Ukiah, CA may seem like a strange place to spend New Years Eve. It’s in the middle of nowhere in northern Northern California. They have a summer comedy series that I’ve done a couple times and it’s always a ton of fun with killer audiences. Doing NYE was a new idea for them. Started at…
This was one of those gigs where you’re coming off something really cool, but not as easy or pleasant as hoped (Great American Music Hall) and going into something not nearly as cool that turns out to be way more fun. People often ask about my favorite place to play. And the answer is “anywhere…
Last night I was donning the red shirt in one the most prestigious venues I’ve played yet. The Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, CA. The event was for Rise Above Abuse and had a fantastic turnout. The GAMH originally opened in 1907 as Blanco’s. In 1936 it became The Music Box. After WWII…
This was my first time doing the Barbary Coast Comedy show at the Legionnaire in Oakland. The venue itself is a nice bar. Not divey, but not frou-frou either. Right down the street from the Stork Club if that place makes you feel creepy. The comedy show is in the upstairs room which looks like…
Here we are at Penguins Comedy Club in Cedar Rapids, IA. And you can see I’m back in the bathroom to don the red shirt. Another cool little basement club. This was my first time to Cedar Rapids and I like it. Like Dubuque, you can tell it’s got some history, but it’s not overwhelmed…
Now this was an interesting gig… That picture at the left is what a real dressing room looks like. Not a bathroom stall like I’m usually dressing in. This is the dressing room at the Full Moon Bar (which more like a theater) at the Diamond Jo Casino in Dubuque, IA. And you can see…
There’s a cool type of club you find in the eastern parts of the US that you don’t find in the west where I live. Basement clubs. There’s just something about the vibe of a cool club in the basement of a building. It’s the right feel for both great comedy and music. We’ve got…
Here’s where I was donning the red shirt while performing at Jokers Comedy Club in Cedar Falls, IA. The club is pretty nice too and I’ll put a picture of the showroom down below. But I’ll be straight on this one… I don’t get Iowa audiences. I try not to be the “They just don’t…
The Layover in Oakland is one of those places where you can never count on the audience to be super consistent. Sometimes big, sometimes small. Sometimes way into it, sometimes not. And that presents an interesting challenge for a comedian, simply because we have to adapt to whatever is going on right then. So for…
Ok, I’ll admit my dressing room was not on the ceiling with the disco balls. I snapped that picture because I like Hidden Mickeys. But let me explain. The Stud is a gay bar in San Francisco. Not that it mattered in this case because there wasn’t much of anybody there. But I went into…
Despite the rather uninteresting bathroom I had to get dressed in, I was pretty excited for this gig. Why? Well, I’ve been playing the Crow’s Nest for years. First as an MC. Then worked my way up to feature. And this show was my first time headlining there. I’ve never done a lot of MC…
So on the last day of the World Series of Comedy in Las Vegas, I started coming down with a head cold. Sunday’s drive home was pretty miserable. And Monday I had a headlining gig at the Tower Grill in Concord. Fortunately, it’s a really small, intimate show, with no more than a couple dozen…
The World Series of Comedy is a super great event. Yes, it’s a comedy competition, which I generally don’t like. But this one ends up being kind of like summer camp for comedians. Besides the shows the public gets to see there are also workshops about the biz and fun stuff like a poker tournament…
Sometimes you get on a good run of shows and think, “Yep, on my way now. This will never end.” Which, of course, makes you (ie. me) a moron. The last time I played Melt Cafe, the place was jam packed (it’s pretty tiny to begin with), and it was so hot in there the…
A cafe/restaurant in a college/hippy town in Northern California? Of course the bathroom looks like this…. Great show though.. Super engaged audience of about 80 people, including two girls up front that laughed at everything that came out of my mouth from the moment I set foot on stage and never let up. And then…
Spartan and yet with a classy-ish beer sign for a mirror. I wonder how many drunks and stood in that mirror wondering why there are so many lines on their face. Station 55 in Gilroy is a really comfortable little room to do comedy in. 30 people and it’s a full house. For the most…
Well, definitely a step up in the dressing room arena here. It’s still a bathroom of course. The sink and toilet are just out of frame. This is at Wine Tyme in the little beach town of Capitola, CA, near Santa Cruz. A tiny little wine bar. The show itself was great for the people…
It occurred to me last night that you can kind of track a performer’s career by the quality of their dressing room. Of course, there’s no such thing as a super nice dressing room that I’ve yet to see. No matter how prestigious the venue, the dressing room is usually fairly run down and utilitarian….
