Montreal Looks To Boston for Talent

Boston comedy and the Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal have had a good relationship over the years. The Festival is where Lenny Clarke got his first sitcom deal. John Pinette packs big rooms there. Mike Birbiglia gave his one-man show, Sleepwalk With Me, a pre-Off Broadway spin there. This weekend, Just For Laughs is coming to Boston again looking for more Boston comics for their New Faces showcase and other shows. Jeff Singer will come to the Comedy Studio Friday and Mottley’s Comedy Club Saturday scouting for the Festival (see below for the full line-up). Here’s a sneak peak at what he’ll be considering when he looks at some of the best talent Boston has to offer.

How long has it been since Just For Laughs has scouted Boston?

We make sure to visit Boston every year. One of my colleagues covered in 2008. It's been a few years for me personally. The city has always produced a wealth of comedy talent going back to Jay Leno, Steven Wright, Lenny Clarke and Denis Leary through the current generation of comics like Mike Birbiglia, Eugene Mirman, Jon Fisch, Shane Mauss and Patrick Borelli. In our industry there are a handful of cities that have a reputation for being good comedy towns. Boston has always been one of them. Austin is another. If you find me a town that rhymes with those, I'll be on the next plane and let you emcee the show.

What is it you’re looking for from a comedian?

It really depends on the show we're booking. For New Faces, something that makes them stand out from the pack. It could be clever writing; a distinct persona; unique point of view or a "born-with-it" quality that draws in the crowd. We want comedians who are polished and ripe enough to be thrown in the spotlight. They've also got to be memorable, whether it's their personality or their jokes. I know I've found someone special when I'm reciting one of their bits the next day without consulting my notes. Those traits generally apply to most comedians we hope to book at the Festival. However there are other theme shows such as Nasty Show, Ethnic Heroes of Comedy, The Relationship show, Alternative or the Music Show where we're seeking specific kinds of comics to fit the bill. The material is paramount. And of course I can't ignore the obvious: being able to get laughs. There are comics I personally find amusing who I know would die a horrible death in certain rooms. Conversely there are others who might not be my cup of tea but would resonate strongly with a local crowd as well as the industry We try to maintain the tricky balance of being taste makers and giving the audience what we think they want. I believe I answered this question without once using the word "funny". Damn I just blew it.

Is there a certain quality that disqualifies someone immediately?

Steroids. But we don't do drug tests in comedy. If we did the Festival would be down to 6 stand-ups and an Italian quick change artist. That guy's got to be on something too.

I can't really think of anything that would disqualify someone, however I have seen auditions where performers have committed comedy suicide. We saw one guy this season who yelled nonsensically at an audience member his entire set without saying one joke. Perhaps he was trying to be Andy Kaufman-esque or something. He missed the mark completely. It was a disaster. As he was bombing, his microphone disconnected from the wire and he still continued his maniacal rant using only his voice in the dead, hollow room. It was a layer of uncomfortable on top of awkward. I suppose that counts as a disqualification. We were all afraid to go near him after the show. My colleague thought he was going to Travis Bickle one of us.

Has what the Festival has been looking for changed over the years?

I'd like to think we continue to seek the best talent from around the world. One thing that has changed is the growth and expansion of Just For Laughs. The Festival expanded to Toronto last year, and this June a version launches in Chicago. With these new editions plus the cross-Canada tours and other ventures in development, the Festival is looking now more than ever for comics who can play big stages to wide audiences in multiple cities. Also, the solo, sketch and specialty shows have grown so there are more opportunities to showcase different forms of comedy in addition to traditional stand-up. Even with stand-up, we've experimented with storytelling format shows like "Confessing It" which was a big hit for several years, and other variety type shows. I think you'll see more of that this season and in the coming years.

How did you wind up going to the Comedy Studio and Mottley’s?

Comedy Studio has a great reputation too. I've personally known about it for years, from the days when I ran a popular alternative comedy show in New York called "Eating It" at Luna Lounge. For ten years I saw many Boston comics who played my room. The majority of them got their start at the Comedy Studio. So now of course I want to go straight to the source. I've been there once before but it's been at least 5 years if not more. The gentleman who runs it, Rick Jenkins, is a really nice guy with good taste. All the Boston comics speak fondly of him. I like working with someone like that. As for Mottley's, I only recently discovered the club through the grapevine. Since The Comedy Connection moved on up to the East Side (in Jeffersons parlance), I needed a new small to mid-size downtown room. I've heard good things and am looking forward to doing my first showcase there.

Have you seen Boston comics do well in Montreal before? Any specific memories?

Louis C.K. and Nick DiPaolo have destroyed so many times it's hard to keep track. Those guys could kill at a Tsunami Concert for Bangladeshi AIDS Research. Same goes for Patrice Oneal and Bill Burr. On the New Faces level, Ira Proctor did very well last year. I love seeing Bostonians flourish in Montreal, except when the Bruins are in town.

How many cities are you visiting for auditions?

In addition to New York where I'm based, I'm going to seven cities this season. I just got back from Austin, Texas. Then Boston, Nashville and Atlanta followed by the final leg of Denver, Minneapolis and Detroit. I'm also attending showcases in L.A. My L.A-based colleagues cover San Francisco and another associate is doing a showcase in Chicago. I try to mix it up every year. Last season I hit Raleigh which was really strong. In years past I've been to Washington, DC and Philadelphia. We also work with clubs around the country who help us put together showcases which we tape and review. We draw many callback candidates from those taped showcases. So if I can't make it to Cleveland or Omaha, I'll still see who's making them laugh there.

How do you narrow down your list once you’ve visited all the towns you’re drawing from?

Again each show will have different determining factors. For New Faces, my primary focus, I basically look for the qualities I mentioned earlier and then begin to compare my lists to assess the overall talent pool. We like to mix it up with some diversity, including geography, when possible. I can usually narrow it down one showcase at a time. By the time I'm done I should have enough final callback spots between New York and L.A. to see everyone I initially liked. If I'm forced to cut it down for whatever reason, I'll consult with my colleagues for a second pass. For shows like Masters or the Gala, I work closely with my Festival associates who already have certain candidates in mind or waiting lists from years past. If these scouting trips produce an abundance of outstanding comedians, narrowing them down will be a good problem to have.


Friday, March 6, 8PM
The Comedy Studio
Shaun Bedgood, Maggie MacDonald, Matt McArthur, Tony Moschetto, Lamont Price, Ken Reid, Robby RoadSteamer, Dan Sally, Sean Sullivan, Renata Tutko, Joe Wong.

Saturday, March 7, 8PM
Mottley’s Comedy Club
Ken Rogerson, Tony V., Robbie Printz, Bethany Van Delft, Erin Judge, Orlando Baxter, Tom Dustin, Mike Whitman, Mike Dorval

Ardal O'Hanlon Back in Boston Tonight

Irish comedian Ardal O’Hanlon sold out four shows when he played the Burren in 2007, and with good reason. He’s a popular comic in the U.K., partly due to the fact that he played Father Dougal McGuire in the classic British sitcom Father Ted, and partly because he’s simply a great comic. He is adept with a good story or a quick punchline, a fine skilled comedian.

Since 2007, O’Hanlon has been busy back in the U.K., doing guest spots on shows like Skins, and looking into his own history (a grandfather who was in the IRA with Michael Collins, and a line that stretches to Peter Fenlon Collier, of Collier’s Encyclopedia fame) on RTE’s Who Do You Think You Are? Tonight at the Somerville Theatre, you get a second chance to see O’Hanlon live. I spoke with him by e-mail this week (and kept the English spellings in, so you know it’s authentic).

What was your impression of playing the Burren when you were here in 2007?

Didn't know what to expect but loved it. Intimate venue, mixed audience, sensational atmosphere.

Have you been over to the US much since then?

Only once while researching a documentary about my family. I spent a few days in New York looking up an obscure relative who founded the mighty Collier publishing empire. As you can imagine I was especially interested in what happened the fortune.

Did you find a lot of fans wanted to know about "Father Ted" when you were here?

I was surprised and gratified to learn that there were a lot of genuine Fr Ted fans in the US many of whom travelled long distances for the show. There were also a lot of first generation Irish there for whom Fr Ted is something of an institution.

I've read that you searched your family tree for a show on RTE – were you surprised at what you found, especially about your grandfather and the IRA?

I was dimly aware of much of my family history but was blown away when we uncovered the actual evidence. My grandfather was a modest unassuming man who for love of his country threw himself in at the deep end of the War of Independence. He had always been a somewhat distant hero to me but thanks to the programme I felt I got to know him as a man and walk a little bit of the way in his shoes.

What is your role on Skins? (The show airs on BBC America here).

Skins is a cult show in the UK. A lot of the adult roles are played by reasonably well-known comedians and actors. I play a down-at-heel teacher who gets a little too close to one of his pupils.

I notice you have a section dedicated to Bill Hicks, Eddie Izzard, Dylan Moran, and Tommy Tiernan on your site listed as "coming soon." What are your plans for that?

That I am embarrassed to admit is a very old website (2001) which was
never finished. I believe the list you refer to was a list of my favourite comics at the time. Coincidentally Tommy Tiernan, Dylan Moran and I have advanced plans to do a mini-tour of the US together hopefully this June.

How are you balancing stand-up and other work at the moment?

I did a movie before Christmas called Wide Open Spaces which stars Ewen
Bremner and should be released in the autumn. After Boston and New York I am on the road a lot taking in far flung places such as the Middle East and China (it sounds a lot better than it is - they are low-key shows for English language communities). Then it is back home to do a new sitcom about an Irish politician.

A bit of video from O'Hanlon's last stop in Boston, from Off the Boat Comedy:

Ardal O'Hanlon, Live in Boston

Friends Help Knoxie Tonight At Giggles

Kevin Knox was supposed to be dead five years ago. That’s when he was diagnosed with cancer and grim prospects. But Knox has been fighting an unconventional battle with his cancer, through diet and supplements, and with the help of friends like the comics who will play a benefit for him tonight at Giggles Comedy Club.

When I spoke with Knox Monday, he was caught in a snow storm trying to find a restaurant that served organic food. After his diagnosis, a lot of people, he says, thought he was insane to eschew the standard hospital treatment for a more homeopathic treatment of fresh organic food, supplements, natural oils and the like. “[That] didn’t shake me at all because I’ve been insane all my life,” he says. “This didn’t throw me off.”

Knox is grateful for the extra time and for the friends who have been essential to his fight. “Because of my friends, because of the people who’ve been helping me out, I’ve been able to fight this illness my way,” he says. “I wanted to be outside the box for this. My parents, my sister all passed away from cancer and they fought it conventionally and they died these horrible deaths. I was supposed to be dead five years ago – February 12 is my five year anniversary. I’m still alive, I was only supposed live for a few months. The alternative stuff does work. People don’t know that or understand it, but it really does.”

Twelve weeks ago, Knox had a setback when doctors discovered what Knox describes as a grapefruit-sized mass in his abdomen. His surgeon was able to remove it, according to Knox, without doing much harm. “The surgeon had been doing to 26 years, and he said, ‘In 26 years, I’ve never seen what happened happen. When we cut into your abdomen it just basically fell out onto the table. It was totally encapsulated.’ He says, I’ve never seen that. So now he wants me to go to Mass General to have my immune system studied. So we’re doing something right.”

And while Knox has bounced back quickly, working out and finally getting back to doing some shows, he was out of work for several week, which is why tonight’s benefit is so important. “My friends realize that fighting cancer my way, none of it’s covered,” he says. “I have incredible insurance that I never get to use because of how I’m fighting it.”

Tony V. hosts the benefit tonight, which includes Steve Sweeney, Don Gavin, Ken Rogerson, Frank Santorelli, Ira Proctor, Jimmy Dunn, Dave Russo, Paul D’Angelo, Artie Januario, Brad Mastrangelo, Johnny Pizzi, Mark Riley, and Danny Miller. Tickets are $30 and doors open at 6:30PM.

If that seems like a lot of names for one show, Mike Clarke points out that there will be even more comics in the audience. “Kevin is the most charitable guy there is so everybody’s just more than happy to give back to him,” he says. “A lot of guys are coming, they might not even be able to get on, but they’re coming to support the cause.”

Knox is one of the grand characters in the Boston scene, the only act with enough energy to have followed Dane Cook’s frenetic act on the Comics Come Home bill a decade ago. His every movement and statement onstage is played like he’s trying to reach the back row of a stadium crowd, even when he’s playing his regular Monday night gig in an intimate room like the Vault.

His reaction to the help and support he has received is typically oversized. “Everybody’s been so amazing to me, especially Mike Clarke and Giggles,” he says. “All the comics have just been so supportive. It’s really been amazing. All the fans, people have been sending me love and cards trying to keep my sorry ass alive. I can’t believe it.”

Kevin Knox will also play Giggles Friday with Tony V. and Dan Miller and Saturday with Artie Januario and Dan Miller.

Josh Gondelman and Shawn Donovan's World Tour of America

Josh Gondelman and Shawn Donovan begin their trek across the nation this week, playing everywhere from Chicago to Austin, San Diego to Seattle, all in about a month’s time. They’ll kick off their World Tour of America tonight with a show at Mottley’s Comedy Club with a slate of guests – Jon Lincoln, Tim McIntire, Brian Moote, Dan Boulger, Ken Reid, Chris Coxen, and Renata Tutko. I spoke with Gondelman by e-mail about the tour.

How did you decide to do a national tour together?

I have some good friends in a really great local band (The Grownup Noise), and they do a self-produced tour every summer, so that was definitely an inspiration for me. I had the idea a year ago to do a similar thing. Shawn was my first choice to come with me because my rubric was: Who can I call who will leave his/her job on a moment's notice? And Shawn was the first name that came to mind.

Have either of you done extensive road work in the past?

I've been all over New England and down to New York for shows, one nighters and weekends and stuff, but this is my first serious long-term nation-wide trip. It's an excuse to see the country and meet people and get onstage in front of all sorts of different crowds. We've got some adventures planned, too. Salamander hunting with a nature photographer in Chicago, Graceland, riverboat gambling in Mississippi. Also, Shawn is a bigfoot enthusiast, so the Pacific Northwest will be full of mystery and danger.

How did you book the places you’re going to?

The internet has been a great resource. Just Googling cities and contacting people on MySpace out of the blue has yielded some great results. Also, Boston has become a really cool melting pot for comics who started out in different places. Brian Moote was a big help booking shows in Seattle and Jess Mozes who works at the Comedy Studio got us a gig in San Francisco. Also, there are lots of Boston transplants all over who were very helpful. The Walsh Brothers in particular. Lots of guys who went to Emerson are out in California, too, and they were very cool. Mike McCusker was very supportive. We're mostly crashing on couches of college friends. At this point in my life, no one owes me any favors anymore, though. I better not move anytime soon.

What is your mode of transportation?

1999 Toyota Corolla. Mine. I'm picturing it as a cross between the Blues Brothers ("It's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses, etc.") and the Big Lebowski ("They finially did it; they killed my f---ing car.") But mostly we're putting 8,000 miles on a ten year old car. Fortunately we've got a friend who is a comedian and a mechanic who's taking a look at it for us. Comedy is sort of like the free masons sometimes.

What venues/cities are you most excited to play?

We got hooked up with some really cool showcases in Chicago, which is our last stop on the way home. Plus, I've heard nothing but great stuff about Austin and San Francisco as places to spend time.

What do you think you might learn from playing these other cities?

What I'm hoping for mostly is to broaden my horizons in terms of absorbing comedy. Boston is a great community, but I'm excited to see what the conventions are outside of that community. What makes people uncomfortable in other cities? What sorts of jokes are "hack?" I'm curious to see whether mainstream comedy is sort of like mainstream music, in that what blows up nationally is the most commercially viable iteration of a particular style or dialect. I'm excited to get into the nitty gritty of things. And also to see how my act plays all over, for sure.

Will you be trying to pick up shows as you go along, in addition to what you already have booked?

We're already pretty jam-packed, with something like 17 nights onstage out of 28 days away, so it'll be tough to book additional things, but I'd definitely be up for doubling up and hitting a couple of shows on the same night in cities where there's a lot going on. You know, like Oxford, Mississippi.

What will be your first official gig back in Boston after the tour?

The Monday we return, I retake the helm of my usual Monday night open mic at Sally O'Brien's in Somerville. Then I'm at the Comedy Vault the first weekend I'm back (April 10th and 11th), and then The Gas (Friday) and the Comedy Studio (Saturday) the next week. So I'm hitting the ground running.

Kyria Abrahams Is Perfect, and You're Doomed

As of today, Kyria Abrahams is a published memoirist, as Touchstone released her I’m Perfect, You’re Doomed: Tales from a Jehovah’s Witness Upbringing. The book is deeply funny and deeply personal, delving into how her faith drove her to suicide attempts and a loveless marriage. Hard to pull laughter from that subject, but Abrahams does it with relentless sense of self-deprecation and awareness. Of course, Abrahams is used to getting laughs from her time in Boston, performing at The Comedy Studio and other venues around town. She answered a few questions about the book and Boston comedy from her New York apartment by e-mail while recovering from a root canal. (She'll also be blogging at the Powell's Web site this week).

Do you get to perform stand-up much any more?

I do want to get back to performing regularly, but I took a break to write the book and eventually fell out of the loop. I also realized that I liked the solitude of the writing process. I love doing standup, but it's also very nice to go home after work and eat dinner in my kitchen, instead of running to Brooklyn to perform for five disinterested hipsters in the back of a hat store/bar/arcade with free pizza. I got tired of forcing comedy on people who didn't even know there was a show going on. It felt too desperate.

Do you have any particularly fond memories of playing Boston and the Comedy Studio?

Hell yes. Fond, traumatic, life-changing, hungover - you name it! That building and the people inside it changed my whole life, as did the waitress at the second floor bar offering vodka and Kool Aid shots in a test tube and, my personal favorite question: "Meat on a Stick?"

Hosting the Friday night show with Piston Honda is probably my fondest experience, working with The Walsh Brothers, Dan Newbower and James Patterson. We were five incredibly talented comedians, none of whom could get our acts together long enough to produce anything anything of substance.

And, of course, I'm sure you remember when Sam Walters kidnapped you as part of a publicity stunt for our comedy troupe WAKKA, which I believe stood for The Warring Komik's Army. That was... awesome?

I think the bottom line is that Rick Jenkins gave us free reign to be horrible and to forge life-long friendships. I actually have a painting of the Hong Kong hanging above my desk.

Did your stand-up experience help you with the humor in the book?

I don't know if the craft of standup was important, but I think the experience of bombing definitely helped. Bombing kinda makes you a better joke-writer, because you want to avoid the soul-crushing feeling of silence. I think every standup has had the experience of thinking a joke was gonna kill, and then realizing that it's definitely.... not. But if you never perform in front of people, there's no way to hone the skill of self-preservation, you're just stuck in your own head. That's a bad place for a comic, because everything up there seems brilliant.

Where did the idea to write a memoir come from? Was it something you always had in mind?

I was thinking about doing a one-woman show, or maybe just adding some jokes about it to my standup routing. I finally realized that I needed too much backstory and explanation. I couldn't make jokes about it, because no one would understand what I was talking about. The memoir was the only form that really met the needs of the story.

The book is funny, but also often brutally personal. Were you hesitant at all about revealing so much in public?

Not really. I'm always very open about my life, especially dumb mistakes I've made. Someone recently said that I "Live life out loud," and I liked that. Everything in my book is there to further the understanding of who I was as a child, which will hopefully give people some understanding of what it feels like to grow up as a Jehovah's Witness. I was excited to have the opportunity to put my life out there for this reason. And memoirs are supposed to be revealing. Unlike, say, describing my attempted suicide while standing around the cheese plate at the company Christmas party. There's a time and a place.

How did you approach the tone when talking about the rituals and your experience as a Jehovah’s Witness? You’re obviously mocking the founding principles of the religion, but you’re doing it by mocking your own attitude about it at the time, which seems like a tough line to walk, between preaching and self-deprecation.
I have a tendency to be very judgmental, so I made a conscious effort to reign that in. I just didn't think a nasty, sarcastic tone would make for a good book. Maybe that's why I was so hard on myself at times, because my character is, in a way, a symbol for all Jehovah's Witnesses. At the same time, I wanted to remember that these are real people with real lives, something that's often overlooked when we make fun of religion. It's easy to stereotype religious nuts, it's hard to see them in shades of gray.

Have you gotten much feedback from people who were in the book? Is there anyone you’ve purposefully not sent the book to preview?

Only from a few people, but for the most part, people have been very quiet about the whole thing. I didn't send copies to my parents, of course. It's apostate literature, and I was afraid the Fed Ex truck would burst into flames.

Where do you stand on religion now?

I'll be honest, I really don't like religion. The idea of organizing access to God is very distasteful to me. I just don't think it's healthy to go to church. It poisons the experience and creates all kinds of drama that has nothing to do with God but has everything to do with what color robes mean you're the most important person in the room. Organized religion is all about ego to me.

At the same time, I'm the kind of person who prays and meditates almost every day. I have a higher power in my life, and I also don't care if anyone agrees with that concept or not (so save your spiel, athiests!). I don't really feel the need to debate it. It's just my personal relationship with God, in the same way that I have a favorite deodorant and I sleep with socks on. It doesn't affect anyone but me.

Alt.Com Releases Line-up for May Festival

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BNN Mondays: Raj Siveramen on Slumdog Millionaire

Boston News Net Tech Correspondent Raj Siveramen isn't quite as impressed with Slumdog Millionaire as the Academy, or his friends who think they now understand India for having seen the film.



See more Boston News Net videos here.

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:

Who Are The Whitest Kids U'Know?

What exactly is the Whitest Kids U’Know? We know they have a TV show that airs Tuesdays at 10PM, now in its third season on IFC (the first season was on FUSE). We know they are a comedy troupe that is coming to Great Scott tonight to play a show with Anderson Comedy. Then there are the viral videos like “Hitler Rap” that spread through YouTube, and even a movie called Miss March (out March 13)written and directed by Whitest Kids Zach Cregger and Trevor Moore, who also star.

The Whitest Kids U’Know, then, is a five-person comedy troupe (rounded out by Darren Trumeter, Sam Brown, and Timmy Williams) with experience making short films and producing a weekly live sketch in New York City. Their show in IFC looks mort like a collection of short films than a traditional live sketch show. That may be splitting hairs, but it’s a distinction of which the troupe is aware.

“The funny thing is that when we first started as a troupe, we were pretty much at our very early stages, trying to make a TV show for a live show,” says Brown, a Sandwich native whose brother tends bar at Miracle of Science and the Middlesex in Cambridge. “And then eventually, once we started doing the weekly shows, we realized we’re making a live show. We started writing to that, writing stuff to work with a room. And yeah, second or third season, we had to shift our minds back to making a TV show again.”

“Sketch has changed. It’s like SNL doing ‘Digital Shorts,’” says Trumeter. “We still think of them as sketches but the format has kind of changed, because we’re not playing in front of an audience.”

Cregger, Moore and Brown all had experience with film studying at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Williams studied film at Brooklyn College, and Trumeter brought a depth of theater experience when he joined the troupe, and had also made a short film. That experience was a tremendous help when they were transitioning from the live show to television.

“Us being able to produce out own stuff is how we got going,” says Brown. “We all just knew how to edit, spoke that language of how things are laid out with cuts and things like that. We were able to speak to the finished product.”

Running a weekly live show was also a boon, giving the group a lot or material from which to create the first season. “The first season of the show, 90 percent of the sketches we had that season were written before we got the show, from doing the live show for so long,” says Brown. “The second season we had some [material] from doing stuff live. But then doing the third season was all new.”

The troupe has a taste for scatological, potentially controversial, and sometimes even mean material. They have featured sketches about miming workplace masturbation and a spiteful grade school teacher who tells a student his mother died in a car wreck. Probably one of the least controversial is the “Hitler Rap,” which shows the former fuehrer reformed and battling MCs instead of leading a holocaust.

When they started with IFC, the network told them they would have pretty much free reign for content, they took it as a challenge to push boundaries. “They really let us do whatever we want,” says Brown. “But the interesting thing is that this season, we weren’t as compelled to just push the boundaries, we were more like, all right, let’s just make the funniest stuff we can make. And it still ended up [with] more animal sex sketches than ever. Like, oh, we just are really weird people, aren’t we?”

The Kids are still waiting to hear if they will have a fourth season with IFC, and are working on a Whitest Kids movie. But in the meantime, they’re happy to be able to get back on the road and play in front of a live audience. “The tour has been amazing because we kind of threw it together last minute, and the turnout has been insane,” says Trumeter. “We had no idea that we had this many fans.”

Anderson Comedy's The Gas presents The Whitest Kids U'Know at Great Scott. 18+. 8 p.m. $15. 617.566.9014.

"Deer Sketch"



“Slow Jerk”



Classroom Sketch



"Hitler Rap"

Stephen Lynch On Baby Seals and Peanuts Kids

Stephen Lynch will be in town tomorrow, playing the Comedy Connection Wilbur Theatre for two shows I am told are now sold out (never hurts to check Ticketmaster if you are still looking for tickets, though). Not a bad kickoff for his Comedy Central Live: 3 Balloons Tour, which will eventually take him across the US and into London, Ireland, Sweden, and Holland, with more dates still to be announced. And that's before his new album, also named 3 Balloons (coincidence?), hits shelves on March 24.

The album can get a bit raunchy, with tunes like "Medieval Bush" (self-explanatory) and "Hallelujah," in which Lynch professes his thankfulness for a certain part of the female anatomy. Lynch is coming off a Tony-nominated run in the title role of The Wedding Singer on Broadway, and getting right back to work -- he has a new DVD and a new special due by the end of the year. I caught up to him by e-mail this week.

So when can we expect your children’s album?

I don't need to do a children's album. I feel my records are appropriate for any age. Next time your baby is crying and won't sleep, try humming a few bars of "Waiting for My AIDS Test to Come Back," for example. Your child will be both entertained and lulled into sleep.

3 Balloons goes even a bit further into the scatological – did you have all of this to get out of your system after having to be a bit cleaner on Broadway?

I don't think this album has much in the way of scatological humor at all. It covers a wide array of topics, from those bad-ass Peanuts kids to my experience as a grade school teacher to Marvin Gaye's diary entries. I certainly felt a sense of freedom in what I could write having done squeaky-clean Broadway for a year, but as is always the case, I never decide to write for shock value or gross out value. It's what i think is funny. By the way, I did manage to sneak a line about "clubbing baby seals" into The Wedding Singer, so it wasn't all bad...

I can hear “The Ballad of Scarface” or “America” playing on college folk stations or at coffeehouses with no one quite noticing the lyrics at first. Do you listen that genre of folk music?

I've always loved the folk music. Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Pete Seeger, It's the simplest way to tell a story, and sometimes the most effective. So it works for what I try to do too. Plus, it's easier to write jokes in that style, as opposed to say, Pantera or Yes. Although "Roundabout" IS hilarious...

“America” almost seems heartfelt at times – is that something you think about? Trying to write something you actually feel sometimes, while still going for the joke?

I wrote "America" in London a couple years ago, when the world's view of our country was probably at its worst. The more hopeful ending came as a burst of inspiration after the Presidential election. That song is the closest thing to sincere that you'll find on one of my records. Well, that and the AIDS test song.

Have you ever performed Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah?” Maybe a medley of yours and his?

That medley would be 73 minutes long. But very profound. And moving. His is a song about spirituality, sin, regret, repentance, and longing. Mine is about tits.

You used fan videos to help promote the show in your newsletter. Do you approve of people posting their videos of your shows online? Is it something you explicitly condone?

I love the fact that everything is online. It's like free advertising. I just did sold out shows in Scandinavia, where I've never been on t.v. or the radio, and I can only credit YouTube for the fact that anyone knows any of my material over there. It does get a little weird when you perform a song for the first time, and the next night people are singing along to it. Very creepy.

Did you take anything valuable away from having been on Broadway with “The Wedding Singer?” Did you find a different audience there?

The first few months of shows I did after The Wedding Singer brought a few curious Broadway fans, most of whom left after the first song. Let's just say that I don't have the same demographic appeal as "The Lion King."

Were you surprised by the Tony Award nomination?

What are you insinuating? That I SHOULD have been surprised? How dare you? No, I wasn't surprised- I was expecting the Goddamn nomination! And I should have won, too! Son of a Bitch Jersey Boys! Ok, I was surprised.

How did you approach the arrangements since you had a full band to work with this time?

I just played them like I play them live onstage, then added other instruments in to fill out the sound. That way I hopefully avoid overshadowing the comedy. I actually think the other instruments make some of the songs funnier. Especially that crazy slide whistle- always hilarious!!! there's no slide whistle.

Are you bringing a band on tour?

No, but I will be performing some of the songs karaoke style to a track with full band and orchestration. This allows me the freedom to move around the stage, go out into the audience and do quick bong hits backstage during a song.

Is this the same show that’s going to make it to the DVD?

I'm not sure what the DVD is going to be yet. It could be the new show. Or maybe a combination of the new show and the show from the last tour. Or the new show, the old show and some Klezmer music. Or the new show, the old show, some Klezmer music and a few Lionel Ritchie covers. Yeah. I've just decided. THAT'S what the DVD will be.

What are the “multi-media” elements of the show?

I'm still working on these, even a couple days before the first show. It will most likely consist of short videos, slides, images to accompany songs as I play them live, etc.

Does having Comedy Central behind this tour help get you into venues you haven’t played before, or help you get more people in the seats?

Every time one of my specials air on Comedy Central I see an increase in ticket and record sales, so yes.

Your father has a folk trio in Saginaw – do you ever play together? If so, what do you play?

We usually sit around the piano and do Klezmer music. And Lionel Ritchie covers.

Nick DiPaolo on TV

Danvers native Nick DiPaolo will be on Jimmy Kimmel Live! tonight (12:05AM on ABC). He'll also be on the Hannity Show on Fox News March 5 and the Roast of Larry the Cable Guy March 15 (10PM on Comedy Central).

The Lonely Island and Albert Brooks, SNL Throwback

The Lonely Island trio, made up of Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone, has gotten a lot of credit for bringing Saturday Night Live into the Internet age with the Digital Shorts segment. Short musical clips like “Chronicles of Narnia (Lazy Sunday)” and “Dick in a Box” with Justin Timberlake helped SNL reach a new audience, and one they could cater to rather cheaply and easily.

The group has been around since 2001, and just released their first album, Incredibad, which they will be signing tomorrow at the Newbury Comics at Faneuil Hall (event starts at 7PM, get there early if you want a spot in line), which is my tangential excuse for posting this on Boston Comedy.

For those who may want a refresher, here’s the clip that first got people’s attention:

Video Recaps | Full Episodes | Webisodes

A lot of people have treated the short film as a new phenomenon, and in many ways, it is. But the original mission of Saturday Night Live included bringing short films to a hip comedy viewing public. For the first season in 1975, comedian Albert Brooks made six short films that are forgotten classics in their own right. Brooks was already a Grammy-winning comedian, and his film shorts were brilliant, on-point show business satires.

Brooks only lasted one season, after which he transitioned from stand-up to writer and director, and made films like Modern Romance and Lost in America. But Brooks was a name people recognized, which, by many accounts, helped build the initial buzz for the show. It seems these films aren’t available anywhere online (if anyone has a link, please send it to me at nick@nickzaino.com), but you can find them on the first season of Saturday Night Live on DVD. If you’re insatiably curious right now, you can check out transcripts on the Saturday Night Live transcript site.

DJ Hazard's Park Your Grok in Fraggle Rock

When DJ Hazard comes to Boston from New York to play the Comedy Studio Friday (for a guest spot) and Mottley's Comedy Club on Saturday, it won't be the first time he has made that trip. Hazard is a Boston comedy legend, part of the Ding Ho crowd and mentor to many a local comic over the years, but he was born in New York City. He came to Boston as kid and wound up staying.

This is DJ's story about coming to Boston, with a tiny bit of embellishment about the Blue Line and Hazard's subterranean subjects. And we here (okay, I, here) at FunnyGrownHere.com are proud to present...

Park Your Grok in Fraggle Rock
By DJ Hazard

Are we alone? No one followed you, right? Okay, I have a confession to make. I’m not from around here. I was born in New York City.

My family moved here a year after I got out of high school. I had no idea what Boston looked like. I knew Boston existed. I knew the Red Sox came from somewhere to play Yankee Stadium. I figured there were some buildings on a dock where Carl Yastrzemski, Julia Child and the Kennedy Family all lived together.

I was leaving a playground of sixty story buildings and all night subways. At least I was also getting my very first plane ride, which turned out to be the next best thing to losing my virginity. Some thirty minutes later, the pilot announced that we were approaching Logan Airport and that, if we looked out the window, we could see the Boston skyline. He forgot to mention that I was sitting on the wrong side of the plane. All I could see were miles and miles of little wooden buildings, empty lots and the vast Atlantic. I thought I was being taken to live with the Pilgrims.

On top of that, my folks had rented an apartment in Winthrop and our cab ride went right from the airport to the middle of what I had seen from the air. I hid in my room for three days. Some kindly neighbor lady, bless her soul, asked my Mom if I wanted to see ’the city’. She explained that all I had to do was go down to the corner and catch some bus to some place called Orient Heights and get on the subway. I found the subway and tried not to panic as each of the following stations heralded a further plunge into my Green Acres nightmare.

Wood Island: From the frying pan into the fire. This must be where they get lumber for their cabins.

Airport: Hmmm, perhaps I could stow away on an airliner and get back to civilization.

Maverick: What the hell was this? Time Travel? Now I have to deal with cowboys?

Aquarium: Some guy and a fish tank. Great.

State: State of what? Solid, liquid, gas and plasma? Was I now dealing with oblivion on a sub-atomic level?

Government Center: I figured if it ain’t here, it ain’t nowhere. I got off the train and trepidly walked upstairs.

The rest is history. As you all know, the scary-looking but kindly Lava People surrounded me as soon as I emerged from the T kiosk. They made me their King and began construction of the Hancock Building as a token of their loyalty. I told them that if they really loved me they’d renovate Quincy Market into a tourist Mecca, transform the Commonwealth Pier into the World Trade Center and put the Orange Line underground. They complied.

Life was good as the omnipotent ruler of Boston’s Subterranean Mutant Population. At least until a couple of years ago, when they took it upon themselves to dig a huge tunnel under the waterfront as a surprise birthday present for me. I knew they meant well, but I guess they figured out that they screwed up. Good Lord, the poor little fellows were so depressed. I told them that it was okay, but they kept trying to make it up to me. They replaced Boston Garden with the Fleet Center. They chucked IMAX Theatres everywhere.

The one thing they couldn’t accomplish was rebuilding Fenway Park. It seemed like their every attempt was met with a force far more mysterious and powerful than their own Lava Mutant power. That force was called Red Sox Nation.
Lava People… Red Sox Nation… Lava… Sox…

The push and pull threatened to pull the very fabric of Boston apart. A truce had to be declared for the sake of my adopted city, its inexorable fan base and my Empire of Underground Minions. I asked the Lava People if there was something they could do that could make Red Sox Nation happy, leave Fenway untouched and serve as an apology for their mega-flop burrow beneath a perfectly good Southeast Expressway.

A few days later they returned and said that through ways I wouldn’t understand, not being a real Lava Person and such, they could make the Red Sox win the World Series. I said go for it and, in one fell swoop, never had so many had so much to revel about.

Personally, it was right up there with when I found that loose brick behind the Union Oyster House that spits out gold coins. But that, my friends, is another story.

Bonus Hazard Material:

Video of Hazard at the Boston Comedy Festival


And check the music links on Hazard's MySpace. He has posted some rare and lost tracks along with tracks from his new album, Man of Hazardium.

Eugene Mirman Reads Things He Wrote Tomorrow In Boston

Since starting out at the Comedy Studio in the late 90s, Eugene Mirman has covered a lot of ground. He’s gotten attention for strange bits like the “Marvelous Crooning Child” on his Web site – a picture of Mirman as a child that sings classic rock songs. He’s written and directed short films, played supporting roles in TV shows like Flight of the Conchords and the new Adult Swim show Delocated, and toured with the Comedians of Comedy. So it’s no surprise that he’d have a lot of general life advice to offer. That’s what he does in his new book, The Will to Whatevs: A Guide to Modern Life, in which he teaches you to survive dating, politics, stardom, and whatever you feel is an impediment to achieving the perfect life.

He’ll read from the book tomorrow at 7PM at Brookline Booksmith, and come back to Boston March 26 with Wes and Eugene’s Cabinet of Wonders, a variety show starring Mirman and John Wesley Harding, with author Rick Moody, former Boston comic Larry Murphy, and a few other surprises. He’s also working on his third album, the follow-up to The Absurd Nightclub Comedy of Eugene Mirman and En Garde, Society!, which he recorded in Chicago in November. It’s expected to arrive later this summer from Sub Pop. I caught up with him by phone from New York this week.

So what possessed you to write a self-help book?

It seemed like a good idea. Well, it came out of the fact that I did an advice column on my site and then I made little books that I’d sell on tour from the advice column. And then from that little book, it led to writing sort of a fake self-help book.

How much of the book came from those, or did you write something completely different?

Totally different. But the idea of it, originally I pitched just sort of me answering a Dear Abby book, all ridiculous. And then it sort of morphed into this bigger project that was this fake guide to life.

You cover a lot of ground in it. Was there a temptation to take one particular topic and parody it?

No. The book has lots of elements of various self-help books or inspirational books, but it’s not a parody of any one thing. No, it wasn’t like I really wanted to only do politics or love or something. I kind of like that I would write about how to start a business and how to be in a band, how to get married, all this different stuff. I especially enjoyed writing the stuff I knew the least about, like raising a family.

I was going to say, at the risk of sounding somewhat ignorant, did you do any research for this?

In a sense I did a great deal of research because I wanted to get certain things a little bit wrong. So to do that, I had to find out the actual thing, like what happened to Bernard Goetz or random things, like the details for the Beatles. But I’ll just make some joke about something that happened in 1962.

It seems like, especially in the timelines, there was some research put into when things actually happened, which may have been completely and utterly ignored by the time you wrote it.

Yes. Basically a lot of that stuff, the formations of countries and things, I found out exactly when a language or various things happened only to make a joke about it. But in a sense, as a result, I read a lot about Dr. Spock and raising children and the Tammany Hall Machine. Just lots of random stuff. And all to goof around.

How did you pick out specific things? I mean, you must have been aware of Dr. Spock and Tammany Hall.

Yeah, I would just research the history of education or when people first started suggesting how to raise children other than the Bible. Certain things became prominent and certain ideas became prominent. Some things I had vague ideas on, and sometimes I’d be right or wrong. But then I would read about them.

There’s a hint of autobiography in certain stories and a lot of places in Massachusetts come up. Are most of those bits true?

Anything that sounds like it’s true probably is. Everything that involved a thing that happened to me in high school or on a date is true. Everything that involves me advising John F. Kennedy is probably false.

Probably.

Yes. If it involves a rock star from the 70s, I most probably made it up. And if it involves a girl from 1987, it’s probably true.

There’s a sort of wonderfully disorienting effect of that, when you read four or five sentences about something from your childhood, and then something comes completely out of left field.

Yes. I kind of wanted it to be a mix of truth and made up things and to not have any distinction between the two. So yeah, everything is half lies. But half truth. Seamlessly.

Are there any self-help books you think are worthwhile?

You know, actually, supposedly a lot of them are. I have a friend who teaches psychology and philosophy and he was saying that actually self-help books help people about as much as therapy. I got a bunch of self-help books when I started doing this, looking at them, and it is funny, because a lot of them will say the obvious thing, which is the thing you should do. Everything comes down to having a good self-image and not being addicted to drugs. And not getting into abusive relationships, whether they are emotional or physical. Obviously, you shouldn’t get into a physically abusive relationship. But it’s funny because a lot of books will just go, like, “Hey, tell your parents to stop being mean to you. And tell them that it hurts your feelings and it makes you eat a lot.” It’s funny, because a lot of it is very obvious, but it’s still very helpful to read it for people.

There were some books that had a tone that I probably made fun of at times. It’s sort of smart alecky and self-aware. Just kind of casual in a very silly way. Like, “Whatevs,” that sort of tone, a lot of things will use to show you that they’re down to earth. When they tell you about leaving your abusive relationship.

I love the use of jargon, “mind-thinkers,” and all those phrases that sound like they could be ripped right from those books.

Yes, a lot of those books had, they’d all make up things, they all treated it seriously. They’d create their own jargon. And a lot of them had lots of quotes. Many of them had two quotes – they’d quote Shakespeare and then they’d quote Jay-Z, and it was to show you just their true depth of world information. I thought that was really funny, very silly. Trying to prove, “Hey, I know about books and about music.”

Did you take anything directly from those?

No, but reading all those quotes is what led to me making up my own quotes from my own books and things, some of which have a casual tone and some of which have a fake Confucius tone.

I thought that was pretty brilliant, as well.

There’s also something to that that pokes fun at the arrogance of some of these books, where the tone is one of such grand knowledge. And some of which is very true, it’s just still funny. This real truth-talking tone of some of the books is funny to me.

I thought you also managed to capture your onstage comic voice very well, which is not something that seems easy for a lot of comedians who write a book to do.

I’d been writing various things, I did a column for the Voice online for a while, and I would articles and stuff. So I’d become somewhat used to trying to write in my voice translated into print. I think what made me pitch the book in the first place was I thought that I could do that. I thought that it would work out.

It’s not, as one might think, as easy as talking into a tape recorder and writing down what you would say. There’s an interpretation there, which is a leap that a lot of comedians don’t make when they write a book.

Right. I think that’s why I have so many parenthesis and dashes, bullet points, that sort of thing. I think that that kind of structure, along with the visual things, help model the book in a way that my voice would translate to.

When you go to readings like the one at the Brookline Booksmith, do you read from the book or do you –

I do. I don’t read a ton. Short is often better. But I will read a little bit from my book. And it’s funny, because if you read it, it works very much, but when I try to come up with things that are written so quickly, to actually say them is a little bit hard. I think it’s a little clumsy because it’s so much at once. But if you read it, you can just read along and read it in the right tone. But if I mess up a word or pause wrong, then it messes the joke up. But I pick parts that I read specifically to blow people away. No longer an issue. But I was a little nervous to read something that had, like, 15 asides.

Do you do any stand-up in between?

What I do is I do a PowerPoint presentation with a video and then I read from the book and then I do a Q&A. And then I sign books for people.

I’m not sure how you’d feel about this as a compliment, but it reminded me of when I was in high school reading Dave Barry’s books, and I used to laugh out loud and want to read them to my neighbors and other people, who would then get angry and tell me to quit reading my book to them.

Other than the part where you use my book to annoy people, I really like what you said.

It does seem really quotable.

I did want to write a book where, I mean, it’s almost funny, because I don’t know if I really ever intended for anyone to sit down and read the whole thing. Just like I doubt Mark Twain wanted that. I kind of thought of it as something you could read from the beginning or you could just open it and start reading from the middle, or you’d read little parts of it periodically throughout your life as you needed to laugh and forget about the failure of government.

Is it something you think you’d do again?

I would maybe. I think that as I did it, I learned a lot from doing it. I think that I would ask someone to give me a huge bag full of money first. It should be a box, I guess, but a bag is easier.

But yeah, I think that I would do it. The thing about it is that it took years. It was very rewarding, it was very fun. But also it was this crazy large project.

Are you glad to have it out there in the world, and –

I’m very glad that I did it and I’m very glad that it’s out there. Similarly to making albums and stuff, I like the idea of making things that are out in the world and having these products, these artistic, like, completed creations. And I like that I have things in lots of different mediums. I like doing different sort of things.

I wanted to ask you about the term absurdist –

Did you say “absurdist” or “observant?”

“Absurdist,” which you apply to your own comedy on your album and I’ve heard a lot of people apply to you.

You’ll notice, by the way, that you heard them apply it to me after I put it in the title of an album. Which, as a note to people, is a very convenient way of pigeonholing yourself. So if you ever want to be known as brilliant, your album should just be called “Brilliant.” Because people will be like, “That guy is brilliant.”

“The Brilliant Comedy of…”

Yeah, exactly. “The Brilliant Comedy of Eugene Mirman.” And people will be like, “You’re comedy is brilliant, right?” “Yup, yup. That’s exactly what it is.” I don’t know what gave you the idea, but thank you.

I think I’ll put that in the title of every piece I send in now. “Nick’s Brilliant Piece on Eugene Mirman.”

Yeah. It’ll happen. What was the question about absurd?

You kind of answered it. I was going to ask if it was something you embrace, or is it--- I had actually thought you were poking fun of how people describe you when you named the album.

I think it’s all of it. It’s the same thing as the book. The book is half true, half false. The book is occasionally real advice and occasionally not at all, or fairly dangerous. It makes sense. I think that it’s completely reasonable to say that I’m absurd and my comedy is absurd, and at the same time, probably making fun of it. I sort of like when something is both, when it’s not obviously the thing itself or making fun of it, that it’s sort of this weird combination.

And also the term seems to be thrown around a lot. I notice myself describing things that way, but trying figure out how to get beyond that, to say what in particular. But the nature of absurdist comedy kind of defeats that. You could call Tim and Eric absurdist…

You could do that. You could call us both absurdist and you’d be fairly accurate. But there’s other elements to it. I don’t know that somebody would necessarily know what the comedy was like by hearing that word. You’d need a second word. Or a third.

I also wanted to ask you about the show you’re doing with John Wesley Harding.

He was just at my home and we were working on it.

Are you doing things together, it’s not like a one, two thing where you do what you do then he does what he does?

It is all of it. It is me doing what I do, him doing what he does, us having friends do stuff, and then us doing a few bits together.

How did you come to know him? Is he a New York guy?

Yes. We grew up on the Isle of Wight together. I met him several years ago when him and Scott McCaughey played Tinkle, which was a show a show that David Cross, Todd Barry, and Jon Benjamin used to do together in New York. He lived not far from me, and I think that I would ask him sometimes to do shows of mine, and we would meet up sometimes. And he recently, maybe this fall, he recorded this live CD and had different musicians and things do stuff, and he asked me if I would introduce it and do a little comedy bit. And it was at Union Hall where I do this show every week.

And then after I did it, it was really fun, I said that we should consider doing a tour, a tour of stuff, together. And he put together this variety show in New York that I did something on and Jonathan Ames read, and Rick Moody, and guest musicians. And it was sort of this variety show called the Cabinet of Wonders. He sang some songs and did some songs with some of his guest musicians and then people read, and I did some comedy, there was a ventriloquist. And then out of that, we decided to take that out on the road and have different guests in different cities. ‘

I know I’m probably missing a million things that you’re up to.

That’s okay. Who can keep track?

How do keep track of it yourself? I know you’re doing a guest spot on a live action show on Adult Swim…

I finished shooting Conchords and that and I’m now about to mostly on tour. I recorded a third album, which I have to edit together and figure out what will be included from the recordings. That the next big thing that I have to sit and listen and do. But otherwise I’m mostly touring and doing interviews.

Rogan Filming New Special

Newton native Joe Rogan announced on his site, JoeRogan.net, that he will be filming a new one-hour comedy special for Spike TV next week at the Southern Theatre in Columbus, Ohio. He'll be filming two shows, at 7PM and 10PM. For those who find themselves in Columbus on the aforementioned date, you can get tickets here.

No word yet on when the special will air. This will be Rogan's second one-hour special, following Joe Rogan Live!, which aired on Showtime in 2007.

BNN Mondays: Woo At War

Robert Woo has been covering the War on Drugs for Boston News Net, and this week moves from actual opiates to the opiate of the masses. After kicking meth, he has found Jesus. This is his report.



See the rest of the Woo At War series here.

Random Notes

New England natives Al Ducharme and Bernadette Pauley are back in Boston tonight and tomorrow playing Mottley’s Comedy Club. Bethany Van Delft hosts tonight, Stephen Donovan hosts tomorrow… Interesting pairing tonight and tomorrow at Dick’s Beantown Comedy Escape at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Worcester, with John David and Joe Wong on the bill (with Kris Norton)… Great line-up at the Comedy Studio this weekend. Tonight, Renata Tutko hosts Doug Chagnon, Chris Coxen, Nate Johnson, Erin Judge, Chrissy Kelleher, Shane Mauss, Andrew Mayer, Brian Moote, Chris Pennie, and Ronald Reagan 80s. Saturday, it’s Jessie Baade, Taylor Connelly, Paul Day, Erin Judge, Mehran, Brian Moote, Sean Sullivan, PJ Westin, and Jono Zalay… Dom Irrera is at the Comedy Connection Wilbur Theatre tonight (take a look at my Q&A with him from earlier in the week), and ex-SNL Weekend Update anchor Norm MacDonald plays tomorrow. They also announced a couple of additions to the schedule this week – Jay Mohr is there May 2 and Demetri Martin, fresh from the success of his new Comedy Central show Important Things with Demetri Martin, comes to the Wilbur April 10… 5 Funny Females is back at Max Stein’s in Lexington tonight with host Susan Alexander, Ellen Moschetto, Erin Livingston, Jess Sutich, and Jessie Baade… If you happen to be down in North Providence, RI tomorrow, you can catch Amy Tee’s Comedy Chaos at the Sunset Bar and Grill, with special guest Dana Goldberg.

Discount Variety Kicks Off Tonight at CinemaSalem Cafe

Tonight is the official kickoff of FunnyGrownHere.com Presents... Discount Variety. You may have noticed the funny little button at the top right of the screen. That takes you to the Facebook group with links, future guests, and show info. Take a look and join the group for regular updates.

Tonight, the musical guest is Hugh McGowan, a longtime regular on the Boston folk scene and an accomplished songwriter and musician, and Renata Tutko, who will be showing some videos and doing some stand-up. I will be hosting and doing a bit of comedy and music to warm things up. Here's a bit of a preview of McGowan and Tutko.

McGowan plays his song "Venus:"



Tutko in a video short with the sketch group The Untrainables:

Dom Irrera Back in Boston

Philly native Dom Irrera has played Boston countless times during his more than thirty years in comedy, most recently and frequently at the Comedy Connection. I’ve spoken with him in the past for the Boston Globe (you can search boston.com), or just walking around mingling at Just For Laughs in Montreal, which he plays regularly. Although he does voice-over work for cartoons and has a day gig with DirectTV, you won’t find a better specimen for an American stand-up comedian, constantly touring and writing. He’s at the Comedy Connection Wilbur Theatre Friday. I asked him a few quick questions by e-mail.

Do you still get people asking for the classic bits even after you released the CD?

Every show. Its good because now I get heckled just with my own bits. I rather they be asking for it then booing me if I did it.

Is there a Greatest Hits: Vol. Two on the way?

Yes, I need one more joke.

Are there any tough rooms for you anymore?

C’mon man I’m not stupid. Do you think I go to a room like that at this point?

Do you enjoy the voice-over work (Barnyard, Hey, Arnold, etc)?

Yes, I do. I’ve been doing it for a long time. I used to do a show called Full Frontal Comedy at night and in the day time I was doing Nickelodeon’s Hey Arnold. It was a fun juxtaposition between night time raunch and daytime innocence. The yin and yang my friend…

How many dates a year do you do? Do you ever get tired of the road?

No... it’s hard to tell. When I’m in New York Philly or Boston it doesn’t feel like I’m on the road. Luckily, I have so many friends in Boston that I come in early so I can have dinner with everybody. Go Boston College!

How did you get the gig for The Supreme Court of Comedy?

Jamie Masada, the man he owns the Improv came up with the original concept. I came up with the idea of having more comedians on the show to represent the plaintiff and the defendant. He pitched it to Direct TV and they liked it.

Do you feel compelled to know anything about the actual laws concerning the cases presented to you to judge?

Yes, somewhat. In certain cases I do. Especially cases regarding exhibitionism.

How can people see it if they don’t have DirectTV?

Tell them to fly Jet Blu. Stop eating so much and spring for DirectTV.

How often have you played Boston?

At least one to three times a year for about 20 years.

Do you remember the first time you played here, and what the venue was?

It was Nick’s. I went on after Don Gavin, Steve Sweeney and Kenny Rogerson. Thank god those guys like me because they are extremely strong acts.

What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in stand-up comedy over the years?

The other comics appear to be getting younger than me. They have such good skin!

What else do you have coming up?

I signed up another year with Barnyard and I’ll be working with the NFL Network in the Fall. We got picked up again by DirecTV and by the way did I mention DirecTV?

BNN Mondays: Valentine's Day with Boston News Net

This week, another bonus helping of Boston News Net videos from their Valentine's Day show. We start with Street Smarz with Kristina Smarz, who went looking for love on the streets of Boston. Bostonians gave lots of advice, but no actual love (unless you count "number eight"). Since she came up empty, Smarz is looking for more advice on how to find love, and will take suggestions through the Boston News Net Web site (check the link below -- but watch the clip first).



Ryan Douglas notes that Boston didn't celebrate the birthday of Egar Allen Poe's brithday this week, even though he was born here, and gives a few suggestions on how to remedy that in the future.



See more Boston News Net videos here.

A Special Moment with Barry Tattle

Barry Tattle has been boosting romance in Boston, Bermuda-style, for years as part of Chris Coxen's League of Characters. Tonight and tomorrow at Mottley's, he'll be offering a very special date night with Barry Tattle's Valentine's Day Surprise. I thought it was time Boston got to know Mr. Tattle a little better, so I asked him a few questions about the show and his romantic expertise. Scroll down for bonus video (Tattle sings!).

What do you have planned for Mottley’s, without giving away too much of the “Surprise?”

I have tender moments of all varieties that I plan to nurture the audience with. There will also be live music performed by two lady-pleasing musicians from the Grownup Noise (Adam Sankowski and Paul Hansen). On Friday, we'll have guest chuckles from Jon Lincoln, Erin Judge and Dan Boulger. On Saturday, we outsource our ha-has to Robby Roadsteamer, Renata Tutko and Tim McIntire. Also, if the mood is sensual, I will share some dark, delight-filled stories from my Tattle Tales collection.

Why would couples come to see your show?

To reboot their love-drives. Romance goes stale if you don't take it to the shop for tune-up now and again. Modern lovers are easily distracted in a world of email, cell phones and other beeping mechanisms. It's my duty to make sure remind them of their romantic wonders.

Why would single people come?

To learn how not to be single anymore. This is my guarantee with the class I teach - "Love In Today's Unjazzy World". I teach it in the basement of a Unitarian church. It's a Harvard Extension Extension course. I'm not even sure Harvard knows about it.

What are the key elements of romance?

Chardonnay, an oceanside sleepover and precious intentions will get you started in a precious direction.

How long have you been a romance expert?

It would be easier to answer the question, "When did the first breeze ever happen?"

What is the most romantic song ever written?

"I Want To Be Your Man" by Roger. Basically it sounds like a duet between an ebony hero and a fax machine. It's pure beauty.

When did you first fall in love with Bermuda?

When I exited my mommy...you see, I was born in Bermy.

How do you stay breezy in Boston?

I dream and I speak in hushed tones.

How do you get along in a notoriously sarcastic city?

It's more like: how does a notoriously sarcastic city get along with Barry Tattle? My body has a way of altering any climate, bringing with me Bermuda's soft winds and whispery ways.

What is the rest of the Tattle clan like?

They all have figures that were designed in Paradise, forged in the heavens, and exist in your dreams. The gents all wear a sugar broom (mustache) with honor and the ladies smell better than a vacation resort.

How do you usually spend Valentine’s Day?

With a feminine creature who's beauty is so electric, it could power a city in a very modern world.

Barry Tattle's Valentine's Show Promo - watch more funny videos

Mike Dorval's Death By Chocolate

Mike Dorval starts a two-week run with his one-man show, Death By Chocolate, tomorrow at the Boston Playwrights' Theatre. I caught up with Mike to talk a bit about Death By Chocolate at his recent appearance on the Rob Crean Show, interviewing him live on location, just around the corner from O'Brien's Pub in Allston. Scroll down for a sneak peek at the show from Dorval's reading at O'Brien's (for which he followed MC Mr. Napkins, to explain his opening joke).

Mike Dorval Interview:


Death By Chocolate Reading Part I:


Death By Chocolate Reading Part II:


NOTE: If you are interested in seeing more video interviews and local comedy clips like these, drop me a line and let me know. My e-mail is linked in the lefthand sidebar. I am looking into better recording equipment and more access to tape local shows.

Out Today: Eugene Mirman's The Will To Whatevs

Eugene Mirman’s new advice book, The Will To Whatevs: A Guide to Modern Life, is so helpful, he needs two prefaces and three introductions to prepare you for all of the help. And even that won’t fully prepare you, which is why you need to read the rest of it.

Mirman covers everything you might want to do in life. Want to own the night? Find love? Find a rhythm guitarist? Make millions of dollars off of the ideas of foreigners? Or just get through high school without embarrassing yourself? Mirman packs it all into just over two hundred pages.

According to Mirman, Mirman is in a special class of people like coaches, priests, and psychologists that he calls “Mind Thinkers.” That’s what qualifies him to help you Over-Actualize yourself, and make up words like Defendtastic, that don’t actually mean anything, but help enhance the perception of Mirman’s authority. Each chapter covers a different life question, bolstered by timelines and graphs and quotes from Mirman’s other books (“If no one figures out you are pretending to be retarded, your life will be greeted with treasure.” – Eugene Miman, from his book Inspirational Proverbs for No One in Particular.).

It’s easy to hear Mirman’s comic voice while you’re reading Will to Whatevs. His brand of absurdist misdirection works wonderfully with the concept of a fake (?) advice book. His thoughts on making an impression in high school – “Buy the most expensive jeans in a two-hundred mile radius of your town and wear them on your first day. If anyone asks how you could afford them, say that your father is president of Ashton Kutcher.”

Those who are familiar with Mirman as a stand-up could hear him delivering that line onstage. And since his delivery is so important to the joke, give Mirman a tremendous amount of credit for making that translate in print. That transition is not always easy for a comedian, which is why books just based on a comedian’s act are often lacking punch. Whatevs, though, is the type of book you’ll want to look up from and quote to whoever is around you. Try to resist doing that, though, since, if you’re me, it tends to irritate people.

There are a few treats for Mirman’s Boston fanbase. He talks about growing up and going to school here, and in his list of suggested Halloween costumes, number ten is “Rick Jenkins, founder of the Comedy Studio in Cambridge, Massachusetts.” I’m not sure what that will mean to the rest of the country, but it should make Boston comedy fans smile.

A few favorite quotes:

On money:
At any given moment you stand at the threshold of opportunity, just a million dollars and a new idea away from having fifty million dollars and the kind of car a Poison groupie would let you punch her in the face to ride in. I will help you cross over that threshold and punch that groupie.

On Condoleezza Rice’s death from a power overdose:
I know she isn’t dead right now, but I am hoping that this book becomes a classic, and when people read it a hundred years from now, they’ll figure that Condoleezza Rice, whoever she was, died from smoking power.

On protesting:
Nothing tells the government to keep doing what they’re doing like a small number of seemingly confused protesters defeated on a street corner. Do not hold a tiny protest, please. Hold only big ones.

On business models:
Either way, don’t forget to “like wear a rubber in the shower,” if you know what I mean, which you don’t, because it’s too complex. So to really understand this, buy my other book, Eugene’s Confusing Analogies, Explained!

On formerly held jobs:
Both law and investment firms are feudal in nature and seem to lack the instinct to treat all employees like people rather than fourteen-dollar-an-hour hookers with no future or teeth.

BNN Mondays: Love Revere Style

For those who are a tad bitter about Valentine's Day, and, in particular, NECCO candy hearts, Jenny Z. reports from Revere on what lovers really think of NECCO candy.



See more Boston News Net videos here.

Steve Macone Does Kenny Chesney

Steve Macone sent this to me via Facebook, his take on a Kenny Chesney tune, recorded at The Comedy Studio. For your happy Sunday viewing.