When I moved out to New York from Los Angeles, I felt like I was starting over standup-wise. I have no real credits that open doors for me. You have to hang out for months just to get spots. I understand paying your dues, but it's frustrating when I can't go out to show because I'm working a lot of nights just to make rent. Anyway, this isn't a poor me blog.
This week, Vinnie Brand, owner/booker of The Stress Factory in New Brunswick, recommended me for the Montreal Just for Laughs showcase at his club. The show was great. I met some funny comics from Philadelphia, Anton Shuford, Chip Chantry, David James, had a great set, and watched the headliner Joe Matarese tear into a woman in the front row who was texting:
Joe: (stops in the middle of a story) You're texting? That's kinda rude.
Woman: (gives him the finger)
Joe: Really? You're just gonna flip me off? You're the one being rude.
Woman: It was necessary.
Joe: It was necessary to give me the finger? Well, it must be necessary for me to call you a cunt then.
Ahhhhh, yeah, he went straight to cunt. I'd never seen him live before. In person, he looks my age. I got all insecure about all his credits and then I found out he's 41 years old. Holy shit. He looks great. Plus, now I didn't feel as insecure. Maybe I can get all that shit done before I'm his age. At least, that's the pep talk I'm giving myself.
Watch him tear into a crowd of hecklers below. He's great.
Trivia answer: From the last blog I asked what Seinfeld's son's middle name is. The answer is Kal. The same as Superman's name on Krypton. Well, Kal-El, close enough.
I heard a comedian (maybe it was Mark Normand) say that he's noticed black people seem to like Seinfeld, respect it even, but don't watch it. Well, Wale (pronounced Wal-lay) disproves this theory. He's made a whole mixtape filled with sound bites from Seinfeld episodes. The first song mixes the farty Seinfeld bass line with Wale's rhymes about "What's the deal?" In the song "The Kramer," it starts off with Michael Richards infamous standup routine where he screamed "Niggers" at some hecklers. Then Wale goes on to rap about the pros and cons of using the N-word. I think he argues that it's okay, but he goes on to use "Nigger" 1000 more times throughout the album. Julia Louis-Dreyfus even makes a cameo (including a plug for her new show "The New Adventures of Old Christine") on the song "The Vacation from Ourselves" and yells "Mother fucker" after saying how cool she is for doing the cameo.
This is my favorite hip hop album from 2008, behind Lil Wayne and Kanye's albums. I can't wait for Wale's next venture, Mad About Rhymes. I heard he's got some great sound bites of Paul Reiser saying something kinda witty to Murray the dog, then sterilely kissing Helen Hunt.
Trivia:
Seinfeld's first son has the middle name of one of Jerry's heroes, what is it?
A. Superman
B. Kal
C. Cosby
D. Larry David
A reliable pot dealer in New York is a holy grail, a holy grail that you can load up and smoke. Saturday night my girlfriend and I decide it's time to restock from our holy pot grail. So we send the guy a text and he writes back saying he can't make deliveries because he's watching his son (responsible baby daddy), but we're more than welcome to visit him in East Harlem. I know what you're thinking, how cliche. You have a black pot dealer with a son out of wedlock living in the blackest neighborhood in New York. Actually, he's a Jewish dude who speaks fluent Hebrew living in the blackest neighborhood in New York. There you go . . . racist. (I'm serious, that's not a joke) Here's where the cliche racism stuff comes into play. As two whities, my girlfriend and I get seriously lost in East Harlem. We can't remember which is farther east, Malcolm X Blvd, Frederick Douglas Blvd, or Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. It's freezing and we start arguing. Fighting while walking around lost in a questionable neighborhood is lowest on my fun-o-meter. We get seriously pissed at each other before finding Mr. Hebrew's apartment. Luckily, he has a huge bowl loaded for us when we get there and we forget our troubles for the time being.
The next morning, we have this conversation:
Girlfriend: "I feel like last night was the low point of our relationship."
Me: "Noooooo, it wasn't that bad."
Girlfriend: "Yes, it was. You wouldn't even walk beside me in East Harlem."
Me: "I was still close by."
She looks at me with that unmistakable "you're an idiot" look.
Me: "We've had lower points than that."
She walks out of the room.
Lesson learned: In the future, focus on the positives rather than arguing our relationship has been much shittier in the past.
Trivia: From my last post, I asked which Emily is a commited vegan. The answer is Zooey's older sister, Emily Deschanel. I have a fantasy relationship with Zooey in my head. Last weekend we got in a fight while walking around Compton.
Trivia:
A few days ago I posted the question: If a who girl pretends to date a gay man to help him hide his sexuality is called a "Beard," what is a guy who pretends to date a lesbian called? The answer: Merkin. It means a pubic wig, originally worn by prostitutes way back in the 1600s after they shaved their pubic hair due to lice or to disguise the marks of syphilis.
New question
Which Emily is a committed vegan?
A. Emily Blunt
B. Emily Deschanel
C. Emily Osment
D. Emily Watson
Here's a new video I just did for Asylum.com.
As I've posted before, I used to work at the Arizona State University library as an assistant to the assistant archivist. Yeah, it was awesome. My job consisted of going through old boxes of papers that families of dead professors had donated. I organized everything and then the assistant archivist would go through and see if things were worth keeping.
Somewhere along the way I found these pages of poetry written from
the perspective of baby. Complete and unabridged. It's horrible in a hilarious way. I
think these are in the right order. If you have trouble reading these, go to this link and you can see the text larger: MPEMPIRE.COM
