THIS IS WHERE THE COVER CHARGE STARTS MAKING SENSE | The Official Gary Cannon Blog

2011 Summary

2011-08-22T03:36:00.000-07:00

I can tell summer is coming to an end. The weather is cooling off a little. Stores like Target and Kohls are advertising their back to school specials. And new Baby Daddy episodes of Maury are right around the corner. AHHHHH bring on fall. On a side note, I remember when I was a kid and my parents didn’t have much money to buy four kids back to school clothing. So my dad would take me to this swap meet thing and we would get designer jeans much cheaper than at a department store. But one year we went to the swap meet and they were selling concert shirts. They were the exact kind you could buy at a concert but for half the price. Well the big group touring that summer was Journey. So when I saw the Journey concert shirt I asked my dad if we could get it. I wore that thing the first day of school. I told everyone I went to the concert earlier that summer when I really didn’t. I got away with this lie most of the day UNITL 5th period when a classmate, a true Journey fan, noticed something about me shirt. He asked if I went to the show. I saw very proudly YES. I’m wearing the shirt aren’t I bitch. Well this guy quickly noticed that on the front side of the shirt it had the summer concert tour name listed. BUT on the back it had a tour listed from a few years prior and I didn’t notice. So the shirt I was wearing was obviously a knock off. All of a sudden this guy calls me out in front of the class saying I not only didn’t go but my shirt was a complete knock off because it was advertising two different concert tours and the band Journey would never sell something with two different concerts on it. Needless to say it was another year of retaining my virginity.

As I mentioned at the end of 2010, I was asked to perform on a cruise to Alaska in August with a great musician named Dave Koz. Dave and I met last year when I was doing warm up on the Emeril Lagasse television show taping in New York . He does an annual cruise with a bunch of other musicians and this year it was going to Alaska . He needed a comic for the seven day excursion and someone to help with hosting duties. So he asked if I was interested. What I didn’t know at the time in December was his manager, a guy named Scott, wanted to come out and watch me perform before they confirmed me to do the cruise. It made sense. Dave had seen me do warm up but not really stand up. So in December I thought I had the cruise confirmed but not so fast. So Dave’s manager Scott lives in San Diego so he asked me if I had any shows down in that area. Well great news my buddy Lamont books a theater down in San Diego at a beautiful theater and I was scheduled to do it in January. So I invited Scott a week before and he agreed to come out and see me. A day or so before the gig I got a call from Lamont confirming the details. There was a miscommunication. Lamont books two rooms in San Diego . One is a theater. The other is a place called Docs Saloon (a BBQ restaurant in San Diego ). Nothing screams good comedy than people watching you over beef brisket. I had heard good things about this room but I was worried because rooms like this can be hit or miss. And I told Scott I was working a great theater and now I had to tell him I was doing a place known for sweet tea and wet naps. I really wanted to nail this show but whenever you invite someone to a show it never goes well. But at least I thought a theater environment would be a nice venue for Scott to see me in. Scott calls me on his way to the show and says he can’t stay. He has to get back home for something and is only coming by to offer me the cruise. WHAT? I was so happy. He was just coming to offer me the cruise and wasn’t even going to watch. This is the best day ever. I am there early so we have dinner. He is telling me about the cruise and what he needs from me. Time is flying and we are having a great time chatting. All of a sudden Lamont comes over and says “Gary sorry to bother but you’re next.” Well goodbye Scott I assume you have to get going. Scott says actually I have a few minutes and can watch you. WTF. You said you had to get home. What about your family? I couldn’t believe this was happening. If I didn’t do well would he pull the offer? I mean he just gave me the gig. Now what? Luckily I go on and have a great set. Everything went as well as it could have. I couldn’t have been happier. As I mentioned in my last BLOG, my mom and dad were huge Dave Koz fans. I remember they always listened to this jazz station that played his music. Even after my dad passed away, my mom listened all the time. She went to see Dave in concert last year after I worked with him on Emeril. So when I got the official offer, I called my mom. It was late because it was almost 10 p.m. in California so it was 1 a.m. Michigan time. I told her I booked a cruise to Alaska working with Dave and a ton of other talented musicians. I said I’m allowed to bring one person and you’re coming with me. She was so excited and started to pack her bags the next day for our August cruise. My mom never travels. I’ve never been to Alaska but have heard it’s one of the best. So not only is she going to Alaska but she is spending seven days with Dave who she loves and so many other greats. I was so happy I could give her something like this. She worked hard her whole life and gave us kids everything. Being able to do this for her is awesome. Now maybe she can forget about that window I broke when I was eight years old. Let it go woman. Let it go.

January brought some club dates with my buddy Mitch Fatel.

We went to Jacksonville , FL and Dallas . Both were fun. When I got back from Dallas I worked on the George Lopez latenight show Lopez Tonight. That’s a fun show to work on. Big party environment with all screaming fans. I should say that was a fun show to work on. TBS cancelled Lopez Tonight in August because of low ratings. RIP GL.

February 11, 2011 was a special day for me. And a big day for one of my best buds Steve Mazan. Steve and I met in San Francisco years ago doing stand up. I started a few years before him. Shortly after I moved to LA he moved along with other comic bud Lee Levine. All three of us were close in SF and best buds now. Well about six years ago Steve and I were doing a show together at the Improv. On our drive home he complained of chest pains. Neither of us thought much of it but within hours the pain got worse and he checked himself into the hospital. After numerous tests and scans doctors said they found cancerous growths on his liver. With more tests and more examination, doctors said Steve may only have a limited amount of time on his hands. It was hard to determine when the growths started and how quick they could spread. When Steve heard that he knew he needed to kick start his comedy career and ASAP. His dream as a kid was performing stand up on the Late Show w/ David Letterman. So over the next several years Steve worked with two very talented filmmakers and documented his journey (personally and professionally) to get on Letterman. As the years went on, Steve struggled with so many obstacles including financial, medical and of course getting on Letterman. The filmmakers took hours and hours of this journey and made it into a 90 minute movie called Dying to do Letterman.
I had not seen the finished movie until the night of February 11, 2011 when Steve rented out an entire theater in Culver City and showed it to his friends and family. It was an amazing movie. And I’m not just saying that because I’m in it. Best supporting actor….. The movie is really an incredible account of Steve’s journey and the movie has travelled across the country to various film festivals winning awards everywhere it goes. This September the movie will premiere in New York and LA. And the movie is in the process of possibly qualifying for an Academy Award nomination. Check out the movie if you’re in New York or LA. www.dyingtodoletterman.com

Right after the screening I flew back home to Michigan. My good buddy Ralphie May agreed to do a benefit show for my sister and her 13 year old daughter Devon . As I’ve mentioned before, Devon has autism and so many schools with autistic children don’t provide the activities these kids really need to enrich their lives. So Ralphie agreed to come up and do a benefit show raising money for Devon and her school. We raised over $10k with all the money going directly to my sister’s new furniture project. Just kidding. All the money went directly to the school for Ipads and after school programs. I can’t thank Ralphie and his wife Lahna for how good they are to me. And thanks to all my friends from high school that came out to support the great night. Randy, Reesa, Joan and Brad. It meant so much that you guys came.

From Devon’s benefit a flew back to LA and then back out to one of my favorite gigs, Sun Valley , Idaho . This was my third time back to Sun Valley . They do a comedy series every winter, from January – March. You have to fly in Thursday and you do one show Friday and one Saturday. Shows are at 6 p.m. so you’re done by 7 p.m. and have the entire night free. The flight was LAX to Sun Valley was cancelled because of snow. But they re-routed us to Boise and we had to take a three hour bus over to Sun Valley . What should have been a two hour flight turned into a six hour ordeal but once we got there it was great. Sun Valley is a surreal place. Just an amazing little town with tons of rich people and me. Every time I work Sun Valley I try and find a Conistar machine and am always unsuccessful. This was my first time working with comic Tig Notaro. She was hilarious. I’m very high energy and talk fast. She is just the opposite. Slow talking and low energy. By some strange chance the show actually worked.
I would love to visit Sun Valley in the summer. I heard summer is even busier than winter which seems odd because so many people are in town during the winter for skiing and snowboarding.

We ended up flying home late Sunday. I was looking forward to coming home because I had a very busy week. I had Monday home and then Tuesday I was flying out to Seattle working on Americas Got Talent. So every year AGT brings the show on the road auditioning people in six cities. From there they pick the contestants who will move on to Vegas and then hopefully to the live shows in LA which start in July. So AGT needed an audience warm up person for the series of auditions on the road. The show was going to Seattle , LA , Minneapolis , New York , Atlanta and Houston . In each city we would audition about 60 people in two days. My job as the warm up is to go out and entertain an audience of 2,000 plus people in between the acts. So for example, an act performs. Say a magician. The judges decide if the magician is going to Vegas or going home. After they decide it takes anywhere from 3 minutes to 15 minutes to set up for the next act coming out to audition for the judges. So that’s where I jump in and goof around with the audience. It’s a long day and can be fun IF IF you’re feeling healthy. Here was the problem. I got really sick on my last day in Sun Valley . The weather turned cold and I was exposed to the frigid temperatures longer than I should have. When the sun is out it certainly looks warm up it’s not. The sun is very deceiving. I fly back from Sun Valley Sunday night and immediately go to bed feeling the worst I’ve felt in probably a year. I have all day Sunday to try and get better. Nothing. I’m bedridden all day. So now I have a 7 a.m. flight on Tuesday from LAX to Seattle . The nice thing is AGT always had a travel day. We didn’t start filming until Wednesday. So I was crossing my fingers that I could rest all day at the hotel in Seattle and be good for the very first taping on Wednesday. Oh forgot to mention. This was my first time working on AGT. They had used someone else in the past. When they called me about the gig they said they were heading to six cities. They said they wanted me for them all. I said I was available. They said that’s great but because we don’t know you and know you’re style and if it’s a fit for AGT, we are only going to confirm the first two cities (Seattle and LA) and see how those go before we offer you the remaining four cities. This was awful because I was going into Seattle never having done the show before. I didn’t know what to expect. I was sicker than I had been in a long time. Each tape day ran from about 1 p.m. till 10 p.m. So I was sitting in my Seattle hotel room and I could see the theater from my window and I was absolutely miserable. I remember the hotel had a great steam room. I sat in there for a long time with the hopes that I could clear my head and not be so stuffed up. There is nothing worse than being on a microphone and you can’t hear yourself talk and when you do speak it sounds like you’re going through puberty. I walked over to the theater on Tuesday and said hello to everyone. The entire crew knew I was sick. This was starting off very bad. I went to bed Tuesday night. I didn’t have to be at the theater till noon. I woke up at 9 a.m. and luckily those next three hours went by very slow. I walked over to the theater. The audience was a mix of young and old. A lot of high school kids but mainly people who were big fans of the show. This made it easier. I got through the first day and was happy. Went back on day two with more confidence on how to work the show and what the producers wanted from me. I was still very sick but knowing how to do the show made my nerves go down. We got through two days in Seattle, over 60 auditioners.

The flight took off out of Seattle and I was so happy I made it though. BUT there was no time to relax. I landed and immediately headed from the airport to Ralphie May’s house to pick up his car and drive to Las Vegas where I was working with him at the South Point Casino for the weekend. The drive was miserable and Vegas is the last place you want to be when you’re sick. We had shows Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Luckily Ralphie wanted to drive home Sunday night after the show. He dropped me off at my place around 5 a.m. I was in my bed by 5:07 a.m. the happiest person every.

I got home from Las Vegas and had four days of rest before doing Americas Got Talent in Los Angeles . I felt very confident going into the LA shows since I had done so well in Seattle and I was going into LA feeling better than a week prior. I don’t know what it was but my immune system was still taking a beating and I was not even close to feeling 100%. I was probably at 70%. And on a show like AGT where you are constantly working the crowd and constantly trying to keep a room full of 2,000 people engaged is not a good thing unless you’re 100% on. So I knew if I could get through Seattle on 25% strength that I could do LA easily on 70%. I finished out LA with a bang. Two days of filming and another 60 auditioners. But I was still waiting to get the word from producers if I was confirmed for the remaining foru cities. Nobody said a word to me the Friday night I left after we wrapped in LA. Well the next day I got the nod. The remaining four cities were confirmed. I was so excited because we had almost ten days off before we headed to Minneapolis . I knew I could definitely rest and be 100% by Minneapolis .

The following week I was suppose to work locally in Irvine with my buddy Mitch Fatel. But there was a scheduling issue and I couldn’t do the week. My comic buddy Steve Trevino was working in Miami the weekend Mitch was in Irvine so Steve asked me to come out and work with him. I hopped on a plane to Miami and was on my way. This is a fun club with one of my favorite hotels right on the water. This was the view from my room.

Our Miami shows wrapped up on Sunday night and I had to be in Minneapolis for AGT on Tuesday. Instead of flying back to LA and then back to Minneapolis , I hung out with my buddy Randy. I met Randy a few years back when I was working at the Improv in Ft Lauderdale. Randy is a pilot for American Airlines. Just a really good guy and we hit it off the first time we met. I’ve seen him a few times since we first met and he came and saw me perform in Miami . So Randy suggested we take out his waverunners on Monday. I thought about it for three seconds and then said YES. We took these things out for hours on the water in Miami . It was a blast. As we were driving around I kept thinking I was in Sun Valley, Seattle , LA , Vegas and now Miami all within a few weeks. it was only a few weeks earlier that I was sick and laid up in my Seattle hotel. Now I was flying around the ocean on a waverunner in Miami . Thanks to Randy for an amazing time. Randy dropped me off at my hotel Monday night and I flew to Minneapolis Tuesday.

So I arrive in Minneapolis and snow is everywhere. Apparently the city got hit hard the day before and more was on the way. It was the end of March. How was this possible. I remember it was so cold when I landed. I thought I was going to get sick again. I was literally in my bathing suit 24 hours before. We were taping shows Wednesday and Thursday of this week. When I got to the theater on Wednesday I was told one of our judges, Piers Morgan, was stuck in New York and couldn’t get to Minneapolis . So we were going to start filming but with only two judges. As I mentioned before, we would see about 60 auditioners in two days, so 30 each day. We would start taping at 1 p.m. and wrap around 10 p.m. Well about three hours into filming with just two judges, the producers decided it wasn’t working. So we stopped filming. Instead of working till 10 p.m. we wrapped at 4 p.m. and all went back to our hotel rooms. This was awesome. I had the entire night free. It was incredible. But not so fast. Since we only saw about 15 acts today, that meant we had to see 45 on Thursday. So instead of a 1 p.m. start time, we got going at 10 a.m. I was so happy having the night off but the next day was absolutely brutal. I got back to the hotel after our second and final night of filming in Minneapolis and it was lights out. BTW Piers made it on time for the second day. Who could have predicted snow in March.

It was back home to LA for a few days before heading to our 4th city, New York. I love NYC. My favorite city tied with San Francisco and Fresno. NYC has so much going on. I flew into NYC on a Wednesday. I got in early evening and had dinner with some friends. It must have been a curse of the show because every city we visited had lousy weather. Wednesday night came quick and as much as I wanted to stay out and enjoy the city, I knew I had two long days in front of me. Man this AGT show was getting in the way of me having a good time. We stayed at a great hotel near Central Park called Le Parker Meridian. Such a great area of the city. The show was taping at a place called Manhattan Center. The funny thing was as I walked to the studio for the shows I passed the studio where we had filmed the Emeril Lagasse show in 2010. That was where I met Dave Koz. So this was my second time working as a warm up in NYC. Felt good. On our first day of taping, Thursday, I met a group there from Breathe Believe. BB is a non-profit organization which raises money to provide financial assistance to individuals with cystic fibrosis who cannot afford the essentials to stay alive. Angela Ruggeri and her father Sam were at the taping with a bunch of great kids and adults from BB. Of all the cities we visited and of all the people I met, I was most touched by Angela, Sam and the group from Breathe Believe. I still keep in touch with Sam and Angela and I hope to get back to NYC later this year and do a benefit show for this amazing spirited group of people. Check out their website.
http://breathebelieve.org

We again taped 60 auditioners over two days. We finished up Friday night. I decided to stay one extra day and enjoy the city since I really didn’t have a chance to because of work. I woke up Saturday and caught a matinee of a show I’ve always wanted to see, Wicked. An ex girlfriend of mine was a huge fan of the Wizard of Oz movie and she had seen Wicked live in Los Angeles several times. So I thought seeing it in NYC on Broadway must be amazing. And it definitely was. I had great seats and really enjoyed the entire show from start to finish. I’ve seen a ton of shows on Broadway in New York, Producers, Lion King, Billy Elliot, Hairspray, Rent, Avenue Q, Addams Family(ok so mostly all good choices). But Wicked ranks right up there.

The show ended around 5 p.m. I grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed down to my favorite comedy club in NYC, Gotham . This club has been so good to me over the years. I told them I was staying an extra night in the city and they let me host their (3) Saturday night shows. And I was working with a comic I had been a fan of for years but never worked with, Jake Johannsen. I found out that Jake actually lives two blocks away from me in Santa Monica . Didn’t even know till that night. Had a great three shows.

From New York I flew back to LA for a few days. I had a week off before heading to Atlanta for AGT. As I was catching up on old episodes of Millionaire Matchmaker, love Patti Stanger, I got a call from Ralphie May. Here is a transcript of the message he left on a Tuesday night. “Cannon, it’s Ralphie. I’m doing three theater shows this weekend starting on Thursday in Charlottesville , VA. Get out here. I will take care of everything.” So like that I’m on a plane first trying to figure out where the “F” is Charlottesville . I actually got in Wednesday night. We did three theater shows in three nights, Charlottesville , Glenside , PA near Philly and the final show Saturday at the Lisner Auditorium on the campus of George Washington University . All three shows were great but the highlight was Friday night at our show near Philly. Philadelphia is known for their cheesesteaks. There are two very famous cheesesteak places in Philly. Genos and Pats. And the crazy thing is they are right across the street from each other. It’s the craziest thing ever. Some people are loyal to Pat others are loyal to Geno. I’ve heard both are very good but Ralphie is good friends with the owner Geno and Geno’s son Geno Jr. So Geno Jr comes to our show Friday night and invites us back to his restaurant for latenight cheesesteaks. Ralphie had been to Genos before. This was my first time. We got there around midnight and just like I read, both places are so close together and both places are lit up like the Vegas strip. It’s crazy. Everyone orders outside and sits at picnic tables. But Genos as well as Pats gets a ton of celebrities coming through and they get to eat inside the restaurant at a special booth reserved for friends and family. And since Ralphie fell into this category, Geno Jr brought us in which was particularly great since it was cold out. Geno Jr made us some of the best cheesesteaks I’ve ever had. And here is the best part. He let me get greasy and make some cheesesteaks for the drunk customers in line. It was a ton of fun and the highlight of the three day weekend.

After the three theater shows I boarded a flight to Atlanta for AGT. I thought after Genos I would need an extra seat. I love Atlanta . I’ve said it before. Love it. Something about that southern charm always wins me over. And I got to see my amazing friends Eddie and Irina and their two adorable little girls. I always have so much fun when I’m in Atlanta . It’s so calm and peaceful. Maybe it’s because Eddie and Irina let me sleep till noon with their dog Lexi then they take me out for an incredible dinner. Why would I want to leave? Atlanta was our 5th city of AGT auditions. This was an unusual city in that we auditioned over three days rather than the standard two. So we say over 75 auditioners in Atlanta . Auditions were held at the historic Fox Theater downtown and everyone agreed it was by far the best audiences and best talent we had seen so far. Just a great three day run in Atlanta . I was happy I flew in early to see Eddie and Irina but once we started taping I didn’t get to see them so that was a bummer.

Bye Atlanta and back home to LA before turning around two days later and heading for Houston. I think they only city we had decent weather in was Atlanta. In Houston in mid April it was awful. Almost 100 degrees and humid every day. Luckily we only did our standard two days in Houston. I think everyone was ready for the auditions to be over. Maybe because we just did Atlanta and it was awesome. Or maybe because we only had two days off between Atlanta and Houston and everyone flew back to LA before heading back to Houston. Maybe it was that the theater in Houston didn’t have air conditioning and it was so hot. I remember watching the last person audition in Houston and when they yelled “that’s a wrap” everyone cheered. This was my very first time working on AGT. I’ve done a lot of warm up gigs before. Some great. Some shitty. Some really shitty. But most fall in the middle. But AGT was by far and away the best show I’ve ever worked on. The producers treated me so well. All the crew stayed at the Four Seasons in every city we went to. Everything was completely first class from beginning to end. Of the judges I most interacted with Howie. Maybe because he’s a comic too. He was amazing and so complimentary towards me and my work. Sharon was super nice. I met Piers briefly and only had minor interaction with him. Nick Cannon was always super nice and always knew my name whether I saw him at the hotel or at the theater when we were taping. It was an amazing six city run. I hope they ask me back next year. After our flight landed from Houston back to LA I thought about the seven weeks prior sitting in that Seattle hotel and dreading the walk over to the theater when I was so sick. It all worked out perfectly. Thanks again to everyone on AGT for making me feel part of an amazing team. I see why the show is so successful.

A few days after I got home from Houston I got a call from a reporter at USA Today and he asked me what I thought of the show and who I liked/didn’t like. The article ran in May on the day the show debuted. I thought that was pretty cool.

In May me, Steve and Lee headed up to the San Francisco area to do a show on Mothers Day at a place called Theatre on San Pedro Square . The show was a lot of fun but what was even better was enjoying our favorite pizza place that we use to frequent daily when we lived in SF and we would be out late doing comedy. Thank you to Nzarios on Geary St for still being the best place to grab a latenight slice.

The end of May comes and I get a call asking if I could do audience warm up on the Dancing w/ the Star finale. This was the season with Kirstie Alley, Chelsea Kane and winner Hines Ward. This is always a tough show to warm up because the producers want the audience clapping at all times which can be difficult because although they are excited to be there, it is a two hour show and the audience can get tired and burnt out. Plus it’s a lot of VIPs there with either a dancer or celebrity and they never feel like they have to applaud. It is also a little intimidating when you’re doing warm up and you look and sitting right there in front of you is Sarah Palin. Just sitting there watching with her husband and daughter. It was fun meeting Emmitt Smith after the show too.

June brought some fun shows including a weekend in Phoenix at a brand new club called Stand Up Live. This club opened in May and the guy who owns this club also owns a bunch of clubs in Florida which I really enjoy working. So I knew this club would be awesome and it was. Whenever I had visited my family in Phoenix I worked at the Improv in Tempe near Arizona State. But I think the two clubs are having territorial issues so it seems if you work one club you can’t work the other. Go figure. Luckily Stand Up Live is awesome and I don’t mind making that my home club in Phoenix.

After Phoenix I headed back to New York for a bunch of things including a golf fundraiser for Autism Speaks. This is the third year I’ve participated in the Celebrity Golf outing at Winged Foot raising money and awareness for autism. Winged Foot is an amazing private country club that has hosted this event for the past 13 years. And even though my golf game is horrible, I still play because autism is so close to me and my family. This year we broke a record raising over $1 million dollars. A great day for a great cause. Also had a chance to meet Eli Manning of the NY Giants.

When I was in New York I was able to sneak in two nights of work at Gotham Comedy Club. I was here last time in April during the Americas Got Talent filming. I’ve said this before, I love this club and they treat me great. Thanks to Sean, Ed and Chris for the work. I will be back at Gotham the first weekend of November.

From New York it was on to Pittsburgh and meeting up with Ralphie May for a weekend at the Improv. I hadn’t seen Ralphie since our night at Geno’s in Philly. And I hadn’t been to Pittsburgh since 2009 when I worked the club with Mitch Fatel. Pittsburgh in June is miserable. I take that back. Pittsburgh year round is miserable. The weather was hot and humid. In my efforts to see all the baseball stadiums before I die, I crossed PNC Park off the list after I saw the Pirates lose to Boston in interleague play. Seems as though more fans were there from Boston.

After Pittsburgh I booked a local week at the Brea Improv in Southern California with my two buds Brad Williams and Patrick Deguire. I’ve worked with both guys before so it was a lot of fun. Brad is from the area so he had a ton of family and friends out.

I hadn’t seen Patrick in a while and Patrick books a lot of shows for the military. He was doing a show in mid July for the military on San Nicolas Island. This island is located off the coast of Ventura County. San Nicolas is occupied by the navy and the island can have up to 150 people on it at any given time. We heard the navy does missile on the island. Getting to San Nicholas requires a drive up to the military base in Ventura . From there you take a 20 minute military flight to the island. The island itself is 8 miles by 3 miles but most of the military working on the island stay isolated to one area. When our guide Dennis picked us up from the little military airport, he took us to our rooms which looked similar to a hotel room minus the room service hot tub. We had to stay the night because our show was at 8 p.m. and the last flight from the island back to Ventura left at 6 p.m. So I’m on the island with Brad Williams, Ron Morey and a comic named Zoltan. Our hotel rooms are where the navy personnel were also housed but the entire time we so nobody. It was weird, creepy and very cool at the time. Here is the even weirder part. With tumbleweeds blowing around and no sign of life, Dennis takes us over to this building that looks like an abandoned shed. We walk in and there is an awesome sportsbar. Big screen televisions, pool tables, bar food and alcohol. We got there about 7 p.m. to have dinner. They took good care of us but we all thought we won’t get anyone coming to this show. Where is everyone. Well at 7:50 p.m. the place started to get busy and by 8:10 p.m. the place was standing room only. It was crazy. Where did all these people come from. We do our show and anytime you can do a show for the military it’s so rewarding. Most of these men and women are on this island for weeks and months at a time without getting a chance to head back to Ventura to see friends and family. So they were so appreciative of us being there. I guess Patrick has been doing a show on this island for years. I had heard about it from other comics. Patrick couldn’t be with us on this one because he was working in Denver . The show ended at around 10 p.m. The comics all sat around having some beers and talking. We walked outside heading back to our rooms and just like earlier, not one person in sight. Very weird. We were suppose to depart at 7 a.m. the next day but the fog was so bad we were delayed 4 hours. I was suppose to fly back to Michigan that same day in the afternoon but missed my flight because I got home too late because of the delay. I’m not sure what they exactly do on this base but I don’t want to know.

The military gig on San Nicolas Island will officially wrap up this BLOG. When I return in December, I will post my pics of para sailing in Lake Tahoe, the journey to Alaska with my mom and Dave Koz and everything else that happens this fall. Good luck to everyone going back to school in a few weeks and remember, never buy a concert shirt from a swap meet.

End Of 2010

2011-02-11T00:49:00.000-08:00

I realized that writing my blog might be easier once a month rather than writing it twice a year. It’s hard to go back months later and look at pictures from past gigs. But listen I get thousands of e-mails per week (play along) asking where the “F” is my new BLOG. Yes my fans use shitty language. I wish they were more sophisticated especially since my humor is smart, clever and clean. Whatever A*#holes.

So sure I wish I had done my end of 2010 BLOG sooner. But life is unfair. I mean why didn’t Brad give Ashley S a rose on episode 5 YET crazy Michelle from Salt Lake City is still going strong.

I would never watch that garbage but if I did I would want Emily to get the final rose. Brad calls her Em. Please don’t support that crap.

My fall schedule really kicked in the first part of October. I mean September was great because I did back to back weeks performing in California with my buddy Ralphie May. We started off with Irvine then went to the Ontario Improv. Local gigs like that are great because it’s nice to work a great club but it’s also nice to sleep in your own bed at the end of the day. One other cool thing happened in September. My cousin Brian got to throw out the first pitch of an Arizona Diamondbacks baseball game. He entered a contest and they picked his name. I had to go down and watch him do this. It was very cool to hear his name being announced over the sound system and seeing his face on the jumbotron. The pitch was great. September is the best time to visit Arizona because the temperature drops to a cool 112 degrees. And that’s at night. Perfect weather for baseball.

October was really a lot of fun. As a comic you start out for years doing lousy, low paying gigs simply to get experience. At the time you think why am I doing these gigs at a coffeeshop or rowdy bar with three people here. This isn’t benefitting me at all. Well years later you realize it does because the more you’re on stage in front of a variety of audiences (small and large), the more you develop your confidence and get better as a performer. It’s simple. I hate meeting new comics who feel they can do one performance a month and get good. They spend all their time writing what they think are good jokes and they’re above playing the waiting game to get stage time. Meanwhile those comics eventually disappear. And to that real comics out there working say thank you for thinning the pile of lazy people holding up the line. Back to my point. In this business sometimes the phone rings offering you a great gig. Sometimes it’s a lousy gig. Some days the phone doesn’t ring. Another example of how sitting in your bedroom doesn’t benefit you. You need to be out working, making contacts. Letting headliners see what you’re all about. I got a call at the beginning of October from my friend Ralphie May.

Every year Ralphie performs on this Carnival Cruise out of Tampa with travel to Mexico. He does the cruise for a radio station out of Tampa, a guy named Cowhead. Yes Cowhead. Well I met Cowhead in April of 2009 when I went in studio with Mitch Fatel. Mitch was promoting his shows at the Tampa Improv and Mitch asked me to come in and do afternoon radio with him. I met Cowhead and the crew. Cowhead has the most popular afternoon show in Tampa so that’s why comics go on his show. My first meeting with Cowhead was uneventful. In fact I later was told he didn’t like me all that much because he thought it was weird for a headliner’s opening act (ME) to come in studio and be on air with the headliner. I guess it never happens but Mitch and even Ralphie like when I do radio with them. And I love doing radio. So I do the show with Mitch and leave and don’t think much of it. Months later I’m in the car with Ralphie driving home from Arizona and he says let’s call the Cowhead show. So we do and Cowhead explains how I first went into the studio and he thought I was an arrogant dick for trying to get airtime. Once the interview started he admitted he enjoyed me being on air and said he loved hearing some of my stories about audience warm up on television shows. At the time I went in with Mitch I had no idea he thought this BUT now we laughed about it. And every time Mitch was on or Ralphie was on, Cowhead would call me even if I was in LA. Back to the cruise. So every year Cowhead does a cruise for his listeners. They take over a portion of the ship and they do cool things exclusively for their listeners. This was the fourth year for the cruise. Ralphie and a comic named Bert Kreischer perform on the cruise each year. Here was the great thing. I get a call from Ralphie saying Bert has to cancel last minute and can’t do the cruise this year. He said Cowhead really wants me to take the spot. He said we will fly you to Tampa and then hop on the cruise with us going to Cozumel. Everything is paid for.

Let me think about this. UMMMMM hell yes. A few days later I’m on a plane to Tampa . The cruise was amazing. We left Tampa on Thursday. We were at sea Thursday and Friday. Saturday the boat docked in Cozumel and the Cowhead listeners enjoyed the day at a private beach club with tons of food and drink. It was just for the listeners so that was awesome. And Cowhead fans are great. I decided to do a little snorkeling during our stop in Cozumel. Cowhead’s wife Amanda came. She is so awesome.

Cozumel was great. We were back on the boat Saturday evening heading back to Tampa. Sunday night we did our comedy show. It was me, Ralphie and a local Tampa guy named Rahn Hortman. Very funny guy who was just a pleasure to work with.

The comedy show was a blast. I had an amazing four days on the boat. It was back to Tampa on Monday. Nothing worse than getting into port at 8 a.m. and your flight back to LA isn’t until 7 p.m.

But thanks to Cowhead and Ralphie for the great gig and the free vacation. Getting back to what I said earlier, it’s gigs like this that make you realize all the years of hard work pays off when you make these relationships and get to perform on a cruise like this.

Back home in LA but only for a few days before leaving to the Kansas City Improv. The last time I was in KC was a few years before. The club is in a shopping center but they moved locations since the last time I was there. The new location was right up from the old club. Weird thing was the new club was boarded up with nothing in it. It looked creepy being able to see the old club from the new club. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s like when you go back and see your old childhood house and you’re like wow I use to masturbate in there. HMMMM. KC Improv. I worked with Mitch Fatel on this gig. Had a lot of fun. Got to see my buddy Erik Lundy who is a bud of mine I met in LA. He lives in KC now. Very talented artist. And funny comic too. On the last night of the shows, the manager comes in the greenroom and says to me “are you a sport’s fan?” As a guy I’m like “hell yes.” Well he tells me Priest Holmes is in the audience. I look at him like “WTF. WHO?” It was clear I am not a sports guy because Priest Holmes is a former running back for the KC Chiefs and most everyone knows him. My 12 year old nephews knew him. Not sports fanatic Gary Cannon. We met him after the show. I played it off like I was a big fan.

On my flight home Monday from KC, the airport was bustling. I thought I was at New York ’s JFK. I was checking in and the guy at United was like “my wife and I were at your show this weekend at the improv.” I thought that was really cool. He must not have been that big of a fan. I was still sitting in coach. Dick.

From KC it was off to Atlanta . I LOVE Atlanta . I’ve said I could live in Atlanta if I wasn’t doing stand up. Some people would say, “Gary you do stand up…” Very funny MOM. Yes and I have the studio apartment to prove it. Second reason I love Atlanta is my great friends Eddie and Irina live there. I met them living in San Francisco years ago. Two of the most generous, kind hearted people you will every meet. I love staying with them because they have a beautiful house with two beautiful daughters and a great little dog. It’s the best sense of calm and relaxation I get all year. It really is so enjoyable to visit. I went over Halloweeen weekend and was able to get work at the Atlanta Punchline as well. Always good to make the visit a paid vacation. I worked at the Punchline with my good buddy Al Madrigal. Al and I started comedy together years ago in San Francisco so it was fun seeing him. During our week, we headed over to TBS and did some interviews for their website. That was fun. Last time I was in Atlanta me, Eddie and Irina went on a tour of CNN. Some 20 year old college intern took us on the tour and those interns are reading the tour dialogue right from a script. So when I asked her if Larry King ever made an inappropriate move, she didn’t know how to respond.

Luckily we were off Halloween night. No shows. So I was able to go out with my friend Eddie as he took his girls trick or treating while Irina stayed home to pass out candy. It was a lot of fun. In LA you don’t see people out just because it doesn’t have that neighborhood feel.

Thanks Eddie and Irina for not only another great weekend but for your amazing friendship over the years. I love you guys.

November started with a few benefit shows at the Improv. The first was with my friend Julia Lillis. I went to Iraq with her earlier in the year. Very funny and so much fun to travel with.

The benefit was organized by my friend Cher and was for a great cause, the Children’s Trinity Foundation. Cher does this event every year and it raises money for underprivileged kids who go without toys over the holiday season. In past years I was out of town when Cher did the show so I was very happy I could take part in this year’s event.

The second benefit was mid November and it was put on by my good buddy Roger. Roger and I have been friends for years and he is the reason I do audience warm up for tv shows here in LA.

I met him years ago when he did warm up on the Late Late Show w/ then host Craig Kilborn. I saw the show tape and saw this guy come out and entertain the crowd before the show started and thought that was such a great job. I stayed after the taping and asked Roger how I could get into the business. He called security but he was very sweet as he did it. Most warm up guys are really nice and will talk your ear off about how they got started and what to do if you want to get into the business. Warm up is a very small community of people doing it. But some guys are jerks and feel like you’re going to steal away their work which is pretty ridiculous. If you’re good you’re good. So three weeks later I got Roger fired and was doing the warm up gig at Kilborn. No Roger was really helpful getting me info on what I should do. I spent months doing comedy shows where I worked with audience and would attend tv tapings all the time to see different people work. I always thought Roger was the best. Anyway months and months later Roger told me the Late Late Show was looking for someone to do a few days a month, days he couldn’t do because of other shows. Myself and two other people auditioned for the job. We did warm up on an actual show. I got the gig. And Roger and I have been friends since. So fast forward six years. Roger and his longtime girlfriend Sandra (whom he met doing warm up at the Kilborn show. She was in the audience and he pursued her). Well they love dogs. LOVE dogs. Bulldogs in fact. They adopt and foster dogs. They are amazing people. Well they wanted to do a benefit show to raise money for the southern California bulldog rescue based in Irvine . So we held a benefit show on a Sunday afternoon at the Irvine Improv. It was a huge success. People in Orange County love their bulldogs and they came out to support in full force. We plan to do this as an annual event.

Now it was off to one of my favorite gigs as a comic, the Improv at Lake Tahoe . I did this gig earlier in the year and just love it. Lake Tahoe and Sun Valley , ID are two favorites because they are ski towns and full of tourists spending lots of money and I get paid to be up there. Similar to the Carnival cruise in October. The weird thing with both Lake Tahoe and Sun Valley is you spend a ton of time outside during the day enjoying everything the city has to offer. Then around 5 p.m. you have to start heading back to the hotel and get ready for the show. It’s usually one show a night. Shows are fun and you’re done by 9 p.m. for the night but at that point everything is shut down. I’ve always said as crazy as this sounds sometimes the comedy shows get in the way of trying to have a good time. But I did Tahoe in February and just loved it. I was happy to have been asked back so quickly. And over Thanksgiving weekend and also my birthday. So that was even more fun. Howie Nave is the club manager and opening act. He also has a morning radio show in Tahoe and he always has the comics on. Great guy. Always so good to the comics. Tommy Savitt was the headliner. It was my first time working with him and I truly enjoyed his act. Weather was great. Always nice to look out your hotel window and see people snowboarding down the mountain. I usually close the curtains because that light makes it hard to take a nap at 3 p.m.

It’s December and I have no idea where the year went. I know it’s almost over because I just looked at my money earned this year and I officially broke four figures so I know the year is ready to wrap. But despite the year being almost over, December is a busy month for me.

One of the top clubs in Los Angeles, the Laugh Factory which is the place Dane Cook plays all the time when he’s in town, was putting together a show to break a Guinness Book world record for the longest running comedy show. And to raise money for Toys 4 Tots. The Laugh Factory wanted to try and put on an 80 hour continuous comedy show. It started on December 6th and would run through December 9th. The idea was a comic would always be on stage during this time. Always. So at any point during this 80 hours you could go to the Laugh Factory’s website and see a comic performing. Whether it was 5 a.m. or 1 p.m. And people could come watch the show if they brought an unwrapped toy for the benefit. A win/win right. So I got a call asking if I would participate. I was totally down. I was asked to do 7 a.m. on that Wednesday. I thought since I’m never up that early, it was only appropriate that I wore my pajams on stage while drinking coffee. It made the most sense. The club did break the record and raised a ton of toys for needy kids in the process.

In addition to doing comedy, I love watching it. Especially a few people specifically like Brian Regan. Truly one of the best working right now. Just an amazing comic.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with Brian several times and he always has a ton of new material and all of it is fantastic. I saw Brian at the Wiltern mid December and my cousin saw him the next night in Arizona and was asking me about some of his jokes. Funny a night later Brian was doing almost all new stuff than he had the night we saw him. Just an amazing person both personally and professionally. Thanks to Brian and his awesome wife Kathleen for the hospitality.

It was time to leave the warm LA weather and make my way back east. I decided to leave for New York mid December because I love New York before XMAS. But I thought instead of making the flight from LA to Michigan right before XMAS I had the bulk of the trip down already. It’s only a 90 minute flight from New York to Detroit compared to almost five hours from LA to Detroit . So I booked a week of work at Gotham Comedy Club in Chelsea and enjoyed a little pre-holiday madness in New York . The weather was the coldest it had ever been during a visit. But it’s New York so it’s still fun. Had a great time seeing friends and working with Alonzo Bodden. Shows were fun and it was a great way to start wrapping up the year.

Heading back to Michigan for the holidays. Always nice to be home despite the travel delays and lousy weather. Always have a good time.

The great thing about this trip was I got to stay in Michigan for NYE. I’ve worked every NYE for the last ten years. As a comic it’s my favorite night of the year to work because while most people are scrambling trying to figure out what to do and where to go, I’ve already got my plans and I’m getting paid to be out for NYE so that’s why I like it so much. Well over the summer I met a guy in Mansfield, OH named Costa. Costa is from Michigan and was producing a theater show with Ralphie May in mid July. Ever been to Mansfield? Don’t bother. So Costa drives down from Michigan to set up the theater show. I’m opening for Ralphie so we meet. Costa is a good guy. He lives in Saginaw , MI not too far from where my mom lives now. We do the show in Mansfield and have fun. Never see Costa again. It’s now September and I’m trying to line up a NYE gig. Everything is falling through. I thought I was doing a gig in Florida but it fell through. I wanted a NYE gig. Any gig. So I’m in Lake Tahoe for Thanksgiving weekend working the Improv. And I get a call from Costa. On my birthday no less. He says hey I’m going to produce a NYE show at a theater in Saginaw do you want to do it. I was so excited because not only did I now have a NYE gig, it was a theater, it was close to home and I didn’t have to fly somewhere after XMAS. I could stay in Michigan for a few extra days and enjoy time with my family. Do the show NYE and fly back to LA on Jan 1st which I was excited about since I left LA for the holidays mid December to be in New York . It’s like I said earlier, some days the phone rings with good news, bad news or doesn’t ring at all. This was a great birthday gift. And here was the great thing. Costa asked who I wanted to work with. A good buddy of mine from LA just moved back to Chicago. His name is Rocky Laporte. Solid comic. Very and just a truly great guy. I called him thinking he was booked. Well he had a gig fall through just a few days before my call so he was able to do it. Everything worked out great.

Had an amazing time and kept the streak of working NYE alive.

It’s 2011 and I’m excited for the year ahead. I am excited that my buddy Steve Mazan’s film Dying to Do Letterman (which I’m apart of) is done and will premiere this year. I’m excited to be doing warm up on some new shows including Lopez Tonight and Americas Got Talent. I’m heading on the road with AGT this spring to do warm up for their audition shows. VERY excited to be part of the Dave Koz cruise heading to Alaska this summer. Dave and I met last year when I was doing warm up on the Emeril Lagasse show in New York . Dave was the band leader for the show. Well he does a jazz cruise every year for his fans on Royal Caribbean and this year he asked me if I wanted to be the comic/host on this year’s cruise. It’s a seven day cruise through Alaska and I couldn’t have been more excited that he asked me. And here is the best part. My mom LOVES Dave Koz. I remember before my dad passed they use to listen to his music all the time. So when she found out I was working with Dave last year she freaked out. She went to see him perform last year in Detroit.

And when I was told I could bring someone I know I had to bring her. She has never been on a cruise and I’ve heard Alaska is the best cruise to take. She will absolutely love it. I think she is already packing. No joke. Can’t wait till August. I’m also excited about the autism benefit show Ralphie May is doing for my sister in February. And excited for hitting all the clubs this year and seeing what happens when the phone rings next. If it rings…

And BTW my nephew Grant is out of the hospital, done with Chemo and back in school. His first year of high school. He loves it. Give him some time. That will change.

End of Summer 2010

2010-09-06T01:40:00.000-07:00

Summer 2010 is over. OVER!!! And after I finished my last BLOG I said you know I'm going to be more proactive. I'm going to write in my BLOG once a week. My fans demand it.

Play along.

Well all of a sudden one said comic, ME, gets hooked on vicodin and Judge Judy repeats and here we are in September. Luckily I had a few days of downtime before JJ and Dr Phil return with all NEW shows and then my fans, play along, won't hear a peep from me. So let's get this done STAT.

Long, busy summer. Right before Memorial Day I headed out to Arlington, TX to work the Improv with my buddy Mitch Fatel. This was the first time I was at this club. Brand new, so the owners and staff aren't quite yet jaded and it's easy to hit on the waitresses because they don't know how to avoid creepy comics. At this point I'm sure they have pepper spray on their belt loops. The club was great. Nice staff. And in tradition of most cities we visit, we hit a new ballpark. Checked out a Rangers baseball game. Nice park. Way too hot out for a baseball game. And this was May. Fun week. Fun ballgame.

I was about to fly home from Texas when I got a call Sunday night from my buddy Ralphie May. He was working a club Monday and Tuesday in Salt Lake City and asked if I wanted to do the shows with him. Definitely. I had never been to SLC and wanted to go. We stayed two nights at one of the best hotels in SLC and probably one of the best hotels I've stayed at working on the road, Grand America.

Here are some pics from the balcony of my room. The town had just gotten some snow in the morning. And this was May. So flying in and the view from my room was amazing.

I did get a chance to walk from the hotel to Temple Square. Also my first time here and got some pics. It was a beautiful spring day and walking around this area was very cool.

Ralphie and I did a great afternoon show in SLC with Mick and Allen. They do a show on KBER 101, and it's very popular. I always love doing radio when I'm on the road. It's a lot of fun. Especially if the DJs let you goof around and don't hijack the comedy. Some guys just want to talk over you and won't let you be funny. But a lot of shows get it and are a blast.

Shows at the Wiseguys club in SLC were great. Ralphie and I always have a great time on the road and this was a fun two days that just came up when I was working in Arlington. These are always the best gigs.

Back in LA and headed to the Irvine Improv to do a benefit show with Maz Jabroni. The show was for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society which holds a special place for me since my dad passed away in 2007 from this. And the night of this event was his b'day so it meant a lot to me.

From Irvine it was on to Las Vegas. May was a busy busy month. And as a comic you take all the work you can because you never know when you have a slow month/year coming up. It's always good to be working. So I headed to work at the South Point Casino with Ralphie May. I love the South Point because you're in Vegas but you're not in Vegas. South Point is about (15) minutes south of the strip. It's a great casino and a great place to perform. We had an amazing time except for Saturday night when Ralphie and I went out drinking. Both of us rarely drink and things got out of hand, and neither of us really remember how the night ended.

I do know it started with about six lemon drop shots as we played blackjack. We were only at the table for about an hour but when we stood up the shots really hit us. Like I said neither of us really drink. We then went to the showroom where our comedy show had been. We went to see an '80s cover band called the Spazmatics. These guys were great. I think. I remember leaving the show and making the long walk back to the room. Some people who worked at our comedy show saw me walking back to the hotel elevators and said things didn’t look good. Ralphie asked me the next day what happened. I told him I didn’t know. But that is the last time we will do a half dozen lemon drop shots. How old are we anyway, 16?

Back in LA for a few days off before heading to Nashville. I was working with Mitch in Nashville and the crazy thing is Ralphie and his family have a home in Nashville. Ralphie was out of town this week BUT his wife and kids were in town and I was able to hang out with them. Ralphie’s wife, Lahna Turner, is also a comic. So Lahna says, "Hey let’s go for a hike with the kids." They have two adorable young kids. We decided to hike at a great place called Percy Warner where I had hiked once before but last November when the weather was much much cooler.

This time it was 90 plus degrees in the shade. We decided we would each carry a kid on our back. I carried August and Lahna carried April. We hiked for easily four hours, with kids on our back and in the hot sun. It was an amazing workout but at the end Lahna and I were dead tired. And so were the kids. Funny, on the hike we passed Nicole Kidman. She lives in Nashville and was just out for a Sunday walk in the park. She gave us the courtesy hello and the nose twitch from Bewitched.

From Nashville it was back to LA. Still tired from the hike with Lahna and the kids. LOL. Spent a few days in LA before flying to Richmond, VA to work the Funnybone. It was my first time at this club and I had a great time. Great staff. Thanks to Buz (only one Z) for showing me the town and picking me up from the airport. Had a great time.

After Richmond I took a 6 a.m. flight on Monday to New York. I was participating in a golf outing for Autism. My 12 year old niece has autism, and I’ve been involved with Autism fundraising for years. My very first event was years ago when I hosted a benefit show with Dennis Miller. And this was my second time participating in this celebrity golf outing at an amazing course called Winged Foot. Now the problem is I don’t play. I’m a horrible golfer but I love doing these type of events, primarily since the food is so good. But it was a great event and I apologize to the four investment bankers that paid a lot of money to golf Winged Foot with a celebrity and I showed up to their group. Sorry guys. Some other group got Boomer Esiason.

July was super busy. I spent 4th of July in the upper peninsula of Michigan at a cabin on the lake. Had an amazing time before a busy three weeks of week set in starting off in West Palm Beach Florida with Mitch Fatel. I had just been to this club in May with Darrell Hammond. I love this club. Great staff, great owner. This week was a blast.

From West Palm Beach I was flying to Dayton in the first of a four city, two week tour with Ralphie May. On my way to Dayton I stopped in Charlotte. My flight from Charlotte to Dayton was cancelled due to bad weather. So now I'm stuck in Charlotte for the night and the fine folks of US Air won't pay for the hotel since the flight was cancelled due to weather and not aircraft maintenance. Luckily I didn't have a show that night so it worked out. Got to Dayton the next day and did two shows with Ralphie at the Dayton Funnybone. When Ralphie and I were in Dayton I went with Ralphie to do afternoon radio. He went to a sports show hosted by a former Detroit Tiger. Now I grew up in Michigan and am a big Tigers fan so when Ralphie said the host use to play for the Tigers I was like I definitely want to come. Mark Schlemmer played for the Tigers in the late 70s and early 80s and now hosts a great show on WONE in Dayton. Ralphie and I spent three days on Mark's show because it was so much fun. Doing radio is fun and I knew Ralphie liked Mark and his show because I've never seen him do a show three days in a row.

From Dayton we went to Columbus. The Funnybone in Columbus is one of my favorite clubs. Great crowds. Fun staff. And our buddy Mark Schlemmer from Dayton came up and spent the day with us. Great guy. Ralphie and I had some fun shows and enjoyed Bar Louie every night. Love their tater tots. Why don't more restaurants serve this fine delicacy?

So from Columbus we headed to Mansfield, Ohio. Mansfield is known as the city where they filmed one of my favorite movies ever, the Shawshank Redemption. Loved this film. Here is the problem. We got to Mansfield on Monday night. Our show wasn't until Wednesday night. This was easily the longest 48 hours I’ve ever spent in any city. Wow. I've been to some cities where you say, "Wow there is nothing to do here." Shreveport. Chattanooga. But when I say there is nothing to do here I mean nothing. If I only had one year to live I would move to Mansfield. Time stands still. The show, however, was a blast. It was at a beautiful theater and it was sold out. 1,500 plus people. Ralphie and I had no idea where these people came from but they came out and were awesome. Thanks Mansfield for a great show.

Ralphie made a decision after the show which made me very happy. We decided to leave Mansfield and our Holiday Inn and drive to Cleveland. Ahhhhh, so happy. I was willing to pay for a speeding ticket if we were pulled over on the drive out of town. Got to Cleveland in under two hours. Had a great hotel right in the heart of downtown. Went to bed with a big smile on my face.

So I had played Cleveland before but at the Improv. Cleveland has two clubs, the Improv and a club called Hilarities. The Improv is fun BUT it’s in a seedy area of Cleveland called the flats which I guess was the hot spot of Cleveland years ago but now it’s gone downhill. I like the Improv but not the area. So this was my first time at this club. I’ve heard great things about Hilarities. Here is the thing about being a comic. You just want the club owner to care. Many owners don’t give a shit about the comics. They care about selling burgers, fries and chicken strips. So when you find an owner that really wants to give the audience a great show, they realize the comics are important to the show, they care if the bathroom is trashed and make sure it’s clean. When you find that club, every comic wants to work it.

Well that's Hilarities. The owner Nick is amazing. Always asking what he can do for you. The manager Scott is great. Bending over backwards to make sure the show runs smooth, the audience is happy, the comics are happy. The club is in a great area downtown. Not only is it a comedy club, it's also a restaurant and a wine bar with great food and drinks. Usually comics have to find a nearby restaurant after a show because the club food is lousy. But not Hilarities. The food is great. And my sister and her husband came down from Michigan to watch the show and meet Ralphie, and Nick took amazing care of them too. As a comic you can appreciate a club like this. I had always heard good things about Hilarities but after playing it I can honestly say it is one of my top favorite clubs along with Tempe and Ft Lauderdale. Thanks to Nick and Scott for an amazing weekend. We only did three nights in Cleveland. I wished we had been there longer BUT it was a great place to end the Ohio tour and almost a month away from home.

Because I had been gone for over a month and couldn't wait to get home, I caught the 6 a.m. flight out of Cleveland. Those first flights out always sound good on paper till your alarm goes off at 4 a.m. and then you hate your life. But I was home in LA by 10 a.m. and was so happy when that plane landed!!!

So after getting back to LA I got a call to asking if I could work at a new gameshow for GSN hosted by Jerry Springer. You mean I can get paid to work with Jerry Springer? Hell YES I will be there. The show is called Baggage and if you haven't seen it, watch it. It’s a dating show, and the premise is everyone brings baggage into a relationship. Why not find out now what that baggage is before the dating process even begins? The show is funny, and Jerry Springer is the perfect fit for the show. I did the audience warm up on the show for a couple of days. And I can now say I've crossed off bucket list item #72... meeting the king of the white trash talk show. He was very nice. With any luck Steve Wilkos will be hosting a gameshow in the near future and I will get called to work on it.

So after having about ten days off, I was heading to Virginia for two back to back weeks with Ralphie May. I was doing Virginia Beach first and Richmond second. I was just in Richmond earlier this summer with Mitch Fatel. Last time I did VB was with Mitch last year, so I was looking forward to doing that club again. As a comic, your life is never dull. Some days are awesome. Some days not so awesome. Some days the phone rings non-stop. Other days you're staring at the phone thinking T-Mobile is having technical issues and when they resolve them, your phone will light up like a Christmas tree. No such luck. But despite the ups and downs, it's always different. So I'm flying to Virginia and my first flight is LAX to Denver, then Denver to Virginia. I leave at 6 a.m. Get to Denver and have a few hours of layover before leaving to Virginia. I am just about to board my flight when I get a call from Ralphie. He said the club messed up and double booked the opening act. So Ralphie only does a two person show, me and him, or whoever and him. Well, somehow the club didn't know Ralphie was bringing me, and the other comic was on his way from North Carolina. So I decided that I would let the other guy have the two back to back weeks in Virginia. I ended up switching my flight from Denver back to LA. I was home for dinner. The great news was I still got paid for the two weeks, so that was awesome. I got back into LA with the mindset of having two paid weeks off. Just then, the phone rings. My sister calls to say my 14 year old nephew Grant is in the hospital and it's serious. They don't know what it is, but it doesn't look good. I immediately get on a plane to Michigan. My nephew is at Children's Hospital in Detroit. One of the best places a kid can be. After a bunch of tests, it was determined Grant had Lymphoma. It wasn't the news we wanted BUT of all the things it could have been, this was the best situation. They said Grant must get chemo for six months. Five days on, 21 days off. The good thing is, I was at the hospital when the doctors gave us the diagnosis. I was able to be with my mom and sisters. I was also able to spend a ton of time with Grant making jokes and goofing around with him. He is a great kid with a great spirit and he will pull through this. I spent a week in Michigan with my family. It reminded me of 2007 when my dad was really sick and in/out of the hospital. Because I have such a weird schedule, I was able to spend a ton of time with my dad before he passed, and I was able to get back to Michigan and spend time with Grant as he was going through his first round of chemo. I would have never been able to do that if I had a conventional job. The time with Grant was so valuable. As it was with my dad before he passed away. Grant is at home for now recovering but will be back in the hospital soon for his second round of chemo. We are all pulling for him and know he is going to come out of this a much stronger, healthier kid. I love you, Grant.

Almost forgot. Grant's grandparents have a home in Vegas so he has visited them over the years. During his visits, he always saw billboards for Carrot Top which lead Grant to watch a bunch of CT clips on Youtube. He became a fan and always wanted to see him but was too young. I managed to get in touch with someone who is friends with Carrot Top and one thing lead to the next and Carrot Top actually called Grant to say hello. Grant was so excited. Carrot Top even invited Grant to see his show in Vegas next time he was there. WOW. Just a real class act. Thanks Carrot Top. I know Grant can't wait to come see your show. Grant never wants to see me but Carrot Top, YES.

Summer has come and gone with a lot of interesting things over these four months. Baseball games, great shows, cancer, Jerry Springer, cancelled gigs when you're in Denver, good shows, bad shows BUT one thing has never let me down. This blue and red sweatshirt from the GAP that's in almost every photo I've taken this summer. I have decided as of Labor Day I can no longer wear this hoodie and have officially worn it for the last time.

2010-05-17T02:11:00.000-07:00

Welcome back BLOG readers. And by readers I mean Welcome back mom. It has been a long time since my last BLOG. Many people thought I retired (hoped might be the better phrase). Many thought I won America ’s Next Top Model and then dated Tyra Banks until Naomi Campbell found out and beat the shit out of me. False.

Many people thought I was in hiding while my hair grew out so it could look more like Justin Bieber. Half true. Others thought I had to declare bankruptcy and take a part time job at Smoothie King. Let’s move on to the BLOG shall we...

So 2010 has been a great year so far. I rang in 2010 with Mitch Fatel at the Hartford Funnybone. My second time at that club and I really had a great time. I got to see my good friends Chris and Caroline who live in Connecticut. And their son Liam. Chris and Caroline both work for ESPN and I was able to take a tour of the ESPN studios. Very cool to see Mike Ditka and Lou Holtz walking around.

From Hartford it was off to Chicago to kick off the first full weekend of 2010 with my buddy Ralphie May. After Hartford I flew back to Michigan for a few days to see my mom. The plan was to drive from Michigan to Chicago and work with Ralphie and then fly back to LA from Chicago. Well on the night before my shows with Ralphie started, it began to snow worse than I had seen before. I woke up on the day I was suppose to make that drive and the roads were covered. What was I going to do. I mean I had to get there. I’m sure all the flights were canceled too. I started to make the drive. It was going good for the first hour. Then I hit that black ice on the road. If you’re not from the Midwest you don’t know what that is. Black ice is something hidden on the road that you can’t see but once you ride over it, your car goes out of control and you start spinning. This happens very quick. And since it’s foggy out, you don’t see the other cars in the ditch that have already hit it until your car goes over it. Luckily after me hitting the black ice, I was able to resume control and then dropped my speed to about 35 MPH the rest of the way to Chicago. When I pulled into the hotel parking lot I was all smiles. Shows were great. The owner of the Chicago Improv is one of the best owners in the biz.

After Chicago, I was back in LA. First time in like four weeks. I got a call asking if I was available to work on the hit MTV show Jersey Shore. MTV was filming the reunion show for Jersey Shore and they wanted me to do audience warm up. Basically keep the audience interested during the commercial breaks. I was responsible for making sure the audience didn’t leave once their heroin buzz wore off and they realized “WTF am I doing here...” The show went off without a hitch and it was crazy popular. A new season is filming now in Florida which is very kind of MTV to bring STDs to the sunshine state. Go Gators.

From Jersey Shore it was off to do a one night theater show in Autsin, TX with Ralphie May. Then is was off to Houston for a weekend with my buddy Mitch Fatel at the Improv. This was my second time at the Improv in Houston and it ranks as one of my favs. Although I always love going into a city like Houston and it’s like all other cities. I go to the front desk of the hotel and ask “Hey what is there to do around here...” and I always get “We have one of the biggest malls in the country right across the street...” Really?? Yes because a mall with only one Panda Express isn’t cutting it for me. I need access to Orange Flavored Chicken during my entire shopping day. I refuse to walk more than 30 feet for pot stickers. Needless to say I just stayed in the room.

Next stop--Tempe Improv w/ Ralphie. Ok so this is one of my favorite clubs. Great management, great food, great area, great crowds. I would work this club every week if I could. It’s amazing...

The first week of February kicked off with a gig I had done last year and loved and tried very hard to get rebooked this year. It’s a gig in Sun Valley, ID. It’s hard to get booked because so many people want to do it and they only do it (8) weeks out of the year, from January till the beginning of March. Sun Valley is the Aspen of Idaho. Just a high end ski resort where a lot of celebrities go and spend the weekend. So this is the best gig in showbiz. You fly in Thursday and you are off that night. You do two shows at the lodge where they put us up, one Friday and one Saturday. The crazy thing is the shows are at 6:30 p.m. and end right at 8 p.m. so you now have the rest of the night to hang out at this great lodge. And this lodge easily has one of the biggest and best hot tubs I’ve ever seen. It’s amazing.

The weekend ended on Saturday 2/6 and I was suppose to fly home that Sunday which was Superbowl but I wanted to watch it in Sun Valley. The lodge was kind enough to let me stay an extra day and I flew home Monday. Nothing better than watching a great football game in a ski lodge while the snow is falling outside the window. And BTW I also met a great band up there that weekend that would go on after our comedy show. Check out www.soljibe.com they were great.

After Sun Valley I came back to LA and was off to another great ski town, Lake Tahoe. This was my first time doing the Improv at Lake Tahoe. My buddy Kenny had done it a few times and said it was amazing. And it was. A local guy named Howie Nave hosts the show. He also hosts a morning radio show in Tahoe that I did during my stay up there. These shows were a lot of fun. Would love to go back there ASAP. Thanks Howie for a fun weekend.

So now it’s first week of March and I return to a place I had been in December, the Comedy Quarter in Appleton, Wisconsin. When I was there in December, the weather was so cold and miserable that I was excited about March because spring was right around the corner and I could enjoy some outdoor activities and see what Appleton had to offer in March. Wrong. Freezing cold. Miserable. I assume by mid July the weather heats up for two weeks. I grew up in Michigan so I know cold BUT man this was ridiculous. I hated it. Luckily the shows with Ralphie were fun and the owner is a good dude even when I was making fun of his last name. And his bad stand up comedy routine.

After Appleton I flew to New York. It was going to be a busy two weeks. I got a call in February asking if I wanted to work on a new Emeril Lagasse show. Emeril was taping (13) episodes of a new show that would start airing in April on the ION network. The idea behind the show was cooking meets talk. So Emeril would bring on guests to cook but also interview them as well. So we taped (13) one hour shows over two weeks. We would do two shows per day. I didn’t realize how many people LOVE Emeril. I mean I knew he was popular but I had no idea to what extent. People drove for hours to see this show tape. And Emeril didn’t disappoint. The audiences loved the show and loved Emeril. I’ve worked on a lot of shows were the host and the crew are just a big pain in the ass but I must say this show was one of the most enjoyable shows I’ve ever done. Emeril was a great guy, class act. And the entire crew was fun. The great experience of this job was meeting a guy named Dave Koz. Dave is a very talented, successful musician and was the leader of the houseband during the show. When I saw he was doing the show I got excited. During my first year of college, I was living in Michigan with my parents and my buddy and I decided to go see a local tv show being taped in Detroit. It was this woman named Danya Eubanks. Dayna was the weekend news anchor but she also had a morning talkshow that aired live Monday through Friday. So my buddy and I decided to go see the show tape live. Well the guest on the show years ago was a guy named Dave Koz and he played a song on his sax called Castle of Dreams. I remember this because years later as he started to become more well know my dad loved listening to him in the car. My dad loved jazz and was a fan of Dave’s music. My dad passed away a few years ago from cancer so meeting Dave at Emeril was a big deal to me because I knew my dad would have been so excited knowing I was in Dave’s company. As a result of the show, Dave and I have become friends and I’m going to see him in concert this June. And Dave invited my mom to come see him perform in Michigan this summer. She is so excited and can’t wait to meet him. The Emeril Lagasse show is currently airing on the ION network. Watch it so it gets picked up and I have more work in New York soon. BTW we taped the Emeril show in the same place where Maury Povich use to tape his show before Maury moved to a new studio in Connecticut. For some reason you could still hear the ghost of Maury in the hall saying “You are NOT the father of this little girl...”

After we got done filming Emeril during the day, I was off to perform at my favorite comedy club in NYC, Gotham. I did a bunch of shows with Dean Edwards, former SNL cast member.

Fun week. And it was my first time enjoying a St Patrick’s Day in Manhattan.

It’s April 1st and I’m off to do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time--heading to Iraq to entertain the troops. Now I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time but for some reason over the years things have come up from me doing it. A lot of these tours to Iraq run about four weeks and in the past I’ve worked on tv shows that unfortunately film all the time and it’s hard to break away for weeks at a time.

So when this tour came up and it was for two weeks, I knew I wanted to be part of it. My buddy Scott Kennedy booked me for this tour. Scott has been going on these tours to the middle east for years. In fact while this was my first tour, this was Scott’s 36th tour. Amazing. He goes out all the time and entertains the men and women serving our country. I was fascinated that he had gone that many times... until I went and realized how incredible the experience was. Now when Scott goes, he brings two comics with him. So this trip, he brought me and comic Julia Lillis. This was her first trip to the middle east as well.

So fly from LAX to Washington DC. Off the plane. Three hour layover. Then DC to Kuwait. A 12 hour flight. The longest flight I’ve ever been on. It’s crazy when that flight takes off and you’re thinking “WOW I’m here for 12 hours...”

When I checked into the airport at LAX and the guy at United printed out my boarding pass he was like “You’re going to Kuwait. Are you going for business or pleasure?” Are you kidding me? I don’t know if you’ve watched the news the last eight years. But there is no Disneyland Kuwait City. They didn’t just open up a Hard Rock Café Baghdad.

So we finally land in Kuwait. Now Scott has been here a ton of times before so he is definitely great at helping us get through the system faster. We grab our bags and head to a military base in Kuwait to spend the night. We don’t have a show this first night. Now Kuwait is a neutral zone and relatively safe. The military base we are staying on is huge. It’s very westernized. This base had a Starbucks, Subway and Pizza Hut. We all fall asleep immediately.

We leave our base and head to another base in Kuwait. This is where we are going to fly to Iraq. The Baghdad airport has two sides, commercial and military although I didn’t see many Southwest or JetBlue flights heading into the commercial side. So we board this military flight from Kuwait to Iraq. So we are on this C130 military plane with a bunch of soldiers heading to Iraq. Me, Scott and Julia are the only ones in regular clothes. So one of the captains from the flight crew comes down and notices us. He finds out we are the comics heading to entertain the troops in Iraq. He asks if anyone wants to join him and the crew in the cockpit and enjoy the flight from up there. Scott had done it before and Julia kindly offered it up to me. So in seconds I was up in the cockpit with the crew awaiting our departure to Iraq. Moments after takeoff, the captain told me I could stand and watch. So literally three minutes off the ground I’m standing behind him and the co-pilot wearing headphones listening to their communication. It was amazing and it quickly made me realize that all commercial airline rules are bullshit. No ipod till 10,000 feet. You can’t get up till the captain turns off the seatbelt sign. On a military plane nobody cares. You can stand up as the plane rolls down the runway and start a full court basketball game. No rules. No nothing. They don’t care on a military jet. It’s amazing.

I had heard sometimes these C130 military jets have to do what’s called a combat land flying into Iraq which is basically the plane flying erratically simply because it doesn’t want to be shot down by Iraqis on the ground. If the plane is flying in a straight line making a gradual decent into the airport, it’s easy to spot and shoot down if they wanted. So sometimes the plane will do a quick drop, speed up, slow down etc so it’s harder to fire at. Well we didn’t have to do that on this flight.

We land in Iraq and we are greeted by a guy named Warren. He is from St Louis but works for the military until the end of the year. He is responsible for me, Scott and Julia. So remember that we felt perfectly safe in Kuwait. The first thing Warren says to us is “OK here is the deal. I know you will be on a military base which is well protected BUT the Iraqis can and will fire scud missiles into the base.”

He said our military can detect them but because it’s so fast, they are detected at the last minute and if/when they do detect them, a siren will go off and you will hear INCOMING on the speakers throughout this large military base. Warren tells us if you hear this, immediately hit the ground and don’t move. He said whatever you do, don’t run. Welcome to Iraq. So now I know I’m in a war zone. I love it.

So here is what is crazy. Warren takes us to where we will be staying. He pulls up to this crazy palace that is now turned into a hotel. We find out this is one of Saddam’s old palaces. This was just crazy. It was beautiful inside and this was the place I would be staying. It was really like a first class hotel. They had a military staff that took great care of us. In fact the room I slept in was right up the hall from the area where Dan Rather interviewed Saddam years before. It was crazy. I was like I remember this from tv.

We would leave our luxury digs every morning for a full day of entertaining the troops. Each day was different. Some days we would hop on a Blackhawk helicopter and fly off to another base and do a bunch of shows. Other days we would spend all day on our homebase and have a van take us to different parts of the base and we would entertain different groups. You have to understand our homebase was HUGE. It was miles wide and miles long. So it would take us 20 minutes or longer to drive to different parts of the base. Each area of the base did something different. One area of the base was the Air Force, another area was the military hospital, another area was special forces. Each area was like their own little mini city. It was crazy. Everybody doing something different but all there for the same purpose. Some days we would do six shows a day. We would get there an hour before the show started, learn more about what this particular unit did, we would then do the show and meet with everyone after. It was amazing to do shows of all sizes, some small with (12) people and others with (300)+ people. Some shows indoors, some outdoors performing while the soldiers sat on picnic tables with guns strapped to their backs. Every show more rewarding than the next. Truly amazing.

We did a ton of incredibly rewarding shows in Iraq. I met so many amazing people. I can’t believe I waited so long to make this trip. I’ve gotten to do some amazing amazing things as a comic but this by far trumped them all. We flew back to Kuwait and reflected on what a great trip it was. I still think about so many of the people I met over there and always want to make sure they are safe. I can’t wait till everyone is back safe. Thanks to Scott for giving me this crazy trip that I will never forget.

Back to the states and the end of April. I spent two back to back weeks in Nevada. One good, one not so good. I did (12) shows at the Improv in Las Vegas. I hadn’t performed at this club in years. I love working in Vegas because people save up for a long time to be there and I get paid to be there. That’s when I love this business. Those kind of moments. I usually play at the Riviera or the South Point Casino but I was back at the Improv at Harrahs Hotel which is also where I did my first Vegas week ever back in 2004. So this was very cool. Harrahs is also in the middle of the strip which is a great location. It was great seeing the Carl again. Carl runs the room and is a good dude. He always takes great care of the comics. It was one of my favorite weeks in Vegas. The shows were great. Some of my family from Arizona came out. I went to see a daytime performance by Mac King. He does a magic show during the day at Harrahs. Very entertaining.

From Vegas I drove (90) minutes to another desert casino area, Laughlin, NV. This week I was working with my bud Ralphie May so I was excited. Now the crowds in Laughlin were fun and appreciative BUT Laughlin. WOW. Do people know they can leave Laughlin? It could be one of the most depressing places I’ve ever been and I’ve been to Shreveport. I asked the woman at the front desk of our hotel where I could find a gym. She looked at me as though I asked where a KKK meeting was. Although I think she probably knew where one was. It was a long long week. One show a night. Six nights in a row. Ralphie and I decided if we got a speeding ticket leaving Laughlin we would split it. It would be worth it. Working with Ralphie made the week tolerable. We were there the same weekend as Tony Orlando. Enough said right...

Now it’s the beginning of May. This month started off with a weekend at the Miami Improv. My first visit to this club. The room was a little on the rowdy side most nights but I love it because I like to mess with the crowd and it challenges me to bring them all together and calm the room. So I had a great time. A guy named Joel owns this room along with Ft Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Louisville.

Just a great guy. Another great owner in this biz. Miami was just about to end and I was planning to fly home on Monday excited to unpack my new apartment I had just moved into. Joel said “why don’t you stay in Florida and you can work next week in West Palm with Darrell Hammond from SNL.” So I decided the apartment would have to wait. My dad always said work comes first. And when you only make $9k a year it should. So this BLOG ends with my run of shows in Florida and my weekend with Darrell Hammond in West Palm Beach.

Coming up. My first visit to the Arlington, TX Improv. Zanies in Nashville again. The Richmond, VA Funnybone debut and I’m participating in this year’s Autsim Speaks Celebrity Golf Outing at Winged Foot Country Club in New York. I’ve done it once before and it means a lot for me since my niece has autism. Although I feel bad for the foursome who paid good money to play golf with a celebrity and I walk up as their celebrity. Hey it’s Radar from Mash. This sucks.