need to write a couple of Christmas jokes before my family arrives in town next week and we head off to Copper Blues Tempe’s Ugly Sweater Open Mic Night. 

Now for the week’s real comedy adventure!  Jessica Watkins walked into the valley with a 31-mile day on the 87 from Payson into Fountain Hills on Wednesday afternoon.  She has walked nearly 1800 miles from Delaware to a planned finish on the coast of California at Christmas.   She’s been doing comedy where she can find a show, pushing a 3 wheel baby running stroller the whole way.  To make it look all that more homeless, she has restarted an old cigarette smoking habit along the trail.  She stayed with me in Chandler for five days and was quickly back on the road to continue her journey. I enjoyed hearing about the matter of factness to her adventure.  She said that everything changed daily, so she didn’t linger on any trouble for too long. While in town I tried to give her plenty of room to get her things done and to recover from the 24-hour virus she got to experience (unfortunately, I too shared with her.) It kicked us pretty hard for about 48 hours.  I had it earlier in the week and thought that I had sterilized the environment, so I felt bad; it sucked. She’s a very talented comedian-- I enjoyed listening to her material that she is just getting started on.  She will have nearly 9 months off experience on the road to pull material from when she get back home and starts writing. 

Thursday evening she got a guest spot on the booked show at Monkey Pants. Cristin Davis does a nice job of keeping the spirit in the room right and usually books about six weeks out.  It was my first visit to Monkey Pants with Cristin producing the show.  Following the Cardinals Game, the room filled with appreciative listeners.    Jessica enjoyed the Potato Skins and had a good set of material from the road that she is working through. Gomez Dickerpuss is a great host that runs a nicely paced show and is quite the fancy dresser.  It was hard to sit through the show and not do a set.

The Comedy Spot Scottsdale offered Jessica the opportunity to do a set in the first show, and she did such a good set Gene extended the invitation to include the 10:00 show.  Chris Sisneros had a great set, solid laughs on every effort.  I failed to see the headliner as I tripped trying to duck under his camera that was taping his set.  I managed to fall into a chair and have my nose explode like Duane Bobick’s when he was fighting Foreman in the 70’s. 

Saturday we had a brunch show at Frankie’s Famous Pizza.  Rob Greenspan produced and hosted the 12:00 high noon event.  Got to hear Steve Moreno, Rick Olson, and Dave Thurston all do short highlight stand up sets.  Jessica took questions about her trip which she had wanted to do.  I’m thinking it might have been a low point of her trip as she failed to record an event for the first time since she left Delaware.  We really all enjoyed performing, and it’s never bad when you get compensated in pizza, garlic rolls, and fresh Gilbert backyard grown tangerines which Donna enjoyed.  If I get good on the pizza parlor trail, maybe a bag of tangerines some day?

The Rick and Rob Podcast invited Jessica to be their guest this week.  Recording took place following the noon show at Frankie’s.  Rick Olson and Rob Greenspan did a great job of asking insightful questions about her trip, writing style, writing habits, and post walk production plans.  Jessica enjoyed doing the show and will use it as a spring board to the Sklar Brothers podcast Sklarbro Country which she’s scheduled to appear on January 13^th.  We enjoyed hosting Jessica at the house for a few nights and look forward to following her as she concludes her trip near Christmas,  jessicawatkinscomedy.com check her out.

I did try to write a joke about Jessica for the show at Frankie’s titled “Jessica Walkin” on the set list…

I recently met this comedian who is walking across the United States doing shows. It’s remarkable to me because, some days it’s an effort just to get the mail at the end of the driveway.  What struck me as we talked was how matter of fact she had gotten by this point in the walk, leaving all the doubt back in Pennsylvania. Things like” I met a lady going the other direction last week.” I got to thinking “How many people are doing this?” really, it’s just a few.  If I was matter of factly about my week, last week it would have included conversations about drinking a cup of peppermint mocha swirl, or maybe the lion display at zoo lights, or getting that colonoscopy scheduled.

Going To Miss The Woodland's

Quoting Russell Peters, “You don’t choose comedy, it chooses you.”   As I continue to work through the 10,000 hour process, I get more addicted every day.  I just have to figure out how to make a living doing something else, while concentrating all my energy and efforts on getting better for the next five years.  With the Christmas season in full gear I have already started thinking about my objectives for the coming year.  I believe great strides will be attained in my ability to make people laugh, if I continue to concentrate on being myself on stage and working harder at writing jokes than Jerry Corley, and  I don’t know anybody that does that!  Jerry Corley is the founder of the Stand Up Comedy Clinic with 30 years experience in the comedy industry, and he still writes jokes for three hours a day, every day.  About the only writing I do currently for that amount of time each day is responding to the craziness on Facebook and Twitter.  My time will be better spent this coming year.  I hope the Woodland’s don’t miss me.

I last enjoyed an open mic at the Grand Avenue Pizza Company 1031 Grand Ave. Phoenix;  Leslie Barton is working hard at putting together great nights for guests and mic-ers.  It’s an open air event every Tuesday at 9:00; two comedians open the show with 20 minute sets and then 5 minute sets for the ‘Show Up Go Up” portion of the show.  Tonight Jason Hill “killed it” for about 35 minutes because the other opener stayed home as a result of the light rain that was falling at show time.  I’m not sure what “killing it” is, and I don’t even like the phrase, and not even sure that can be accomplished in a backyard at a pizza store. What I do know is that Jason Hill is insightful and hilarious, and tonight was no exception.  He’s the only local comedian that my wife quotes, which makes me wonder.

 

My set went well, I love the outdoors, hunting, fishing, and comedy.  I got caught not knowing it was an open air venue, but I had an old hunting coat in the trunk of the ’96 Le Baron.  It gave me a good intro to “The Nuge” a joke in my current set about the time Ted Nugent tried to give me a little pep talk to take better care of myself, but he really just told me I was a fat ass.  I also got a smile when the host reminded those who showed up “just to riff” that they needed to write some material before coming back.  Most everyone was enjoying a slice of pizza, and I joined them.  The crust was soft, hand tossed style and topped well, a slice and a bottle of soda for less than $6.00, a value for downtown.

Later, I joined promoter Bobby ”DJ Mellow B” Johnson and host Steve Jenkins for their every other Wednesday night open mic at Native Grill, Mesa.  It’s basically a home game for me, a quick trip following improv rehearsal with the Outliars Comedy Club.   The list of scheduled mic-ers was short so we all enjoyed 10 minute spots.  The crowd was smaller than any of the previous shows these past two months.  Hopefully it was just a holiday lull and not that we haven’t been making them laugh enough.  This show gets a little edgier than most, even for a late night bar mic.  I think most of the mic-ers enjoy this, but sometimes I think we have to remember we aren’t there to entertain ourselves.  I was the last mic-er of the night to perform my ten minute set.  I revisited a favorite of mine “Brushes with Greatness,” a joke that isn’t in my set currently to fill in my ten minutes.

“Brushes with Greatness”   I’ve had a few brushes with greatness in my life and two of them have occurred in the Men’s room.  The first time was when singer, song writer, actor Tom Waits was next to me at a small club in Chicago prior to a show.  That was the easy one, I kept focused on the task in hand, and we had a little chit chat on the way out.  The second time, I was taking a leak when “Fezzik” from the Princess Bride movie, “The 8^th Wonder of the World”, the WWF’s greatest champion all 7’4” 500lbs. growing every day Andre the Giant strolls up to the two urinals next to me.   All I can say about this encounter, is I haven’t been able to buy any 5 lbs. pork loins since.

With no further, recent brushes with greatness to attest to, I was able to perform two shows at the Outliars Comedy Club-Awautukee over the weekend.  I’m fortunate on these shows that I’m given the opportunity to perform a five minute stand up set and perform with the Outliars.  Dave Thurston had the laugh of the weekend with a scene on how Santa Claus has branded a holiday, while the turkey and the bunny are just the faces of the other two big holidays.  Dave is the director and lead instructor of the Outliars, who shares the knowledge and insight he learned while training in Chicago at Second City.  I had a few good laughs during the improv portion on Friday, and my cronies got a laugh out of me when I shared with the audience that “I’m a dreamer without a lot of ambition.”  I think that may be how you end starting a comedy career at the age of 55.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

None Of The Girls Wanted The "Cosby"

 

On Wednesday, I joined comedian Rob Greenspan and went to Crack Ups Comedy Clubs Open Mic.  Rob did a whole set of new material that he wrote that day, just to try it out.  It’s amazing  that he can just write jokes almost on the spot and get some laughs at a mic.  Checkout Robs’ webpage @ www.bottomfive comedy.com for an insightful spin on the popular Top 10 list, made famous on Late Night. 

I tried a new joke titled, “AZ Panner” and then went onto the set I was planning on doing over the coming weekend.  Stumbled through the new joke, but I like it, we’ll continue to work on it. 

Sidney Smith, owner of Crack Ups, runs a great mic, seven minutes of stage time.  Following your set you have the opportunity to ask the crowd for a review and possible solutions to any problems you encountered during your time.  Tonight, nobody asked the crowd for assistance, even though quite a few of us could have used it.  If you have a particularity strong set, Sidney has been known to invite you to open for the upcoming weekend’s show.  He was kind enough to mention that he thinks I’m getting better, which was very kind and needed after the show on Sunday (Blog #3).

Tonight I didn’t enjoy anything off the menu; I have enjoyed the pizza in the past and look forward to slice on my next visit.  The menu items are named after famous comedians; I couldn’t get any of the girls at our table to try the”Cosby.” 

You might have heard the base for “AZ Panner” on Skewdcast last week.  I still think about my move to Phoenix, still trying to figure out if I made the right decision.   In Michigan, the town I left was so rural. I lived on a dirt road that maybe had 10 cars a day on it, and that was usually on days I was twisting a couple.  The road had so little traffic that after the winter thaw and really any large rains my neighbor and his kids would be panning for yellow gold right at the end of my driveway.  They would pan until they had enough to finance their next family vacation; don’t get me wrong, they had a lot of staycations, but they would always find some.  When we got here we lived at the corner of Ray and the 101. Maybe 3000 cars would go by an hour, when I sat in that apartment and looked out my window I could see the freeway panner, he seemed to be doing a little better than my neighbor and this guy’s wife didn’t bring me cookies at the end of the day. 

On Friday night following a fun Thanksgiving celebration, I was excited to perform at Comedy on Fire #20; this show is the last Friday of every month.  It takes place on an open air stage located at the Firehouse Gallery 1015 N 1^st St Phoenix.  If you decide to attend a future show at Comedy on Fire, know that it is a BYOB event.  Comedy and your own booze, does it get any better than that?!

At Comedy on Fire you’re never quite sure what going to happen besides a great laugh.  Once this past summer they had a guy closing the show, juggling fireballs on stage, as a great fireworks display from a wedding was going off in the distance.  It’s one show I really look forward to appearing on and Matt Micheletti has been kind enough to book me on it about every three months.  Under the stars and with the glow of the city lighting the sky, guest host Ben Jamming had me open the show.  I enjoy opening because those who are seated are ready to laugh and that was the case tonight.  I had a good set, prior to taking to the stage this evening I had a break through--To try and just be myself when I go on stage.  

I Knew I Was "The Fat Guy"

Friday November 21^st, I performed improv with the Outliars at their new room Outliars Comedy Club – Awautukee.  The Outliars Comedy Club-Awautukee is located in the Four Points by Sheraton Phoenix South Mountain 10831 S. 51^st St, Phoenix southwest corner of Elliott and I-10 contact the ticket office at 480-784-7258.At most improv shows; I struggle with the start of the show.  Tonight was no different, these evenings ‘Things you shouldn’t say…” with subjects like “to the family at a wake when you were the mistress” or ”when leaving the opposite sex bathroom to the opposite sex.”  As often as I say the wrong thing, you would think this is a portion of the show that I should excel in.  I think the audience enjoyed the short form improv that I performed with Dave Thurston and Ryan Johnson.  Andrew Flynn and Rob Greenspan had good scenes and a lot of laughs from the opening night crowd. We were getting good laughs with the improv scenes that we finished @ 87 minutes, just short of our 90 minute objective.  No one got a standup set in, and that was alright though we were all eager to.  

Saturday I had the opportunity to appear as a guest on Skewdcast, it’s a podcast soon to be vodcast.  This was the second show for host Isaac Boda and producer Daniel Cotterman.  It was streamed live @ www.skewd.com; I was excited when I got home to hear that my wife Donna listened to the show.  I enjoyed talking with Isaac; he grew up in Harrisville, Michigan.  I have fished for perch out of Harrisville a few times.   It was within a 100 miles of where I lived in Michigan.   I also attended college in Michigan at Ferris State University in the late 70s and early 80s, and I shared a story about college life in Big Rapids. During one short 93 day period in 1980 I ate acid for 93 days.  I know it sounds wrong, but I really enjoyed the run-- it was nothing but fun.  Unfortunately, Isaac believes the Guinness Book of Records record for eating acid on consecutive days was 94 days.  We were both saddened by this; I think that might have been the summer I listened to the Grateful Dead frequently.

Sunday Night I was scheduled on Michael Turner’s Showcase @ Stand Up Scottsdale.  I enjoy performing at Stand Up Scottsdale.  It’s where I watched comedy for my first nine months after arriving in Phoenix and where I decided that I could tell jokes.  We each performed five minute sets; I got the light just as I was starting “The Mick” so I rushed the joke and didn’t finish strong, but the first four minutes felt solid. The laughs were there where they should have been.   Part of the attraction to the night is that the showcase is followed by a national touring headliner finishing off a four day six show stay in Scottsdale.  Comedian Joe Matarese who has appeared on Letterman and was a finalist on Americas Got Talent this past season was finishing off the show.  Apparently he wasn’t happy with his decision to hold over for a Sunday show.  He started off bitching about his accommodations for the weekend, the lack of a crowd for tonight’s show estimated at forty people, and the lack of laughter he was receiving.   He felt the lack of laughter was because he was following a bringer show and that the audience wasn’t aware they could start laughing at all jokes, not just their friend’s efforts.  A bringer show is a show where the performers are required or encouraged to bring an audience in exchange for the stage time.  SUS owner and friend Howard Hughes doesn’t believe in bringer shows, but this show has all the qualities of one.  Call it what you want, but if you had a crowd with you, you received additional time this evening.   After a lull in his performance, Mr. Matarese threatened the crowd with bringing the shittiest showcase performer back to the stage.  He asked the crowd, “Who sucked the most?!” Initially, they appeared uncomfortable with the request, but before he continued with his set, someone yelled “the fat guy!”   Hearing that, I thought that there were probably five guys on stage that night that could exercise more, but, ultimately, I knew that I was “the fat guy.”

It was a great weekend behind the mic even though everything doesn’t go your way and you don’t make everyone laugh, I love Phoenix Mic Life.