November has been an amazing month for me. I feel bad saying that, because I never like to admit that things are going well. It’s one of those things where I think that if I say it out loud, I’ll jinx it or something.
It all started back in early November when I got to head down to the Boston Comedy Festival. I’ve never been to a festival before, so this was pretty cool. I had also never been to Boston before, so that was pretty cool too. I flew down on Sunday night and just relaxed at my hotel. Monday, I took care of some day job stuff in the morning and then shortly after noon, I took off to tour downtown Boston. What a nice city. I took a tour of Fenway Park, which was amazing. I would love to actually check out a game there one day. Certainly has a bit more atmosphere than the Rogers Center. After that, I bummed around Boston Common, Bunker Hill and of course, had to go have a beer at Cheers.
That night, I was supposed to meet up with an old buddy from university and we were going to check out the Bruins / Islanders game either live or at a pub somewhere. Unfortunately, about 5 o’clock, he messaged me and said that the trains running into the city from where he lives were canceled and he likely couldn’t make it down. That kind of sucked. But then I thought about it and said screw it. I went over to the TD Garden and found a scalper and ended up picking up a ticket for the game. Why not? I am in Boston, there is a game going on, my night’s plans fell through and really, when am I going to be in Boston again.
The ticket I picked up was 22 rows from the ice and the face value on it was $72. I got it for $85. Hell, the same ticket in Toronto has a face value on it of $165. So needless to say, I got a great deal, at least in my mind. Went to the game and what an atmosphere. Holy crap! Compared to going to a game at the ACC this was phenomenal. The crowd was into it from the drop of the puck, and the beers were only $7.50. I feel like I made money on the night.
The next day, I did some more touristy type stuff and then headed up to do my show at Davis Square Theater in, oddly enough, Davis Square, which is in Somerville, just north of the city. I will be honest in that it wasn’t my best set ever. I wasn’t bad, but I only had 5 minutes, and for some reason, I felt super rushed, and I think it showed. I got laughs in all the spots where I was supposed to, but probably not as strong a laugh as they would have been had I been more relaxed. After the show, I got to hang out and chat with a few of the Boston comics as well as the festival organizer. It was a great time and I’m very happy that I got the chance to do it. I think that if I do it again, I’ll fly in on the day of my show and stick around after to enjoy more of the festival.
On Wednesday, I flew back to Toronto and then drove up to Ottawa for a weekend of shows in Ottawa with Matt Bergman out of Buffalo and Jason Laurans. As always, a great week of shows, but the Saturday early show was unlike anything I’ve ever been part of. It was amazing!! The crowd was magical that night. The laughter, the applause, the pounding on the tables. It was truly unreal. Luckily though, we had a tired and drunk late show crowd which brought me back to earth and humbled me in a meaningful way. But even with that, I had an awesome weekend and am already looking forward to heading back there.
This past weekend, I had the pleasure of doing shows up at the Mansion House in Barrie with Barry Taylor and Chris Quigley. Everything I have heard about Barrie was true. I was doing one of my jokes where I have to dance around and some hillbilly yelled out for me to take off my shirt. People-there are just some things you can’t un-see. I can’t do that to an audience of people. But still, it was a fun weekend.
This coming weekend (November 23 -27) I’ll be at Absolute Comedy in Toronto hosting for Ward Anderson and Mike Takacs. I’m really looking forward to it and it should be a fun weekend. If you’re in town, you should drop on by.
