Where I've Been the Last 70 Days

My last blog was in January about moving away from Albuquerque, this one is basically about me moving again, this time back to Albuquerque and to Los Angeles. On February 10th I packed up the moving van (hopped on a Greyhound with hardly any of my shit), and hit the road for Denver! My good friend and comic, Don Morgan, was super helpful with my move to Denver. I was only in Denver for a day before I hit the road with Dave Testroet. The first night of our Tribble Run was spent in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, checking out the Grand Tetons.


2/12 Idaho Falls, Idaho - The Peppertree Lounge (feature)
This was the first gig of the week, and I had done the show before. This place is pretty notorious for being a "shit gig" for comics, but I actually did pretty well my first time there five years prior. This show got started pretty late, but I did pretty well in the feature spot, it seems like it's always a little rougher for the headliner. People start to trickle in to the bar not realizing there is a comedy show going on and they just started talking louder and louder as the night goes on.

2/13 Billings, Idaho - The R-Club (feature)
I had a cold, so, of course, I lost the hearing in my left ear. I know it probably doesn't sound like a big deal, but when you're a comic you definitely need to be able to hear what these yokels are saying. Needless to say, it wasn't a fun gig for me, my timing was off, it was a strange show.

2/14 Miles City, Montana - The Trails Inn (feature)
Hey, good news, I could hear out of my left ear again! Bad news, couldn't hear out of my right ear. This show went a lot better than the Billings show, especially once they turned the microphone up. I really liked the people that I met at this show, a lot of cool folks in this town.

2/18 Denver, Colorado - Blush & Blu
Back in Denver and I had the pleasure of performing at Blush & Blu, a pretty cool little bar on Colfax. Had a nice little 10 minute set and then had to head over the Deer Pile for Too Much Fun.

2/18 Denver, Colorado - The Deer Pile (headline)

Showed up at the Deer Pile and the headliner couldn't make it, so they asked me to do it. Had a really fun set, great crowd, a lot of talented comics, too. It's always good to see Sam Tallent, Nathan Lund, Chris Charpentier and Bobby Crane. If any comics pass through Denver on Wednesday night, I would highly recommend trying to get on this show.


2/20 Boulder, Colorado - Amante Coffee (headline)

Got to headline at a little coffee shop in Boulder hosted by Jacob Rupp, who is super funny. It was another fun lineup, had a couple of comics from NY on the show as well. It was a tiny place, but it was pretty packed.

2/26 Indianapolis, Indiana - Morty's Comedy Joint

Flew in to Indianapolis a day early to catch Mike Merryfield at Morty's and ended up getting a guest spot. Unfortunately, it was a pretty light crowd for such a kick ass lineup. Michael Malone popped in for a guest spot, too, and the feature act, Raanan Hershberg was great. I didn't get to see Merryfield do his full show, but it was still fun to see him, he's one of my favorite comics, he also has one of the few podcasts I listen to.


2/27-2/28 Fort Wayne, Indiana - Snickerz Comedy Club (feature)

I had a really fun weekend featuring for Alex Ortiz at Snickerz in Fort Wayne. I hadn't been to the club in over 5 years, so it was nice to get back there. The crowds were really fun all weekend, and Alex was really nice to work with. I ended up getting snowed in and had some travel issues getting to Iowa. Someone tried to commit suicide at the Greyhound station in Indianapolis and then I got delayed in Chicago and had to sleep at the bus station.


3/4 Cedar Rapids, Iowa - Penguins Comedy Club

Don Morgan flew in to Iowa and we drove to Cedar Rapids and did the open mic night at Penguins Comedy Club. Had fun checking out Cedar Rapids, I hadn't been there since I was pretty young.

3/5 Cedar Rapids, Iowa - Club Basix

Did another open mic in Cedar Rapids, but spent most of the day in Iowa City walking around the campus, go Hawkeyes! Iowa City is one of my favorite places, it's a cool little college town. It was pretty damn cold that day though. I got to see the hospital where my mom was born, that was pretty rad, it's right across the street from Kinnick Stadium. Also got to have lunch with gay comedian, Nathan Timmel, one of my favorite gays on the planet. The open mic was pretty fun, it was a gay bar, was surprised to not see Timmel there making out with some guys. I did get to hang with Tom Garland a little bit, I met him last year in New Mexico while he was touring with Bill Blank. Super funny guy, check him out.


3/6 Fort Dodge, Iowa - Patty's Pub
Don and I got to Fort Dodge a day early and my cousin, Devon, was able to get me a spot on a show at Patty's Pub. A rockabilly band from Des Moines, Rumble Seat Riot. They were cool enough to let me tell some jokes and promote my show at the Laramar the following night. They were great guys and a lot of fun to watch!


3/7 Fort Dodge, Iowa - Laramar Ballroom (headline)

This was definitely one of the best nights of my life, sharing the stage with my good friend, Don, and getting to perform in front of tons of family and friends. It was a special night and it wouldn't have happened if it weren't for my cousin, Devon. He put in tons of time promoting the shit out of the show and setting up the room. It was cool to see people that I hadn't seen in almost 20 years.


3/10 Denver, Colorado - Comedy Works

Got back in to town and did New Talent Night at Comedy Works with a ton of great comics. I didn't have the best set, started off kind of slow and wasn't very prepared. I ran into a lot of comics I hadn't seen since the last time I was in Denver.

3/11 Denver, Colorado - Improv

I showed up at the club and saw Troy Baxley was there, one of my all time favorite comics! He was one of the first comics I ever opened for at Laffs back in 2003, so I've known Troy for quite awhile. I was excited knowing that Troy was on the show, until I saw the lineup and it had me "headlining" and following Troy. I was only expecting to do a five minute set somewhere on the show, but they had me do seven after Troy, but I had a solid set. It was a lot of fun working with Troy again, too. Also got to see Leslie Henning, who I worked with at Laffs a long time ago as well.

3/13-3/14 Tucson, Arizona - Laffs Comedy Club (feature)

Almost didn't make it to Tucson, but I'm glad I did. I got to work with Vince Morris, who I had never seen before. I saw him handle a heckler better than I've seen anyone handle a heckler, and it lasted for probably 25 minutes. It was pretty magical. The crowds were really amazing for all four shows, and I got to see some friends that I hadn't seen in awhile. Can't wait to go back! Laffs always feels like a home club when I'm there.


3/18-3/21 Colorado Springs, Colorado - Loonees Comedy Corner (feature)

Went up to Loonees a day early to check out the open mic night, they let me close the show so I worked on some new material, some of it went pretty well. The shows went really well, too, I worked with Vincent Oshana, who was a really cool guy and very funny, the crowds loved him. My good friend, Matt Peterson, from Albuquerque, was the mc for the week, too! I love working with Matty. This was also my second time celebrating my birthday at Loonees! Thanks to Erik and Loren and the staff, you guys rock!


3/28 Goodyear, Arizona - Austin's (headline)

Drove out to Phoenix for a show at Austin's, which is a cool sports bar in Goodyear. They block off one of the sides of the bar for the comedy show, which was really nice, it was a good set up for a show. The crowd was a little older, but I had a really good time. Also had a couple Albuquerque comics on the lineup, Mikey Mayes and Keith Breckenridge.

4/1 Mescalero, New Mexico - Inn of the Mountain Gods (feature)

This show was a lot of fun, I always enjoy going down to Mescalero, it's a nice little drive less than four hours away from Albuquerque. The hotel is gorgeous, too. The crowds are sometimes a little light, but we had a nice crowd for this show. Waylon Wilcox was doing his first comedy set and brought a lot of people. He hit me up on Facebook probably a month before the show and told me he was going to do his first set. It's always exciting to see comics do their first sets, it always reminds me of my first time ever going on stage. He did a nice job for his first time, had good stage presence. The headliner was Dom Pare from Canada, he's super funny and a really nice guy. He also has a cool mustache.

4/2 Bernalillo, New Mexico - The Stage (feature)

Here's another show I was looking forward to for quite awhile. It was nice being back in the Albuquerque area, I was able to get a lot of friends to the show. Matt Peterson opened the show, too, and killed it! It was my first time featuring at The Stage and it was a blast! Definitely my favorite show that I have done there. Dom Pare headlined the show and we got to hang out a lot afterwards, I hope to work with him again sometime. Thanks to everyone for coming out to the show! I did get some pretty terrible news after the show, I found out that a good friend of mine, Dave Ashley, died. I was hoping it was a bad April Fool's Joke, but sadly it wasn't. I'll miss you, buddy, you were one of the good ones and way too young. You'll always have a special place in my heart, Dave.


4/3 Albuquerque, New Mexico - Comedian's Power Hour

This show was pretty insane, it was a comedy/drinking contest against my ex-wife. We also got to team up with comics from LA, I was paired with Jeff May, and she was teamed up with Adam Tod Brown. I really liked both of those guys and hope to catch their shows sometime. I ended up losing in a sudden death round, but I had a lot of fun. The crowd was pretty insane! Genevieve Mueller and Drew Wayne run a damn fun show.


4/4 Albuquerque, New Mexico - Cool Water Fusion (headline)

I did the Potential Problems Podcast earlier in the day with John Cuellar, Allen Clark, Nick Sitterly and Lucas CorVatta. You can watch the episode here. The show at Cool Water was a lot of fun, I've always had fun sets there. The crowd was pretty small, but they were there to laugh, which was nice. Danger Varoz, Jessica Osbourne and Lucas CorVatta were also on the show.

4/10 Brewster, Minnesota - Brewster Legion Hall (headline)

I wasn't sure what to expect with this show, my friend, Roger Peterson, set the show up. It was in his hometown, so he brought in a good crowd. I think we had about 80 people at the show, not bad for a town of less than 500 people! I guess I should explain the picture of that guy in the bathroom. I walked off stage and went in to the bathroom and took a picture of him just after he got done taking a pee.


4/11 Anoka, Minnesota - Legion Hall (headline)

It was Roger's birthday, so he put this show together. It was kind of a strange crowd, but I had a blast. I got to see an old friend from high school and met her husband and her friend. They seemed to really enjoy the show. You know who didn't enjoy the show? The old man sitting in the front, the only time he cracked a little bit of a smile was when I told a racist joke. Jon Stambaugh opened the show for us, he was really funny and super nice. He was also a foot taller than me. Roger did his set as Rodney Dangerfield, which is always entertaining.


4/15 Denver, Colorado - Improv

I was fortunate enough to do another set at the Improv, this time it was a five minute set and I didn't have to follow Baxley. It was another great lineup, I really like this club. And they asked me to feature the two Saturday shows, too, so I decided to stay in town for a few extra nights.

4/16 Denver, Colorado - Sushi Hai

I was supposed to do this show on the 23rd, but Jon asked me to do this one since I was heading back to Albuquerque. I was pretty surprised how big the crowd was when I walked in, it didn't look like it was that big of a place, but when you walk in there's a lot of people. Chuck Roy headlined, too, I hadn't seen him in a few years.

4/18 Denver, Colorado - Improv (feature)
This night was a lot of fun, I got to work with Chuck Roy again, and the headliner was The Ragin Cajun, John Morgan, one of the nicest headliners I have ever met. Chuck is a great mc, too, I had never really talked to him before until that night. He gave me some great advice and it really helped from the first show to the later show. It's amazing how much you can still learn about comedy after so many years of doing it. Thanks to the Improv for having me on the shows! I got to see Ron Ferguson, too, I hadn't seen him in quite awhile.


So, after traveling over 12,000 miles, doing 40 shows in 70 days, being delayed 15 hours by Greyhound, and performing with comics like Mike Merryfield, Michael Malone, Alex Ortiz, Troy Baxley, Vince Morris, Vinny Oshana, Dom Pare, Chuck Roy, John Morgan, and several other fantastic comics, I find myself back in Albuquerque for a couple of months before the big move to Los Angeles! I probably won't be doing much comedy around Albuquerque, Marc Shuter and I are going to start working on a new script. We just found out that our other script, "The Consequences of a Feeble Mind," has been selected as a quarterfinalist in the Write Movies Contest, we made the top 60 out of 1,000 scripts! Thanks to everyone who let me crash at their place or gave me rides to bus stations, airports and gigs, especially, Don Morgan!

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.

Loonees

This weekend I performed at Loonees Comedy Corner in Colorado Springs, the first club I ever worked on the road in 2003. I had the pleasure of working with Charlie Weiner from Cleveland. I worked him back in May in Wichita. Charlie is a great guy, been in the business a long time. He had a lot of nice things to say about my act.

The crowds for the weekend were pretty small, I think we cracked 100 barely on the early show Friday. At the late shows I decided to do my "star search" set and it went pretty well even though the people didn't get most of the references. My buddy, Don Morgan emceed Thursday night and did a nice job. He started doing stand up this year and he has come a long way already. Friday night Chris Charpentier came down to emcee and locked his keys in the car. I invited him to come down because he is one of my favorite comics in Denver. And he's a professional, always does the things he needs to do. And he ended up getting a feature week out of it! Saturday we had a newbie emcee, Chris Meeks. I think he had been on stage less than five times prior to Saturday. He brought a lot of people and did a pretty solid job for how new he is. Had some funny material.

The crowds were cheap all week, they didn't buy any cd's at all! Bastards. I need to record a new one anyway. If I win the World Series of Comedy I get recording deal, so who knows? I'm excited about going to Vegas for that and meeting all the bookers. Should be a neat trip! And I won't make any money. But its gonna be a lot of fun.

Friday night I was on tv in New Mexico on "The After After Party." I didn't get a chance to see it yet. I felt good about my set though!

I got to watch a lot of football yesterday, too! I found out the Iowa-Iowa State game was actually on tv so I got to see the ending. Helluva game, too bad the Cyclones won. Iowa's defense looked awful against their no huddle offense. It might be a long year, they have to face some pretty mobile QB's this year. The Michigan-Notre Dame game was another great finish, I hate both of them, but one of them had to win. I hope Michigan State beats Notre Dame and knocks them down to 0-3! There were some great games yesterday, South Carolina-Georgia, USC-Utah, Cal-Colorado and Auburn-Mississippi State were all great finishes. Should be a fun year.

The Brewers for some reason can't seem to beat the Phillies. They struggled with the Yankees and Red Sox this year, too. I could see them winning a first round playoff matchup, but they won't get past Philadelphia. Hopefully they can sign Fielder and have a solid team next year.