Gallery and Review: Eugene Mirman's Pretty Good Friends At the Paradise

Reggie Watts, Kumail Nanjiani, Tom Allen, and
Eugene Mirman at the Pretty Good Friends show
Tuesday at the Paradise

There is an amazing consistency to Eugene Mirman’s shows. Mirman kicked off his Pretty Good Friends tour at the Paradise in Boston last night, but it could have been a show at The Comedy Studio or the Green Street Grill, both places he used to host when he was here. That is to say, it was a night of comics who shared an obvious familiarity and comfort with each other, and a crowd that was up for whatever they presented.

Mirman hosts a version of Pretty Good Friends regularly in New York, and this is a brief, one-week tour before Mirman heads out to the SXSW festival in Austin. His guests are Reggie Watts, whom Mirman called a “vocal trapeze artist,” Kumail Nanjiani, and Tom Allen. The group started the show with a kind of informal, onstage conversation, during which Nanjiani noted that there isn’t really any reason the four of them should even know each other. Nanjiani is of Pakistani descent, Watts is black, and Allen is English and gay (double minority!). Mirman noted they almost called it the “Accidentally Diverse Tour.”

All four were different personalities, but there was a sort of shared sensibility of being something other, or outside. They apparently had a fun time walking around Harvard Square together yesterday afternoon, drawing some strange looks. Didn’t help that Watts had decided to lumber around hunched over, his knuckles close to dragging on the ground, and surprise people by hiding in bushes.

Allen talked about bringing a monogrammed briefcase to school as a child, which only added to his sense of being different from his schoolmates. One kid said he would knock him to the ground. Allen’s solution? Just lay down before he had to take a punch, and no one can knock you down. Kumail spoke of being called “Kumar” as a slur, which is unfortunately close to his real name. He wants to become famous enough that his name becomes the thing the racists use to yell at other people, then he can be happy when they recognize him. Mirman said he always wanted to be the kind of comic who could toss out one-liners while playing guitar or piano, but has no musical ability. His solution? Read some Tweets while playing theremin.

Watts is the most obviously strange of the bunch. His comedy was less about the meaning of his words and more about keeping the audience off balance using mainly the sound of his voice. He took on the voice of a professor giving a conference lecture, launching into convincing sounding scientific gibberish. Then, just when the audience was comfortable with that cadence, Watts changed into some harder-sounding accent (New York? New Jersey?), changing back and forth seamlessly. That was before he went to his music rig, a couple of boxes on a stool that allowed him to record loops of his own voice and play them back on the fly. With those, he was able to build a strikingly accurate parody of a Radiohead song. It’s more about the breath than the voice, he explained.

As odd as any comedian might have gotten, it never felt like the audience was being held at a distance. Mirman had a volunteer up onstage for a bit where he pretended to be an alien and made her explain speed dating. He gave fake mustaches to everyone in the crowd so he could take a photo of it from the stage. Whenever anyone shouted, it was acknowledged by the comic and the set moved on. Other than one woman who seemed a bit confused about why she had yelled in the first place, no one seemed interested in interrupting the kind of apartment party atmosphere. Which is a nice feat to pull off in a club that holds several hundred people.

A few images from the evening:

Nanjiani, Allen, and Mirman discuss their day walking
around Harvard Square.

Tom Allen describes his experience with
playground bullies.

Tom Allen, star of The Cut and The Correspondent,
whom Mirman introduced with his U.K. credits.

Nanjiani, puzzled by Freddy Kruger's racism.

Nanjiani thinks Harry Potter is the best case scenario
for a transfer student.

Mirman Tweets and theremins.

The crowd wearing their new mustaches.

Reggie Watts grooves.

Watts improvises Radiohead.

Watts and his effects rig.

Watts riffs from behind the curtain
for no apparent reason.

Guest reviewer Brian Joyce on Jennifer Coolidge

Boston native and Emerson grad Jennifer Coolidge was in town playing the Comedy Connection Wilbur Theatre on Saturday. Coolidge is an extremely talented comic actress who can turn a throwaway line into a punchline (See Best in Show, how she drags out the simple "Errm... me, too" into a bizarre rejoinder). But you can measure her stand-up career in months at this point.

I was covering another show (featuring Lynn's Sean Lynch -- stay tuned for a video interview with Lynch later this week), and I knew Brian Joyce, craetor of AltCom and co-host of the Wednesday night talk show The Whole Truth with Derek Gerry, was going. So I asked him for his thoughts. Here they are.

Joyce's review:

Coolidge did a short set - about 45 minutes - but it was packed with laughs and she left the crowd wanting more. There were a couple obligatory digs at Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian, but for the most part she takes an absurdist approach to her storytelling, with not-so-True Hollywood stories about her long-lost scene in "Brokeback Mountain" and the time she got beat out for the role of "woman with flappy vagina" by the "girl at the bottom of the well in 'Silence of the Lambs'."

She played up the ditzy-blonde routine, but her dirty innocence and sultry theatrics make her appear genuine, even vulnerable. Some of the one-liners were a bit obvious, but her stories were funny, engaging, and ridiculous. She seemed as comfortable and confident on stage as many veteran stand-ups.

Chris Fleming at the Boston Comedy Festival

One of my favorite things to do is to find a comedian I really enjoy whom I've never seen before. I got to do that last night at The Dress Up Show at Mottley's, which was part of the Boston Comedy Festival. The comedian in question is Chris Fleming, a 22-year-old comedian that Comedy Studio owner Rick Jenkins tells me has played his club for a couple of years, and whom comedian Jess Baade told me she has seen every so often and thought well of him. He has been to the HBO Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, but somehow, I don't remember having seen him before, at least not doing this material.

It was a pretty strong night, with Erin Judge and Bethany Van Delft hosting, Kelly MacFarland headlining, and Ahmed Bharoocha and Karen Rontowski on the bill. Fleming made an impression, speaking a kind of seemless nonsense in an English accent, and doing an impression of birds trying to attract a mate that sent MacFarland from the room trying to control her laughter. The image of Fleming bent backwards, kicking up one leg, and squawking apparently stayed with MacFarland -- she mentioned the bit later on in her own set.

Here's some of the material Fleming performed on the show. But you should probably see it live (you'll have the chance next week at Great Scott on Anderson Comedy's The Gas. Fleming will be on with some other promising comics like Matt D and Shawn Donovan).

Review: Wes & Eugene's Cabinet of Wonders at the Brattle 3/26

John Wesley Harding and Eugene Mirman seem like an odd pair – one is an English-born folk/rock singer and writer heavily influenced by Bob Dylan, the other is a Russian-born comedian who took his early cues from Emo Philips. But they meshed beautifully together, with the help of a few noteworthy friends, Thursday night at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge presenting their traveling variety show, Wes & Eugene’s Cabinet of Wonders.

The show was both heady and silly, featuring writers Tom Perrotta, Rick Moody, and David Gates, musicians Tanya Donelly, and P.T. Walkley, poet David Daniel, and comedian Larry Murphy. Harding assembled the whole group onstage to start out, introducing each guest in a poem and setting a sort of impish tone. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves right from the start, ambling onto the stage looking game for whatever the show turned out to be.

John Wesley Harding and Eugene Mirman Plan Their Cabinet of Wonders



What it turned out to be was a true variety show. Mirman did a couple of sets of comedy, Harding did a couple of sets of music, drawing heavily from his new rock album, Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead. Perrotta and Moody both read pieces about food – Perrotta regarding his less than adventurous palette and Moody about how cheese equals death and is therefore eternal and indispensible. Murphy did his newbie comic character (something he’s been perfecting for years – I won’t spoil the surprise if you can see him do it).

Mirman showed a few videos and told the story of his epic battle with Delta Airlines over his lost luggage (he was eventually compensated, and used the money to buy post cards pre-addressed to Delta Airlines demanding a televised apology), and a couple of bits from his recent book tour for The Will to Whatevs. For local fans, he also brought back his spoof of the Boston.com television campaign from a couple of years ago.

But there was also a bit of mixing and matching, with Harding at the center. Moody and Gates sang harmonies with him, Walkley backed him up for a couple of tunes, and Harding even got Mirman to sing “Mrs. Robinson” with him. He accompanied Tanya Donelly, who started with a shimmering “Moon Over Boston,” a song she sang at Harding’s request (he said he had seen her do it at the Middle East years ago and loved it).

Tanya Donelly and John Wesley Harding "Moon Over Boston"



The night ended with everyone back onstage again, singing “We Are the World style,” as Harding put it, a song Harding wrote that was inspired by Eugene. I got video of this, but so as not to spoil it for those who might be catching the tour at a later date, I won’t be posting it yet.

Here are the rest of the tour dates:

Wed, Apr 1 -- The Tractor Tavern, Seattle, WA
Thu, Apr 2 -- Missisiippi Studios, Portland, OR
Sat, Apr 4 -- Largo, Los Angeles, CA
Sun, Apr 5 -- The Independent, San Francisco, CA
Thu, Apr 9 -- Street Entry, Minneapolis, MN
Fri, Apr 10-- Shuba's, Chicago, IL
Sat, Apr 11-- High Noon Saloon, Madison, WI
Wed, Apr 15-- Le Poisson Rouge, New York, NY

Robby Roadsteamer: I Solved Every Miniquest

Robby Roadsteamer has officially come through his Nebraska period, recording his new album, I Solved Every Miniquest, with a full band. And that’s not the only change. Miniquest also leaves behind the hard rock mustache rock for a more poppy sound, still heavily influenced by his troubadour shtick for the past four solo albums (released within the space of a year and a half). There’s even a hand-clapping sing-along (“Two Week Maine Vacations”) danceable folk rock (“Silverspoon Artist Girl”).

Don’t worry, there are still plenty of Tekken references, and some songs that reference the music industry, although Roadsteamer (and his need to work menial day jobs) is the main target. The best of these is Roadsteamer’s self-penned Wikipedia entry – “Bury that timecard right in the clock/Go clean up dress shirts at Sears.”

Miniquest has a bit more of the party atmosphere that made Roadsteamer’s earlier band albums so much fun (see especially “When We Hang Out”). Which might have something to do with the camaraderie Roadsteamer has worked to engender in the comedy community for the past several months, resulting in a string of comedy/music shows at rock venues.

The latest of these shows, The Greater Boston Alternative Spring Comedy Fling, happens tonight at the Middle East Upstairs with Mehran, MC Mr. Napkins, Chris Coxen, The Steamy Bohemians, Renata Tutko, Anderson Comedy Group, Ken Reid, and emceed by Shane Webb, with musical guest Chris Keating. Doors at 8PM, cover $8. Roadsteamer has also been giving out copies of Miniquest at the shows, so you may be able to snag one there.

You can see a bunch of ths Spring Fling folks in this video for “I Guess It’s All About” (note Mehran’s performance as “stressed out man on phone”).

Random Notes: Louis C.K., Maher/Coulter Reviews

My friend Sean McCarthy at The Comic's Comic was at the Louis C.K. show Saturday, and wrote this review. C.K. was readying a set for his new specials, which he is tentatively set to tape sometime in April. If Saturda's Orpheum gig is any indication, his biggest problem will be choosing what material makes the final hour. Most every riff was right on, from his take on our impatience with technology (expanded from his Conan appearance that made the rounds on YouTube) to having to choose between walking the dog and keeping an eye on your kids as a single dad (sorry, pooch). He did an hour and thirty-five minutes for the main set, and then an encore that he kept short, mentioning that people really ought to go home.

Also, The Bostonist wasn't terribly impressed with last week's showdown between Bill Maher and Ann Coulter. I spoke with Maher about Coulter in 2007, before he taped "The Decider" at the Berklee Performance Center. He said he hadn't spoken with Coulter in a long while, and said, "I always got along with her well, because we never talk politics."

Weekend Comedy -- Stephen Lynch, Whitest Kids U'Know, DJ Hazard

It was a busy weekend in Boston comedy with three great sold-out shows from a couple of out of town acts and a Boston treasure coming back to his old stomping grounds. Starting with Saturday and working backwards, DJ Hazard at Mottley's Comedy Club was the show to see. The club holds just shy of one hundred people, and it was packed to maximum capacity to see Hazard, who now lives in New York City.

It was a hot crowd, and they were didn't take long to warm up to Tim McIntire and Bethany Van Delft, who hosted and middled the show. Van Delft was especially on, with material about her modeling days and efforts to conceive. She mixed drier, headier material with a couple of well-placed, more graphic punchlines. Ira Proctor did a drop-in set, working on material for a tape to send to the Tonight Show. He did what you'd call an extremely tight five, talking about running to get in shape after not having done it in a while ("It's changed," he said), and the type of lazy it takes to not get off the couch, even to go to bed.

But it was Hazard's night, and he absolutely crushed. Material new and old -- a few things you'll hear on his new CD, Man of Hazardium,and a few things I'd never heard him do. He compared going on a first date to bringing your balls to the Antique Roadshow (I won't spoil the punchline for you), talked about gun violence (I'm beginning to think if more people got shot, less people would get shot"), performing on cruise ships, and a variety of topics for about an hour's set with not a single lull.

He closed with a classic Hazard tune, "Untie My Ankles," which is so far removed from the original Juice Newton song from which Hazard borrows the tune that it had no right to go over as well as it does. Attribute that to Hazard's skill at feeling out a crowd and timing a set. The song went right into his "DJ Hazard -- Nightclub Comedian" routine, wherein an animatronic DJ mouths a prerecorded message from the future. If you're a Hazard fan and haven't seen this bit, see him every time you can until he does it. It's offbeat, inventive, and it was just the right way to sign off for a well-satisfied audience.

Friday, I pulled double-duty, catching the Whitest Kids U'Know at Great Scott and the late Stephen Lynch show at the Comedy Connection Wilbur Theatre. The Whitest Kids were playing Anderson Comedy's usual Friday night show, The Gas, and sold it out about an hour before show time. They brought a mix of sketch comedy and video, material most of the audience seemed to recognize from their Tuesday night show on IFC, like the Deer Hunter sketch and "Slow Jerk" (check my interview post from earlier this week for videos of the original sketches). I spoke with Sam Brown (a Sandwich native) after the show, and him to describe what you missed if you didn't see the show.

Here's the quick interview:


Stpehen Lynch played two sold out shows at the Wilbur, each of them about two hours of music drawn mostly from his new album, 3 Balloons. I caught the second show, which was literally the second show of the tour, and the second time Lynch had performed this material together the way he will for the rest of the tour (he's done a bunch of the songs for one-off gigs, and you can find a few of the songs if you search YouTube). He did twelve of the fourteen songs on 3 Balloons, a few old favorites like "Special," showed a couple of video shorts, and even covered Prince. He had a bit of support from friends David Josefsberg (whom he perfomed with on Broadway doing The Wedding Singer) and Rod Cone, who helped with the banter and the background singing. For the encore, he played piano for what he said was the first time onstage in front of an audience.

I spoke with the very tired Lynch backsstage after the show about the show and the tour:

Review: The Rob Crean Show at O'Brien's 1/13

O’Brien’s Pub in Allston might rightly be described as a “joint.” It’s at the end of Harvard Ave, down where most people pass on their way to the Thruway, and the neighborhood is a jumble of hip boutiques, cheap eateries, and car rental shops. It’s a place you’d expect to hear college bands blasting indie rock against the stinging weather outside, or warming up with some more sensitive folk rock. At least that’s the feeling on a cold January night.

But the second Tuesday of every month, O’Brien’s belongs to The Rob Crean Show, a talk and variety show hosted by Rob Crean of the Anderson Comedy sketch troupe. It’s a laid back, late night show. The start time is listed as 9PM, but the show’s audience is more into fashionably late. So by the time Crean starts his monologue around 9:40, there are only a few bodies mingling, glancing occasionally at the TVs behind the bar to check on the Bruins score. The crowd really starts to grow after ten, and everyone is still there at midnight when things are winding down.

Crean is an amiable, self-deprecating host. His monologue is surprisingly traditional for a room full of hipsters, a survey of news about President Bush’s last press conference and the type of offbeat items (a man sells his daughter for meat and beer, a wedding ruined by locusts) that late night talk show hosts love crack wise on.

The monologue is interrupted by Ripps McCoxen (character comic Chris Coxen, who seems to be on every underground comedy show in Boston), a 2-by-4 toting workout maniac who is looking for the band that’s playing next month’s show. Crean is game, and fine with playing the straight man as McCoxen explains how his flexing arm (his “gun”) is often mistaken for Cape Cod.



Crean and Anderson Comedy have put together a satisfying mix of sketch and stand-up (this month’s there was a DJ between sets instead of the usual band, so any judgment on that element is deferred for another time). The women of Anderson comedy perform a monthly parody of “The View” called “The Vagenda” (again a surprisingly traditional approach to sketch parody), which allows them to be catty in character.

Crean also interviews the acts when they’re done, which is where the self-deprecation comes in. Which you can see in this clip with MC Mr. Napkins.



Rhode Island comic Tim Vargulish, a relative newbie, has a promising set of sarcastic geek comedy. Mike Dorval previewed his funny, personal one-man show, Death By Chocolate, which premieres next month at the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre (more on that in February). And MC Mr Napkins (also fast becoming a staple of any cool indie show in this town) hit his usual hip-hop homeruns, even if he stumbled once or twice (on raps about pneumonic devices, no less).

Anderson Comedy hosts several shows around town, including Gas, which is every Friday at Great Scott, just down the street from O’Brien’s on Harvard Ave (they’ll host a Flight of the Conchords premiere party this Friday). They are aiming to create a new scene for themselves and other like-minded comedians and musicians. Here are Rob Crean and Lucas Lewis of Anderson Comedy, explaining it in their own words:

Preview: Louis C.K.'s Chewed Up

Any comic could mine a topic like “boxers versus briefs” for some easy, observational material. For Louis C.K., “boxers versus briefs” is a confession. It’s a chance for him to merrily reveal how his crotch “looks like a pig’s ass when I’m naked.” Which is not the worst of C.K.’s confessions from his brutally funny new special, Chewed Up, which is out on DVD and CD tomorrow.

Here’s a sample from that routine, “My Horrible Body.”

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

The Newton native does not ease into uncomfortable subjects. The minute he hits the stage of the Berklee Performance Center, C.K. starts into a favorite topic of one of his idols, George Carlin, taking on three specific terms in “Offensive Words.” Here’s a clip from the bit, in which C.K. explains his hatred for “The ‘N’ Word.”

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

There is an undeniable logic to even the most potentially offensive of C.K.’s thoughts that short circuits the immediate shock and leaves you saying, “Huh, that makes sense.” He looks at everything with a sort of dark wonderment, whether it’s the beautiful nonsense that his kids (and all kids) constantly spout (“A Three-Year-Old’s Secret”), his diet (“My Horrible Body”), or race (“I Enjoy Being White”).

When he goes to his doctor for a sore ankle, the 40-year-old C.K. is told there is no remedy, just painful stretching he’ll have to do from now on – “That’s just a new thing you do until you and your shitty ankle both die.” He sums up the history of race relations in a tidy hypothetical – as a white person, he could get into a time machine and go anywhere and know it would be all right.

As he notes in the bonus interview on the DVD, C.K. took a minimalist approach to the setting and lights, which has the effect of focusing attention on his comedy. (If that seems strangely obvious to you, compare Chewed Up to Bill Maher’s last special, The Decider, which was broadcast live and taped in the same venue. That was meant to seem more like an event, an approach C.K. purposefully eschewed).

Chewed Up is stand-up comedy stripped down to its bare essentials, something we can expect to see from Louis C.K. about once a year. C.K. (and also notably, Bill Burr) has committed to leaving his old material behind after every special and starting work on the new one immediately following, in the tradition of George Carlin (to whom this special is dedicated). The more C.K., the better.

BONUS: The DVD is of special interest to Boston comedy nerds. Besides the aforementioned facts that C.K. is from Newton and the special was taped at Berklee, C.K. speaks at length in the bonus interview about his time here, remembering Chance Langton’s open mic at Stitches, seeking inspiration from WBCN’s Friday Funnies, and playing Off the Wall Cinema.

Review: Lea DeLaria's Christmas Cheer and the anti-Fred Phelps

Three blocks from the Calderwood Pavilion on our way to the Lea DeLaria show yesterday, I heard faint cheering, a chant or two lifting up over the sound of the wind blowing down Clarendon Street. I thought it might be carolers or a crowd coming from some sports event. But when we turned on Tremont Street, there was a crowd of maybe a hundred people packed tightly onto the sidewalk across the street from the theatre complex, singing cheerily.

That’s when I saw the signs. “God Hates Fags.” “You’re Going to Hello.” Six of Fred Phelps’ wacko supporters were outside in a small taped off area, hoisting their signs smugly in the air, or trying to walk in a small circle. The hundred people across the street were counter-protesters, and as I realized they were singing the national anthem, and that the cop across the street was actually leading them in song, I got a warm, joyful feeling. My thought was that they were there to protest DeLaria, about as out a lesbian as you could find. I pitied them if DeLaria were to find out they were there, because there were only six of them. I didn’t find out until after the show what they were actually there for.

But I brought that warm feeling with me into the upstairs room the Calderwood had turned into a cabaret, complete with tables and drinks and mood lighting, with a stage just big enough for DeLaria and her piano/bass/drums trio, Janette Mason and the Ho Ho Hos. Mason (an accomplished musician in her own right, who scored the recent Bob Hoskins film Ruby Blue), led the trio in an elegant version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” before DeLaria took the stage.

DeLaria kicked off her set with a fluid, fun “Sleigh Ride,” since this was a Christmas cabaret show. But she followed it with “Night and Day,” and then told the crowd how she hates Christmas. Anathema, she said, for the gay and lesbian crowd who get to dress the whole house in drag.

If you’re wondering why I’m reviewing a music show on a comedy blog, it’s because DeLaria is as skilled a comedian as she is a singer, and her aggressive comic style, even when she’s ranting about Christmas or politics, is as joyful and vivacious as the music in her program. As she put it, there was “a lot of great music and a lot of cranky stand-up.”

Part of the reason she hates Christmas, she said, is because she lives in New York, which is flooded with tourists during the season, people who fly from Kansas to see Mama Mia. “I’d rather watch $135 burn on the sidewalk,” she said, than pay the ticket price for that show.

The show was an enormous amount of fun. DeLaria sang a “Jingle Bells” cha cha cha that segued into “Manana,” sang an obscure song about mistletoe with some forced audience participation, and delivered a stunning, delicate rendition of “Christmastime Is Here.” The encore, a nimble, beautiful “Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.”

After the show, I learned from DeLaria that she had tangled with Fred Phelps before, getting him to try to crawl over his foot soldiers to take a swing at her. It was a proud moment for her, that she was able to taunt the guy ‘til he popped. As I walked out, I found the real reason the protesters were there. “The Laramie Project,” a play about a small town after the murder of Matthew Shepard, was playing in the theater next door. It’s too bad god hates fags. The Phelps people missed a great show.