Bill Hicks: Behind the previously unreleased interview

by Jay Richardson

Just this week, the audio of a never before heard interview with Bill Hicks was released online as part of the British comedy podcast Doubling Up. Co-host of the show and comedian Nick Doody conducted the interview in 1992; the legendary Hicks would die in 1994. And not only did Doody get a great interview out of Hicks; he got to open for the man in front of 1,500 people. Here’s Nick’s story about Hicks and the love of comedy.

“Shit! During your show?!”

It’s November 1992 and Bill Hicks has just stunned rookie stand-up Nick Doody by asking him to open for him at a 1,500-seater gig in Oxford University. Doody, a 19-year-old languages student, has been interviewing his idol on the phone for his university newspaper, and impressed by his questions, Hicks takes the unprecedented step of offering the young Englishman a 15-minute support slot.

Doody, his real name, chuckles in recollection. “It was really cool,” he says. “And I reacted to it in the least cool way imaginable – ‘Yeah, I’d love to, but I’m doing a play.’ I try not to listen back to it.”

Nevertheless, Doody did open for Hicks on that Oxford date on the Texan’s final UK tour before he died of pancreatic cancer in 1994, going on to become an established act on the UK’s stand-up circuit. Now, after 17 years, and despite his embarrassment, Doody has publicly released the recording of their conversation for the first time, on the Doubling Up podcast he hosts with fellow comic Rob Heeney.

Hicks was lionised in the UK and even went apartment hunting in Edinburgh. In the interview he tells Doody that he appreciates British audiences for their “respectful attitude to performers, they give you an opportunity to really explore ideas … you don’t necessarily have to be funny every three seconds like you do in the States”.

He was delighted to be performing in the institution that educated Oscar Wilde, reveals that he’d just quit smoking and recalls witnessing the infamous 1991 Just For Laughs Festival incident, in which New Jersey-born, Scottish comic Jerry Sadowitz was punched unconscious for beginning his set with: “Hello moosefuckers! I tell you why I hate Canada. Half of you speak French, and the other half let them!”

“Sadowitz was hilarious” claims Hicks. “I swear to God he was up there a minute when this happened and I didn’t understand a fucking word he said, he sounded like a bird tweeting to me … And then suddenly there’s this guy there and ‘boop’, ha, ha, ha. It was really, really shocking”

Along with Richard Pryor, Woody Allen and “the myth of Lenny Bruce,” Hicks cites Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton as influences, interesting given the glimpse of slapstick skills he showed in the never-picked-up ABC pilot Bulba. “I don’t think many comics notice or care about [physical skills] but I do, it makes a big difference for me. I like creating a scene and using whatever it takes.”

When I call, Doody is about to head out to Méribel in France for the Altitude Festival, in which stand-ups and musicians perform for snowboarders and skiers at the Alpine resort. Although he’d been performing comedy for two years when he interviewed Hicks, “I’d actually only done about a dozen gigs.

“I remember at the time it was amazing, I was playing the tape to everyone,” he recalls. “He was such a major comic figure and pretty much a year later, he was dead. So it became this incredible, iconic thing to say I opened for Bill Hicks.”

“I’d only become aware of him the previous year, when Channel 4 showed Relentless on television. I remember me and my brother stumbling upon it by accident. I was fascinated by stand-up at the time, but it was one of the first times that gags really gut-punched me, the routines were ruder than anything I’d ever heard, in a really interesting way. It wasn’t like British comedy, it was a lot more like stand-up now – visceral, brutally honest, very graphic.”

As it transpired, there was another support act at the gig, the folk band Balloon.

“I met Bill at the sound check. And then he just went to his hotel room in a way that now, with plenty of years on the road, I can appreciate,” he recalls. “I don’t remember anything about Balloon except that they were heckled throughout because people had paid to see Hicks.”

“It was after midnight, the crowd were all pretty drunk and there was no announcement when I took the stage, a white guy, with dark hair, dressed all in black. I got this incredible fucking applause!”

“You can tell where this is going but I was only dimly aware and started doing jokes about trying to find a place to lock up my bicycle. And it was like watching a Guess Who? of disappointment, a Mexican Wave where the faces in successive rows flipped in disappointment when they realised “this isn’t him either!” I got some heckles and simply replied to them. But I knew my last line was going to be killer, because whatever else happened, I was going to introduce Bill Hicks. He did almost three hours and stormed it.”

Doody went on to write Tell Me The Truth: The Life And Works Of Bill Hicks, a study of the comic as a social commentator. But the bankruptcy of his initial publisher and then the 2002 publication of Cynthia True’s Hicks biography American Scream meant that it never saw the light of day, although the introduction was available on Hicks’ friend Kevin Booth’s Sacred Cows website for many years.

“I lived and breathed Hicks for the time I was writing the book, it was almost creepy” he says. “I was just listening to interviews with him all the time, watching little bits of footage, reading every single article. I could almost channel him. Not in a supernatural way, but I had a really good idea of what he’d probably say to most things, the phrasing of it.”

Like Hicks, Doody had a strict religious upbringing, experimented with drugs and has forged a career performing dark, intelligent, philosophically-inclined stand-up. Still, he’s reluctant to concede too much of an influence.

“There might have been phases as a student when I was into expanding my consciousness, but I ended up getting less mystical as I went on” he maintains. “Although Hicks rejected organized religion, he was into aliens from quite a druggy, mystical perspective and quite an introspective philosophy, so he was still fairly religious, just not in the standard way. The UFO stuff was a great device for him to comment on human affairs, as he says in the interview. I had a vision of heaven on acid once and it was fantastic. But I’m a rationalist and I don’t believe you could endure eternity and not go mental.”

In the course of their conversation, Hicks claims he talks to a crowd in exactly the same way as he does his friends. One of the negligible pities of his passing is that he never got to podcast.

“Our podcast was very much Rob’s idea,” agrees Doody. “But even since before podcasts had really penetrated the mainstream consciousness, there’d be some party or evening that turned into a morning and you’d realise you’d been hanging around with a bunch of very, very funny people for hours and nobody had recorded it. The number of conversations when you go: ‘Wouldn’t the good bits of the last few hours make really good radio?’ And I know a lot of comics have had that thought, about recording themselves chatting about the circuit and swapping stories.”

Doody is a close friend and sometime housemate of former Last Comic Standing contestant Matt Kirshen; the pair have collaborated on the BBC Radio series Bigipedia, an audio parody of Wikipedia that has been recommissioned and is now being pitched for British television in an adapted form, spoofing the Internet, television shows and mobile technology as “artificial intelligence that’s supposed to be helpful, but ends up being a little bit malevolent.”

He reckons Hicks’ legacy is every bit as double-edged, at least in terms of how it shaped British stand-up. “What’s most interesting, but perhaps isn’t often commented upon is just how many bad comics were waywardly influenced by the idea that he was the be all and end all. If it’s not like Hicks, it’s not worth doing. I’ve seen too many comics with his anger but none of his focus and ability to write such incredible routines.”

To listen to Nick Doody’s interview with Bill Hicks, check out the Doubling Up podcast (@doublingup). You can follow the author of this story, Jay Richardson on Twitter at @jayirichardson.

Myq Kaplan: Vegan Mind Meld

by John Delery

An amalgam of mischief, sarcasm and brains, Myq Kaplan puts the “smart” in smart-ass. Proof, you demand! Just listen to Vegan Mind Meld, his astute, fun and oh so funny new CD from the label Live at Comix (in affiliation with BSeenMedia).

On this release, available on April 27, words are playthings to Kaplan. He shapes them into impish puns, or sometimes this lover of language and all joke forms connects words in ribald rhymes about heroin, cocaine, masturbation, prostitutes and religion but with Seussian glee and dexterity. (Well, the sort of mock Doc the Edison of word invention would have admired and probably envied, had he been revered for writing, say, Horton Hires a Ho…on Blow!)

Mostly, though, Kaplan, a nasally, nebbishy, naughty but not bawdy comic, the kind of diminutive guy who in school probably defended himself with his disarming wit, skillfully arranges words into an assortment of impressive jokes on an array of mostly serious topics.

The unorthodox Jew-ishy atheist vegan, his description of himself, mines deep for unconventional gags about bigotry (including one about his grandmother, “who’s a little racist. Well, very racist, but small”), gay-marriage hysteria and hyperbole, and the most significant subject of all: boobies. Or are they “yaybies”? A showman, not a showoff, Kaplan uses his word power for goodness, nay greatness.

Click the image below to download the entire album.

Exclusive video interview with Patrice Oneal

by Dylan P. Gadino

You know Patrice Oneal. For the better part of a decade, the veteran comedian has carved out a place in the national comedy scene as a well-respected, comics comic– a guy that has a lot of opinions on a great many things. More than anything, however, he revels in opining about race. He’s good at it. Or at the very least, he’s incredibly passionate about it.

Most recently, Oneal has inked a deal with Comedy Central to shoot an hour stand-up special as well as host a pilot for the network titled Patrice Oneal’s Guide to White People, where he plays a professor of whiteness.

The below interview is part of our web interview series A Tight Five, wherein I sit down with well known comedians at Comix comedy club in New York City. This interview is a bit different than a lot of the other Tight Five episodes I’ve done, mainly because in this five-minute version of our chat, we talk very little about comedy and quite a bit about plain old interpersonal communication. I thought, in this case, it made more sense, since Patrice is such a dynamic fellow. And by “dynamic” I mean he has no problem calling me a “little creep” and accusing me of trying to act Jewish, as if that would be a bad thing anyway. Enjoy!

In the next few weeks, we’ll for sure roll out the uncut version of this interview. So keep your eyes peeled.

Louis C.K., Kevin Smith, Ben Stiller, more honor George Carlin

by Dylan P. Gadino

Hundreds of fans show up to the New York Public Library to honor the legendary George Carlin. His daughter Kelly and his co-author Tony Hendra, along with a handful of famous friends remind us why we miss George so much.

Wednesday night in New York City, where George Carlin was born and raised, hundreds of fans – and a handful of famous friends – turned out to pay homage to the late legendary comedian.

Hosted at the New York Public Library as part of their LIVE from NYPL series by a subdued Whoopi Goldberg, dreadlocks hiding most of her face throughout the night, by night’s end, ticket holders were treated to informal and many times seemingly off-the-cuff tributes from the likes of Louis CK, Ben Stiller and Kevin Smith.

Before the show even started, I felt incredibly lucky to be in the presence of such impressive comedy history and pedigree. Rain Pryor and Kitty Bruce, the daughters of Richard and Lenny sat in the seats in front of me; Steve Martin was in the front row, just a few seats ahead of the comedy daughters; and Tony Hendra, the man who co-wrote Carlin’s final book Last Words (and played the smarmy manager in Spinal Tap) sat next to Carlin’s only child, his daughter Kelly.

A finely upholstered chair sat stage left, empty, to represent Carlin— throughout the program. But as George’s brother Patrick said a few times during his speech, the comedian was definiteily there. “I can feel his vibes,” he refrained.

We all could. Woven between the live tributes to Carlin were clips from a few of Carlin’s HBO specials— just to remind the crowd – like they need it – how ingenious, funny and thought-provoking Carlin was. The spoken tributes, however, took center stage.

Jerry Stiller and Ann Meira – a long respected comedy team – read a letter written by Carlin on Jan. 9, 2006, days after he was released from the hospital, having been operated on for congestive heart failure. The letter, a mass email to all of Carlin’s friends began: “Hi, Fucks”; George followed with great detail about his hospital stay and, the worst part of it all, was when the nurses came around to rip the many bandages off his hairy body.

He told his friends also, that, to give himself a small break from his regular 150-date touring schedule, he would scale back to 80 dates that year. But how would be decide which dates to cancel? For George, it was an easy choice. He eliminated all his Ls Vegas dates, explaining that the audiences were “bone dumb” and that his runs there were always “10 weeks of torture.”

The letter concludes: PS: “No need to reply unless you need medical advice.”

Jerry and Anne then brought up their kids, Ben and Amy Stiller, who both gave short reflections on Carlin, with Ben calling George “one of the comedy gods” and calling him “incredibly kind and warm hearted” while onset of, what Ben called a shitty TV movie of the week Working Trash, in which the pair co-starred.

Kevin Smith and Louis C.K. delivered what would be the night’s most touching tributes with the former presenter nearly breaking down into tears. The well-known screenwriter and director revealed a Carlin most of us didn’t know: the Carlin who always wanted to be an actor. Despite Smith being floored that the man who inspired him to become what he is today agreed to be in a few of his movies, it was George who was eternally grateful to the director for letting him act. After working a few flicks with Kevin, George told him to write his dream role. Kevin asked, well, what would that be? Carlin responded, “I want to play a clergyman who strangles six children.”

So Smith wrote a role especially for him in the movie Jersey Girl. George read the script and told Smith: “Well, there’s a child in it, but I don’t strangle it.” George thankfully played the role of Bert Trinke anyway.

Louis C.K., who gave special thanks to Carlin in the credits of his 2007 comedy special Shameless and then dedicated his 2008 special Chewed Up to Carlin, made the final tribute of the night, explaining that Carlin’s simple, goofy bit about “what do dogs do on their day off? Sleep? That’s what they do anyway!” is what got him hooked to Carlin when he was young.

Many times during his speech which he delivered in stand-up style and not behind a podium like most of the presenters, he would refer to the large screens on either side of the stage adorned with a video grab of George, calling the legend “this guy,” saying things like “this guy” is the reason I’m able to do what I do onstage.

Other presenters included writer and spoken word performer Dylan Brody, Kelly Carlin and the aforementioned Hendra, who read excerpts from Carlin’s first three books and constitutional lawyer Floyd Abrams.

Victor Varnado: Comedy nerd king

by Brendan McLaughlin

Victor Varnado is not your typical black comedian, and not just because his skin is far from dark. Determined to prove funny is funny, armed with little more than his wit and smarts, Varnado is about to unleash the Awkward Comedy Show on Comedy Central, a concert special that will change the way you look at the black comedy experience.

You may know Victor Varnado from his appearances on Comedy Central, Late Night With Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Kimmel Live. His observational style, deftly-written bits and unique perspective as a black albino have established him as a favorite of the national stand-up comedy scene.

But next month, you can get a more personalized look at Victor’s style, onstage and off, in The Awkward Comedy Show, the performance documentary he conceived and directed, The film, which profiles Victor and four other young black comics (Marina Franklin, Baron Vaughn, Eric Andre and Hannibal Burress), will premiere on Comedy Central on April 9 at midnight. Punchline Magazine recently caught up with Victor to ask him about directing a movie and giving the world a fresh dose of comic nerdiness.

How did the idea of this documentary/concert film come about?
It’s actually very silly, how it came about. I was up late one night, I was watching Showtime, and The Original Latin Divas of Comedy was on. And it’s not the best special in the world – I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it. And I was like, ‘How come they’re on Showtime?’ And I did Premium Blend a few years back, and some people at Comedy Central asked me to submit for a half hour special, and I submitted for a half hour and they turned me down, and I was like, ‘What am I gonna do now?’ Then I was just like, ‘Well, I know how to produce a movie. Why don’t I make my own comedy special?’ And then I figured that the best thing to do, since none of us in the comedy special were big names, would be to come up with some sort of hook. And that’s where The Awkward Comedy Show came from.

So you have a film background?
Well, I’m kind of a self-taught filmmaker. I really believe that the way you used to make it in comedy has changed, because technology has changed and the world has changed. There are so many tools in people’s hands right now; there’s shit you couldn’t have done many years ago. I actually went to college with a scholarship for playwriting, but that lead to screenwriting, which also lead me to just learning as much about filmmaking as I could possibly learn.

I had gotten a job directing a film for Warner Bros. Home Video before, which is a whole different story. It was called Twisted Fortune. It starred Charlie Murphy; Dave Attell was in it, some other people… And then that movie never came out because the producer like, screwed the pooch on his contract with Warner Brothers and screwed everything. So the film got repossessed by a bank or whatever. I didn’t produce that, that was just me directing.

So you knew what not to do?
Yeah, by watching him I knew exactly what not to do. (Laughs) But then I have a film festival that I’ve been working with for a while, and I’ve just been making short films on my own for quite a bit. And I was like, ‘I can look at what’s successful in comedy specials, or concert films and documentary films that I like and then I can just replicate or better that…’ Then that’s what I decided to do.

The Awkward Comedy Show has a unique look and feel, especially when you look at other comedy concert specials. How did you want it to be different from other comedy specials?
Well, you’re right. The visual style of the movie is one of the things I really wanted to be different. I really appreciated, I would say, Live At The Sunset Strip and Delirious, where the way the film was shot was more like a film. And it really is, one of the biggest parts about it is lighting. Because, in a lot of what they put on T.V. right now, people are pretty much lit as brightly as possible with a front spot. And that just creates a style that like, every comedy special has right now.

And I really wanted to give you a warmer feeling. Like when you go to a live show, people are not necessarily always lit with just a spot light. You see a much greater range of color. So I wanted to capture that feeling, especially when we’re performing in a theatrical setting. So I’m glad that you noticed that because that was one of the things I was going for. I really wanted it to look like older comedy films and not the stuff that’s, I would say, kinda churned out right now. I mean yeah, on top of all that I had to make it funny, of course. But I wanted it to look as good as it could look.

You also skipped a concert video staple: audience cutaways.
There are no audience cutaways because, for one thing, you get a sense of the audience already because the audience is all around the comedians. So you can see the audience from the side, you’re looking over the audience’s heads. It’s more like being in the audience, which is, I think, I great way to experience it.

And when we screened it at the New York premiere at 92Y Tribeca, it was great. It really was a feeling of being in the audience, where people would be watching the screen and laugh at the same time in the same way that people laughed in the film. Where, when I’ve seen other work on television, it’s not all the time that people laugh. Sometimes people just kind of regard it, because I think when you cut away to shots of the audience it kind of takes people out of just really experiencing the performance.

So you have four black comedians – Marina Franklin, Baron Vaughn, Eric Andre and Hannibal Burress, and yourself, and I’d consider you all part of the alternative comedy scene. Were you setting out to show what it’s like in that scene for black comics? And do you consider yourself an all-around alternative comic?
Well, I can be very honest with you. There’s two answers to that, and one is the answer that I will tell most media, and the other is the answer which is of necessity. Here’s the first answer: yeah, that’s what I do. Just like I’ve been outside of every group since I was born. Being a black albino person, I’ve been outside of every group.

And so, I never fit in this particular style. And what I tried to express, and what we showed in the interview in the beginning of the film, is that to most of the world, if you’re not Chris Rock, or you’re not Bill Cosby, and you’re a black comedian, they think of you a certain way. They’re like, ‘Oh, if he’s not Chris Rock or Bill Cosby, and he’s a black comedian, then he humps chairs!’ That’s what they think. And so, I wanted to bring to light what me and a lot of my friends do, which is, just, slightly different things than what most people think about when they think of black comedians.

And the OTHER side of that is, I came up with the idea for the movie, and I knew I wanted to do something with my friends, and I figured out oh, then I have to come up with something that fits my friends. And so, it happened to be a category that everybody fell into. So I basically started the idea with two or three people I wanted to do it with, and then I added other people who also fit into that realm. Because initially when I was thinking about this, I was looking at The Latin Divas on Showtime, and I was like, ‘Well I want to put something on television now, because I know I can put together a show with much funnier people. So what can I do to pass that fact that we’re not big names?’ So I had to come up with a concept that could take that place.

All comics deal with having different levels of success in front of different audiences. There’s a scene in the film where you guys discuss the difference between playing for predominantly black audiences and urban audiences. Do you think this movie plays to your usual audience, or is it an attempt to be seen by a more broad one?
I think anybody who likes funny will enjoy this movie. It’s not just for a particularly hipsterish audience or anything like that. It’s really for everybody. I think that in the movie, when we were talking about a predominantly black audience and the urban, we were talking about how sometimes a different audience comes to the table with a particular expectation, and if you don’t immediately start fulfilling that expectation, they can turn on you.

This whole movie is about showing people to just open up what your expectations might be. There could be any style comedy coming from black comedians. I love that Baron [Vaughn] is very much his own theatrical style, and then you’ve got Eric Andre, who’s just nuts…

At one point Eric Andre fits a whole glass cup in his mouth and drinks out of it. That blew my mind.
He’s hilarious right?! That’s just who he is. And Marina is just great at being very calm and taking you on these incredible journeys. And then Hannibal is, like, sooo sedated. It’s just amazing how he is onstage. Even in this movie, I don’t think I covered what I’ve seen in terms of black comedians not doing the, quote unquote, ‘expected thing.’

The movie has animated segments scattered throughout it. Who did the animation and where did that idea come from?
The idea for that just came from me. I studied animation, and I wanted to include it in the movie if it worked out. And then, I figured out it would be fun to have the comedians, at one point, be speaking to the camera and have them telling a personal story from their lives. I thought that that would be fantastic to do.

I got this guy Darren Santa Maria and he did a great job. Really, he was the animator, but we had different artists doing each section. So we had cartoonists do the sections, and he would pick apart their drawings and animate them. So each section was a very different cartoonist – except for the opening section, which was me just all doing it myself. I wrote and animated that part.

How did Comedy Central get involved?
We started shooting it almost a year and a half ago. So then I started submitting the finished film to festivals. And I also emailed some friends I know at Comedy Central, and I was like, ‘I have this movie that’s finished.’ I shot them over the trailer for it, and they thought it was cool and said they wanted to see the screener. And after we were rejected from our second festival… (Laughs) We got really close to being in South by Southwest, but we didn’t in the end. We got edged out by somebody else. And then I wanted to do Hot Docs, which is a documentary festival. But because we weren’t as much of a documentary as they wanted, we didn’t get in that one. But before we even got that information back, we heard from Comedy Central that they were interested in licensing it.

And when I made this whole thing, my original idea was to be on Comedy Central. Because I wanted to do it, I wanted everybody to see it. I wanted to get as much of an audience as possible, because I thought it was unique. When I conceived of it, I thought it would be good, but when I finished it, I thought it was way better than my original concept. I thought it turned out just great. I mean I loved the way it looked, I loved the animated sections, but I thought all the comics did such a great job.

Even if you take away how the movie looks and just focus on the performances of the comics, it’s really interesting, and not like stand-up specials I’ve seen for a while. The variety of the comics and just the style of the comics is not like something I’ve seen on television in a long time. And so, I was really excited about it. In fact, I passed over putting it on Showtime so that I could premiere it on Comedy Central instead.

Don’t you think nerdiness and awkwardness are considered cool these days, especially in comedy?
Yeah! I think the first thing I do when I meet a woman is tell her I’m a nerd, and boom! Panties right off. (Laughs) I’m a big nerd. I don’t know if it’s necessarily cool, but my ability to be a nerd actually helped me make this whole thing happen. Like if I wasn’t such a big nerd and I knew technically how to do things, this movie would have never been made.

There’s no way, because we didn’t have the money. I was doing a lot of things myself. Like, I, with a friend of mine painted the backdrop for the performance. Like I said, I did the animation. I was working back and forth with the editor, and we would talk about very technical parts of the editing because I’m very familiar with Final Cut Pro as well. The editor though, he did the heavy lifting. He’s a fantastic, great guy – Steven Rosenthal, who does a bunch of stuff for Comedy Central as well. But without being nerdy, this wouldn’t even exist. There’s just no way.

The Awkward Comedy Show premieres on Comedy Central on April 9. DVDs will be available online and in stores on May 4. For more information on the film, Victor and the other comics profiled, check out the Awkward Comedy Show website.

Comedy Matters with Jim Breuer, Aries Spears, more

by Jeffrey Gurian

Kevin Hart Sells Out Westbury

It’s hard to describe the excitement of producing a comedy show for 2,800 people, especially when all 2,800 people show up! The Kevin Hart Live show was months in the making and I could not have done it without my partner Jean Alerte and his company Alerte Carter and Associates who worked tirelessly to make sure the show was a success.

After months of work, the contract finally came through on Sept. 21, 2009, the very same day I lost my Mom, and Jean said to me that our contract came through thanks to her. He called me that day and said, “Your Mom’s an angel. I got the contract with Kevin.”

Once I knew that, I called my old buddy Tony Rock and asked him to come on board, and we decided to have Wil Sylvince as our MC. I’ve liked Wil ever since I saw him win the funniest new comic award at Carolines during her NY Comedy Festival a few years ago.

Then we went to Westbury theater on Long Island in New York and under the expert guidance of Jason Stone, Sr. V.P of Booking for Live Nation and his wonderful staff including Heather Federlin, and Dan Kellachan, we were able to pull it off.

The day before the event Kevin and his manager Nate Smith, flew in on the redeye from LA, and thanks to the hard work of ACA publicist Tamar Bazin, we started our day hitting the radio stations at 7 A.M. We went to Hot 97 to sit in with DJ Cipha Sounds and Peter Rosenberg who do the early morning show.

Cipha Sounds has a great affinity for comedy. I’ve seen him hosting a comedy show at Carolines, and the man is actually very funny. He needs some more material, but I can always hook him up with that!

Then we ran over to the CW 11 to do a TV segment where Kevin was the guest weatherman and did his version of hip-hop weather.

Then it was back down to Hot 97 to shoot a Hot 97 TV segment with Cipha Sounds and we did a thing on Kiss FM with Steve Wilson, from the D.L. Hughley morning show, and Kevin and Steve kicked it on the air for a while.

Then we went up to WBLS, where Tony Rock joined us, so that Kevin could do an on-air interview with our girl Egypt, who also made us an amazing radio promo that had been playing on our Kevin Hart Live website. Egypt just happens to be married to DJ FaDelf who was on the ones and twos out at Westbury for our Kevin Hart show. The man knows how to get a crowd all worked up, for real!

A lot of comedy websites promo’ed the show which also raised some money for Haiti. My dear friend Unik Ernest, the Haitian nightlife impresario that used to own PM, Gin Lane, Merkato 55 and other hot Manhattan nightspots created a foundation called Edeyo, which in Creole means “Help Them.” They raise money to take care of Haiti’s kids and in 2007 had built a new beautiful school for 200 kids.

Three days before the quake, I brought my partner Jean who is also Haitian, and introduced him to Unik, with the thought that they should know each other, and that we could have his charity as the beneficiary of our show.

G-d works in mysterious ways, because only three days afterwards the quake struck, and we already had everything in place. Unfortunately the new school they built was destroyed in the quake and if you go to Edeyo’s site, you’ll see what Unik is doing to help his country rebuild.

The day of the show was like a dream. I got there really early to get ready to host the red carpet, which was being filmed for the Chris Rock documentary film on The Comic Strip, and where I interviewed Richie Tienken, owner of The Strip, Sherrod Small from VH1, Jordan Rock, Josaine from Bridezillas, Kendra from The Bad Girls Club, and my boy Macio, who is such a fabulous performer, and who came out to support with his gorgeous wife Gina. Richie used to manage Tony Rock back in the day.

By the time I got to my seat, Wil Sylvince was already on stage, and he killed it. The audience went crazy for him. Wil is hysterical but some of his material made me glad I wasn’t sitting with my daughters Liz and Katti who were sitting in Section G, thinking that they were glad they weren’t sitting next to me.

At the end of the show when they called me and Jean up on stage, I gave a shout out to my daughters, “ the two white girls in Section G.” Someone thought I said, “the two Black girls in Section G” which would have been even funnier.

Tony Rock was incredible. He makes it look so easy, cause he’s so relaxed out there, and he too absolutely killed with his material.

Then there was a brief intermission before Kevin took the stage, and it amazed me how calm and relaxed he was standing at the entrance to the stage waiting to go on. That’s the sign of a true performer, and when he went out there he showed why he sells out every show he does.

Kevin has about 250,000 followers on Twitter and he’s on it so much, I’m surprised he wasn’t Tweeting while he was on stage. I find Kevin to be more of a story teller than an out and out joke teller. Story telling is kind of a lost art, and he does it like a true artiste! ( I added the “e” purposely, for dramatic effect!)

He is so gracious to his fans. When we were making the rounds of the radio stations Kevin was mobbed by a crowd of about 30 kids in the street and he posed for photos with all of them, signed books and shirts and was very gracious with his time.

He’s a man who enjoys his well-deserved success, and I was proud to have produced his show.

As a matter of fact, it kept me from attending the Writer’s Guild of America, East Awards where Alan Zweibel, the man who gave me my start as a comedy writer many years ago, was honored with the Ian McLellan Hunter Award for Lifetime Achievement in Writing.

One of SNL’s original writers, which is when I met him, Alan went on to win multiple Emmy, Writers Guild, and TV Critic’s awards for his work in TV, including his work on It’s Gary Shandling’s Show, Monk, and Curb Your Enthusiasm. He’s written films and books, including The Other Shulman for which he won the 2006 Thurber Prize. And I would have loved to have gone and covered the event, where my dear friend Susie Essman was the host, but what are the chances it would be on the exact same night as my Kevin Hart show? I guess the chances were excellent, because it was!

Comic Strip News

The book and the documentary film on The Strip keep rolling along. We did one of our first group interviews for the book, cause if we didn’t we’d have a thousand page book. In this group were Joe Bolster, Wayne Federman, Bill McCarty, D.F. Sweedler, and Ray Pasquin.

Ray, who’s a comic impressionist, and was also one of the partners in the Ft. Lauderdale branch of The Strip, was actually one of the performers on the very first night that The Strip opened, June 1, 1976.

D.F. Sweedler performed on the second night and never left. He’s still there most nights and has also been teaching the comedy course at The Strip for about 15 years.

Bill McCarty still performs at The Strip as well, besides performing all around the country and doing voiceovers.

Wayne Federman got there around 1981, and he writes for Jimmy Fallon and also opens for him when they tour together. Wayne took notes through the whole interview, as each person’s comments reminded him of another story he wanted to tell.

I tried my best to have each comic go one at a time. It would be impossible to try and transcribe an interview of comics trying to shout over one another, which is inevitably what happens when comics begin reminiscing.

Joe Bolster didn’t get to The Strip until 1979, and Chris Rock raved about him during his own interview, about how no one could kill like Joe Bolster on a Saturday night at The Strip.

Every single comic has his own impression of Lucien Hold, the legendary manager of The Strip for 25 years, but so far Joe Bolster nailed it best as far as I’m concerned. He had examples of the kind of obscure references that Lucien would make very matter-of-factly in his every day speech. Things like “ Robert Lowell the poet from Massachusetts, invented iambic pentameter once”, or “ Copernicus, who I thought was a little bit fey, remarked that the planets were not aligned properly during the medieval era”.

But it was his story about the time he missed a weekend spot and had to make up an excuse to Lucien that stood out for me. He had only been working there about two months and missing a weekend show was grounds for capital punishment.

Joe had met a girl after his first show, took her back to some other comic’s apartment to have his way with her, and never made it back for the second show. As he entered the club later that night, he knew he had to come up with a spectacular excuse for Lucien who greeted him with, “ So Mr. Bolster, I couldn’t help noticing you were unavailable for your scheduled spot on show number two.”

And Joe was like, “ Lucien, I’m so sorry but the most horrible thing happened. At the end of my first show I met this girl, and I took her back to Peter Bayles’ apartment and at the end she had an epileptic seizure.” And without missing a beat Lucien goes, “ Petit or Grand Mal?” ( The group of us fell down laughing, cause it was one of the best examples of Lucien that anyone had.)

Rick Newman the founder of Catch A Rising Star is an icon in comedy and I had been looking forward to interviewing him for the book for a long time. He had opened Catch in 1973, and until The Strip opened in ’76, it was basically The Improv and Catch. The Strip changed that dynamic and I was looking forward to getting Rick’s take on the whole thing.

Rick and Richie Tienken always got along well and actually helped each other out if they needed a comic to fill in cause they were only a few blocks apart. Richie admitted to Rick that Rick was his hero, and his inspiration for opening The Strip, and they hugged. It was a great moment to see these two comedy legends together.

Rick is doing so many exciting new projects. He’s also on the Entertainment Committee of The Friars Club, and is Exec. Producer of the huge hit, Celebrity Autobiography, the show where celebs read from other celebs autobiographies. The show is currently at The Triad Theatre, but looks like it’s going national.

Rick was also interviewed for the documentary, and stayed around to see Susie Essman who came in to be interviewed after him. That was a really fun day. Susie says I have more photos with her than she has with her husband Jimmy. I don’t feel right using old photos in this column, so I always try and get a new photo every time I see the person.

Comedy Matters Quickies

Fashion PR guru Kelly Cutrone invited me to her book signing at Barnes and Noble, for her book, “If You Have To Cry, Go Outside,” which is basically the fascinating story of her hard won rise to fame and success in the world of fashion PR.

It was so great to see her cause it had been a while. Kelly and I go back to my early days in Manhattan, and I actually reminded her of the event I attended that really put her on the map. She did a show in an art gallery called “Love, Spit, Love,” which was basically naked couples in different amorous positions. The press she achieved for that was astronomical. I still remember the barricades they had out front because the crowds waiting to get in were so huge.

So when she saw me in the packed room she gave me a shout out on the mic. She also hooked me up with some of her shows during fashion week. Her Monday night show on Bravo, “Kell On Earth” is one of the best reality shows on the air, and I wish her much luck with it.

I don’t know what it is with my friends from the 80’s and 90’s but they all wound up on TV. I wish it would happen to me! (LOL, … but not really!) LuAnn DeLesseps, also known as Countess LuAnn from the Real Housewives of NYC, and I partied hard back in the day, way before she became a real Countess. In those days she was just a Princess, named LuAnn Nadeau and she was a nurse, and a model.

She had a magical transformation, wound up modeling in Europe, met a Count, got married and the rest is history, as they say in certain small towns in the Far East. To me she’s the highlight of the show, not just cause we’re such old friends but because I think she handles herself best, and has the least number of “cringe” moments on the show.

She wasn’t able to make the red carpet for the Kevin Hart show cause she was attending an event at the UN that night, but instead she invited me to the Housewives premiere party for the first episode of Season 3 at La Pomme. I went and it was definitely fun.
( Hey Lu, when am I gonna be on?)

Sandy Hicks’ Rockers on Broadway, a benefit show which she produces with Donnie Kehr of Jersey Boys, (who founded Rockers in 1993), is always a spectacular event, and I never know who I’m going to run into there. This time it was Jackie “The Jokeman” Martling, Steven Van Zandt who was there in his music persona as Little Steven, and not as Silvio of The Sopranos, with his beautiful wife actress Maureen Van Zandt, and Vincent Pastore, who even if he was singing and dancing, would still remind you of “Big Pussy” of The Sopranos.

“Rockers” brings rock stars together with Broadway stars to raise money for good causes, and this time it was a star-studded event for The Children of Haiti.

Vinny ran an auction and made people offers they couldn’t refuse to bid on items. He raised lots of money. Who says “No” to Vinny Pastore?

Among other stars that performed were Christian Hoff, 2006 Tony Award winner for Jersey Boys, J.Robert Spencer of the same show, Grammy Award winner Larry Gatlin, who’s always there for Rockers, Michael Lanning (The Civil War), Jeremy Schonfeld (Drift), Tony nominee for Rock of Ages, and American Idol star Constantine Maroulis, and an old, old friend, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Gene Cornish of The Rascals.

Gotham Happenings

As usual Gotham had a line-up that kept me busy this month. I went down to see Jeff Dye from Last Comic Standing who is not only very funny and works pretty clean, but is also a genuinely nice guy who was grateful when I told him I enjoyed his show.

The very talented, and hard working Vanessa Hollingshead was the MC, and is one of the few women that can really control a crowd.

Jeff Caldwell was up next. Jeff is really so clever, and cracks me up with observations like “ People in the year 1516 were so wise. Many of them lived to be 30.” Or after commenting that eating at a restaurant named Ed’s Kountry Kitchen, spelled with a “K” might lead to “Kountry Kramps,” he went on to wonder about the excitement over anti-bacterial soap. “ I kinda thought that was part of our original contract with soap in the first place. What have I been using all these years?”

Perennial crowd pleaser, (as opposed to one who only pleases part of the time!), Lenny Marcus complains that girls often say, “ I’m tired of meaningless sex.” Well, what do you want to do, dedicate it to somebody? O.K. Lenny, this one’s for the troops!” Hysterical.

Jeff Dye thinks that LA is weird and has a real double standard. “If a girl goes out and sleeps with a lot of guys she’s a slut. If a guy does that he’s homosexual.” And concerning gay marriage, Jeff is convinced that knowing the pitfalls of any kind of marriage, gay guys probably vote “No” themselves, when they’re alone in the voting booth. They’re still guys. I would love to Eric, but it’s against the law!”

Aries Spears headlined a great show, MC’ed by Buddy Fitzpatrick. Eddie Brill who books Letterman was there to see Joe Wong do his 5 minute Letterman bit before he went on the show for his first time, and Joe killed with lines like, “ I was once the youngest baby in the world.”

Aries said that Black people didn’t have to worry about getting Anthrax, “cause we don’t open our mail anyway. You wanna give Black people Anthrax, put the powder in a Jay-Z CD.” Great line!

Comedy Covers

The great Jim Breuer did an interesting show. In music, certain bands do “covers”, meaning they sing another band’s song. Jim did a show called “Comedy Covers” where comics do another comic’s material. It’s a great idea and very funny.

Several of the comics didn’t do themselves doing the comic they covered, they did impressions of someone ELSE doing the comic they covered.

Vinnie Brand was great doing Gilbert Gottfried doing Mitch Hedburg with lines like “ A lollypop is a cross between hard candy and garbage.” And “ If you’re a fish and want to be a fish stick, you have to have very good posture.” And finally, “ My fake plant died because I didn’t pretend to water it.”

Bib DiBuono did a great Rich Vos including the backwards hat, and chided the audience with, “ You want poetry, go to Soho!”

Mike Bochetti who I love despite the fact that he forgot he had booked me on The Testosterone Show, did a spot, but I don’t recall who he covered. Even the hilarious Jim Gaffigan came in and did a set including Jack Nicholson doing a Gary Shandling joke.

Joey Kola killed with his impression of Joe Pesci making cornbread, which was so good that Jim Breuer, who also does a great Pesci, joined him on stage for “Dueling Pesci’s” doing the legendary Abbot and Costello bit, “ Who’s On First.” It was a fantastic show.

I’ll end on what has become one of my favorite shows to attend. Once a month Anthony Anderson and Royale Watkins, who call themselves The Good-Time Brothers, do their Mixtape Show and each one is better than the last.

Anthony is a great host, and a real gentleman, and has surrounded himself with what seems to be a crack team of people. (And I don’t mean that they’re on crack!)

Dean Edwards is always really funny, but he also does GREAT impressions, and imitates accents which are real crowd-pleasers.

Joey Gay talked about how in the ghetto KFC doesn’t stand for Kentucky Fried Chicken. It stands for Kennedy Fried Chicken, cause you can get assassinated there.

It was the first time for me seeing Pat Brown, who was a big hit with the crowd, and then Dwayne Perkins came on and killed with lines like when his gf asks him, “ When are you gonna do the dishes?” Dwayne: “ I’m not sure. First I’m gonna watch the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and then read The Old Testament.”

He also had a great money saving tip. Send someone a letter for free by putting their name and address in the return area, and your own name in the “To” area, so when it gets “returned” for insufficient postage, it gets where you wanted it to go in the first place! Ingenious.

Lots of celebs just show up, like Tichina Arnold, known best from the sit-coms Martin and Everybody Loves Chris. I didn’t recognize her at first with her long sexy hair, when she came over and complimented me on MY hair. I love a woman with good taste!

The musical guests were writer/performers Full Force who looked like two bodybuilders, (one with the great name “Bowlegged Lou”), who were such good dancers you’d have thought they were small and thin. The show just totally rocks!

Next month, Sat. April 24th, get ready for Darcy Novick’s 8th annual Long Island Comedy Festival at Westbury starring Bob Nelson, Richie Minervini, Angel Salazar and Scott Record. A portion of the proceeds will benefit Comedy Cures.

Anyway, until next time, remember, … COMEDY MATTERS!!!

Maria Bamford: Plan B

by John Delery

Invisible sentries flank most comedians it seems, guarding them from revealing all of their personality to the audience. Watching Maria Bamford, on the other hand, is like witnessing a full-body scan: She bares her busy brain and every pore and insecurity in Plan B, the DVD, from Stand Up! Records, of her daffy, evocative and illuminating stage show at the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis, Minn.

After a demoralizing show in Detroit, Bamford surrenders to a particularly cruel heckler and retreats home to Duluth., Minn., for some comforting and career convalescence and recharging. The perfect premise for a sitcom (every ambitious comic’s aspiration, every enterprising comic’s mission while battling buffoons and rejection on the front lines at comedy clubs nightly), Bamford thinks. The idea thrills her equally encouraging and discouraging talent agent, who through Bamford, an impersonation savant, hoarsely heralds: “This is fantastic! This is a breakthrough. We need to recast you!”

The fictional plan fails, but the real show succeeds because of its occasionally enigmatic and always charismatic star, a masterly mimic who with a change of pitch, one facial tic can magically recast herself in the lead roles. Without makeup or costume changes, she believably becomes her fingernail-gnawing, abrupt and blunt sister, Sarah, her grunting, snorting, wheezing dermatologist dad, Joel, and her dowdy and aggressively direct Midwestern mom, Marilyn, who supports her daughter while simultaneously yanking away her youngest child’s crutches: “Honey, we love you,” Maria/Marilyn declares, “but you’re not welcome at home.”

It’s not that Bamford’s life is a joke; it’s that the kooky comic’s life is the joke. We cringe and laugh convulsively because we see ourselves in her plight. Instead of a biopic, consider Plan B, bioshtick, an hour-long behind-the-mind glimpse at a sensational comedian, who molds pathos and gags into memorable and intimate comic art.

To purchase Plan B, click the image below.

Leslie Jones: Just wants to make you laugh

by Noah Gardenswartz

Katt Williams was just looking for another female comic for his now-legendary It’s Pimpin Pimpin tour. What he got was Leslie Jones, a powerhouse presence onstage. The proof is in her new DVD Problem Child.

Comedian Leslie Jones has no reason to be intimidated by the male-dominated comedy world. She is genuinely funny and she can beat most men up. The abrasive diva made the industry take notice after her successful run as a complementary act on Katt Williams’ It’s Pimpin’ Pimpin’ tour.

Following the recent release of her first comedy DVD, Problem Child, the 6-foot tall, foul-mouthed female apprentice of comedy pimpin’ caught up with Punchline Magazine to discuss her past influences, her present successes and her future plans in comedy.

Where are you originally from?
I was born in Memphis, but I grew up in Cali and New York. My dad was in the army so we moved around a lot.

When and where did you first start doing comedy?
I started in 1987, and my first show was actually at Colorado State University. I played basketball there, but somebody entered me in the “Funniest Person on Campus” contest.

So from that moment on you just knew comedy was what you were going to do?
No, I really didn’t start doing just straight comedy until ’98. I had a lot of different jobs before I decided to become a full-time comedian.

What were some of the other jobs you had outside of comedy?
Shit… I worked maintenance, I was a perfume salesman, I even used to marry people! I did a lot of different things.

Do you think moving around so much growing up, and working that many different jobs had a large effect on your material?
Most definitely, it did. I bring my life to the stage, so having so many experiences has helped my comedy in giving me different things to talk about, and different ways to look at what’s going on around me.

Did being a former college athlete help prepare you for comedy as well? Like, do you handle the pressure and competition any better because of your days as an athlete?
You know… you play how you practice. So, it helped in knowing that I needed to be prepared to perform. And yeah, it helped in knowing how to deal with the pressure and being in front of crowds. But in sports, and comedy, and life, in general, whatever it is that you want you have to go and get it.

How did you get to become part of Katt Williams’ tour?
Katt wanted another female comedian for the tour and he had seen me and when he asked me to be part of the tour, it was a no-brainer for me. I had like $15 in my bank account at the time.

That tour was your big break, but how was it being on the road for that long and actually being part of a big tour like that?
The It’s Pimpin’ Pimpin tour was 107 cities, six straight months, and you really don’t appreciate it ‘til it’s gone. It was a long time being on the road and traveling, but when it all finally ended and I got back home I thought about how good it was, and how much fun we were having out there on the road.

That’s a long time to be on the road non-stop. Did any of those 107 cities stand out from the others on tour, and why?
There were so many cities that came out and showed us love, but I have to say there were a few that stood out. Washington D.C. was crazy and we got to perform at Constitution Hall. But Grand Rapids, Michigan was so live! I almost jumped in the crowd they were such a great audience.

How often do you work on the road by yourself now that the tour is over?
I stay on the road, still. I’m always on the road somewhere working.

What kind of crowds do you prefer, because you’ve been on a big tour and you’ve played all types of different venues – do you like performing for hood crowds or standard comedy club crowds?
Lately I’ve been doing more mainstream clubs, but now crowds are so mixed. Even at the black clubs, white people show up. So it really doesn’t matter to me where I perform or what type of crowd it is, just as long as they’re there to have fun and I can make them laugh their asses off.

Do you enjoy performing or writing more?
Performing. Once I get on stage it’s so fun. It makes all of it worth it, even with all the bullshit that goes on with the business just to get to perform, once the show starts and I’m up there I like to just have fun with it.

Who are your comedic role models?
I know it’s a cliché but honestly, Richard Pryor. I loved Richard Pryor, even when I was young. My dad would be like, ‘how do you understand what he’s saying?’ but I loved how animated he was, and he reminded me of my uncles, and people in my life. Then when Eddie Murphy came on, I was like, ‘Yes! It’s a more hip Richard Pryor.’ But Whoopi (Goldberg) is special because Whoopi made me say, ‘I can do comedy.’ She was black, a woman, and normal looking. She wasn’t beautiful, or anything extra, she was just a funny, normal black woman.

And how is your comedy influenced by all of them?
I mean, they were just raw, real people talking about real shit, but they always kept it funny, and that’s something I do– I remember to keep it fun. Comedy now is getting too serious. Everyone is trying to make a fucking point and teach, but we started as jesters. We’re there to make people laugh! People are thinking that they’re bigger than the craft, but when you’re gone, comedy will still be there. There’s no problem with teaching and having something to say up there, but don’t forget to make the people laugh while you do it.

What do you have planned for 2010? What should we look out for from you?
I’ll still be on the road performing so look out for me, and I did four movies last year that are all coming out this year, so I’m trying out here and I’m looking for big things in 2010.

For more info on Leslie, check out myspace.com/lesliejonescomedy. To purchase Leslie’s new DVD, click the image below.

Shane Mauss: Jokes to Make My Parents Proud

by Reid Faylor

Sometimes, being juvenile can be a good thing. While often associated with being crass, on the other hand, when done right, there can be a childlike charm that proves good-natured and simultaneously devious.

Shane Mauss is all of those things. On Jokes to Make My Parents Proud (Comedy Central Records), Mauss exhibits a very kid-like humor; he’s full of pranks, sarcasm, and  has no reservations about referencing butts, farts and sex. But Mauss is instantly likable, and as gross and silly as his humor can be, the jokes on his album are keenly crafted, relatable, and, at times, wonderfully clever.

There’s no pretense or higher philosophy to said jokes. But the absence of mind-probing material only helps this album succeed in being fun. His range of topics is overplayed to be sure — drinking, weed, not one but two stories about “butt sex” — but to each, he adds a sense of learned goofiness (if there is such a thing) or a great twist. Or even some clever phrasing, like, “I’m not macho. No guns, no weapons, any of that stuff. Somersaults… that’s how I roll.”

The standout track of the album is “Unexpected Pregnancy,” (above) an oddly brilliant joke about going back in time as a woman to have sex with himself as a prank. It’s one-stop shopping in Shane’s mind: there’s adolescent grossness, twisted logic, and witty writing.

Download the entire album by clicking the image below.

Hasan Minhaj: Leaning On Expensive Cars And Getting Paid To Do It

by Emma Kat Richardson

Hasan Minhaj is a thoroughly modern man, and he’s just the type of dude to take great pains to let you know so. He’s also something of an ethnic comedy anomaly; not exactly a niche, genre-oriented comedian, per se, but his combined persona and onstage voice certainly make for an interesting juxtaposition of the best off-kilter and heartily robust comedic vices, springing from origins both from the Indian subcontinent and deep within the bellowing bravado of an American thrust into the spotlight with a microphone.

In his debut comedy album, the overly titled Leaning on Expensive Cars and Getting Paid to Do It (so long Subway could probably charge $5 for it), Minhaj spends much of the album eagerly aping his credibility with the members of Generation: Millennial. It’s a feat accomplished through a plethora of references to, in no particular order or ascending significance: Xbox, YouTube, Facebook (listen below), Kanye West, Zac Efron, Captain Planet, Slumdog Millionaire, Twilight and, well, I’d like to tell you more, but fear spoiling the fun to be had at the expense of social networking and viral media outlets.

Sandwiched in between heavily self-effacing skits are Minhaj’s jokes and frenetic comedic cadences; so madcap is his talent and delivery that it’s almost easy to mistake this first generation American for a curry-infused Dane Cook.

And happily, when Minhaj scores, he tends to win big – he’s in his element most assuredly during rants on present day curiosities, and even more so when waxing poetic (however harshly) on his Indian immigration roots. Leaning on Expensive Cars’ most impressive achievement, by far, is its uncanny positioning as the comedic jewel in a generational snapshot. Few comics have managed to capture the moment perhaps as accurately as Minhaj; found here is true time capsule material for the post-millennial archaeologists yet to begin digging.

To purchase the full download of the album, click the image below.

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