Well - I'm back. For how long until my next posting? I don't know. I wish I could say I was too busy - but you can't really make an excuse of why you couldn't type into a computer for a month.

Just finished our last show of the Holiday season yesterday (Jan 16). Andrew and I drove up to Barrie - that's right - Barrie...and did a show for a corporation. It was pretty good overall actually although we are still questioning why Andrew would do his Michael Jackson bit at a corporate. He went brain dead for a minute I think but it happens to everyone. I'm going to scan through my blogs to see if I wrote about our show in London in 2008 - if I didn't write about it before it's a bit of a doosie. Let's just say......don't do a joke about funerals if they JUST gave out a service award to someone who passed away...yup, I did that. Live and learn - and I did. Now, before I do a corporate I always ask if someone died in the office recently. It's an odd question but it's needed.

Next main show coming up is January 29th in Belleville. If you're in the area on Friday night let me know - the theatre holds 7 00 people and they've sold most of the tickets so it should be AWESOME.

My February could potentially be very busy. On the 5th I'm in Pembroke and then trucking it to Ottawa on the 6th so I can be with my buddies for the Super Bowl on the 7th. I'm then going to Montreal on the 10th and 11th to middle at the Comedy Nest then have to head back on the 12th to go to Bobcaygeon and then off to North Bay on the 13th. Then I'm off to St. Catherines on the 19th and then a local show on the 20th and topping it off with a show in Milton on the 25th. I'm also running my room on Sunday nights and have some open-mics that I'll be doing shows at as well so overall it's going to be BUSY.

OK, let's see if I can update my blog tomorrow. Bets anyone?

Well....10 days in a row clearly didn't work. A lot has happened since I last blogged - I went to Ottawa to Absolute Comedy in November and had GREAT SHOWS. The best I've ever had there. The Sunday show is always the weakest because you're comparing it to the rest of the week but it was still good. Me like telling joke in Ottawa. I don't know what it is about that club (www.absolutecomedy.ca) but the crowds are always awesome. I ran into a bunch of old friends while I was there including my old military buddies (we went to the Legion on Rememberance Day to buy a beer for a veteran - and many for ourselves), old high school buddies and people I used to work with. It was a pretty busy week and I only had to work a max of 3 hours per night. But there's always beer after so it turns out to be a pretty late night.

Last night I did my 3rd Christmas show of the year. So far, so good. Knock on wood. When you do Christmas shows you're not typically going to "kill". Your goal is to beat the memory of the chicken that they just had.

Overall it went really well. We weren't signing autographs after the show but the crowd had a great time (except the old table in the back-left corner - we just say that they weren't able to hear us) and so did we. It's always satisfying on the drive back to know that we didn't ruin a Christmas party. That's only happened once......London, Ontario 2008. Let's just say I did an inappropriate joke right after a service award for someone who passed on. And no, it wasn't about the person.....but the joke hit a little too close to home me thinks so from then on I've learned to ask the organizer if they're giving away an award to a dead guy.

The organizer for last night's show asked me if I was interested in MC'ing a conference of theirs in 2012. That would be WICKED but obviously it's a couple of years away - she may get a new job or forget me altogether - but I'm writing this in my blog so I can send it to her in 2 years to remind her. Now I just need someone to remind me that I'm supposed to send this and it'll be perfect.

I've got a show next week in Peterborough and the week after for Scotiabank so it's turning out to be my first real Corporate season. I had a couple last year but I've got 7 or 8 this year so it's steadily improving.

For New Year's I'll be in Cobourg....jealous? There for a show that I'm headlining (I didn't book this one - came through a buddy of mine) and then Andrew and I will be heading to Belleville to watch Jason Blanchard headline a show that I booked for him. We'll probably crash in Belleville for the New Year as it'll be a bit of a drive to get back and it'll be past midnight so there will probably be a drunk or 2 driving back as well. Might as well play it safe and crash in Belleville.

I'm hosting the Fox and Fiddle open-mic tonight at 10pm - I run and book the show weekly so I'm meeting a lot of the newer acts in Toronto. Some are pretty good but I've noticed nobody likes to stick to their time. I'm going to start not booking repeat offenders for 2 months as the show is going a little long every week. I'm not sure why no one keeps track of time anymore....maybe that's an old-school comic thing.

My website is getting redone as well - we'll see how it turns out. It's going to be more user-friendly but probably not as pretty as the one I have now.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

I'm going for 10 days in a row again - we'll see how that works out for blogging.

Right now I'm listening to Todd Van Allen's podcast that I was on. www.heyitstva.com - and click on episode 158 (I'm on 3 of them I think but this one's the latest). We don't cover ground-breaking topics but it's a fun time all around.

I performed at Absolute Comedy in Toronto on the weekend - the Thursday and Friday show were a little slow but I had a LOT of fun on the Saturday and Sunday shows. I'll post a clip of the Saturday late show when I download it onto da computer. When a 50 year old guy with a mullet sits in the front row you know it's going to be fun.

Ethan is great - he's getting taller every day. People keep thinking he's at least 2 which is funny because they must think he's just really slow. We're impressed that he says "ball" but I'm sure other families are thinking, "that's all he can say? What terrible parenting". But no - he's only 19 months and he's shooting a lot of words out now so it's really cool to listen to you.

I've officially taken over the Fox and Fiddle at John and Adelaide. First show is on October 4th - should be a hoot.

No plans really for tomorrow - just take Ethan around the neighborhood and dat's about it. Thursday I'm going down to do a hockey pool at the Spaghetti Factory before the regular season begins. I'm tempted to get the NHL Package this season because Toronto tv stations suck and don't show the Sens games....idiots. You know how many Sens fans there are in Toronto? At least one.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2009

Well tonight I had a really good show. Club 54 is definitely hit-and-miss and tonight it was a hit. Got to try out a couple of new bits and I did 40 minutes so me's happy with that. I'm still working out my bits as when you combine them into a long set like that you have to have some sort of order - which I pretty well have down-pat now. There's a couple of jokes that I'd love to get rid of but I can only do that when I get more material.

There was about 250 people in the crowd and Ben got them going from the start. The opener got onstage and lost them immediately. He was nervous, his opening bit kind of died and it was downhill from there. They talked through pretty well his whole set and it was tough to watch. But comedians do have to start off somewhere and Ben gives people a good opportunity to get onstage in front of a paying audience so hopefully next time he'll do better. Every show is a learning experience.

Ben did his Arms bit and then brought me up and I did well. There were a couple of spots where I lost them for a second but I brought them right back which is a good sign.

For tomorrow I'm sleeping in. That's my only plan for the day. It was a hellish night last night as Ethan played the game of waking up every couple of hours. I was supposed to go jogging but that wasn't in the cards but I'll get on that tomorrow morning when he goes down for his nap. It's surprising how easy it is to lose weight if you just try. Weird. Now mind you I'm not running too far - just starting out for 20 minutes but I'm hoping to get to 45 min straight by the New Year.

I'm going to a brunch on Sunday with 2 other couples and their kids. One kid is only 2 weeks old so I guarantee you that Ethan can beat the crap out of him. No one's taking my bet - but trust me - he can do it. The other 2 kids are bigger than him (2 and 4 years old) so it's going to be tough but he'll try. He's got the old "punching daddy in the face" down pretty good so we'll see how he does.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

I've heard that people say that runners have a beer a day and it's actually good for them. I actually went for a run today....but I need to do it 5 more times to make up for the beer tonight. I was listening to the Louis CK "Shameless" cd for the first time in full-length tonight - and it's a great album to enjoy a couple of beer and listen to him. Amazing comic - that's pretty well all I can say.

I did the open-mic in Buffalo on Tuesday - the room was great but my set was...."meh". That's how I described it to Jason. Nothing groundbreaking - just average. Jason was the same way but that's very rare for him. It may had to do with the fact that he was 13th on the show - but he does so well 99% of the time that I won't stick up for him. It was funny because comics were coming up to him after his set saying "great job" and I heard this....thinking....did Jason think he did great? And he walked up to me and said "that was horrible". I laughed because I didn't know what he thought and it's great to see that a comic can realize when he doesn't have a great set. I definitely acknowledge it and so does Jason which is good. If he said he did well then it would have been an awkward ride home.

I'm headlining at Club 54 tomorrow - it should be interesting. It's a great place to do 40 minutes but you never know what the crowd is going to be like. I mentioned in my blog before that it was a fundraiser for a guy that killed himself and 25 people showed up - it theoretically couldn't be worse. But ya never know - they could have a wake right before the show tomorrow and I come on before they bring out the sandwiches. We'll see.

I actually just started this week downloading music. I'm about 6 years behind technology I think but I finally hopped on the wagon. I found one of my favourite songs, "Drugs, Guns and Booze" by Pure. And no, I don't like it for the title. It's actually a great song but pretty damn hard to find. Especially hard cuz I thought The Cure sang it.

Monday, September 14th, 2009

OK, so I didn't make it 21 days straight - but I was pretty damn close. I fell off the blog wagon but I'm back on again to update it fairly regularly. There - that's a more concrete statement - fairly regularly....

OK, stuff that's new. Ethan's saying a bunch of new words which is really cool. He says "thank you" (his exact words are ack-you) and "all gone" and hasn't learned a swear yet. He also tells dogs to sit but sometimes it sounds like he's saying "shit" so maybe that's a word. Maybe he just wants the dog to poop, I dunno.

I'm taking over the Fox and Fiddle Open-Mic night in Toronto as of October 3rd. I actually hosted there this Sunday and the opening was just horrid. I couldn't get the sound working and when it finally did (thank you David Andrew Brent) I forgot the first comic's name that was on coming on stage. When the comic (Scott Dell) came up the back-drop started falling on him - it's only a curtain and a couple of rods but it was pretty distracting....I went up there and tore it down so we did the rest of the show with no back-drop. After that though....smooth sailing...except for the weirdo that was on next who just ranted about a cyclist that got killed in Toronto. I had to walk up and physically take the mic from him as he was over time and he didn't make a whole lotta sense...but other than THAT everything was fine. Elaine Dandy bought me a beer and all was good.

Going to Buffalo tomorrow to do an open-mic there - haven't done it before so I'm just going down to check it out. It's only an hour and a half from my place so Jason Blanchard and I are going down to do a spot. It's probably best that I don't do my Buffalo plane crashes bit there....

I'm headlining at Club 54 on Friday night if anyone wants to come out and then I'm middling at Absolute Comedy in Toronto from September 24-27. Should be fun.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2009

Well, did a show at Betty's tonight. It was...ummm.....well, me's didn't do so good. I started off by making fun of the comic before me. He even said that these were Bill Maher jokes and got no reaction. For those of you who don't know - using other people's material is a no-no. Although I don't think I've seen a guy before that actually SAID he was going to do someone else's joke. So I made fun of him a bit. It didn't help me that the guy was 60 and was with his daughter. Upon reflection - I would have done the same thing I did.

I then started out saying that there was a protest in Toronto with bike couriers. They were protesting because they want drivers to respect them as they go down the streets and not cut them off. How do you try and get respect from drivers? Ya, block the road. That'll help.... My joke was something to that effect and well...too soon and not funny enough I guess. I thought it was pretty good considering that I thought of it 5 minutes before I went on. But if I'm the only one that thinks it was good....it's not good. Yet.

Ethan did something today that was absolutely hilarious and I wish I had on tape. I also wish it didn't happen. He was running with a tennis ball and giggling while being followed by his best friend Jack, the dog from down the street. He's laughing away and running in the grass and he was looking to his right. Well...right in front of him is a tree. And I was thinking to myself, "Man, he's got to be able to see the tree. I know he's not 2 yet..." And I was laughing at the thought but then yelled, George-of-the-Jungle-esque, "Ethan, watch out for the tree!". And boom - he ran right into it. He cried for a couple of minutes trying to figure out how this happened so I carried him the rest of the way home. It was priceless - only because I didn't get in on tape. If I did tape it it'd be $5,000 if I sent the video in to Funniest Home Videos or some relevant show that's still on.

Game 4 tomorrow night for baseball.....I'm pitching.....I'll let you know how it goes. We're up 2-1 and we really want to win this series as we haven't won one before. Also, if there is a Game 5 I might not be there as we're going away to Horseshoe Valley Resort. Hopefully we win so I won't have to worry about changing plans.