Concert Film Excitement

The Tell Your Friends! Concert Film shows this past Tuesday were a ton of fun, and if you weren't able to get to Brooklyn to see it live keep an eye out for the DVD which will hopefully be available by the end of the year. Woot! Concert film!

The lineup was a true representation of people who came up in New York's alternative comedy scene, with Leo Allen, Christian Finnegan, Kristen Schall & Kurt Braunohler, Liam McEneaney, me and more. It was also great to work with our director, Victor Varnado, who's a good friend and great comedian in his own right. His previous concert film project, The Awkward Comedy Show, aired on Comedy Central and looked amazing.

Thanks to everyone that made it to the shows and I'll post any info on when and where it will hit t.v. and be available on DVD so you too can enjoy the big little show from the lower east side.

I am so goth

This is what rock stars do on their days off on the road: they find the nearest claim to fame and take their picture in front of it.

Here I am in Eldon, Iowa in front of what's called the "American Gothic House," so named because it is the house in the background of Grant Wood's famous painting American Gothic, seen below:



Um, that's about it. That's all I got.

Oh, I went to a Quizno's too. They have that here in Iowa.

Honestly though, I'm having a blast. The shows have been fun, and tonight on my night off I sang Crazy Train at live band karaoke here in Des Moines. It was a freakin' blast. I highly recommend doing live band karaoke before you die.

The American Gothic House on the other hand, not really necessary.

Busy Weekend Part 2--New Video and a Show!

O.K., so this post won't be as exciting as the George Carlin story, but it's still fun because I finally made another episode of my video podcast Life as a Comic"!

Click To Play

I premiered it at my Session at the P.I.T. show this past Saturday and it got a really nice response from the crowd. I had sent out an email promoting the premiere of the new episode in order to force a deadline on myself, so Friday and part of Saturday were spent editing like crazy in order to get it ready for the show, but it all worked out and I'm pretty happy with it.

And the show was a lot of fun too. There were some new faces in the crowd which is always fun, I got to mix in some different material, and it was cool to be back at the P.I.T. where I did my most recent one-man show.

Thanks to the folks at the sketch group Spurn for giving me their time slot for the night.

Hope you like the new episode!

Busy Weekend Part 1--George Carlin

This has been a pretty amazing weekend, starting on Thursday when I got a call to see if I was available to be the opening act at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom for comedy legend George Carlin. The call came in just after noon, and the New Hampshire spot was about a 5 hour drive from my apartment (under perfect driving conditions, which never seem to exist when driving through Massachusetts), so it was going to be close, so I basically dropped everything and jumped in my car, guitar at the ready.

I got to the venue, which is huge and holds over 1,500 people and is definitely the largest place I've ever played, and quickly tried to make myself presentable. When Mr. Carlin showed up backstage and was being introduced to me he asked, "where's our Armenian comedian?" which cracked me up, mostly because that meant he had actually been told my name. Not only that, he said he watched some of my YouTube clips on his iPhone during the drive in. How cool is that?

I was brought on stage as many people were still getting seated and getting their first round of drinks--such is the lot of an opening act--so there was a bit of a buzz in the room, but the crowd came together, I did my best half hour and I left to a nice ovation. Carlin's folks were happy, I was happy, and the crowd was ready to see their headliner.

There was a 20-minute intermission to give the folks a chance to get a drink, buy a t-shirt, etc., and then the lights went down. The crowd cheered. From off stage a voice simply said, "ladies and gentlemen, George Carlin," and the place went nuts. Several people stood. The man nearly gets a standing O. walking on the stage. Pretty effing cool.

He worked on a lot of new stuff, and it was great not only to watch him perform but to see how much adoration he got from the crowd. Not only that, he's 70 years old (though doesn't seem 70) and he still loves to perform. I have a lot of respect for that.

So how the heck did they find me? Well, I have been scheduled to open for him for a few dates in November, but I haven't really mentioned it too much because things in show business sometimes fall through and it's always awkward to retract something cool that was supposed to happen. That's why some of us performers keep things under our hats for a while.

But now that I've at least done one show for them, I guess I can let the cat out of the bag. I'm scheduled to open for him November 2, 3, & 4. I'll post the venue info when it comes in.

It's definitely one of the biggest thrills of my comedy career thus far, and the fact that it came up at the last minute and involved a madcap drive up to New Hampshire gave the whole episode a sense of adventure.

Thanks to everyone at the venue, everyone was really nice and helpful, and I even had my own dressing room with snacks! I've hit the big time.