Update and Stuff

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.

Just what I needed!

Over the past couple of years, life has been so busy. I'm not complaining, but merely stating a fact. Between my day job, my relationship and wedding plans, hockey and other commitments, one of the things that has ended up getting pushed aside has been working on comedy. That doesn't mean I haven't been doing shows or working on my act, because I have. But I haven't been working on it as much as I probably should. I had gotten out of the habit of hitting open mic's on a weekly basis. And to be honest, a lot of the time I did go out, it ended up being a waste of time. So it almost became a self fulfilling thing where I began to wonder if it was worth leaving the house.

Well tonight I had a show that gave me reason and inspiration to get out an really start hustling again. I popped into Betty's to do a spot on Brian Coughlin's Corktown Comedy show. There wasn't much of a crowd, in fact there may not have been a real audience member there when it did my set. But it felt good. It felt alright. It felt like it used to. I decided that I wanted to really work on new stuff tonight. Not all of it worked. Hell, probably more than half of it didn't work. But one bit that I came up with a couple of weeks ago did.

I had forgotten what it feels like to have a new bit work right out of the gate. The bit is still small and has tons of room to grow, but I love it. And I love the feeling I got tonight. It reminded me of why I do comedy and why I don't think I could ever quit doing comedy.

Thank you Dunsford

Had the privilege of doing a show at the Nestle In Resort up in Dunsford, a little town just outside Bobcaygeon, which is a little town just north west of Peterborough. Shows at trailer parks are the types of shows that kind of scare you at first. You never really know what to expect. It could be a bunch of drunken hillbillies drinking moonshine right from the still, or in the case of Saturday, a great group of people who own RV's at a nice resort as a great way to get away for the weekend. Oh sure, some of them were drunk. Okay, most of them were drunk. And some may have been hillbillies, but dammit, they were a hell of a lot of fun.

I was on the show with Brian Hope and Andrew Evans. I know, shocking. I never work with those guys. But hey, I'll do a fun show with my friends any day of the week. Brian as MC was at his best, easily working the crowd, milking every laugh out of them. Evans as closer tore the roof off that barn with the highlight being his making fun of the guy with the eye patch. One of those things you had to be there to see. Me as middle, well, it may not have been my best show ever. Probably not even in my top 10, top 25, or even top 100. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't bad or anything, but I can be honest and say that I wasn't as sharp as I've been at other times. But if I were to rate shows on how much fun I had while being on stage, I would say that this one was easily in my top 5.

It was one of those shows where from the second I got on the stage, I was having fun. I was in the moment, just rolling with it, having a great time. It was one of those nights where I didn't have to worry if I was being me, or if I was being too dirty, or if I was doing too much time, or whatever, I could just relax, have fund and do what I do and that is tell jokes to people on stage. Oh sure, technically there are a ton of things I could have done better, crowd work for example but as far as having a great time on stage, I was on. The crowd seemed to enjoy themselves too, every joke seemed to hit reasonably well, which is as important as me having a good time. But for me, given that my last show was just a horrible experience from start to finish, this was just what I needed to remind me why I love doing comedy and how important doing comedy is to me.

What is the matter with people?

I did a show tonight at a place that shall remain nameless to protect the guilty. Tonight, there were 5 fundraisers in the building. The show started off well enough. The crowd was relatively attentive and seemed to listen. The opener went up and did okay for about 5 minutes. After that,  the crowd just started talking. At one point it got so bad that the opener said to a table of women "if you guys don't shut up, I am going to come over there and take a shit in your mouth." Classy. Needless to say,  the rest of his set was a bit of a struggle.

The host goes up and does what he does and then brings me up. From the second I got on stage, people were texting, and chatting. People who were listening were laughing but as more people started chatting and texting, it became more and more of a struggle. Again, people who were listening were enjoying the show, but I feel bad for them. They came to a show and didn't get as good a show as they could have because of the insensitive fucktards who were disrupting the show.

Here's a tip - if you want to chat and text, stay the fuck home. I would rather perform for 50 people who are interested in the show than 100 where half the crowd would apparently rather be anywhere but the show. And when you talk and text, you risk screwing up the entire show for everyone. So I guess what I'm saying is shut the hell up or I'll send them opener over to "take a shit in your mouth."

Peterborough Here I come!

I grew up in Peterborough. I'll be honest, when I lived there, I hated it. I couldn't wait to get the hell out of there. But now that I'm older, it's weird how much I really like the place. It's one of those places that I probably wouldn't hate living in again at some point in time. It's a nice little town. Probably not a bad place to raise a family. I was up there on Wednesday and driving around, it's amazing how much the place has changed, yet how much of it is still the same. All the crazy memories come flooding back - playing hockey at the tennis courts on Barnardo Ave, Thursday night movies at the zoo, , trying to steal the population sign, passing out and sleeping the night in King Edward Park (I've never been more proud!), late nights on the river in a boat, and of course my years spent working at the Beer Store on Lansdowne. Everywhere I went in town, I was "the beer guy". Even 10 years after I left, I was in a bar and some dude called me "the beer guy".

So on Saturday night, it will be fun to head "home" and do a show at Johnny Eh's on Water Street. On the show with me are two of my very good friends, Brian Hope and Andrew Evans. I'm hosting, so I'm not sure whether I'll do my regular stuff, or whether I'll tell a bunch of stories about growing up there. I guess we'll have to see how I feel when I get there. But it will be a fun show. And after, maybe we'll head on down the street to Riley's to see if I can't pull a Sebastain Bach and get tossed out of the place for being totally shitfaced and mocking the piano player and spitting wine on the manager. Or maybe I can head on down to the Red Dog and see what local celebs are passed out at the bar. Or maybe I'll just watch a bit of CHEX TV and reminisce about the olden days when they couldn't get the weather forecast right. Wednesday was such a long time ago.

Good times. See you Saturday Peterborough!

I’m fading away to nothing`

That's right kiddies, I've been on a health kick since the start of the year and I'm now down close to 20 pounds. I knew I was fat, but you don't realize how fat you are until you're not as fat as you were. Shirts seem to fit better. My gut doesn't hang over my belt the same way it did before. Although, I'm a little pissed, I bought a really nice belt from the big man's store last year, and in the next few months, if thing keep going the way they're going, I'm going to have to get a new belt. That's just bullshit!

I had lost a ton of weight before by doing Atkins. Atkins is not a bad way to do it, but it's tough to keep it off. When I did Atkins I lost 60 pounds in 9 months. Sure, cutting carbs is a great way to shed pounds, but once you break an ankle and are on crutches eating nothing but pizza and drinking beer for 12 weeks, it's amazing how quickly that weight comes back. I think I put on about 30 pounds in 12 weeks, and then slowly put about a total of 75 back on over the next couple of years. So this time around, I thought I'd try something different and radical. It's called portion control. Have you ever heard of it? Under this crazy scheme, I'm eating the total calories I would need if I weighed my ideal weight. Based on that, I apparently need about 2400 calories per day. So I'm right now trying to only eat between 2,000 and 2,250 per day, and amazingly, the weight's been coming off. Not nearly as quickly as it did before mind you, but at least by doing it this way, once the weight is off, I should theoretically be used to eating the right number of calories per day so I should be able to keep it off. We'll see.

I do need to be careful not to lose too much though. I bought a tux for my wedding in August and I'm dangerously close to not being able to wear it. I'm all for getting healthy, but I'm also cheap. I need to find the right balance.

I’m Apparently way too Dirty for Comedy

I recently had the opportunity to play some shows at a comedy club. To be honest, I've kind of had a rough time at this particular club, at least compared to the stories I hear from other comics. For whatever reason, I had been having a tough time getting the crowd to like me on a consistent basis. That had pretty much changed the last couple of times I was there, and this time around, judging by crowd response and the number of people who came up to me afterwards and told me that they loved me. Apparently they liked me. I was now getting solid laughs on pretty much every joke I told. It's a nice feeling. I even had the booker/owner tell me after the Friday show that one of his regulars who had been to well over 60 shows thought our Friday night show was one of the best he had ever seen.

So imagine my surprise when I am chatting with the booker/owner after the last show and he tells me that I'm way too dirty for his club and if I want to work there again, I basically need to rewrite my entire act. In his opinion, my act is pure filth. It is apparently filled with nothing but shit jokes and vulgar, dirty sex jokes. Now I will be the first to admit that I am not a squeaky clean comic. I am probably not even in the top 100 for a clean corporate show, but I am not way too dirty to work a comedy club. Yes, I have two jokes, and one line about poo. I have a joke about my dog eating shoelaces, a joke about bowel buddies and a line about my most recent physical. That is it. In total, we're looking at maybe 3 minutes of material out of my act. Maybe. And this time around, I was very cognizant to not do all of them on the same night. I did actually on the amateur night when I needed to use a lot more of my material, and I did on one of the weekend shows when I ended up having to do about 35 minutes all told. So yeah, on those shows, I had probably 3 minutes of shit jokes.

As far as the vulgar dirty sex jokes, I think that I might use the term vagina once in my act. I have even recently been using the term Hoo-Ha just to take the edge off of it. Yeah, I do have some sexual references, but none of them are vulgar or explicit. I would say that maybe half of my jokes (and that's probably over estimating), have some reference to sex in them. Most of the jokes are about how I'm an idiot when it comes to those things. They are not sexist or homophobic in any way. Also, I should point out that while I do occasionally swear in my act, it is not excessive, and in fact on a lot of shows, I only swear on two jokes I tell, and depending on the venue, I may not even swear then. So I really don't understand where this perception of me being a dirty filthy comic is coming from.

And here's an even more interesting fact about my latest visit. I brought in maybe 5 to 7 minutes of new material that I didn't do my last time around at the club, and they were clean with no sexual overtones or shit references. Yet this time around, I'm way too dirty. I don't get it.

But probably the most frustrating part in all of this is that I really didn't get a good chance to talk to the booker / owner after the fact. I never got a chance to really defend myself. I really don't know what to do. So, I guess I'll just start writing nothing but jokes about Tim Horton's, the difference between men and women, and of course the old staple, airline food.