The Boston Comedy Interview: Jimmy Tingle on the top news stories of 2010

Jimmy Tingle at the Regent Theatre

If you want to catch up on the news stories of 2010, you could do worse than going to see Jimmy Tingle’s shows this week and next week at the Regent Theatre in Arlington. Tingle has been delivering his social and political commentary around Boston since the days of the Ding Ho in the 80s, when he transformed himself from a bartender and street performer into a satirist.

We have covered his activities over the summer, graduating with a masters in public administration from the Kennedy School at Harvard. But Tingle is back to performing and stand-up comedy, and will soon be promoting his new documentary, Jimmy Tingle’s American Dream, for which he interviewed, among others, Howard Zinn, Robert Altman, Barry Crimmins, and Sean Hannity.

Tingle is at the Regent tonight, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, and January 2. You can also donate part of your ticket price to charity by tacking on an extra five bucks, which Tingle will match and donate to any one of a list of charities you can find on his site here.

I had a lengthy conversation with Tingle earlier this week on some of the bigger news stories, and his own plans for the coming new year.

How are the shows going at the Regent so far?

Good. I just did one last night. They’re going well. It’s good to be back there. The audiences are great. It’s a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun last night. I’m looking forward to tonight and the rest of this week and then New Year’s Eve. It’s good to just be performing again.

How long had it been? I know you’ve done some stuff over the summer.

Yeah. I did some stuff in Wellfleet over the summer. I’ve been out there. But when I spent the year at school I really didn’t do any public gigs for a year or ten months. A certain thing here and there, a private gig.

Do you feel like there’s been any rust?

No. I wouldn’t say so. I’ve been going to the Hong Kong [The Comedy Studio] a lot. That’s just doing ten minutes. There’s sometimes rust there because you’re just breaking out new stuff all the time, trying to anyway. So that’s probably the bumpiest ones that I have. But when I do these hour or ninety-minute shows or whatever, the bumpiest bits are sandwiched in between other stuff so it doesn’t seem as rusty.

We talked about this over the summer after your graduation. You felt it would affect your comedy to have gotten the degree. How do you find that now that you’ve gone back to gigging and you’ve got a few under your belt?

I think it’s really helped, actually, to get away from something and go back to it. It helps with the writing. Because you’re in school, you’re on deadline, and one thing about comics, most of us are not on deadlines. Unless you’re doing a radio show or a TV show where you’re on deadline that week. But if you’re a freelancer, you have to discipline yourself. I’ve always worked better when there’s a compelling reason to write or to come up with stuff. So I think that the school experience helped with the discipline more than if I hadn’t done it. And also broadened the perspective, so the commentary may become a little more knowledge-based, I think.

Are you writing more now than you did before, do you think?

I don’t know. I think I probably am.

Do you feel there’s more new stuff in this show than there would have been without it?

Oh yeah. Definitely.

I wanted to get your thoughts on a few of the major news stories of the year.

Sure. One of the things is, as we speak, the Senate is debating the START Treaty. A lot of the Republicans, they’re opposing the START Treaty. I heard one of them, I think it was Lindsey Graham, say the holidays is not the time to negotiate the STARTY Treaty. Yes, you don’t want to confuse reducing the threat of nuclear war with the birth of Christ.

They always say, there’s a window of opportunity for bipartisanship, and as soon as Obama starts climbing through the window, they go, “There’s a black guy coming though the window! Shut it!”

What was your take on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell? Are you surprised that that went through?

I’m not surprised that it went through because in my opinion it’s the right thing to do. But also, it benefits the Republican party, even the moderate Republicans, it benefits them because there’s millions and millions of gay people in the country, and a lot of them are Republicans. The Log Cabin Republicans, for example, support it.

So I’m not surprised that it went through. I think that as time goes on, a lot of the people will probably ashamed of their vote that voted against it. I think ten years from now, we’ll look back after everything settles down and settles in and it shakes out and it’s no big deal, I think the people that voted against it will feel a sense of regret. It’s like voting against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

It did seem like there was a sudden change in the amount of people who came out supporting the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in the past few months. And I don’t know if there was actually a sea change, or if nobody had bothered to talk to these people before.

No, I think the culture has changed. The culture is different than it was fifteen years ago when it first came in. It just has. Dick Cheney supports gay marriage because his daughter’s gay. Ted Olson supports gay marriage. I’m not sure what his motivation is but he’s a pretty heavy-duty Bush supporter, I think he was the Solicitor General under Bush, lost his wife in 9/11 on the plane in Pennsylvania. It’s just a sea change in the country, a cultural change. And it’s reflected with the moderate Republicans. And also it helps them, it helps them with their own constituents, many of whom are gay.

But of course, they always have a caveat. I’ll support it as long as it doesn’t interfere with military preparedness. How is it… “We have to take the hill.” “Yes, Captain, but first, one question – will you marry me?” “Of course I’ll marry you! Burt first, let’s take the hill!”

“It’s the perfect setting.”

Exactly. So you have that, and that’s progress. And I think they’ll probably get the START Treaty through, that’s going to be progress.

What do you think of the nature of bipartisanship in Congress right now? It seems to be one of the nastier times. One side says, we’re just digging in for what we believe in, and the other side will say they’re not compromising.

I think things are going to change after the New Year. We’ll see what happens. Let me just say that.

Do you have a sense of what you think will happen?

Here’s an example – the earmarks. The brouhaha over the earmarks. The people who are opposing the earmarks, let’s just say the economy is not doing as well as everybody hopes it’s going to do. So then you take all of these federal projects out of all these congressional districts around the country. That’s less jobs. It’s less employment. It’s less business activity. It’s not going to be good for people. Yes, you technically save eight billion dollars, but you also lose a lot of economic activity in a lot of congressional districts around the country.

And it might look good on paper to say “no earmarks,” but I think the residual effect of that is, there’s less work, there’s less employment, there’s less growth, there’s less infrastructure repairing and new construction. And I think after a year or two of that if you go to your constituents and say, we’ve reduced the deficit by eight billion dollars, but the bridge or the tunnel or the highway still needs to be repaired, I don’t think that’s a recipe for re-election. I don’t think it’s something that’s going to encourage people to say, yes, we want two more years of this austerity measure in our congressional district.

So I think what may very well happen is that the novelty of less government in congressional districts around the country is going to wear off quickly when the people – the people, not the members of Congress but the people in those districts – have to actually feel the results of having less economic activity in their districts.

There’s also the back and forth about Obama himself. The left feels that he’s compromised too much and the right is trying to say he has not compromised on anything, that he’s too far to the left.

The right’s not going to say anything positive about him at all. That’s their whole strategy, to demonize, demonize, demonize. That’s been their strategy since he got in.

Does that make legitimate criticism of Obama more difficult?

It just makes it harder to discern what is legitimate criticism and what isn’t. If everything with the guy is wrong, then what’s really wrong is not going to be apparent because they don’t like anything. How can you not like the fact that General Motors is on the rebound after the infusing of government money and restructuring. And they paid back most of the money. A major American company is up and running as a result of that particular investment or bailout or whatever you want to call it.

You know what it is? It seems there’s a lack of authenticity and a lack of honesty. And that’s the biggest thing about the bipartisanship. People aren’t intellectually honest. If you have to side with your “quote” side or your team regardless of the weight of the argument, but because your team either put forth that argument or is opposed to that argument because it was put forth or opposed by the other side, then there’s an intellectual dishonesty there.

It does seem that all of that is positioning for the next election. The talk about actually solving problems seems to be secondary to, how do we get elected next time. And that’s probably nor something that’s a huge change from the way it’s always been. But it feels worse now for some reason.

Yeah. I think everybody would say that. From what I’ve read and heard and from what people have said, I think that’s true. But you’re also dealing with 65 new members of Congress coming in for the first time. Many of these people have never held public office. It could be a breath of fresh air. Who knows? So that’s a wild card, as well.

Do you have any official opinion on the Tea Party?

Let’s see what they do. I like the fact that people get involved and get active in their neighborhood and their government, and that they’re active and people are engaged in the political process. I think it’s healthy. I think it’s been a healthy thing, basically, for the country to have more political engagement. We’ll see.

Sometimes I wonder, is it really deficit reduction or is it really stopping Obama, and deficit reduction is another excuse to stop Obama. And also to deny the continued funding of social programs. One of the things about the deficit is, they say the deficit is the number one thing, and you say, do we have money for the hospitals, do we have money for the schools, do we have money for education, do we have money for this and that program, no no no no no because that’ll increase the deficit. That’ll increase the debt. So it can be used as a weapon to squash social programs and social spending that some people don’t like.

What would you say is a legitimate criticism of Obama? Is there anything out there that he deserves to be criticized for?

I think it’s really effective when he’s aggressive, and he think he should have engaged on Fox Television. In the early days, he made a decision not to go on Fox, and I think it was a mistake not to go on Fox. Because he can sit down with Bill O’Reilly one on one, just like he sat down with other people, and he knows the nuances of the policy way better, in my estimation, than any of these commentators who are going to grill him on a policy. I think he would do himself well to dispel their arguments to their face on television. And I think that takes the wind out f their sails. And by not going on there, they have the open field. They can do whatever they want.

And I feel the same way about talk radio. The Democrats… you have to engage your critics. And I think direct engagement earns their respect and I think it also allows your supporters to see you defend your positions. And I think it’s a mistake for the Democrats not to engage on talk radio and not to engage on Fox, given the opportunity to do so. It’s one thing if they don’t invite you. But if they invite you and as a matter of principle because you don’t like what they stand for you don’t go on, I think you’re ceding the territory. And I don’t think it serves a good purpose because it’s just the drumbeat of the message.

If he went on Sean Hannity and talked about being a Marxist, being a socialist, he could just lay out the agenda and explain why it’s not socialism. And Fox could play that a thousand times, and it would sink in that what he’s proposing is not socialism, when you bail out Wall Street. But by not doing it, you cede the territory and it’s wide open. On a whole host of issues, to go on there and sell health care on Fox, or the bailouts, to make your arguments just like you make your arguments on the other stations.

It’s part of a bigger problem of messaging. When he went to the Republican retreat in, I don’t know if it was his first six months, but he was great. They asked him questions and he was able to engage every single question. And he did himself a great service. They never invited him back, but he was dynamite. Because he’s very smart and he’s articulate and he’ sincere and he’s authentic in what he’s trying to do, and he can lay out the argument for the other side to hear. The reason I support Obama and the Democrats is because on most of the issues, they’re right. In my estimation.

So you feel their faults have mainly been strategic ones.

I think the health care thing, the idea that you have to buy insurance, I think is what freaked people out. Because in Massachusetts, it was less of a shock because we went through a debate in the state about it. The legislature, Romney, it was bipartisan. It was a Republican governor and a Democratic legislature that came up with this Massachusetts system where you’re going to cover everybody in the state and everybody has to buy it. But it was debated, it was laid out.

When Obama got there, they were imposing it from the top down on states that had no such debate. So people freaked out because a lot of people don’t have insurance because they can’t afford it. Or they were happy with what they had. It scared people. And not getting a public option led to the next phase of this thing where you have to buy insurance.

But I think he was bending over backwards to accommodate insurance companies and the business community and stay true to free enterprise and not be portrayed as complicit in the “quote” government take-over of health care. And in doing so, he still got slammed on the issue. It didn’t stop them from saying [it was] the government take-over of health care. But they didn’t have the government take over health care that he was paying the price for. He’s paying the price for socialized medicine without the socialized medicine.

Everything seems to be pushing towards presidential electoral politics, as well. What are your feelings on what 2012 might bring?

I don’t think Obama will be challenged as a Democrat, and I think he’s going to be able to, at the end of the year, say listen, we passed health care, we ended Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, we got a START Treaty, we extended the unemployment benefits. So there’s some positive things that he’s done. I don’t think he’s going to be challenged from the left in the party.

And the Republicans, who knows who they’ll put up. I don’t think Sarah Palin is a favorite in the party. She quit halfway through her first term and she does not have the backing of the Republican establishment from what I can see. But she’ll be a factor because they’ve figured out a way to message without actually doing interviews with a lot of people. It’s a form of entertainment. On her reality show, when she said, I’d much rather be up here and out in the wilderness being free than some stuffy old political office in Washington. And you know what, Sarah? Millions of people agree with you. Half of them are in the Republican party.

What about locally? We had an election here that bucked the trend for the rest of the country. What do you think happened there?

The people of Massachusetts, I think most of them like the state of Massachusetts, and although there’s big problems in certain areas of one-party rule, there’s definitely an issue with that, I think most of the people in Massachusetts are Democrats for a reason. And they support the principles of the Democratic party that are more politically progressive than the principles of the Republican party. I think that has a lot to do with it. And also they outnumber the Republicans two to one or three to one.

And we faired well relative to the rest of the country and the economy because of the universities up here. It’s not good when the economy is bad for universities but at least they’re not shutting down and moving. That sustains us through economic hard times, unlike a lot of other places that don’t have that advantage. So our unemployment was less. We actually had more job creation, we’re in the top five states in the country, I believe, since 2008, I think. So we had some things going for us here.

And what will you be up to in 2011?

My film, Jimmy Tingle’s American Dream, is done and I look forward to getting that out there in 2011. It’s a documentary, about 70 minutes long. We’re putting it in film festivals. We’re trying to generate some interest. I’m psyched to get it out this year, and I’m psyched to get around the country and around the world with the film.

What would you say is the synopsis of the film for those who aren’t familiar?

It’s basically the American Dream, what does it mean, seen through my eyes as a comic and an entrepreneur and a business owner who had a theatre. And interviews with other people and their interpretation of the American Dream, focusing on, what is the American Dream, what are the components of it, and what do we stand for as a country, what do we stand for as a people. Obviously there’s humor involved, there are performances involved. And a lot of interviews with a lot of great people.

Gary Gulman tops the bill at Steve Macone's Holiday Show and Toy Drive

Gary Gulman at the Burren's
Slightly Better Christmas
Spectacular Wednesday

The usual Wednesday night comedy contest at the Burren is being pre-empted this week for some special guests and a toy drive to benefit the Somerville-based Toys for Local Children. Macone is calling it his "Slightly Better Christmas Spectacular," because "the toys will be helping children have a slightly better Christmas and people can expect, at the very least, the show to be slightly better."

Gary Gulman is dropping in, supporting his new album, All I Want for Chunukah Is Christmas. Also on the bill, Matt D, Rob Crean, Tim Vargulish, Shawn Donovan, Maria Ciampa, Kate Ghiloni, Matt Kona, and Chris Fleming. Josh Gondelman and Zach Sherwin (aka MC Mr Napkins) may also drop by, depending on if they can get to Davis Square from the Wu-Tang show at the Wilbur in time.

Macone says a few more comedians may wind up stopping by last minute. 

Say goodbye to Cheers and Tommy's

The Comedy Club at Cheers has its
last show Saturday with
Steve Sweeney.

If you’re planning on going out to see Steve Sweeney at Cheers Saturday night, you will be witnessing the final evening of comedy at the venue. Jim McCue, co-founder and producer of The Boston Comedy Festival, announced earlier this week on his site and his Facebook page that changes at Cheers itself spelled an end to the club, which opened late last year.

McCue was informed that the Sam’s Café portion of the Faneuil Hall location, where the comedy events were being held, was being closed down and sold. The comedy club had taken a summer hiatus and come back in the fall. McCue did not book for January when he got the news.

“I think if it was meant to be it would have worked out,” says McCue. “We are working on a few new projects and we will now be able to focus more energy on them. It really was fun and helped especially during the festival to have that venue up and running.”

McCue has no immediate plans to open a new club. “Not unless a remarkable opportunity opened it self up to us,” he says. “I will be doing a monthly show at the Ioka Theater in Exeter NH, but that is a simple thing to book.”

Less surprisingly, Tommy’s Comedy Lounge will likely not return. The club also took a summer hiatus after the July death of Frank Ahearn, who ran the club with John Tobin. “I’d love to bring it back, but at this point, probably not,” says Tobin, who also books Nick’s Comedy Stop next door. “Nick’s is proving to be pretty successful for us right now. It’s not where we want it to be yet, but we’re changing the culture.”

There have been talks about bringing it back, but Tobin says the club has no more than “a faint pulse.” He cited Ahearn’s death, the workload at Nick’s, and the scheduling conflicts Tommy’s often had with Blue Man Group, which is run out of the Charles Playhouse. Blue Man has its own theater, but it’s in the same building, which Tobin said affected how Tommy’s operated.

“The short time we were at Tommy’s, I think it was a little over a year, our start time changed three or four times,” he says. “They had us starting shows at 7:30. It’s just too early. There was just no continuity.”

Summer Villains want a zoo for Christmas

I Want A Zoo for Christma

If you're looking for some good-natured musical Christmas cheer, take a look at Summer Villains' "I Want A Zoo for Christmas." The Villains cut a Christmas album with another Boston band, Three Day Threshold, called Christmas + Holiday Songs Volume 1, which you can download from this site. Also on that site is the video in Quicktime for "I Want A Zoo for Christmas," just in case you're reading this in on iPad and you can't use Flash to see the video below.

The video is really well done, and, if you're wondering, suitable for all ages. And if you want to see them perform it live, come out to the Tavern at the End of the World tonight for the Summer Villains Christmas party. I will be there doing a quick guest spot playing my own Christmas song (which is not particularly funny).

It's A Red Peters Christmas!

It's A Red Peters' Christmas!

Red Peters wants to make you laugh for the holidays. He’s in the midst of his “18 Days of Christmas,” releasing a Christmas song every day up until Christmas Eve on his Facebook page. There are even more songs on RedPeters.com, where you can hear “Red Peters’ Song Snatch” and his podcasts. And it’s all leading up to the “Red Peters Comedy Music Hour Christmas Special” on December 23 and 24 on Sirius satellite radio, where Peters has his own show on Howard 101.

Peters’ track record with off-color comedy music comes from his work as a commercial music producer – he does a lot of work for big name companies, which is why he works under a pseudonym. He says it was normal to start making fun of the music or substituting profane or vulgar lyrics as soon as a client left a commercial session.

Fifty years ago, songs like those Peters favors were sold as “party records” under the counter along with albums from stand-ups like Belle Barth and Red Foxx. Things loosened up a bit as decades passed, but it was really the advent of satellite radio that allowed Peters to broadcast songs like “Holly Shit, It’s Christmas” and “When I Jerk Off I Think of You.” But Peters is always looking for more avenues like Facebook. “That’s just another way to get them out, because not everyone has Sirius,” he says.

So if you like your holiday cheer a little naughty or blue or profane, Peters is your man. I spoke with the Boston-based musician and host last week about his plans for the holidays.

Do you already have the Christmas specials mapped out or are you still collecting?

I’m still collecting but I have a pretty good idea. I have two shows, two one-hour shows. And I did receive a new song today from a guy. I had a few new ones last week. But really this week I have to shut the door.

You have years of stuff to choose from, you probably have some favorites, as well. What’s the mix of classics to new stuff?

There’s not really a lot of classic stuff. I’ve been doing this for five years – this is my sixth Christmas on Sirius. So if you want to call six years ago classic…

But you’ve been collecting these kinds of songs for longer than you’ve been doing the Sirius show.

More or less. But I was mostly motivated by getting the gig at Sirius. There was really no place to play these six years ago. A lot of them have profanity or extreme… concepts. You know? [laughs]



So what qualifies a song for a Red Peters Christmas special?

I’d say one of the main features is, you have to be able to hear the words. I was listening to this group that sent me some stuff yesterday or the day before called The Dirty Santas. They almost sound like Van Halen, except the words are kind of difficult to hear, although the songs are produced really well. People have to be able to hear the concept right off. I don’t have the luxury of playing them over and over again so people can hear them. So the concept should just pretty much hit you over the head right away. You should be able to hear what it’s all about right off.

Any favorites you want to mention?

Well, of course, all my songs. I like “The Herpes-Infected Elf,” that’s pretty funny, by this kid named Pooch. I like the classic big ones like “Eff Christmas” by Eric Idle. That’s an excellent one. And Nerf Herder, “I Got A Boner for Christmas.” Tiny Tim, of course, “Santa Has the AIDS This Year.” Ever hear that one?

No, I haven’t, actually.

Have you ever seen that kid Jon LaJoie? I like his Christmas song, “Cold Blooded Christmas.” Good story. Pretty funny. He shoots Santa Claus. Somebody comes into his house, he hears a noise, and he blasts him with a shotgun, and he realizes, jeez, you know, I just killed Santa Claus. So he chops him up and burns him in a furnace or something. Then he gets a call the next day from his aunt saying, “Have you seen Uncle Bob? He was dressed up as Santa, he was coming over to your house.”

They are varying degrees of sanity or extreme concept or foul language or silly. Some of them are extreme, some of them are just clever. There’s one that really not that bad, I think they might say “shit” or something, by these guys from Seattle called The Billionaires Club. It’s a song called “Happy Holidays from the Taggarts.” One of the guys in this troupe, his name is Ryan Taggart, and they’re just clever young guys. They do a nice job. And it’s just a song about a cop who has too much eggnog on Christmas eve and he’s called to help somebody, and he accidentally shoots somebody. But it’s meant to be a goofy story.

How about your own songs?

I have “Holy Shit, It’s Christmas.” Last year it went to number 12 in iTunes comedy, and it’s creeping up the charts again. By Christmas, I hope to be in the top ten of comedy. “Holy Shit, It’s Christmas” seems to be one of my most popular songs. My three most popular songs are “How’s Your Whole Family,” which is mild, you know? “When I Jerk Off, I Think of You” – not you personally. That one’s almost up there with “How’s Your Whole Family,” then “Holy Shit, It’s Christmas” does fantastic every year.

Do you mostly go out and find these yourself or do a lot of these come to you?

I’m always looking. I’m always looking for tunes. And people send them to me, too. I interviewed The Billionaires Club because they had another song I played a few years ago called “White Man in America,” which was a pretty funny song. The Christmas songs, I’d say half of them were sent to me and half I find. I clear the “Santa Claus Has the AIDS” by Tiny Tim, I got a license for that. His estate wasn’t even taking advantage of it because it was just some goofy song he sang in his hotel room or something, and it was just out there.

That seemed somewhat out of character for him.

He had a lot of sexual hang-ups. I don’t know if you’ve ever really studied Tiny Tim, but he was impotent, and of course, he was an oddball. His perspective about life, what was real, was way off the charts. He was mental.



How did the song with Margaret Cho come about?

About eight or nine months ago, I just one day, on Facebook, got an e-mail from Margaret. She said that she really enjoys my songs, and coincidentally, her two favorite songs were “How’s Your Whole Family” and “When I Jerk Off I Think of You.” I had played her on my show. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen here live, she’s filthy. In a funny way. She’s a riot. I’ve played some of her bits on my show at different times.

I’ve known her work and I’ve appreciated her work for years. I don’t know if she knew that or not. So we began corresponding back and forth and we were just talking about music because she’s been getting into music lately, and she sings a few songs in her act. I was tempted to say, hey, we should to a duet or collaborate sometime, but I didn’t want to seem too pushy. Sure enough, shortly thereafter, she asked me if I wanted to collaborate with her or do a duet with her sometime. So I said yeah, of course, I’d love to.

I knew she was going to be in P-Town, she goes down there for a few weeks every summer and she performs there. I asked her if she wanted to do “The Christmas Gift,” which is a song that was written by a guy named Dick Shreve. He was a pretty well-known jazz musician during the 50s and 60s in LA. He, like me, as you know, I’m a music producer, besides doing the Red Peters stuff. He did mostly legitimate stuff, but then he started doing this blue, off-color stuff. And he did “The Christmas Gift,” which was a Christmas blow job, and he did “Everybody’s Fucking But Me.”

So I played her the song, I said, do you want to do a duet with me for this, and she said yeah, she loved it. So I got together with Ed Grenga, my co-writer and producer, and we recorded all of the music for “Have A Wonderful Hawaiian Christmas” and the music to “The Christmas Gift,” we put the vocals on both, and all summer, we were building the songs, doing the music for them and adding the background vocals, The Alan Pinchloaf Singers.

We tried to do it when [Cho] was down in P-Town but she got sick and she lost her voice, so she couldn’t do anything. So we had to cancel it the day before the session. The only time we could do it before Christmas would be to record it October 27 or 28. She was in town the 28th to do the Wilbur Theatre. So she flew in a day early. She travels in a tour bus, so the bus picked her up at Logan and took her over to Q Division in Davis Square. All the band record over there.

We met over there out of nowhere. I had never met her before. We had spoken over the phone a bunch of times and e-mailed a lot, texted a lot. We spent two hours or so recording, we did a bunch of different takes. She was a sport, you know what I mean? She had no problem singing about anything.

I’m assuming this is going to be on one or both of the Christmas specials.

Yes, as a matter of fact, it’s the first song of the first special. And then “Holy Shit” is the first song on the second special.

Brian Gordon on The Life of Brians exhibit at CinemaSalem

In June, I wrote about Brian Gordon's art exhibition at In A Pig's Eye in Salem. Gordon, who used to be a regular on the Boston comedy scene, has turned his talents to art and to helping kids with autism. And there is a connection between the two, as he points out in this interview. I caught up with Gordon while he was hanging his latest exhibition, The Life of Brians, which will be on display at CinemaSalem through December. The title refers to the fact that Gordon is sharing the exhibit with his fellow artist, and fellow Brian, Brian Donnelly.

You can see the work now, and you can also join the Brians for the official opening/bad sweater party at CinemaSalem on December 16.

Here's Brian explaining some of the pieces and the show.