2012

Well 2012 is over, went by pretty fast. A lot of stuff happened in 2012, I'm looking forward to 2013. I'll be getting my Associates Degree in Computer Information Systems in December, which is exciting! 2012 was pretty eventful, had some great shows, worked with some great comics. A lot of venues came and went, I even ran my own show for a couple of months at 405 Lounge downtown. Didn't go so well haha. I'll stick to performing and writing. I was voted as a finalist for Best Comedian in Albuquerque in the Weekly Alibi and Albuquerque the Magazine, too! I'll break down my year by month.

JANUARY
4 Hollywood, CA-M Bar This was a preliminary show for the Laughing Skull Festival, I didn't advance from this show, but found out a few weeks later that I made it from my submission tape! This was a great show, so many funny comics. Chris Mata and Tom Clark performed, they weren't part of the competition. Jason Keyes, Mark Agee, Alex Hooper, Ali Breen, Jen Murphy and some other awesome comics were on that night!

20-21 Angelfire, NM Performed three shows in Angelfire with Russ Rivas. Big Benny and Erika Viking from 102.5 were there hanging out, too.

Started school again at CNM, so not many road gigs this year.

FEBRUARY
4 Taos, NM-Casa De Las Cordovas Headlined this show with Anthony "Animal" Garcia, Eddie Tafoya and Joe Quesada. This was an amazing crowd! Even Eddie had a killer set.

MARCH
6 Albuquerque, NM-The After After Party Taping Did my third taping for the show, had a lot of fun, met some great people, Jeramy Reynolds from Joy Junction, Rebilt was on the show, too, cool local band!

14 Towaoc, CO-Ute Mountain Casino Headlined with Matt Peterson as my feature, had less than 20 people at the show, but we had a blast.

24 Durango, CO-Strater Theater Worked with Dave Testroet, kind of a small crowd, but it was a lot of fun. Snuck our puppy into the hotel, too. Take that Strater Hotel!

28-31 Atlanta, GA-Laughing Skull Festival This week was a blast! Shared a room with Mark Agee, Alex Hooper and Grant Lyon, a lot of talent in one room. I got to perform at the Laughing Skull Lounge, Midtown Hotel and Relapse Theater. I didn't advance in the competition, but with that much talent, I was honored just to be part of it. Also, got to hang out with my old friend, Justin Clutter, which was super cool! Also hung out with some of my favorite comics, Gabe Rutledge, Mark Poolos and Johnny Beehner. Went to the nastiest strip club I've ever seen in my life, too.

APRIL
28 Albuquerque, NM-Hotel Andaluz This show was put together my 93.3 KOB-FM, awesome crowd. This one of the better crowds in Albuquerque all year for comedy and a great lineup.

MAY
5 Albuquerque, NM-Reptilian Lounge Got to perform at the Reptilian Lounge! I don't think the theatre people enjoyed my set much, but I had a blast.

6 Albuquerque, NM-The Box Joe Quesada Roast Had a roast for Joe Quesada who moved to LA, then months later moved back. Got to talk shit about a lot of comics!

23-26 Little Rock, AR-Loony Bin Worked with Skip Clark, kind of light crowds at the club that week. That's always a tough week to bring people in, but it wasn't bad. Had fun hanging with Skip and the mc, Steven Baucom.

30-June 2 Tulsa, OK-Loony Bin Worked with Testroet again and Dan Fritschie, had a great week! I love the Tulsa club, the people there are a lot of fun.

JUNE
3 Albuquerque, NM-Route 66 Casino Bryan Cranston was at the show! Steven Michael Quezada headlined, Niki Mangin was the host and mc and did a great job! Check my earlier blog for the story about the dead body.

11 Pinetop, AZ-Hondah Casino Headlined at the Hondah Casino, not much to report.

29-30 Tucson, AZ-Laffs Comedy Club Worked with Sean Kent, who I got to hang with a little in Atlanta. Had a great weekend, I love Tucson!

JULY
6 Las Vegas, NM-New Mexico Highlands Performed again with SMQ, had a fun show at New Mexico Highlands. It was a beautiful stage, crowd was pretty good.

14 Albuquerque, NM-Filling Station This was a lot of fun, great crowd at the Filling Station, sofacats!

26 Albuquerque, NM-405 Lounge Had Ron Ferguson come down from Denver to perform at the venue I was booking. Had a rough turn-out, which was disappointing, but it was cool working with Ron again. He's touring a lot with Pablo Francisco.

AUGUST
16-18 Colorado Springs, CO-Loonees Comedy Corner Worked with Adam Cayton-Holland, if you haven't seen him check him out, very funny! And a big baseball fan, which makes him even cooler. Had a fun weekend.

SEPTEMBER
21 Albuquerque, NM-Tech Love Black Lab Got to perform at Blackout Theater's Black Lab, which was super cool! Lots of improv and music, fun night.

OCTOBER
13 Albuquerque, NM-Moose Lodge Family Center This was an amazing show with SMQ! I did over an hour at the show as the feature act, I forgot my watch, so I felt kind of bad, but the promoter was super cool about it. We had about 200 people there!

19-20 Tucson, AZ-Laffs Comedy Club Emceed at a club for the first time in quite awhile, but I wanted to work with Jake Sharon and SMQ. Had a blast that weekend!

22 Pinetop, AZ-Hondah Casino Cruised up to the casino with Jake and opened the show for him and Keith Breckenridge.

27 TV The After After Party I was on TV!

NOVEMBER
3 Albuquerque, NM-The Box Comedian Origins, one of the coolest shows I've done. We did our first five minutes of material we every performed and our most recent five!

9 Albuquerque, NM-Uptown Sports Bar and Grill Great show, got to raise money for the New Mexico Wolfpack so they could go play in a bowl game!

DECEMBER
7 Rio Rancho, NM-The Damn Bar Got to perform on a show with my wife, Caitlin! She had such a great set, took command of the stage and rocked it. She was so happy. I didn't do that well, but felt great for her.

14-15 Ft. Worth, TX-Hyenas James Morrow and I took a road trip out to Texas and had a blast. Ben Creed was the headliner for the weekend, he's one of the best. I hadn't worked with him in years! Still funny as hell. New club was fun.

20-22 Dallas, TX-Hyenas Had a fun time working with Aaron Aryanpur, who had just won the Funniest Comic in Texas contest. Paul Varghese came in for guest sets, too, great lineups.

31 Albuquerque, NM-Artbar This was the first year I wasn't booked for a NYE gig since like 2007. I was at the show hanging out enjoying the entertainment and one of the comics couldn't make it, so I filled in. I was pretty wasted, and it wasn't the best set up for stand-up comedy, but it was fun. The Red Light Cameras were awesome, too!

Performing at Laughing Skull Festival

Cait and I at Lisa Frank factory

Niki, Me, SMQ and a couple peeps from Route 66

Performing at UNM

Hammered at the ArtBar

Dallas/Ft. Worth Shows

I hadn't been to Hyenas in Dallas or Ft. Worth since I started school, so I decided to take a trip out there after the Fall semester this year. (I got all A's in five classes, just to brag a little bit!) Both Hyena's clubs are among my favorites that I've worked at, crowds are always great, and I love the cities. And I always get to hang out with Jason Russell while I'm out there, he's a good buddy of mine that I met back in 2002 when I did a guest set while he headlined at Laffs here in Albuquerque. (RIP) Jason was also headlining the first time I ever emceed a week at Laffs.

I was excited to work with Ben Creed again, I have done shows with him in Tucson and Colorado Springs, he's one of my favorite headliners to work with, super cool guy and hilarious. My buddy, James Morrow and I drove in to Fort Worth on Thursday to catch the open mic at the club. I hadn't been to the new location, so it was a little different than I was expecting. We got there just in time to sign up, there weren't many comics there. I did run into Kyle Reade, who I've known for years, he just moved to Dallas from Tucson. They're treating him like a new guy out there which kind of sucks, Kyle's been doing it for quite awhile and he's good. Hopefully he'll catch a break and get some solid stage time at the clubs. I wasn't too impressed with the open mic, but it was cool for James to get some stage time out of town.

The new club was a lot different than the previous one, it is located in the Lonestar club downtown. It was a great location, but just didn't have the feel of the old club. The first night's shows weren't too bad, I had to shake some rust off, I hadn't featured at a club in several months. The opening act was Clint Werth, a local guy who's been doing stand-up a couple of years. He had some great stuff and got the crowd going right away which was nice. My best shows of the week were definitely the Saturday shows though. Late show Saturday there was a man in the front row who looked like the Gorton's Fisherman, minus the raincoat. I made fun of him quite a bit in my set and he loved it. It was fun watching Ben, he destroyed every show!

The following weekend I was in Dallas performing with headliner Aaron Aryanpur. I had never heard of him, but I had heard that he just won the Funniest Comic in Texas competition at the Improv, which is pretty big. The opening act for the weekend was Chris Corlea, who's also pretty new to stand-up, but he has some solid material. I think he's going to be really good when he gets more comfortable on stage and writes more. I wasn't sure what to expect of Aaron since I had never seen him or heard of him, but he did just win that competition, so I knew he had to be pretty solid, and he was. A lot of jokes about his family and marriage, he's a little older than me, and has been doing stand-up for about as long as well. He was great to work with, very humble, very friendly and funny. I think he'll do some great things in comedy. Very likable. On Friday and Saturday Paul Varghese did guest sets, I'm not gonna lie, I was a little nervous to follow him, even though I had never seen him before. I had heard of him, and I am friends with him on Facebook. Every time I'm in Dallas I hear his name from the local comics, a lot of guys look up to him, and I can see why now that I got to see him perform. He was great, I would love to see him do a full headlining set. Very cleverly written material, crowd loved it. And he was super cool as well, he told me he does mostly college gigs which is great way to make money in this business. The crowds were good all weekend long, a little strange at times and kind of had trouble with some of the more clever material. But, overall, I was happy with my performances. It was nice to get out on the road for a couple of weeks during Christmas break.

I have a weekend coming in Tucson and after that nothing until Spring semester is over, I'll be in Colorado for three weeks in May! Looking forward to that. Until then, I'm going to keep writing and hopefully be able to come up with some great material. Happy New Year everyone!

What's Been Going On and Shit

Well, since the new semester started in August I haven't been on the road much. I feature at Loonees Comedy Corner in Colorado Springs the week before school started with Adam Cayton-Holland, if you haven't seen him, check him out, very funny dude from Denver. And he's a huge baseball fan, which makes him cooler. Had a pretty fun week, shows weren't packed or anything, but always a good time.

In October, I opened at Laffs Comedy Club in Tucson. The feature was my former roommate, Jake Sharon, and the headliner was Steven Michael Quezada. Steven wanted to work with me, so I decided I would take an mc week and go have fun for a weekend in Tucson. The shows were great! It was awesome seeing Jake again, too. Steven took a lot pics with fans after the shows, that was cool. He's had a lot of success being on "Breaking Bad!"

November 3 we had a really cool show in Albuquerque at The Box. Five comics each did ten minutes, the first five minutes were the first five minutes they had ever written and the final five were their newest five. It went pretty well. I hadn't told those jokes in years, it was kind of find to tell those shitty jokes in front of an audience again.

My wife, Caitlin, had her first comedy gig November 10th at The Box as the guest comic for Comedy?'s Variety show! She was so nervous, but she did great, and she did it with no notes! She also got to do a little improv with them, which was really cool. They let me do an improv game with them when I performed for them in September, but I did horrible. Caitlin has an improv show on the 30th at Tech Love, which I'm excited about!

Next month will be fun, I get to perform at Hyenas in Dallas and Fort Worth with one of my favorite comics, Ben Creed! I haven't been out there in over a year, so I'm pretty excited to get out there. It'll be a nice little break from school, too. And as far as school goes, so far I have 4 A's and a B right now, so hopefully I can keep that up until the end of the semester.