Laughing Skull Festival and new cd recording

I haven't had much time to blog, or really do anything since I got home from Atlanta. Finishing up my first semester at Central New Mexico Community College, my last day is Monday! So relieved to have this first semester out of the way. Well, the Laughing Skull Festival in Atlanta was quite an experience. I was amazed at the amount of talent in the competition. There were a lot of great headliners in the competition. I knew I had no chance of winning up against some of these guys, but it was an honor to be a part of it. I got to hang out with a lot of my favorite comics that I hadn't seen in awhile, too, like Gabe Rutledge, Mark Poolos, and Johnny Beehner. I shared a hotel with three guys from LA, Alex Hooper, Grant Lyon, and Mark Agee. I had only met them all once, but they were all cool guys. And as a comic I always live with people I've never met before, so it's not a huge deal at all, we had a good time. Those guys are extremely funny, too! My portion of the competition was the first show of the week at the Laughing Skull Lounge. I didn't get a chance to catch everyone's set from backstage, but listened to pretty much everyone, definitely a lot of talent. I had a pretty solid set, but didn't advance. My feelings weren't hurt though, any of the comics could have advanced from that show. My buddy, Justin Clutter, who's been one of my best friends since 4th grade was at the show. He lives a couple hours north of Atlanta, so he came down to the show. The last time I saw him was a week after the Colts beat the Bears in the Super Bowl and we hung out with Dallas Clark's dad, Doug. Funny dude! Thursday night I got to perform a couple shows at the Hotel Midtown which is where we stayed. The shows were pretty fun, got to try some stuff that I didn't do in the competition round. We went to the Clermont Lounge afterwards, holy shit! I kind of had a feeling of what we were getting in to, but the first thing I saw when I walked in was Blondie, nasty chick with nasty boobs. She wasn't even the nastiest one either, there was a 65-year-old stripper! Finally, there was one decent looking stripper, I was thinking, "how the hell did she end up here?" Then she lit her nipples on fire. Pretty interesting night. Friday, I had the night off, so I decided to chill at the hotel, watched the shows there then hung out with Mark Poolos. And I ate almost an entire pizza by myself. I felt good. Saturday was the night of the semifinals and finals in the competition. I watched part of the semifinals at the hotel, then grabbed a cab over to the Relapse Theater to see if I could get on stage since some of the comics made the finals. I was able to get a 5 minute set, which was awesome! The Relapse is a really cool improv theater in the basement of an old church. I got to see Sean Kent perform, too, I hadn't seen him in a few years since he was at Laffs. Dude is fuckin hilarious! I had a pretty solid set at the Relapse, it was fun. I met a lot of cool people in Atlanta, lots of great comics and industry people. I definitely want to try to get in the festival again next year, Steve Hofstetter and Marshall Chiles were both super cool! It was a good motivation for me being out there with all of that talent. I've been kind of lazy with the comedy the last year or so. Not good. When I got back from Albuquerque, I had a gig at Malarkey's. Had a kick ass headline set, had a lot of fun there. Felt good about my set, wasn't sure how I'd do after traveling all day. On April 20th, I decided to record for my live cd, "Fletcher in the Rye" (take that jd salinger) Had a fun night at the Guild Theater in Albuquerque, very kick ass lineup! We've got a lot of great comics here in Albuquerque. Tonight is gonna be an awesome show at Hotel Andaluz, doing a show to help raise money for YDI. Looking forward to the show.