The comedic high

I got a taste of it, I have  a new bit that as it builds it slowly sucks the air out of the room, the tension peaks (essentially the crowd thinks I’m about to reveal myself as a racist) and the audience is silently bemused until I drop the punchline, snapping the tension in a way that is just a helluva buzz. Like Indian Jones whipping a luger out of a Nazi’s hand.

I did my very first official opening spot at The Prescott and it went really well, looking forward to tonight where I’m going to try the above bit out.

I didn’t do it last night because it was a small crowd and the MC asked if there were any Knight Rider jokes so I couldn’t resist resurrecting a slightly older bit that referenced the classic show so it fit. I was also proud that I was able to change my set up on the fly like that.

OG’s Fairy Balanced Review of Absolute’s July 2 Pro-Am show

Darryl Pervis – MC

Good stuff, the crowd warmed to his self-deprecating loser shtick pretty quickly, some quick and sharp spritzing got the audience firing on all cylinders; it would take a pretty talentless hack to fail with a room that well prepped.

Oliver Gross

And I was just the talentless hack to do it! They hated me like I was trying to sell them land in Florida, I did manage to dig myself out of one hole only to fall into another. My biggest laugh came from a throwaway bit about the vomit and Canadian flags littering the Market after Canada Day. Easily my worst AC set ever.

Paul Balyot

New guy from Montreal (at least to me) an excellent stage presence and charisma, some chraming stuff about being a Canadian Pilipino with a Jewish boss. My enjoyment of his set collapsed when he started doing jokes I know I’ve heard before. Like “Jew” vs. “Jewish” (Jon Stewart has a few bits that beat that horse dead) and worse, the naked men in the gym bit (Tim Allen’s book “Don’t Stand Too Close to a Naked Man”) complete using the mic as a swinging dick then dragging it on the floor to represent the black guy. The audience ate it right up of course, applause breaks a plenty but still he needs to get some fresh material, he’s got the stage chops, half the war has been won.

Brent Cassidy

While he did better than I did the stool and mic stand could make the same claim, less shocking and more wit is what I think his act need. They were an oooey crowd but it seemed that the majority of big reactions came in the form of “OOooohhhh” rather than laughs.

Two Loons

I’ve managed to miss their sets every time I’ve been on a show with them, I had a sneaking suspicion that I knew what it was anyway; ballad style songs counter-pointing raunchy lyrics and I was right. They were surprisingly unpolished at times is about the worst I can say but the best I can say is that they didn’t suck. It’s just that the “Flight of the Conchords” has pretty much laid waist to the genre, you can’t do anything without being compared to or even accused of being them. They may want to try for something different; Bruce Mccullough’s “Shame Based Man” or “Radio Free Vestibule” are examples of pushing musical comedy into new directions.

Melissa Morse

A fantastic set, applause breaks on pretty much every bit, even the weird crazy shit that flew over the audience’s head like a unicorn shitting rainbow elves got laughs. They may not have known why they were laughing but on some level they knew it was funny. Melissa has always been good but that set was easily the best.

Alex Wood

Just destroyed the place so nothing new, for the last three weeks his sets have been on a steady rising arc. While there wasn’t anything new he’s added new tags and expanded on various established bits. Google v. God most notably where he’s added a colour commentary (don’t worry God fans, he’s catching up!)

Carrie Gaetz

Asked Jeff if she could do a “tight three minutes”. Jeff replied “Oh yeah, you’re well know for going under you time.” Let’s face it, she would have spent three minutes telling the crowd she only had three minutes. The only thing Carrie can do in three minutes is a pitcher.

Jay Malone – Headliner

Because I’m a loser with a day job I couldn’t stick around to watch his set so I will assume he did well, gonna try and catch him on the weekend.

Trevor’s Pad Launch Unsullied by Audience

With a crowd of three (3) whole customers… no wait… one was the father of one of the acts so really just two people… Trevor’s latest source of neurosis got off to a quiet start.

The small audience wasn’t too surprising considering:

A: The Italian Street festival had everyone in the street being Italian

B: Father’s Day

C: Flood of Biblical proportions

D: No D is required as the first three are excuses good enough

Some quick thoughts:

Alastair had maybe the shortest set I’ve ever seen, two bits, no shave or haircut, I think he spent more time in the washroom at the Prescott than the stage.

Rebecca, the 16 year old Anto replacement once again showed that she has balls bigger than her older male counterparts. She has Trevor so worried that I saw him afterwards telling her father the sad story of Tracy McDonald in an effort to get him to put a stop to all this stand up comedy nonsense.

Don Kelly, wow has marriage made that cat darker or what? His new high school rampage reunion bit may very well be one of my favourites. I look forward to hearing it over the next decade or so. Will it replace parts of grandpa for Don’s edgier material? Only time will tell.

Alex Wood’s set… never happened, the trail of joints and Jos Louis that we laid across the street certainly succeeded in drawing him out and he nearly made it to the stage but at the last second realized what was going on, evaded the trap and ran back to AC before the cage could drop.

Don’t worry, next time we’ll get you and your little dog too!!!

Dave, Peter, Anto, Russ all did stuff too but I can’t think up any jokes about them so who cares.

I had a pretty good set, 95% new material and of that 15% seems to have potential. Specifically I’m really happy with my new donated kidney (thanks to Nikki Payne for the inspiration) and Guitar Hero bit and one or two other lines that I’ll be trying out at Yuk’s this Wednesday.

Og’s Fair and Balanced Review of Nikki Payne

defibrillating an audience out of a comedy induced coma.

Angelo Tsarouchas (MC / opener / split middle / gravitational well) seems to be out of his “whore” period as he didn’t yell the word once the whole night but he yelled about some other new stuff so that’s okay. Big and loud and funny as always Angelo kicked the night into high gear like the unnatural force of nature he is. While he was the MC and did the MC thing he really did a split middle length and style set. That’s not a complaint, I don’t think there can ever be enough Angelo and I doubt there ever will be. The only problem was that someone had to follow him.

Just deep fry the walk in freezer and soak it in Ouzo, I’ll take it up to my room after my set

Tony Vendetti (split middle) rushing back from the Pad had the unenviable task of cleaning up after Hurricane Ang. He has to spend the first 6 -10 minutes of his set dealing with the aftermath. The audience didn’t let Angelo go until Tony started talking about tripping over his own balls. That seemed to get their attention enough for him to remake the stage his own. Which lead to the next problem, he went long looking to get off stage on a big laugh. He got it but not until the show started to creep into too late for an Ottawa in bed by 11:00 pm crowd.

And then Martha Chaves (opener in the middle) was thrown on to do a five minute spot.

It figures that a Nikki Payne show would upset the system.

Martha did fine as usual, she and Tony are a great mix but the audience was spent. They were tired and had enough. Fortunately for them Nikki hadn’t.

As Angelo was starting to bring her on she was literally jumping up and down like the meth had finally kicked in and she’d need to rob the 7-11 before the high wore off. She exploded onto the stage and told the audience in no uncertain terms that they would wake up or she’d stalk and beat the crap out every last one of them.

“Then I told Charlie, that’s not how you spell “helter-skelter”, give me the knife you idiot.” Nikki recalls some of her old days adventures in California.

Advancements in GPS technology and the insanity defense makes that sort of thing possible in our modern world so they did wake up and for the next 40 minutes or so Nicky devastated the room and pretty much all the other acts on the stage that night were relegated to warm-up status. This was definitely what the crowd came to see. She was rambunctiously foul, a demented pixie from the wrong side of the Enchanted Forest’s tracks. Not just jokes about her being a stripper:

Note to Nikki other people have to use that mic stand

Or the snacking preferences of her vagina (crackers, who knew?) but there’s actually a startling post-feminism bend to her material that may very well be unique in comedy. A woman getting ahead in business with a blow-job isn’t a bad thing to Nikki; in fact it strikes her as an efficient time saver and a quick observation of the irony of free choice to modern women laid bare a fundamental truth. She spritzed ferociously, veering in and out of her material effortlessly, picking up the established audience quirks (and damn was it a target rich front row, the planets were aligned) and throwing them way over the line. You know she did it right as the victims gave up a standing ovation in payment for their public humiliation.

At the end of her set, an audience that was ready to pack it up and go home were left wanting more, is there any higher praise for any performer in any art?

Prescottacular Success (so far)

The first thing that struck me was just how perfect the room was. It’s small but open, despite the fact that it was sold out (and then some, they had to scrounge a few tables from downstairs for the overflow) it didn’t feel cramped; there are no pillars so there are no bad seats.

The technical side wasn’t quite so accommodating, the stage is a bit low, more a stoop than a stage, the lights look like they came from Ikea, that is they’re not proper stage lights so Wafik ended up looking whiter than usual and the sound system was accurately described as a “one-nighter” that is the mic is light and the sound quality tinny.

Ian demonstrates his fine knob control

Fortunately those are all flaws that can be fixed and tweaked as it goes on and certainly not show stoppers.

As an aside, the green room may very well be the best I’ve ever seen not in terms of size but in comfort, it has an air-conditioner and there was a bus pan full of ice and CANNED soft drinks, not that cheap ass syrup and water they usually foist on the talent.

Cold air making machine, like you seen in the rich people houses on teevee!

If they get a couch I may move in for the summer.

Another bonus is the staff, they were enthusiastic and patient; I lost track of how many times I was in the way only to have them go around me, if it was Tom I would have gotten a polite punch in the back of the head. I also noticed they were laughing as hard as the audience at some points.

Note to them: once the novelty wears off and you’ve heard the same jokes a hundred times you’ll realize how easy it is to tell a comedian to “Get the hell out of the way and pay your tab.”

All in all it’s a great space and I’m looking forward to hitting it on Sunday.

Martha E. Chaves’ broken English popped the cherry as the opening’s MC and as usual she kicked burro. The audience took a little while to get warmed up; almost like the newness of it all left them uncertain but Martha’s mix of charming material and spritzing got them cooking.

In my country we’re always blurry in photos

Erica Scott was the opening act and she continues to hone her act by swapping new and old bits around with mostly good results. There were some rough patches at the mid-point but she closed strong and then zipped off for her Niki Payne spot at Yuk’s.

Erica’s image defies witty captioning

Wafik then wandered in and was thrown on where he opened with “I wish I hadn’t smoked up before this” but since he was awake I don’t see how he could have avoided it.

Strangely his alleged inebriation didn’t seem to affect his act much, a slow start as the comedy hamster in his brain got the wheel turning and soon enough he was ripping the room up until his epiphany; it wasn’t actually his show. So before his guest spot morphed into a concert DVD he abruptly ended to wild applause.

Hey! How’s it going? Are you going to finish that meatball?

Then he wandered away because he actually had been sent out to get the baby’s medicine and some milk.

Then Julian Dion and I finally got to see more then seven minutes of his stuff and now it’s pretty clear that he’ll be getting plenty of work come September when he moves to Ottawa full time. The best moment of his set found me outside in the lobby strangely enough. We could hear the laughter and then silence… silence… and as I started to the door wondering what sucked all the air out of the room a huge wave of an applause break exploded before I could take a look as his closing bit hit the mark.

So then I told my cell mate are you sure I couldn’t just pay you for the cigarettes?

The headliner was Tony Vendetti and he started strong, really strong in fact and was consistent for most of his act but towards the end the audience was running out of steam. I think part of the reason why they faded was the endless stream of “Italians mob / eat / build stuff like this! People who aren’t Italian… don’t!” stereotype gags. They were irritatingly repetitive ants at an otherwise great picnic. His earlier family and dad stuff may be well-worn premises but he gives them an edge (I particularly liked the bit about punching out his kid’s teeth) and some original angles that more then compensated.

The Bald and the Blurry

So all in all the first show of the new room was a success from every perspective, the venue works, the audience was keen and the acts were of the same quality that you’d see at Yuk’s proper, the potential is there but history isn’t kind to new rooms in this town. I believe over the last 25 years the success to failure ratio has been 2 : 178 so it’s far to early to declare fait accomli but they couldn’t have asked for a better launch.

More photos with captions of dubious humour after the jump.

Nile Seguin

This guy right here who will always be one of my favorite acts  not just because he has made the one and only “Max the 2,000 year old Mouse” jokes I’ve ever heard.

He’s at AC tomorrow night on the pro side, I’ll be on the am side as usual and I’m thinking I’m going to do pretty much what I did at Yuk’s last week, the new stuff is coming along nicely.

Boris out Dore in at Yuk’s

A great last minute replacement has made Yuk’s Ottawa the show to go for this weekend. If you haven’t gotten a chance to see  Jon Dore recently or ever I can’t encourage you enough to do so now.

Well I could kidnap a beloved family pet and start sending you body parts in the mail but that might be a bit much if not messy.

Dore is the best I’ve seen of  “alternative” comedy in awhile if not ever, that is his stuff isn’t a bunch of wanking . He’s smart, weird and clever but above all original and funny with the bone-dry understated delivery required to make such tricky material work.

Words I don’t think I ever used to describe Jon’s act when he was here on Wednesday nights. Of all the guys to leave Ottawa he may have benefited the most creatively from the trip outta this jerkberg.

While his show is hit and miss I blame the misses on the Comedy Network, after all this is the same putrid hole that’s vomited out “Comedy, Inc” and continue to reanimate the long dead corpse of “The Air Farce” so its small wonder that even the most solid of talents gets tainted in the process. I thank the gods that “Kids in the Hall” was on before that abomination of a network, could you imagine what they would have done to them if they had gotten their lame hooks into it?

<in eddie murphy white guy voice>”The Chicken Lady, can we have her go out on a date with Saddam Hussein? And this ‘Head Crusher’ sketch, Bill over in accounting doesn’t get it, could we give him giant foam hands? The wife saw that at the ball game and thought they were a hoot!”< / in eddie murphy white guy voice>

The horror would be too much to imagine, I should stop now.

So go and see the one of the bleeding edges of modern Canadian stand-up  because one day the Comedy Network’s suits might notice he’s doing good stuff and strap him down to go all “Clockwork Orange” and program out the original comedy out leaving an empty husk that recycles gags from “You Can’t Do That On Television”

Launching Pad puts Absolute on the rag

Short story, Yuk Yuk’s Ottawa is hosting a “Launching Pad” show at the Prescott on Preston right across the street from Breslin’s ambitious competition’s flagship location.

Longer version here.

Initially I was stoked about this because more stages = more time = uh… well more time. But Jason Laurans has declared that anyone who plays that venue can’t play Absolute or any of their local road gigs for six months. From what I hearsayed  he deflects charges of “restraint of trade” by pointing out it’s just for that particular venue not for the Yuk’s chain as a whole. I’m no law talking guy but I’m not sure if the legislation concerned take scale and scope into consideration. It sure sounds like Jason is doing exactly what Yuk’s does (and part of the reason why he went indy) but of course on a much smaller scale.

And that will include me because I’m booked on the Pad in July. Since I’ve only played one Tailgators and I’ve never done a show at AC other than the am side of the pro-am Wednesdays it isn’t a really big deal to me, it is a shame however because I did want to do more for and at AC.

Should be interesting to see how it all shakes out.

So two sets this past week chock full of newish stuff.

I did about five minutes of brand totally new (except for one bit resurrected from the dead file cuz I missed it) at the Royal Oak. For that set I had that weird thing where they laugh at the bit you didn’t think was funny and stayed stone silent for the bit that you know was funny.

Times where you just want to stop and explain it to the crowd so they understand just how wrong they are.

What’s great is I wrote a whole new angle for one bit right on stage that got (for that room) a huge laugh. The fear of course is that I’ll never be able to recapture it for later shows.

But all in all it was a good set and I leant a fair amount from it.

Yuk’s was pretty weak however. Some of the new stuff hit and the “A material” ranged from meh to acceptable. Watching the tape (thanks Russ!) I can see I was really unfocused, I’m still searching for that right mix of rehearsed spontaneity.

Speaking of bad sets, this guy has some funny shit being performed for a crowd of idiots, morons and jerks, just brutal:

Jeff McEnery

Boo-fucking-ya! One of my favorite new acts is going to be at the Double Y this weekend as a last minute substitute.

If you haven’t seen Jeff you really need to. He’s a young Derek Edwards and I don’t say that lightly, he is raw talent, a perfect stage persona coupled with natural writing skillz, his instinct for the right word is uncanny.

But hey thanks to the magic of the Internets you don’t have to take my word for it, check it our for youself:

If you’re in Ottawa go, if you’re not in Ottawa see him when you can, he will be huge one day soon.