Comic Lorrie Brownstone stops by to tidy up and tell her story.
Topics on the day include how to get your head shot up on the comedy club wall, performing for the deaf, staring down the barrell of a comedy crossroad, how working the road is nothing compared to raising kids and filling out 30 pages of tax forms to get your $25 and a burger. Let us all chop broccoli!
Comedian of the week – Dana Carvey: Squatting Monkeys Tell No Lies
Email: brianmcomedy@gmail.com
Good show, good interview, as usual.
Posting up a quick link to a TV comedy contest that’s happening in LA this week, because I (vaguely) know one of the comics and he’s a really nice guy. http://www.ktla.com/community/contests/comic/
The guy I (vaguely) know is Tim Babb, who also does a podcast with his buddies called TANcast. Less than wanting to shill for the one guy, though, I just wanted to post this up to support the idea of televised local comedy, especially without people having to room together or do challenges… if you go to the site, you can stream clips of each of the 5 comics in the contest doing a pure 3 minutes, and then vote for your favorite.
No registration is required to vote, or if you don’t even want to vote, whatever. I just liked seeing the clips of some comics I never would have otherwise had a chance to see. If it gets popular enough, maybe they’ll keep doing it, or maybe they’ll start doing this sort of thing in other towns!
Oh, and a quick word of warning about the contest set-up… BRUTAL. Each comic has 3 minutes on a cold stage at 9 in the morning… and the smarmy blonde bitch introducing and closing the segment doesn’t help anything. Under those conditions, what these comics were able to accomplish is very praiseworthy.
BRUTAL.
Really enjoyed the Lorrie interview. Found her frank and funny, and wish her all the best in her comedy endeavours
So…any one seen any great comedy recently???
(I ask that in a kinda quiet on here awkward pause type thing)
The most recent rerun of This American Life has someone going on tour with George Burns. It starts about 35 minutes in. What interested me the most is how much hand-wringing he did about changing one joke in his 25-year-old act. Where it’s still not really excusable for non-legends under the age of 90 to do, you get an idea of how people do the same routine for decades and never change and never notice. What do y’all think?
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/102/road-trip
Retired from the road in 93 and it’s great just to hear “comic-talk” again. When people ask me what I miss most from the road, it’s the long drives. Having 8-10 hours to myself was heaven. No kids, no passengers, no audience, no cellphone, just you and your tape deck.
I’m now a college teacher and one of the things Brian said is exactly what I tell my students – I got more gigs from being a professional than from being funny.
Keep it up!
Hello BTB faithful. The show will be taking a bit of a sabbatical why we tinker with it and figure out a way to make it bigger and better. I will still be releasing shows in the interrim, (so PLEASE stay subscribed), just not as regularly.
I hope you will continue to use the blog style comment thread as a sounding board for your comedy needs, and thanks for all the support over the last 3 years!
Will the tinkering include a page for the column
?
Last Comic Standing starts tonight! I only mention it because it will probably infuriate me to the point of releasing a show. Stay tuned…
1. I admit I enjoyed the season debut of Last Comic Standing. The dude from the Office as host, he seems out of place and unsure what his role is, but love the judges. I haven’t watched for a season or two as it was getting old, maybe the break makes it more compelling.
2. Here’s another “Conservative” comic that we have never mentioned, and this goes beyond “old school”, but Tom Dreissen has been known to call in to a few of the radio talk shows simply as a caller. If I recall correctly, I have heard him ht him on Hugh Hewitt, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, maybe others. On one show he called in on some topic but got sidetracked by the host and they talked a while about touring with Sinatra. Prager recently saw him and brought him up on his show, that reminded me…
Watched LCS also. Looks like they made some big improvements and I look forward to later episodes. Hey Brian, did you see your old friend, The Alien Warrior Comic?
I’m surprised to hear Dreesen is a Conservative. If I recall correctly he was one of the leaders of the Comedy Store “strike”, and was always a pretty pro-labor dude.
http://guyism.com/2010/06/the-10-funniest-dead-guys-we-dearly-miss.html
Top 10 dead comedians and comic actors, pretty much spot on Americanwise, I’d add one or two more from this side of the pond. Dermot Morgan definitely, Ronnie Barker and Leonard Rossiter too. Any more suggestions?
Jim Varney? A bit too highbrow for me.
I haven’t watched LCS yet, but at least they haven’t tried to lie to us about what kind of comedy “search” this is.
I don’t remember if it’s been discussed or not but I just watched a film called I Am Comic and it incorporated a lot of the concepts used on BTB. Hell gigs, vernacular etc. It’s running on Showtime if you want to check it out.
Agreed, I Am Comic is definitely worth watching. Could have used more explosions and boobies though.