The story of Brad Upton’s rise to fame in the stand up world is something that sounds like a Hans Christian Andersen story. Kicking around for a couple decades, opening for acts like Joan Rivers and Johnny Mathis, he’s picked up by an outfit called Dry Bar Comedy that puts up a long list of unknown comics on Youtube out of Salt Lake City. It sounds like an endeavor that’s gonna end up as a nice solid silent fart until he puts put a routine about millenials that gets millions and millions of views overnight and then keeps on going and he becomes another internet mega download story, but this time it’s different because he’s the real deal, he’s put in the time.
He’s paid his dues. He’s a real comic and he can cash in on the views in a way that a lot of the Youtube wonders can’t. He can sell out shows and leave people happy and wanting to come back for more. He can write great bits and tell jokes that hit home to people his age and younger. He’s a really special comedian. I have to say I love this guy’s stuff. He’s really inspirational to me. I’ve never met him, I’m only a fan, he’s not the kind of comic I usually fan out on either, but I have really gotten into him in a big way.
Part of it is his story, yeah, the magic of it, part of it is because he kind of reminds me a little of my buddy Tim Allen, I don’t know why, but also, because he’s just really, really funny in an honest day to day life way. Almost a throwback to a David Brenner or Cosby in his prime way. Pulling comedy from thin air. Making it look so easy when you know damn well it isn’t.
ON THE ROAD
I also get the sense he loves it. It seems like he’s on the road all the time. Traveling like a maniac. He’s based out of Seattle I believe, never did the L.A. or New York thing which I respect. Was a fourth grade teacher and high school track coach before getting into stand-up. Just seems like my kind of guy. Okay fine, I want to blow him. There, I said it.
Seriously. I don’t want to blow him. I want to be him. I want to be that good. That smart of a craftsman. Check him out if you don’t know him yet. I know I tend to go on and on about a lot of newer hipper acts and podcasters but this is someone with a lot of class and an Instagram, Tik Tok and Youtube account you should really follow.
I’m really interested to see where he goes after this special. It’s going to be fascinating in general to see where a lot of Stand-ups of a generation who stay with it will go. Louis C.K. brought it up to me in the interview I did with him in The Comedy Store doc. He was talking about keeping with his act as an old man and doing comedy about that, and how a lot of comics he looked up to didn’t live to be able to do material about older life so much. That it was a young man’s game and it was a shame because you get so much better with age. I think George Burns was the only straight stand up that really made a long, long run of it.
I can see Brad really growing with the years and doing some really special stuff. The form itself has matured so much over the years and the acts and the audiences have both grown in age, acceptance and willingness to stretch. The best seems yet to come.
Besides the fact that I got back into it and am loving being a full-time stand-up again? It’s an amazing time to be a stand-up comic and a great time to be a gonzo stand-fan. (Speaking as both.)
Stand-up may very well have never been as strong as it is now. As solid, as varied, as diverse, as daring, as accessible, as interesting, and as God damn funny as it is in the world today. All over the world today. From Los Angeles to New York to London, on to Paris with several silly stops over to Mumbai, comics are getting up and doing their thing in clubs, theatres, amphitheaters, at festivals, on tours, in arenas. On varied versions of streaming outlets with a wild and wooly freedom the art form has never before experienced.
It’s been an amazing year for stand-up. Record setting tours. Chapelle and Rock together. Sandler back out on the road. Dane Cook, Andrew Shultz, and Ari Shaffir help solidify the direct to consumer trail and the comedy clubs are all doing record business. People all know they need to laugh and the studios and the networks have stupidly gotten out of the business of making funny movies and tv shows.
I personally live for the edgy stuff. I like comics that misbehave and piss off the prims. I always have. From Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Cheech and Chong, Lily Tomlin, Dice, Sam Kinison, Joan Rivers, Russell Brand, Sandra Bernhard, to Ricky Gervais, Chris Rock, Louis C.K. and Dave Chapelle. I’ve always liked the trouble-makers, so this is a bang-up time for me.
Stand-ups are supposed to be counter-culture and in many ways they became the opposite. So many comics have been playing to audiences of trained seals. Clapping at all the politically correct horse shit premises so obediently that even when they’re done cleverly there’s zero amount of danger to it. There’s nothing to it that’s revelatory because we all know that’s what you’re supposed to be thinking and supposed to be saying and supposed to be clapping at.
Luckily we have the Dave Chapelle’s, the Bill Mahr’s, the Jeff Ross’s, and the Dave Atell’s. The Chris Rock’s, Louis C.K.’s, Damon Wayans, Earthquake, Ricky Gervais, the Sarah Silverman’s who are all grandfathered in with the guts and gumption to say what they want to say. Yet beyond that class of brass ball jokers, even more exciting is who’s behind them, not on the bench but already on the ice racking up wins. Some seriously out-there grinders, slinging shit and not giving a rat’s ass if you’re feelings are hurt or not. I’m sorry but it makes for some really funny stand-up these days. Piss in your pants stuff.
Remember, you can always stay home or change the channel. Opera makes me nauseous. Harkens back to a lot of Jews getting beaten up in European alleys. Rich swells pulling up to the Grand Opera houses in gilded carriages using Jewish backsides as mud ramps, but I don’t make a big deal out of it. I don’t whine. I just don’t go.
As far as the newer acts this new vanguard have taken the license to say whatever the hell they want to say, a license that no one can give you but yourself. They’re all raw, electric, and watchable as hell. They’re pissing straight into the wind and they love what they’re doing and it shows. Shane Gillis, Rosebud Baker, Tim Dillon, Yannis Pappis, Dan Soder, Chris Delia, Joey Diaz, Whitney Cummings, Bobby Kelly, Sam Morril, Steven Crowder, Andrew Schultz, Yamenika, Dane Cook, Sam Tripoli, Ari Shaffir, Bryan Callen, Brian Simpson, Jim Breuer, Ryan Long, Tyler Fischer. These are just a small group of these nut-jobs too. There are so many more.
Here are three more things I love about this crowd. One; Very important too; They put asses in seats. Audiences adore them. They desperately want to see them on every level. In little comedy clubs, all the way up to the arena’s that Sandler is packing them in as quick as if he were selling seats in phone booths. Fans love it raw and prickly. Funny. That’s what they want. On podcasts, specials, vinyl, and anywhere they can get it. Comedy audiences want the truth told by their comics, and they want the rules broken—all around the world.
Two; Even more important than ‘one’ the smart comics, the Sam Morril’s and The Shane Gillis’s aren’t listening to the media bosses or the aggrieved mobs. They don’t care. They’re not afraid anymore. They believe in themselves, trust in their talent and the audiences. They also have faith in their ability to reach them without these insecure, unsure, fair weather, passionless executives that are running eight out of ten places that supposedly gate-keep the entrances to acceptance and success for these artists.
Big smile now here for, Number Three; There is not one company/network/ studio, a smart sharp, hot stand-up fears or blows in the year of our Lord 2022. That includes NETFLIX. Not one. It’s nice or convenient, to get a Netflix or even an HBO special. (*Now once again the cream of the crop.) Yet it doesn’t mean one tenth as much as it did just one year ago, and it isn’t the be all end all it was. Think about that. Wow. That happened fast.
The simple fact of the matter is that for stand-up comedy the gate-keepers have been usurped by hard-work, ingenuity, connection with the fans, and self marketing. 2022 was the year that direct to consumers finally came completely into play.
Think about the single most buzzed about stand up special of the final quarter of this year. Ari Shaffir’s Jew. Everyone is talking about it. Everyone I know in the business, everyone I know out of the business. Some don’t even know what they’re talking about.
‘Mike, do you know anything about some special on YouTube by Ari Emanuel called. ‘The Jew?’
Ari’s special has been watched five million times already and talked and written about a lot more. Did he make a lot of money? I don’t know. I know he had a lot of people pay on Vimeo and Paypal and the Super Thanks button on Youtube. What he’s making in ticket sales is the real answer. Selling out everywhere. What Dane Cook has done with Above it All on the Moment.co and what Andrew Shultz did with Infamous is the new road home. Going forward top comics will make more selling their own wares, have a more tactile relationship with their fan base, have less censorship, more control and basically follow the road that the podcasts carved out for them.
Looking back 2022 will be the year the starting gun went off. Will 2023 be better? Did we peak? Who knows? I think it’s all about the quality of the comedy. Judging from what I see hanging out, talking to comics, to fans, there’s a respect for the art form like I’ve never felt before. That’s a good sign going forward. If you haven’t seen it yet go watch ‘Jew’ by Ari Shaffir on Youtube, send him a lot of money and usher in the new world.
God bless the funny people!
Mike Binder/ Comedy Store main room Photo by Van Corona
He’s got more class in his little finger than most of us have on our whole body. He’s also easily in the top five of the greatest working comics in the world and has been now for a long, long, time. Once you get to know him you quickly learn the secret sauce. He works his ass off.
Let me do it as Rock; HE WORKS HIS ASS OFF. How does he do it? HE WORKS HIS ASS OFF! (Chris repeats every set up four times.)
Kidding aside, he’s great because he wants to be great. He has no wish to be anything even riding in the same car as average. He has what is common in what I’ve seen from every entertainment master I’ve ever known. A crazy ferocious drive and an old fashioned work ethic. He’s always trying to make the product better. To make the customers happy. To put out new work that pushes the boundaries. You can’t be a master without that drive. Rock has it in an abundance.
He just sold out four nights at the Dolby. He just sold out four nights at the Dolby!! He just. Sold out. Four nights at the ….Dolby!!!
RICK INGRAHAM AND FOUR CRAZY NIGHTS.
It was four wild nights with fans like Paul McCartney, Demi Moore, Anthony Kiedis, and myself, (tee-hee) backstage all wishing him well. It truly felt like a Stones concert or something. His opener Rick Ingraham, a Comedy Store staple, set him up so well every night. Rick is perfect for a big hall like that, which is something you wouldn’t expect as he’s the reigning best crowd work guy in the business. It works in the big room though. You wouldn’t think it would, talking to the front row but I watched from way in the back for awhile and he had the crowd in the palm of his hand non stop from the minute he walked out to the moment he walked off. He couldn’t have set Chris up any better.
Rick Ingraham and ‘Maca’.
ROCK’S NEW SPECIAL
Is going to be electric. He’s shooting this spring I believe in Atlanta and someone said it’s airing live on Netflix. ‘Live’ or not, it will be as good or even better than Bring The Pain which I think is his seminal work. This new set he’s doing is so different than all of his other stuff, yet at the same time sets up as classic Rock. He’s one of the very, very, few comics that doesn’t feel one-note special after special. That’s really hard to do. The reason I think that is, is that Chris, like maybe Chappelle and Gervais, is not working from a level of an angry comic. He’s much more of a memorist, (?), or a philosopher even, it’s not just another special of ‘here’s what I’m pissed about.’ ‘Here’s who pisses me off.’ When you see someone reach the top with an act like that and then repeat it time and time again you go numb. Chris’s new set is so far removed from that. There’s some of it. Don’t get me wrong, but so much of it is about his joy for life and his love of family. His mother’s journey, and his life as a wealthy, successful, single man.
The thing is, and I’ve known Chris a lot of years now. He really is a classy guy. When you’re talking to him, he’s not a bad-mouther, or a bragger, or a put down artist. He’s not picking apart every comic that isn’t in the room. He has no interest in the petty stuff. The class he showed onstage at the Oscars during ‘the slap’ is second to none in an American lesson in how to behave under stress. A human treatise on who to handle a tough moment.
Someone raised him right this guy. He did the rest though. He worked hard and long, for years and years to become who he is in the standup world. It’s been a career of some uphill running. People forget that. He was out in the wilderness for a long time. It’s a good story and good for him. He deserves it. Go see him live. You’ll understand what all the fuss is about if you don’t yet.
One of the biggest regrets that I have about the Comedy Store documentary is that I didn’t do a piece on Bret Ernst. Bret was a major part of the Comedy Store scene and I missed out on him. I was gone during his era, and he wasn’t around much when I came back, and to tell the truth there were so many comics to cover he just fell through the cracks. I love his work, but what I really want to write about here is his role in comedians putting out there own specials. He was the first. That’s what everyone says. Bert Kreisher has said it Tony Hinchliffe told me this during my interview with him for the doc, and it seems it’s true.
It puts him in a league with Dane Cook for the Myspace break, and Burr, Rogan, and Maron for their podcast breakthrough, but if you look at the world today, the ground Bret broke may even be more important. The freedom that comes from being able to release your own special, put it out to the world, own it and let it grow is exhilarating. It means no one is in your way but yourself and if you get out of your way and just do good work, you’ll find and grow your audience.’ The important thing about this lane opening up for a comic, is it’s the long road to the center of town, but the most rewarding on every level. Selling your stuff forever to Netlfix or HBO, Showtime, etc, is a faster road home, but in the end you don’t own your work, know your fans, your worth, or how to take yourself to the next level.
A GREAT EXAMPLE OF THE NEW WORLD
Bret’s a great example of the long road home, but the upside of it as well. His first special Principal’s Office, has now been seen by at least 4 million people. His next one, out now, Domesticated Animal, is on it’s way to grow to that number and more. He’s cultivated a hardcore group of fans, which hopefully as the new world really develops now, will support him when he comes out with a special he drops himself behind a paywall like Andrew Schultz has just done, or Bobby Kelly, and Dane Cook. That’s the idea for a comic today. You have to have the chops, a point of view that’s unique, great material, of course, but there was a time when if you had all that and more and the gatekeepers of the moment didn’t let you in, you weren’t getting in. Today if you come fully loaded no one’s going to be able to block you at the gate. You flip them off and you start your own party. That’s what this guy has done, and he’s done it damn well.
Watch Domestic Animal and you see a fully formed comic voice that is doing what he does because he loves it and he has no choice. He reminds me of my friend, Mike Young, with a ‘you can’t stop me attitude.’ It’s freeing to watch Bret’s attitude like it is to watch early Burr or Dice, or Sebastian. Just a ‘I know I’m right so much, that I know I don’t know shit’ attitude. A true comics POV, ‘The whole world’s messed up but there’s great stuff to complain about. I’m sick of everybody and the top of that list is myself.’
His stuff isn’t jokes. I don’t think he really does any jokes. It’s all stories and attitude. It’s a tour through his mind. I recommend both specials. I just think Domesticated is the better of the two. The more mature. You can really see him coming into his own. It really does take twenty years to be great. There is no shortcut. He’s a good twenty in and is definitely one of the best working today.
A great special, and the third in the line up of big time specials that have jumped ship from the streaming networks and gone it alone selling a show straight to consumers. Andrew Schultz and Dane Cook did it on Moment.co (Dane’s is now on sale at his own site Danecook.com)
LOUIS C.K.’S OWN SITE
Anyone that follows and loves Louis’s stuff knows he’s been selling straight to consumers for years. He’s also made his own movies and a really unique TV series, Horace and Pete, his own series, Louie, and all of his specials. I think Robert Kelly Kill Box is the first special he’s done where he’s directed it and put it up on his site, of another comic. If it is he picked a great comic to start with. Kelly is a pro and a vet and this is a damn funny special. It’s raw and racy and it’s non politically correct which you’d guess coming from him, but it’s done well. Louis directs it in a simple style which I happen to like. You’re not thinking about the director at all. In a stand-up special you shouldn’t be.
A GREAT DEAL FOR TEN BUCKS
This really is. It’s a lot of big laughs. The studios aren’t making comedies, the Sit-coms on T.V. aren’t even close to funny. If you want to laugh hard you need a good special. Well, for my money, very few of the Netflix, Showtime, or HBO specials are that funny anymore. Maybe Chappelle, Burr, Chris Rock. Ricky Gervais. Whitney Cummings. Anthony Jezelnik. Taylor Tomlinson, a few others. That’s not a lot though. Not considering this group puts out a special once every two years or so. Not in the absence of any real funny TV shows or movies. The best place to find big laughs, other than going out and seeing comics live, is going to be direct to consumer gems like this or even free one’s that have been dropped on You Tube. If you love Stand-up, you would do well to fork out the ten bucks and buy this thing. Buy others like it. Stoke the fire. Support this new road that’s doing well, but needs traffic.
MORE IMPORTANTLY.
He’s funny as shit, Bobby Kelly. He reminds me of Earthquake, in the sense that he’s been around forever and he’s gotten a legendary status and this special, like the one Chappelle did for Earthquake, is a bit of a teaser to new fans to see who and what a lot of comedy fans already know about an O.G. in the stand-up world. It’s a bit of a sampler box.
I’ll go so far as to say if you’re a fan of this kind of comedy and you buy this special, and you truly, truly, hate it. You can write to me at this site and I’ll send you your ten bucks back. I’ll berate the living shit out of you for being an asshole, but I’ll send you ten bucks. It’s that good and I know it. (P.S. I don’t even know the guy. This isn’t me shilling for some pal. I’ll tell you when that’s the case. Never even met the fucker.)
Check out and sign up for his patreon as well. This is another way you can help support and grow the new world.
Either way, support this guy. He’s deserving and he’ll make you laugh hard which is what you need more than anything in life whether you know it or not.
I just spent the weekend playing a fantastic club in San Diego’s Gaslamp district, The American Comedy Co. It’s a powder keg of a basement room underneath an old historic building, with low ceilings and brick walls scientifically designed to make the laughs scramble back and forth from every surface like wild baby chicks just let free in the yard. The crowds are amazing, packed in tight, true comedy lovers, it was my second time back, and it didn’t disappoint. It’s becoming one of my favorite clubs to play. It has a bit of a vibe of what I think right now is my favorite room to jump up, the Top Secret in London. (It could be the basement thing.)
All five shows were sold out thanks to the fact that I was opening for Jeremy Piven. Not only were they sold out but most shows had to turn quite a few people away. It was quite a scene and the energy was fantastic.
Jeremy is known as an amazing actor with a shit load of Emmy’s and awards but he’s become a damn good stand-up comic and his fans now know it and damn, they come out. It’s great for me, because he’s one of a group of friends like Jeff Ross, Pauly Shore, Damon Wayans, Shane Gillis, Steve Byrne, Paul Virzi, Mark Normand, and a few others that have let me feature for them and get my stage legs back after a years long sabbatical from the craft which I so appreciate. I don’t think I’d be able to do it any other way. Jeremy has been so great. All of these guys have. It’s been pretty amazing how supportive they’ve all been.
But back to the American Comedy Co. I really do love this club. Anyone that know me knows the affinity that I’ve had my whole life for the Lajolla Comedy Store. I grew up there and have probably played it more than I’ve played any club in my life, so I never really thought I’d feel all that comfortable in any San Diego club, but the funny thing is this is such a different beast. It’s a world apart from the leafy streets of Lajolla and the two clubs themselves couldn’t be more different.
As I said, the American Comedy Co. reminds me of the Top Secret in London, which has a vibe of what I think in my mind the Cavern Club in Liverpool had in it’s day. Comics adore the room. Norm McDonald used to talk about it all the time and I know Joe Rogan loved to play it earlier in his career. So did Chris Delia.Paul Virzi ripped it up last year right after his Netflix special came out. He was amazing down there. One of the best sets I’ve seen a comic do in a long time.
It’s run by a well written Runyonesque character by the name of Justin Hollister. Like the top Secret’s Mark Rothman, and Mitzi Shore, and the Comedy Castle’s Mark Ridley, in the tradition of the really great club owners, Justin loves stand-up. Adores it. Lives and breathes it. He was part of the Improv team and ran the San Jose Improv for a long time, (another amazing room) then left to start his own thing. He begged and borrowed, scared up the money from a gaggle of investors (which he’s since bought off), and that’s how the American Comedy Co. came to be.
The Gaslamp district has three comedy clubs all within a block of each other. The American, The Laugh Factory, and The Madhouse. They all seem to do well. That says something about San Diego I guess. They’re bored as shit? They love to laugh? They have too much money? They need to get out of the house? Out of the sun? Maybe they just don’t like music? Who the hell knows? Between those three clubs and the Lajolla Comedy Store they have a lot of great comedy they support so hats fucking off to San Diego!
And to Justin Hollister and The American Comedy Co. as well. What a great club. If you’re down there and you haven’t been in yet, go down there for sure. Laughter will keep you young and healthy. It’s a medical fact. This place is a fountain of youth.
I started my career at 17 working for Mitzi Shore at The Comedy Store. I was a doorman, yet another of my duties was to babysit for Peter and Pauly Shore who were something like 7 and 9 years old. It was good work if you could get it. There wasn’t a lot of heavy lifting or welding to be done, just hanging out with two little rugrats wedged deep into the Beverly Hills rich kids crowd. At the time I washed up on Mitzi’s nightclubs doorstep, they lived with Mitzi and the comedian Steve Landesberg in Dorothy Lamour’s old mansion just up Doheny drive above Gil Turner’s liquor store.
It was rare air for a boy fresh from the suburbs of Detroit to be breathing. Peter and Pauly’s friends were the kids of some major hollywood staples. Paul Rydell, Tony Bill, Ryan O’neal, etc. One night we had a seder dinner at her house and Andy Williams, Art Metrano, and Richard Pryor all stopped by. It was that kind of night. We’d all smoke pot together in the kitchen as Mitzi would be preparing dinner.
I was always wondering what the hell I doing there. I was the answer to one of those ‘which things doesn’t belong in this picture?’ puzzles. Argus Hamilton, Ollie Joe Prader, and I would take Pauly out to skateparks in distant lands I’d never heard of called, El Monte, and Covina. We’d squire him to events at Beverly Hills high, the school he would eventually attend, and out to Malibu to drop him at famous kids of famous parents houses on the famous Malibu colony.
My all time best memory of that time in my life, and there were a lot of them, I loved the Shore family then and still do today, points out the moment I knew I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. We were sitting in Mitzi’s kitchen as she was making breakfast and an eight year old Pauly came in irritated and deeply concerned. He rattled off this line of dialogue, word for word without irony, satire, or even a smirk of jest.
‘Mom? What the fuck? You’re letting Peter go to Maui over Christmas with Ryan and Farrah and you won’t let me go to Japan on tour with Connie Stevens?’
(They did in fact both go on each of these trips that Christmas with the sons and daughters of the above icons.)
BABY SITTING PAULY – THE SEQUEL
Cut to last week. forty-seven some years later and I’m in Omaha, Nebraska, babysitting Pauly again. Opening up for him as a middle act at the Funny Bone in Omaha and then in the next state over at the Des Moines Funny Bone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvvDDiXlJ-Y
I’m doing anything I can to get my stage/sea legs back after a twenty five years absence from stand-up, a truly unforgiving art in terms of making it easy to jump up any old time you want decades later. The comedians you know and love, all have one thing in common. They’re always on stage. Pretty much every night. Even nights off they’ll find a room to jump up in. Yes, it’s addicting, but it’s also what it takes to be great. You have to show up at the party constantly, always working in new stuff, shaping, molding, cutting, changing, kneading.
PAULY NEVER LEFT THE PARTY
After his meteoric rise as an MTV jock and then a run as a bonafide movie star in a series of niche films, the curve of Pauly’s career was flattened by time, a change in culture, and a general planet wide weariness of ‘The Weasel’ shtick. Pauly was hurt by the air coming out of the celebrity bag, but he kept on undaunted. Always. The one thing he never stopped doing was going out on the road. With Sam Kinison, his father, Sammy Shore, or a long line of young comics he’s nurtured along and helped get their stage legs, taking them on his tours, including, Bobby Lee, Sandy Danto, and many, many others.
I joined that line last week. I had a fantastic time. It was strange as hell being out on the road playing comedy clubs again. I was one of the very first of the comedy club headliners in the eighties. I opened Mark Ridley’s comedy club in Detroit. Was his first headliner as he was the first comedy club that wasn’t a showcase club in the major cities of LA, New York and San Fran. My group of comics, Bruce Baum, Bob Saget, Gary Shandling, Dave Coulier, Rita Rudner, Rich Shydner, and later Jerry Seinfeld, Larry Miller, Mark Schiff, Gary Muledeer, and Dennis Miller, were the first swarm of comedy club comics touring the country. We played in rooms that popped up in just about every state in the nation, seemingly overnight. Clubs that became chains, with names like Giggles, Zanies, Punchline, and Hilarities. Clubs that were one-offs like the Cleveland Comedy Club, or the Pittsburgh comedy club, or Bea’s Comedy Kitchen.
The Shores, Pauly and Sammy Shore, Peter Shore with Mitzi and Pauly.
BACK ON THE ROAD
Not that I missed it, or had longed for it in any way, but it was fun being back on that version of the road. The Funny Bones are sturdy, well run clubs. In nice mall courts that feel very America 2022. That was one the biggest revelations to me. Mid-America 2022 is not a lot different than California or New York. At least not on the surface. It’s a hell of a lot whiter. That’s for sure. It made me realize how comfortable I am with the diversity of the rest of the country, and even London. It’s more normal for me to wander streets amid faces of all colors ,and people from all places. Being in a mall in a sea of white faces is just not ordinary to me anymore. It would be like going into a restaurant and being told they serve only one kind of bread. I may never order gluten-free toast, but it makes me feel safe that it’s on the menu. Makes me comfortable.
PAULY’S CROWDS
Pauly sold out every single show. He sells out all of his shows.
They come out, wherever he plays. They want to see him, yes, remember a moment in their lives, but it’s more than that. They come for a few reasons other than the nostalgia. One, he loves them. They feel it. From the minute he hits the stage they know they’re appreciated. Not taken for granted. Two, they don’t get to see a lot of famous people up close. Not like this. Not someone who’s movies they’ve seen many times over. Is it curiosity? Maybe to some. To me it seemed like many of them had come and seen him quite a few times before over the years.
As I said, Pauly never stopped playing the road. Hitting the clubs. In every state. Year after year after year. Thirty some years on, he couldn’t help but become a damn good comic. A great comic. He wasn’t when he started. (Who was?) He was a novelty act. A kid almost playing a comic. It was deep in his blood though. How could it not have been? Time and circumstance forced him to cure, mold and morph into a fantastic club act. One of the best.
Is he the most beautiful sea shell the ocean has smoothed out and spit up onto the comedy beach? Maybe not, but you realize when you see the set he’s a rare find. A polished and precious shiny object. He takes the stage with a motorized confidence and never for one minute in the next hour stops, let’s up, shows mercy, and more important, lies. He’s honest and authentic. He’s Pauly. He’s an open book. Everything he say is true. Self depreciatory, yes, but genuine. His jokes are, at his expense, commenting on culture, a peek into the trappings of fame, and the tools for the task of making you laugh hard and thinking of nothing else for an hour or so.
The set is a barrage. It’s not Seinfeld, but it’s not Rip Taylor either. It’s somewhere smack in the middle. It’s a silly, genuine, factual ride. A cavalcade of audience participation, confession, mirth, and self flagellation. He loves being bathed in the love and the laughter. It’s obvious. He loves burrowing into the womb a comedy club becomes. His joy is your joy through osmosis. He has fun, you have fun. You go home happy and he goes on to the next town.
I have to say I was impressed with his act. Very impressed. I didn’t expect to be. I was. Happily.
SEE HIM LIVE
Go see him. It’s a treat you owe yourself if you’re a stand-up fan. If only to see what a modern road dog does. The Amazing Jonathan’s and the Bob Foxes of the world are all dead or retired. Pauly is still climbing the stage. He’s not in the Kreisher, Burr, Sebastian concert world, though he once was for a brief moment, but he’s out there. Live. Channeling his dad and host of great legends from the past. It’s a treat. I promise. I was there for my own needs. To get stage time, but I did get to see a great American stand-up show in the middle of white bread America. I enjoyed it.
Jessica Kirson makes me laugh really hard. Like spit shit out of my mouth laugh. She’s a murderer. She’s quick and raw and real, and funny as hell. Anytime someone’s telling me a theory on why women aren’t funny, I just cut them off and say’ Jessica Kirson. Case closed. Fuck off. Go watch Jessica Kirson then tell me women aren’t funny. (By the way, women are funny. See; Yamaneika Saunders, Whitney Cummings, Rachel Feinstein, Rosebud Baker, and Bonnie McFarland, to name just a few.)
HER REAL NAME
Her real name is Kirson Braff, which I love. It sounds like a surfer from Michigan. Someone completely out of place everywhere they go. Jessica Kirson is poetic. Kirson Braff is a trig quiz. I get the change. Her stepbrother is Zach Braff, of Scrubs fame, which is a good little nugget I didn’t know. She’s from West Orange, New Jersey and she’s gay and married. And like I mentioned earlier she’s one of the funniest people on the planet.
WORKS HER ASS OFF
She does. She has I think three podcasts, has done about eleven thousand specials, has a fantastic Patreon channel, produced a great doc on women comics, and has a show on The Mint that has her working with Yamaneika Saunders and Rachel Feinstein two of my favorite comics.
Jessica does a lot of crowd work and it’s easy to think she only does that because she’s so good at it and that’s what she shows on social media a lot, but she has a lot of really great bits and tells a boatload of stories that are obviously real. Achingly real. There are truly no boundaries for her. She’s wide open all of the time, full speed.
NEW YORK COMIC
By and large she’s a New York comic. Part of the Cellar crowd, but she’s been out in LA a bit. She just sold out the main room of The Comedy Store and had quite a night. She’s really pretty incredible. Out there. My kind of comedy. She’s Sam Kinison meets Phyliss Diller with a dash of Don Rickles and Robin Williams. Quick as hell, truly fluid, dark, witty, and so damn real. Watch her specials, check out her Mint show, most important, go see her live.
