Ron Ferguson headlines 405 Lounge Wednesday July 25 at 830

With Laffs Comedy Club closing down a few years ago, not many nationally touring comics have stopped through the Duke City. But this week, we are lucky enough to have one of my favorite comics and good friend, Ron Ferguson in town. He will be headlining at the 405 Lounge downtown at 830 on Wednesday night, tickets are only 5 bucks at the door. Part of the proceeds will go to children who lost their parent or parents in the Aurora shooting this past weekend, which is where Ron is from.

Ron is a regular at the world famous Comedy Works in Denver, and has shared the stage with such heavyweights as Bill Burr, Dave Chappelle and Chelsea Handler. He currently tours with Pablo Francisco, but is taking a week off to come hang out in Albuquerque. Check out Ron's website also, you can catch a video or two of his on youtube if you want, but live comedy is the way to go, so get your asses to the show.

Also joining Ferguson on stage will be local comics Ariel Holmes, Sarah Mowrey, Rusty Rutherford, and Curt Fletcher (me!)

Wits End/Laughing Skull

The last week I was on the road for the first time in months. I was a little rusty, hadn't done a 30 minute set in awhile. I was performing at Wits End in Westminster, CO, for NYE, so I decided to go to Denver a day early and see if I could get stage time somewhere. Chris Charpentier, Nathan Lund, Bobby Crayne and Sam Tallent run a show every Wednesday, and were cool enough to let me headline while I was in town. These four guys are extremely talented young comics and they put together a great show of stand up and sketch comedy. The show was in the upstairs of a building that looked like apartments, not sure if anyone lived there or not, didn't seem like anyone did. The room was really cool, just looked like a big living room. Saw a couple comics I had never seen before, one's name was Morgan I think, she was funny. I didn't catch all of her set, but what I saw was funny. The other comic was Kristen Rand(sp?), she was great. Loved her style. My set didn't go as well as I had hoped, but it was nice to get on stage and do more than a 5 minute set.

At Wits End, the headliner for the week was Steven Kent McFarlin, aka Spanky. I had heard great things about him, so I was really looking forward to working with him. John Crist was the mc, except for Thursday he wasn't able to make it, so my good buddy, Don Morgan opened and did a great job! That was the best I had seen Don do, I was proud of him.

Thursday night we had kind of a light crowd, it took them awhile to warm up, but I got them laughing. Got to see a couple friends that night, too, which was cool. Friday first show was a huge crowd, second show was the smallest of the week, but both shows were fun. NYE crowds were great, it seems like crowds on NYE get offended a little more easy than other crowds. Which is fine, keeps me on my toes. It was a nice time in Colorado, got to see some old friends, I really miss it up there.

Wednesday night before my show, my buddy Ron Ferguson got me free tickets to Comedy Works to see him perform with Steve McGrew! I had never seen Steve live, so that was a nice way to spend some time on a Wednesday. I had met Steve years ago at Laffs in Albuquerque, but didn't see him perform.

I had a couple days off before I had to fly to LA for my first round in the Laughing Skull Festival. Denver comic, Jason Keyes and I shared a hotel in Hollywood, not far from our venue, the M Bar. Jason is a very funny, underrated comic in Denver. I hope he goes far, he's funny, smart, and he's a good guy. He tore it up at the M Bar and he had to go first. The mc for the night was Chris Mata, who I hadn't seen in a couple years. I worked with him in South Dakota and drove him to the airport in Minneapolis. It was nice seeing him again. Met some other great comics on the show that night as well. Met Mark Agee, originally from Dallas, I had heard good things about him before. Alex Hooper had a killer set, I was shocked to not see him in the top 2 for the night. Allison Breen and Jennifer Murphy finished second and first respectively, both were very funny!

The coolest thing about the trip was hanging with Steve Abeyta, an old friend of mine. He goes to school at the Musicians Institute in LA, he's a kick ass drummer! If you don't believe me listen to some AnesthesiA! Steve lived only a few blocks from where I was performing so he met up with me after school. Good times were had! Also met Matt Lewis, another comic in LA. I've talked to him a few times before but never met him. I like the scene out in LA quite a bit, I've only been out there twice for shows and I've met quite a few comics and all of them have been really cool. I'm hoping to plan a trip out there in the summer time to do some showcases.

I was pretty disappointed in myself for not having a better set on Wednesday night at the M Bar, but today I got an email from Steve Hofstetter letting me know that I was selected for the 2012 Laughing Skull Festival in Atlanta! They had a different format this year where they took two people from the live shows that were selected by judges, then an extra comic was also selected, not sure if they went by tape or judges or what. But I got in and I'm very excited about it! I know quite a few comics who have been to the Laughing Skull Festival in the past and they said it's well worth the trip. Can't wait!

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.