OG’s Quick Review of a Packed Tailgators Tuesday

Too much comedy going on in this city, it’s like the 80s only without the coke.

Anyone thinks of wearing suspenders and I will burn Ottawa to the ground, I will not put up with that shit again.

MC Herb Irving

Is almost a caricature of a comedian, that is he’s deeply generic from material to delivery, I saw nothing new thus nothing particularly interesting. His first big laugh came from a bit pointing out that the audience wasn’t laughing that much.

Alex Wood

Got two applause breaks in his first minute on stage so there you go. It should be noted that Alex is a scum-sucking weasel cum-dumpster diver for not only getting free passes to the new Batman movie but the chance to do a set before the movie. How many comedians get to open for the Dark Knight? How many dream of such a thing? Well just me and that’s why Alex is a jerk.

Eric Russo

Continues to do his best Dane Cook and the best Dane Cook is no Dane cook.

Dom Pare

Jebus that guy again? From now on unless he Bomb Pare’s it I’m not going to say anymore about him.

Carrie Gaetz

Is off the Just For Laughs to do a life changing six minutes but no pressure! Actually there isn’t Carrie killed last night, she’ll kill in Montreal, the end.

Two funny Carrie moments:

Coming off stage Jason tells her she went fifteen seconds over six minutes, “but don’t worry,” Jason said helpfully, “Forty five seconds of that was laughs, you won’t get that in Montreal.” Thanks coach, Jason then went on and asked the cancer kid in the wheel chair why he spends so much money on running shoes.

The second when she gave me her new spiffy business card, out of tradition and habit I started to put it into my wallet… “Oh!” she said without a trace of deliberate irony “You can’t keep it, I only have seven.” And to make it clear she wasn’t joking she gingerly took it back, smoothing out one of the edges. I can’t wait till she scribbling her number on the back of a cocktail napkin for a bemused Lorne Michaels because the Keith’s rep got her last one.

HL Doug Funk

Never got the chance to see Doug until last night, only heard good things and those things were accurate. He is excellent. Solid, clean, universal material, precise and engaging delivery, superb Brian Regan quality miming and a stripper pole bit that cause me to near choke on my beer. I loved his set right up until the end; his closing bit was a glaring disappointment. It starts off cute; when you say “can’t” with a Scottish brogue it sounds like “cunt”. It’s executed flawlessly, the accent is perfect and the puppet show delivery a creative twist but what should be a quick one shot is milked and milked and milked and then the cow dies, a witch doctor is brought in then the cow is resurrected for one more giant teat squeeze. It was like the cherry on the sundae I was enjoying was replaced with an olive pit.

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.

A review where the headline says it all

The Love Guru is a comedy like the Leafs are a hockey team

Oh Mike, what happened man?

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.

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.

Agog and aghast

Why would anyone human with a soul do something like this?

Og’s Fair and Balanced Review of AC last Saturday

Jocko Alston MC:

A solid MC and comedian in general and this show was no exception. He seems to be very conscious of an MC’s duty to the show and it’s always neat to see a professional adjust not only his act but his style to the task’s unique demands. He got the crowd primed for the show and got big laughs with pretty risky race stuff than rarely does well in Ottawa, just asks some of the cats from Montreal.

Casey “Cubby McGee, C-Train” Corbin Middle

I’ve watched Casey evolve over the years (part of that evolution has been the gaining and losing of weight, further proof of the indissoluble bonds between him and Ben Miner, watch the movie “Twins” and tell me I’m wrong) and each time I’ve seen him he’s gotten better this time no exception. His delivery is effortless and he seems to have lost a great deal of the giddy energy he used to have. His pace is slower but that acts as a fulcrum to leverage insanity like “Sweet ninja rape” into genuine laughs. What’s also interesting is how Casey is doing bits that are literally a decade old but they’ve been polished so well that they seemed weirdly fresh even though I knew the punch line after the first three words. A testament to the amount of work Casey puts into his art.

It wasn’t Casey’s best set however that will always be the night he was fired from “The Lone Star Café” and spent his entire set ripping on them from every angle setting the Lone Star’s marketing efforts back a few years. I still can’t eat there without thinking of Casey’s description of the kitchen.

Daryl Makk headliner

These are the hardest reviews to write, it’s like trying to form a critical opinion of a bag of plain potato chips. There’s nothing wrong with Daryl’s act, material or presentation, heck I’d love to be able to have that much stuff that could do that well but there’s nothing to distinguish it either. No jalapeños, no weird orange colour that stains your fingers for three days, not even a hint of a ruffle; its garden variety stand-up both in subject matter and comedian’s persona. If you’re a fan of comedy in general you’re not going to go wrong with seeing him but he’s not going to leave any lasting impression either.

Me at Absolute

A good set by Yuk’s standards and a mediocre one by Absolute’s there may be video later so you can judge yourself.

What was really funny was Jocko screwed up the intro, he started with, “Your next act has toured across Canada and has a show being shot for “YTV”…” which confused me because I haven’t even toured across Ottawa and there’s a standing court order preventing me from appearing on any screen with anyone underage for any reason and my name sure the heck isn’t Perry Perlmutar (a rare case of someone I wouldn’t swap names with).

Perry was on after me and last time I checked he was in the green room so I froze unsure of what to do, go on stage and make a joke? Do Perry’s set? Then he shot past me to the stage making the decision for me and as Jocko came off he slapped his big bald head realizing his error. He apologized and I told him not to worry about it but decided that if I bombed it would be totally his fault.

So I eventually got on stage and the super-new lazy firemen bit was met with a confused silence; they wanted to laugh but couldn’t think of a reason to.

The newish Guitar Hero bit hit nicely, it still needs some polish but that was the first solid laugh its gotten so far.

A bit that I wrote years ago and would occasionally try hit really well, must try it at Yuk’s to see if it’s truly stage-worthy.

After my set in the green room Daryl Makk made an obscure “Teen Wolf” reference that I think I was the only one who caught it, that made me feel cool and old like how Clint Eastwood must feel all the time.

Of course

Cartoon classic THE SIMPSONS has been named the best comedy TV show of all time in a new poll.

Editors at AOL Television named the long-running animation top of a list of 50 of the greatest small screen funnies, claiming, “The townsfolk of Springfield… have become engrained into modern pop culture.”

Seinfeld was named second, followed by All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Cheers.

None of the top ten shows are still running – and only six of the top 50 are currently on the air; The Office (14), South Park (16), Curb Your Enthusiasm (18), 30 Rock (20), Scrubs (40) and Family Guy (47).

I’d put South Park in the top ten, Stone and Parker are modern day “Jonathan Swifts” I don’t think anyone is doing a better job satitizing our culture. This season has been pure gold so far.

The American version of The Office is surprisingly good but I’d have to wait a few years to see if it has staying power.

Curb Your Enthusiasm was great until the last season, if felt like they swept up all the crap left on the writing and editing room floors and said ‘Ah what the hell.’, stopped watching because it was that wretched. Before that abomination of a season I would have put it in my own top ten, now not so sure.

I’ve just started watching 30 Rock and am an instant fan, I resisted getting into it because of it’s SNL cast roots (SNL hasn’t been funny in a very long time) but am now hooked. Alec Baldwin is hysterical.

I’ve never watched Scrubs, it’s on my list.

And Family Guy 40?!?! C’mon…

A visual review of my performance last night

Change “trunk” to “stunk” to complete it.

Well some of the new stuff hit and it was a small crowd but the acts before me got more laughs so I can’t blame them entirely.

No, wait… yes I can… there… it was them and not me.

Well now I feel better.