should've taken greyhound

So it was my first week working for Funny Business which I was pretty excited about. They book a lot of shows all over the country. I knew I wasn't going to make any money on this particular trip. Albuquerque to Denver to Sioux Falls to Denver to Albuquerque is about 36 hours, that's over 300 bucks in gas. My pay for the week was 250. But I took the gig anyway to get in with a new booker. I didn't want to make the drive in one day, so my buddy, Don Morgan, said I could crash at his place in Frederick, Colorado, Thursday night!

Wednesday I bought new tires for the car, I was ready to go! Normally I take Greyhound, but it would have been 56 hours on the bus. Thursday I took off fairly early so I could stop in Colorado Springs and pick up some t-shirts to make some extra money in Sioux Falls. (Paid 78 for 12 shirts, sold two at 20 each, -38!) I was getting into Denver a little before 5 pm, just in time for rush hour (not the shitty Jackie Chan movie.) As I was driving I ran something over, didn't think it was a big deal until I heard a weird noise coming from the car. The check engine light didn't come on but the car was shaking, so I got off the freeway and noticed the steering was a little jacked up. I pulled into a parking lot off of University to check things out. There were fluids everywhere, I had no idea what was wrong though. Don showed up and noticed the power steering unit was messed up (160 dollar part, hooray!) At that point I didn't know what to do I could hop on a Greyhound which was 288 bucks round trip, or cancel the gig and ruin my chances of getting booked with Funny Business again. Don offered to let me use his jeep to Sioux Falls for the weekend and he would work on my car when I got back. Worse gas mileage, but no labor fee on my car! Finally a plus on the trip. Went and checked out the show at Comedy Works downtown, too, which was awesome. Dov Davidoff was pretty funny.

Friday I got up really early, hit the road at 530. 11 hour boring ass drive thru Eastern Colorado, Nebraska and South Dakota. I got to Sioux Falls around 5. The club (Fat Daddys Comedy Club) and condo are right downtown, which is pretty awesome. Got to the club and met the owner, Bethany, very cool lady, and has a cool accent. Got to the condo, met Mike Smith the headliner from KC, funny guy and super nice. Show was at 730, small crowd, maybe 20 people. Jesse Ross showed up, he's a huge fan of my friends band, AnesthesiA! We both had AnesthesiA shirts on. The show went pretty well for the crowd size. Gin Blossoms were in town, we can't compete with them. Hey jealousy! Jesse wanted to hang out after, but I told them we had another show to do. After he left I realized, we didn't have another show. I should have paid to attention to that, only three shows instead of five.

Saturday we had a bigger crowd, probably 40 and there were two bachelorette parties. Usually those are hell to deal with, but they were really cool. The opener was very funny, Justun Sangster. Warmed up the crowd very nicely. The guy on Friday did a great job, too, Joe (forgot his last name.) I went up and had a pretty solid set that I was happy with! After the show I walked around to check out downtown Sioux Falls. There were quite a few people out and saw a few bands playing outside, they were no Gin Blossoms though.

Sunday night I got to see an old co-worker buddy of mine, John Hult. He was always one of my favorite co-workers at Laffs, never a pain in the ass like most servers. It was cool to see him, I even jammed a cd that he made me on the way to Sioux Falls. He brought a couple guys from his band to the show. We had 15 in the crowd and no mc, so I had to go first. Kinda sucks going on without a warmup, but definately not the worst situation I've been in. Show went well, got laughs. So that wrapped up the week, three shows, 75 people, sold two shirts and zero cd's! Watched the last seconds of the Mavs-Heat game 3 with Mike and hung out a bit at the bar.

Monday I hit the road at 930, got some sleep, pretty uneventful drive until I hit Sterling, Colorado. Power steering messed up a bit and almost hit a curb. I checked to see if the fluid was good and it was full, then the cap fell so I waited til the engine cooled down so I could grab it. Ended up running into three different Iowa Hawkeye fans while I was there. Ended up at Dons place around 8. We went and hit up some open mic nights. Did a set at Lions Lair, I did my material I had written for my character, 80s guy, but said it was my set I did on Star Search at age 11, pretty funny. Did that set at Benders right after, also tossed in some newer jokes. It was fun, it was good seeing some of the comics again. Went to Pete's Kitchen with Don and Ron Ferguson afterwards.

Tuesday spent all day working on the car, I'm really hating this Suzuki Forenza! I hate comedy, I hate going on the road, I just wanna be home! LA next week for the dvd taping then not on the road for a few weeks! Next year I'm gonna take a break and only do a few gigs.

the after after party

Last night I filmed my second episode of "The After After Party" a local talk show with Steven Michael Quezada, a local comic/actor. They told me I'm the second comedian to come back, the other being Kenny King. Vince Gilligan, Anna Gunn, and Bob Odenkirk were all supposed to be guests, but all had to cancel for different reasons. RJ Mitte, who plays Walt Jr on "Breaking Bad" came in and did the episode I filmed. Not sure when it will air yet. RJ was really cool, I got to chat with him a bit before the taping he was really nice. Took a lot of photos with the audience and stuff like that. He said he watched the first two episodes of season 4 and they're insane. Can't wait to see the new season!

I felt a lot more comfortable this time doing the show, it was much easier and I had a great set! The crew at the show is awesome! I don't know how Steven comes up with all the material plus filming, that's gotta be pretty hard to do. If you get a chance to see a live taping its a blast! They do it every other Tuesday at the Wool Warehouse.

I'm excited to get a new website done this month, also got new headshots done last night by the photographer of the show, Paul Lopez. I'll have them later this week! Well, I'm off for Sioux Falls, SD, tomorrow I'm gonna stop in Denver and find somewhere to do a set.