Archive for the 'Comedy' Category

Despite the advice given on this blog, I did not buy my ticket to see Eugene Mirman at Pianos in advance. When I arrived at 9pm (for the 9:30pm show), the place was packed. People with tickets were already lining up to get in and get seats. I asked the hostess if any more tickets would be sold, and was told I’d have to wait and see how many no shows there were. Since it was pouring out, I was hopeful. But the rain didn’t keep people away. I was fifth in line for cancellations, and just barely able to get in. Of course being the last one in meant I was doomed to stand at the very back, where I could only catch a glimpse of the stage if the people in front of me all happened to sway in the same direction at the same time.(Thus, no pictures)
I wasn’t disappointed though, because Mirman was recording a comedy CD, and I feel that I got the full experience, since I could hear the show, but not see it.

Todd Barry opened for Mirman, which is appropriate for a taping, since Barry has actually sold more CDs than the Rolling Stones. I know it sounds weird, but it’s true. One might even compare Barry to Mick Jagger. And by one, I mean Barry did, onstage, while asking those of us with blogs to spread the rumor that he has sold more CDs than the Stones.

After a short set, Barry brought Mirman up on stage. I have seen Mirman many times before, he’s the host of Invite Them Up at Rififi and he often appears at other comedy nights around town. I knew going in that there would probably be a lot of material I had heard before, but I was actually surprised of how much of it was new, or at least changed for the evening.

Mirman’s style is quick one-line humor, which meant that the laughs, besides being plentiful, were often. I wouldn’t exactly call him observational, although he does take the everyday and make it funny. He does so by pointing out the ridiculous, and then exaggerates it. He took a slogan from a Republican National Convention website: “Freedom, the most powerful weapon of all” and
1) explained that it actually makes no sense (”you can’t mug me, I have the ability to vote for whoever I want” “oh I’m sorry I didn’t realize you had so much freedom”)[that’s not a direct quote -ed.]
and
2) pitched some of his own slogans for Freedom, including “Freedom, let’s share the shit out of it!” and “Freedom, you can cum on it’s face. It likes it!” [that IS a direct quote, so you can’t blame me for the language -ed.]

After what seemed like no time at all, the show was over. Mirman ended the night with a voice over of him turning down a female computer for sex, which was kindof weird and the only time I wasn’t laughing my butt off. Other than that, Mirman was ‘on’ all night. My only complaint is that I couldn’t see anything, and that’s my own fault.
Mirman’s CD (which has yet to be named) will be coming out on Subpop, so keep your eyes open for it. I can tell you as someone who has (in a way) listened to it already, that it’s gonna be good.

There are few guilty pleasures in life better than watching Showgirls, the classic story of a crazy stripper/hooker (played by Jessie from Saved by the Bell) trying to make it in the seedy Vegas underbelly. It’s one of the best awful movies ever. You can’t go wrong with this dialog:

Molly Abrams: Where are you from?
Nomi Malone: Back East.
Molly Abrams: From where back East?
Nomi Malone: Different places!

and

Cristal Connors: Where do you dance at, darlin’?
Nomi Malone: Um… at the Cheetah.
Cristal Connors: I don’t know how good you are, darlin’, and I don’t know what it is you’re good at, but if it’s at the Cheetah, it’s not dancing, I know that much.
Nomi Malone: You don’t know shit!

So what would make it even better? Did you say sock puppets? Well aren’t you in luck, cause for the rest of the month the Ace of Clubs Theatre (9 Great Jones and Lafayette inside Acme) presents Harvey Finklestein’s Sock Puppet Showgirls.

That’s right, your favorite scenes have been recreated for you to experience live through the magic of sock puppets. Seriously. How can you NOT go to this?

Tickets are $15:
212-352-3101 or TheatreMania

Last Saturday night I went to see Lewis Black’s Nothing Sacred tour at Carnegie Hall. For those of you who are saying “Who is that?” let me remind you that he is regularly featured on The Daily Show in a segment called “Back in Black”. Remember now? He is one of today’s best political comedians, able to make you laugh about everything from Tax Rebates to Homeland Security to Reaganomics. He notices all the completely irrational things that people do, and won’t hesitate to make fun of anyone’s behavior. He’s also been in many movies, TV shows and as a playwright has had over 40 plays produced all over the country.

The show had two opening acts. The first one was a jazz duet, which was a strange choice and didn’t seem to go over very well. I ended up leaving my seat to go grab a drink and found the lobby packed with like-minded people. We all piled back in when comedian, John Bowman, came on. After performing an interpretive dance (during which I think he honestly hurt himself) he proceeded to contribute to my insanity by getting the hemorrhoids commercial theme song stuck in my head. For days. Which was the whole point, but really . . . it’s still there. Bowman was funny, but the show should’ve just been Black, he didn’t need the openers, and I think it just brought the energy down, at least it did for me.

After a 20 minute intermission, Bowman came on stage to introduce the main act of the evening, Lewis Black. I had seen Black before at a surprise performance at Eating It, a monthly show of local comics at The Zipper Theatre. The venue was small and intimate and Black had the crowd doubled over. His show at Carnegie Hall was large and impersonal, but everyone still went crazy for him. I was waaaay up in the fourth mezzanine, so I wasn’t able to see any of his trademark facial gestures or wild, uncontrollable finger gesturing, but he killed nonetheless. All of his material was new, including his opening, during which he expressed his amazement of being allowed to play Carnegie Hall. After this, he said, the only thing left for him to do is become a drug addict, lose everything, go to rehab and try to work his way back up, so that he can eventually play Carnegie Hall again.

Forty minutes of pacing up and down the stage and yelling ‘FUCK’ over and over again, and the show was over. He had entertained us with stories of the time he performed for Dick Cheney, and how it made him a whore. He told us about all the strange names he’s encountered, including Asshole (pronounced Ash-hol-e) and Abcde (pronounced ab-ca-de) — and how it’s names like these which prove it should be legal for the person filling out the birth certificate to say “Ummm . . .no.” And he encouraged us to vote for Ronald Regan in the next election_because the only way to fight an insane enemy is to be even more insane, and wouldn’t it be great if we propped up a dead president on inauguration day.

The moral of the story is, if you ever get a chance to see Lewis Black in person . . . do it. I think I prefer the smaller venue, because watching this guy is comedy unto itself; but even just hearing him in a big venue like Carnegie is worth it. Keep your eyes peeled, because he sometimes plays the smaller clubs, and you wouldn’t want to miss it.

Many of you have probably walked by The Telephone Bar on 2nd Ave between 9th and 10th, but what you may not know is that they have a back room which features everything from free movies to poetry slams. On Thursday nights they host a night of stand-up called The $1 Room, conveniently named after the price of admission. First let me tell you about the cons: the service was sporadic, the waitress came to some people, but not to others, and the price of admission was so small that the door man didn’t have change for $10, so I had to go get some myself. Now for the pros: everything else. The space itself is charming, it’s beautifully decorated with mirrors all over the walls and a chandelier hanging above the performers heads. I had no problems finding a seat right away on a super comfy couch, that I wish I had in my apartment. The host for the evening, Peter Kassnove, was funny as hell. After asking the audience to keep an eye on his zipper, he explained that he was sad for summer to end because he had become attached to his ’summer sweat towel’. Roger Hailes came up next and told us how he’s his own boss, but he’s not very good at it because his policy on employee masturbation is too relaxed. Also performing were Pat O’Shea, Jay Bois and Issac Witty who had me in tears when he described his shitty handshaking technique. The evening ended with co-host Cassidy Hennehen, a native of New Orleans, who has taken his pain and turned it into a funny yet poignant piece about what it’s like to loose one’s home, or ’safety net’. He ends by saying that New Orleans is not great because of it’s location, but because of it’s people, and now they’re everywhere. Actually he may have ended by telling us that he named his dick after Ray Nagin, the mayor of New Orleans, and asking if anyone wanted a handshake with the mayor.
Thursday night at 9pm, The $1 Room, in the back of The Telephone Bar. Not enough people know about this night yet, so go check it out soon,and give these kids the audience they deserve.

Midnight Kalan is described on the website as a faux talk-show where anything can happen, including ninja attacks. This week the guest was Stephen Colbert of The Daily Show, so I was excited for some crazy antics. The show opened with the theme song of “Quantum Leap” then Elliot Kalan (the host) came out to do a pre-talk show monolog which mostly consisted on how excited he was about his new shirt. Kalan is an obviously very bright, associate segment producer for The Daily Show (hence the guest appearance by Colbert) who needs a couple of more years of practice to get into his groove. He had some moments of brilliance, but between them are many awkward silences. He converses with his R2D2 sidekick way past the point of amusement, goes into a strange Rambo tirade and regularly has to take direction from technical director Joe Guercio. On the other hand his interview with Colbert was very comfortable and friendly, like watching two friends chat across a dinner table. He also brought on a “sexpert” to teach us about butt plugs and handed out free pizza at intermission, so it wasn’t all bad. I hope Kalan sticks it out. I won’t be back to see him anytime soon, but I’m sure after a couple more years of practice he’s gonna be brilliant.
Midnight Kalan is every other Friday at Juvie Hall on Bond St. between 3rd Ave and Lafayette. The next show will be a special Saturday edition on Sept 24th at 8pm and the guests will be Ed Helms and Will Hines.

Last night about 8pm I swung by Rififi to check out Bobby Tisdale and Eugene Mirman’s show Invite Them Up. For the next hour the stage looked like this:

Seriously, they started an hour late, which really sucked cause it was really crowded and there was no where to sit. Bobby Tisdale started the show off by spitting fire, which I have to admit was pretty damn cool, especially cause he was so excited about it.

He was able to do it twice, although during a failed attempted, the front row got doused in sambuca. First they brought up Tracie Jayne who did not get a ton of laughs, but was actually pretty funny; she was just performing to the wrong crowd. Next month she goes on the USO tour where I think she’ll be a big hit with her bit about being a beer girl in a thong. Patrick Borelli came up and showed us a slideshow of his trip home this summer. Apparently he has 20 sisters and all they do is hit on him all day long. After the break Eugene Mirman came up and answered questions about his trip to Edinburgh, where he’s been for the past month. Mirman is one of my favorite comedians. Anyone who has not seen him need to go check out his website and you’ll be hooked. Another one of my favorite comedians, Dmetri Martin, came up next.

He was also in Scotland for a couple weeks and talked about how cool Mirman was, and then did a funny pantomime of someone going through a revolving door marked pull. He even posed for this picture. At the end of the night a six piece country western band got up and played a couple of songs that totally made me want to get up and dance. I would love to go see them in a real concert venue. The Invite Them Up website says that they are The Defibrillaters, but when you go to that link it takes you to a website for a six piece baby boomer blues band. I don’t know if that’s a joke or not. Below is a picture of who I saw. If you know who they are, please tell me.

I didn’t stick around after the show but I think Mirman was DJing. For $5 this was one of the best nights of comedy I’ve been to in awhile. Invite Them Up is $5, and happens every Wednesday at Rififi, on 11th between 1st and 2nd, at 8pm (ish).

*UPDATE* They are called The Defibulators. Can’t find a website for them though.

You’ve got until the end of the month to put your name in the SNL lottery for tickets. Email snltickets@nbc.com with your contact info or go to the NBC website for details.