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

wichita

Well, the week is over in Wichita, rapture never happened and we didn't have much for crowds. Late show Saturday was best of the week though, so I ended on a good note. Worked with Charlie Weiner, great guy and a huge baseball fan! Watched a lot of games with him.

Doing comedy during graduation week is always tough, but at least it was fun and I didn't bomb which is nice haha. Local attorney, Danny Seville took us to Pig In Pig Out a local bbq joint and fed us for free pretty much the entire week! Holy shit it was awesome, great brisket! Yum!

The mc had some funny stuff, Dillon Narcisi, he's a young dude with a jew fro. He was excited when he got paid, he didn't know he was getting paid, it was adorable. I guess the original mc didn't show up.

I'm about to head to the Greyhound station, there's probably going to be more people on the bus than there were at our shows.

Oh, and check out www.myebar.net its Charlie Weiner's website with listings of great restaurants, clubs and bars, its really cool!

Heading back to Albuquerque, gonna do a set at Hallenbrick on Monday night and off to Amarillo Thursday for a show at the Holiday Inn with Spencer James.

I was sad to hear about Macho Man's death. I guess God was craving Slim Jims.

Oklahoma City

Last week I was at the Loony Bin in Oklahoma City. I always seemed to get booked in Oklahoma in May. I was worried we wouldn't have great crowds since the Thunder are in the playoffs, but the crowds weren't bad at all. Wednesday was open mic night before the show. I only caught a couple of the acts and they were pretty funny. Our mc for the week was James Draper who lives in Norman. It was his first time hosting a week, it was cool. He did a nice job and I noticed him gaining more confidence as the week went on and his sets got better. He's got some great material.

Headliner for the week was Theo Von, who I had seen before on "Road Rules" on MTV. Theo was super cool and really funny! I only watched his set the first two nights cuz I couldn't handle the smoke in the showroom. I almost lost my voice, too. Not good! But it held up fine for the shows. Theo has an awesome website www.cranktexts.com its so funny! I was up late reading some of the stuff he put on there, its hilarious.

One of the bouncers at the Loony Bin is from Fort Dodge, Iowa, which is where a lot of my family is from! Small world. The staff at the Loony Bin is awesome, everyone is really friendly. And the crowds were fantastic! Especially Sunday, it was a smaller crowd, but it was my favorite of the week. I sold way more cd's than I expected to and don't have any left for the weekend in Wichita. Sad face! And the Thunder won game 7 on Sunday, which is probably why the crowd was so great.

On Monday night, Jason Brown and I did a show at the Elks Lodge in El Reno, which was set up by my second cousin, Mark, who id never met before. He hasn't even seen my mom since the 70's. It was cool to meet him and the show wasn't that bad either. For a Monday night in El Reno anyway. We did the show and hung out a bit afterwards with Mark and his wife and a couple people from the show. I went with Jason to Tulsa and stayed at his place. Introduced him to the lovely musical stylings of Wesley Willis. Suck a polar bear's funky ass!

Oklahoma was a blast, can't wait to get back, hoping to add Tulsa to my schedule. Made some new friends with week! And you should be on twitter, follow me @funnyfletcher, Theo Von @theovon, and Jason Brown @comicjbrown!

I'm in Wichita this week with Charlie Weiner!

wits end

Once again sitting at a Greyhound station, which is great motivation to get to that headliner spot. Had a great weekend in Westminster, CO, at Wits End Comedy Club. My buddy, Dante(www.comicdante.com), was the headliner, I met him last year, super cool guy. Elliot Woolsey was the mc, he sold his bed last year, neat story.

Thursday night was Cinco de Mayo, so we had kind of a light crowd, but they were great. I think I actually like smaller crowds at Wits a little better. After the show we went to Buffalo Wild Wings with a local Denver comic, Troy Walker, he's a funny dude, check him out.

Friday night Dr Kevin Fitzgerald did a guest set, and channel 31 was there, they interviewed him and the club owner and filmed part of his set. He was great, I had never met him before. Both shows were a lot of fun, especially the late show. Late shows are fun, they usually like my humor a little more. The owner of the club said he is a big fan of mine, which is awesome.

Saturday night was the big 3 show night, that's almost like a real full time job. We had a couple guest sets, including the Alien Warrior Comic! Very cool! He's a guy who dresses as an alien and he's about 6'9", he's huge, check him out on youtube. Shows were all great as usual. It was great working with Elliot and Dante. Elliot had great shows all week. It was fun watching him. And its always fun watching Dante, he always rocks. And he was awesome enough to offer me a gig for a dvd taping in June out in LA! I'm excited about my first comedy trip out there.

I'm heading back to Albuquerque for a couple days then its off on the road for two weeks. Wednesday thru Sunday I will be at the Loony Bin in Oklahoma City with Theo Von from MTV Road Rules, should be a fun week!

Comedy Works tonight

Tonight I got to mc at the Comedy Works downtown. Definately wasn't expecting to get on to perform let alone mc. I didn't have a great set or anything, I should have been more prepared. The comics were great tonight, saw a few comics I hadn't seen before. My cousin Dave left me a voice mail, while I was mc'ing, so I called him after the show. His best friend just got in a pretty bad car accident and has had a lot of problems this year, so Dave asked me to do a benefit show for him in Algona, Iowa. Dave's a cool cousin, I'm glad we got in touch after so many years. I hadn't seen or talked him since the mid 90's, but he found me on myspace a few years ago and we've got to hang out when I go back to Iowa which is nice.

Added a couple new bookings to my calendar, I'll be doing the Loony Bins in Oklahoma City and Wichita in May 2011. I haven't been to Wichita in quite awhile. The Oklahoma City club I featured at in May 2009, I worked with Paul Hooper, that was a fun week. I'm working with Paul in a couple weeks in Tucson!

I've been writing articles recently forBuxmag.com I've been doing reviews and previews of college football games and other things on there. It's been a lot of fun, even though I don't know much about Colorado, Colorado State or Air Force. Growing up in Iowa, I was always a Hawkeye fan, and always will be! And they whipped Michigan State's ass with a belt on Saturday!