the comic's comic

The skinny on Dan Boulger

The online record tells you very little about Dan Boulger. We're about to correct that, although not by much. Boulger remains an elusive comedy creature. This much is known. He is 20 (turns 21 in December) and still lives in Norwood. And on Sept. 16, he emerged victorious in the annual Boston Comedy Festival stand-up contest, and many of his colleagues and competitors alike rejoiced. Why? Just look at the kid.

Forget for a minute that my cameraphone usually offers dark, fuzzy snapshots and focus on the fact that for the biggest gig in his young career, Dan Boulger wore a red hooded sweatshirt. He looked just like he does at any open mike around Boston, or even how he did when he was the Comedy Studio's comic-in-residence earlier this year. He was unfazed by it all. He just went out there and told his jokes. That's what made so many other Boston comics happy about his win — that and the fact that he's a young guy, so awarding him against some veteran stand-ups might signal a changing of the comedy guard, if you enjoy reading too much into things. It did signal a victory for locals over experienced out-of-towners. But let's get back to Boulger, shall we?
When I spoke with him that night, he said he wasn't sure what he'd do now that he had $7,000 for winning. "Business cards would be good," he dead-panned. He also said he didn't have any gigs lined up, save for a weekend in October (Oct. 6-7) at the Comedy Connection — in Portland, Maine. A couple of weeks later, I caught up with Boulger again. Earlier this week, Boulger popped up on the completely inside-comedy WMFO radio show "Gods and Goddesses," where he explained why his e-mail address isn't quite his actual name. According to Boulger, it resulted quite simply from bad typing. "S is next to D on the typewriter," he said. "Then I had to put a 1 on there because there was already an sbolger (online)." Right.

Boulger started comedy two years ago at 18. "It was kinda a weird thing," he explained to me. "My brother went to college with Patrick Borelli, one of the first Studio guys…then I always watched comedy during high school, started writing comedy my senior year. Then first week of college, I went down to the Vault." His closing bit during the contest, about rhetorical questions, actually came from his high school experiences. "I wrote that in high school," he said. "That was one of the first jokes I wrote."

It's all about writing jokes, jokes and more jokes. "I'll write hundreds of jokes and then one of them might be good," he said. "I usually get, I write probably like seven pages of jokes a month. I don't know how many that comes out to." Do you carry around a pad and pen? "No. I used to carry around a voice recorder, but that looked ridiculous."

Boulger still has plenty of room for growth, obviously. And so he still plugs away at local open mikes. Have things changed for him in terms of gigs, stage time? "I walked into Nick's and got on. That never happened before. Nor will it ever happen again." What did you talk about? "I talked mostly about animal cruelty." Are you for it or against it? "I'm against it in life, but I'm for it in comedy."

Dan Boulger performs tonight with The Outtakes at the Vault (below Remington's). Other upcoming gigs: Oct. 6-7 in Portland, Maine; Oct. 10 at Zebro, ImprovBoston; Oct. 17, Suffolk U.; Oct. 18, Comedy Studio; Oct. 20, Brown U.; Oct. 21, Stand-Uprov, ImprovBoston; Oct. 27, Comedy Studio.

Todd Phillips on comedy, "scoundrels"

Filmmaker Todd Phillips talked with me the other day (actually, last Friday) about comedy and his latest film, School For Scoundrels, which opens today.

What made you laugh as a kid?
"For me it was all about Eddie Murphy's Raw. and it was all about Stripes and Blues Brothers. Those are the kinds of things I grew up on. You'd like to pretend you grew up on Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder but that stuff came later in life. The truth is it was Animal House and Meatballs and Stripes and Eddie Murphy. That is definitely what my younger influences were."

But you didn't start making comedies until you hooked up with Ivan Reitman (on Road Trip), right?
"I was also only 26 years old…I started doing documentaries, but if you had seen the documentaries that I had done…they all have a real comedic slant to them. They're not done like, I never approached documentary like journalism, it was always as a director and a filmmaker. So it wasn't a big leap to go from a documentary into narrative features, because well, if you do a documentary correctly, and if you actually direct a documentary, it has a beginning, a middle and an end. It has little things about each character that get let out slowly in the story just like in a narrative feature. So it's all storytelling. It's all filmmaking."

I also noticed you have a story credit on Borat. What part do you take credit for? "I know those guys, Sacha, and we just helped them brainstorm that movie. I mean, Sacha, he's a genius. He does his whole thing entirely. For him it's so much about just coming up with the big idea and then he goes in and does it."

Why remake School For Scoundrels?
"For us it was really an opportunity to work with Billy Bob," he said. "It was really about finding something cool that would be in his wheelhouse that we could do. So that's really where it started."

Did you make a conscious effort to cast comedians with street cred like Sarah Silverman and David Cross?
"There's about seven improv guys in this movie who are probably the top seven improv guys in New York right now…For me and David Cross and Sarah fit into this reasoning, I like having as many funny people on the set as possible. I like having, it's really a spirit thing more than anything. It helps the vibe of the set. It's very much like, I read somewhere early on, it's important to set the tone of the movie on the set of the movie and its very much that. It's keeping the atmosphere and the vibe really loose and funny and it always ends up finding its way into the film."

"I realize sometimes I sound like a major stoner, because all I ever do is talk about vibes. But it's true….I don't really do casting. I don't have people come in and read lines and videotape them and watch it. I just meet people and I feel it. It's the weirdest thing. I feel like I sound like a psycho. But comedy to me is about essence and tone and all these things that you can just really feel and you don't really act. So when Jon Glaser walks into the room, even though I haven't really seen him do anything and we start talking about the part. You feel it. If I tell you to stand up and read these lines right now and put a video camera on you and sat two other people next to you — that's not how you're normally going to be anyway. And it's not the atmosphere I'm going to set up for you on the set of the movie. So it's so much more about the underneath stuff."

Do you think it'd be fair to characterize your films as "big dumb comedies"?
"The dumb part I don't love, but I'll take it. Two out of three ain't bad…But I don't know that broad means dumb. I think dumb overall would describe, I'm trying to think of a comedy that's dumb…Really I think these movies work because there's an emotional thread through them that people connect with, and I find that hard to say that that's dumb. So even the tennis scene is ridiculous and broad. It's not necessarily dumb, because there's something going on there, it's happening for a reason, that I think actually drags you into the movie more. So dumb? I think I would take umbrage with the word. I don't see comedies as the ugly stepsister in narrative filmmaking. I don't see it as a genre that you grow out of. I'd be happy doing comedies forever. I love doing comedies. And I love working with funny people."

Later, we came back to the nature of comedians and comedy.
"Comedy is so much about fearlessness. It's about setting up the environment on a movie set where people, actors feel safe to (expletive) up. It's so much about, Will's biggest strength is his fearlessness. And Jim Carrey's biggest strength is his fearlessness. And Sacha's biggest strength is his fearlessness. These guys have no fear. And that translates in such a huge way, because you just can't be self-conscious in any way, and you just can't worry about if it's going to work or not, because it's all about going for it. And you know what? 9 out of the 10 times it doesn't work, but we're only going to see it in the movie the times it worked. It's so hard. And live theater is the hardest because if it doesn't work, people see your mistakes…Movies, you watch the Borat stuff, you didn't see the 18 times it didn't work, you see the (expletive) golden time. But that's why he's so brilliant. Because he's relentless. You know what I mean. That's why Will's so great, because he'll try it eight different ways until the one way that works golden. The best guys just blow you away with that."

Bobby Slayton on Married Man vs. Entourage

Bobby Slayton admits he doesn’t often perform here, but there’s a couple of good reasons why he’ll be doing stand-up around New England this weekend.

“I’m coming to see the (Rolling) Stones, I’m trying to pay for this million-dollar (expletive) house. I’ve got, my old man lives in Mashpee. And then Mike Clarke said, we’ll get you a gig in Giggles, get you a gig in Hyannis...I kinda like to earn my keep.”

Some people have said that HBO’s Entourage is the male version of Sex and the City. I always thought that honor should’ve gone to Mind of the Married Man, in which Slayton played a guy named Slayton.
“I just started getting into Entourage,” he said. “People are stupid. They always try to label a show…When Binder wrote (Married Man), it’s old news already, but the show itself, it really was like Sex and the City. Horny guys trying to get laid. Entourage, they have that apartment, but it’s more about show-biz.”

Slayton had front row seats to the Stones concert at Gillette Stadium, thanks to his friendship with someone who works for the band. “It just defies…it’s amazing to me. I’m 50. But if I run across the comedy club stage, I have to catch my breath,” he said. Not Jagger, who’s past 60. “He runs around like a spidermonkey. I don’t know how he does it!”

Finnegan, the Best Best Week Ever panelist?

Christian Finnegan, of all of the people VH1 has brought onto Best Week Ever, is perhaps the best Best Week Ever commenter. Concise. Right on point. I've had the chance to talk to him twice this year, once in January when he appeared at the Comedy Studio (we hung out for a bit afterward and he was as nice in person as he was on the phone) and then again this week, in advance of his headlining gigs tonight and tomorrow at the Comedy Connection.

On Wednesday night, he offered some insight into this week's episode of BWE: – Rachael Ray's new TV talk-show: "Rachael Ray's show is great if you like to watch other people eating." – The new Tickle Me Extreme Elmo: "The first toy in the world that can fellate itself, unless you count Bathhouse Teddy Ruxbin." – On Jackie Chan's disclosure that he appeared in a 1970s porn film: "And to answer the question that's on your mind, yes, he does his own stunts."

Finnegan is a newlywed, and I asked him how he felt about getting media attention for his wedding to Kambri Crews. "By media attention, you mean The Apiary?" he asked. "It's really uncomfortable, to be honest." He said Crews simply wanted to share photos with relatives of hers, not thinking they'd end up getting blogged about, and blogged about some more. So let's move on.

I managed to hold onto some of my notes from my conversation with Finnegan last winter, when I asked him about his upbringing in the Boston burbs. "Natick is a scenic, science town, and by that I mean, not scenic at all," he said. "When I was a kid, Shopper's World was still all outdoor." He also recalls Fun and Games and Route 9. "I saw a friend of mine get punched in the face for a roll of quarters. I suppose it was Framingham but it was all still (expletive)." Natick? Isn't that Flutieville? "There are literally nine roads with Flutie in it. Flutie Road. Flutie Pass — ha, ha, Flutie Pass, get it?"

Back then, Finnegan was running the college circuit, and those gigs can run hot or cold. "There's definitely some stuff you can't do. You have to remember that these kids are 18, 19, 20 years old, so these kids are in a different place in their life than you are. What do you mean I'm not going to be fulfilled in my career? What do you mean I'm not going to want to strangle the person I live with?" "Best Week Ever and Chappelle (Chappelle's Show), I can't overstate how much they've helped me and what they've done for me careerwise. The difference between doing a college a few years ago and today is night and day. I can't tell you how happy I am for that little bit of faux-notoriety."

I'm judging you, Boston (2006 finale)

Local 20-year-old Dan Boulger — let me repeat that — 20-year-old Dan Boulger took home the top prize and an estimated $7,000 as winner of the 2006 Boston Comedy Festival stand-up comedy contest! Boulger told me afterward that the only gig he has lined up so far is a date in October in Portland, Maine, at the Comedy Connection there opening for Jimmy Dunn. That should change. As an even more surreal moment, last night, Jimmy Dunn was standing outside Remington’s on the sidewalk with Tony V. I told Dunn that he’d be working with Boulger soon. Dunn didn’t even know. Yes, my friends. The Boston comedy scene got a little bit of a healthy shake-up. Methinks this will be a good thing.

The final order of finish in last night’s finale:

1) Dan Boulger

2) Darryl Lenox

3) Ryan Hamilton

4) Brad Upton

5) Stewart Huff

6) Floyd J. Phillips

7) Shane Mauss

8) Russell Bell

I have no major complaints or quibbles with the judges’ cumulative scorecard here. I had it between Boulger and Lenox, and in my cynical heart of hearts, didn’t think the judges would side with the kid over the comedy vet, but impressed that they did. Hamilton could’ve had a shot, too, but going up first is a hard sell.

Bill Burr on his O&A Philly gig, YouTube video

Bill Burr deserves to break big. He absolutely destroyed last night at the “30 Years of Emerson Comedy” show at the Cutler Majestic. Several times during his 11-minute set, audience members around me were saying things like, “This guy is AMAZING!” Tore the roof off the joint. Anyhow. Like I said, more on the show as a whole later.

Got to talk to Burr briefly after the show. Two young fans already were asking him something about the Opie & Anthony Traveling Virus comedy tour, and the Philadelphia fans who booed Burr and many others. Burr told the fans to look it up on YouTube. Here is a 10-minute clip from that set, which includes lots of cursing, which makes it NSFW:

“It was great,” he told me last night. Burr said he’d always wanted to have an opportunity like that to completely tear apart an audience, and last night, said Denis Leary (fellow Emerson alum on the bill last night) recalled the time Lenny Clarke found a crowd so hostile and unworthy that he actually decided to clip his toenails onstage, giving play-by-play of the clipping instead of his usual jokes. As for the O&A tour, Burr said Philly was the only tough crowd he encountered, but he figured that one of the cities on the tour would go screwy. Why? “They’re animals,” he said of O&A fans.

So I posed the question: Should stand-up comedy even make a tour of arenas for O&A fans? Burr paused. “I don’t know.” But then he talked about how Opie comes up with all sorts of crazy ideas and tries to make them work, regardless of how crazy the idea is.

I'm judging you, Boston (part seven)

The eighth and final preliminary competition in the Boston Comedy Festival stand-up contest, and for once, all is right with the world. And by that, I mean it’s not going to be difficult to predict who advances to the semifinals. And by that, I mean read the recap.

Prelim 8 (in order of appearance):

1) Roz Browne: No, not that Roz. Comes up to a cold crowd, leaves it cold. Bites the proverbial opening-comic bullet. Sorry. Better luck next time.

2) Al Jackson: Another teacher? What’s with all of the stand-ups who previously worked as teachers? Could it be the students? Must be. But Jackson has funny teacher jokes I’ve never heard before. I won’t repeat them here. Guessing you might have another chance to hear them later this week.

3) Amanda Beals: I’m calling her Little Miss Fancypants. Her pants are fancy and full of flowing fabric. She even sounds fancy. Dahling, let me tell you a funny little story.

4) Stan Chen: The audience is not loving his Lance Armstrong bit. So he moves on to Sarah Jessica Parker, calling her sexy but ugly, which provoke laughter. Also argues for Asians in real sports. Is hot dog eating a real sport? I don’t find out in this set. He came off a bit loud tonight for my taste, the kind of loud that gets in the way of the material loud.

5) Myq Kaplan: Strongest set of the night. Opens with Snakes on a Plane inspiring other movie titles. Absolutely love his bit about losing a cell phone. But I feel like his material in the past year has gotten so strong, it’s actually stronger than his closer, which is a weird thing to say, I know, but I didn’t say it. I typed it. Myq should appreciate that.

6) Jy Harris: Another high-energy boost, immediately goes to crowd work. Lies down for a bit, which can work sometimes, but not this time. Makes a funny case for why you shouldn’t immediately suspect vegetarians are gay.

7) David Landau: Opens with an Ashlee Simpson joke, which backfired yet worked for Kjell the other night. Landau moves on to observations about gas prices, smoking warnings. Good. But not as good as other comics before him this night.

8) Nick Hoff: Acts out what happened when he saw a spider right before going to sleep. This happened to me with a moth the other night, which makes the hunt trickier, because the moth can fly away. Hoff also is afraid of surfing. I can see why. Good. But not as good as other comics before him this night. Can you sense a trend?

9) Ali Rizvi: Talks about his Muslim family. His mom is a ninja. Loves to dance alone in elevators. Want to see and hear how that might go down? Rizvi will show you. Can the breakdancing Muslim win? Depends upon the contest.

10) Mike Prior: No festival bio or mug shot. Maybe it’s because he told us he’s broke. Wonders why schools don’t let the last-place student give graduation speeches. Says: “I’m having way more fun than you people are.” Correct, sir. You win a prize. Just not the prize you seek.

11) Jay Hewlett: Hack opening line. Talks about getting drunk, sex, work. Has “anal glaucoma.” What’s that? “I can’t see my ass coming to work today.” Fair enough.

12) Tom Kizirian: He’s a recent Northeastern U. grad, and it appears as though he thought this was a bringer contest, or maybe he just has a lot of loving, supporting friends and family. Let’s not be so cynical. It’s the latter. Are you really so tired of writing prelim recaps that you have to go that route? Sorry. Sidetracked. Kizirian says Rollerblading is so gay, even gay guys don’t do it. Now what am I supposed to do with my Rollerblades? Thanks a lot.

The time-killer for this show is Jesse Joyce (for the previous show, Jeff Caldwell). They’re both funny fellas, but at this point, I just want the prelims to be over. Wish granted.

Advancing to the semis, your prelim 8 winners: Myq Kaplan and Al Jackson.

I'm judging you, Boston (part six)

Prelims 7-8 of the Boston Comedy Festival contest had Rich Ceisler hosting and doing plenty of time both up front and between acts. At one point during Prelim 7, Ceisler decided to rip the Herald. “If it happened today, it’s news to us,” he said. Hey, Ceisler. Here’s something happening today: You’re not in the contest. So stop hogging the stage as if the judges will notice, and let the contestants get to their sets. And when you’re offstage, stop talking so loudly that the contestants can hear you. Just a thought. I could write an entire post about some of the varied hosting performances during this contest, but it’ll only keep you from what you’re really after. The recap!

Prelim 7 (in order of appearance):

1) Valarie Storm: With a few drunks sitting front and center, things could get ugly. They do, but not before Storm gets through her time, focusing on the funny relationship issues between men and women. Ho. Hum. But she gets props for timeliness by singing “The Divorce Song” for Whitney and Bobby.

2) Korte Yeo: A good bit on why black-out stories never have happy endings. The drunks up front start hearing things they feel they can relate to and respond to. Not a good thing.

3) Mary Beth Cowan: She has fun with the companywide e-mail, but a lot of her punchlines need a few seconds to get to the crowd’s understanding, which is not her fault (they just don’t get it), but it doesn’t help her cause this night.

4) Evan O’Television: Yes, he really did his “two-man” act in the contest. Yes, the audience had no idea what was going on. Yes, it still ended up being pretty funny. No, the audience and judges probably won’t give him high marks. Very meta.

5) Dan Hirshon: Gets the Tutko laugh early on, gets big applause from everyone at the end. In between, something seemed a bit off. Hirshon did win the Carnival Cruise contest the night before, though, so congrats still in order.

6) Dan Boulger: Notes that exclamation points are for lazy writers. But he’s really funny! Boulger absolutely destroyed! Strongest set of the night!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

7) Brian Joyce: Said he couldn’t bring a newspaper on the plane last month, and wondered if the terrorists were MacGyver. Wait. No newspapers?!

8) Pete Johansson: Comes up to a completely cold stage and immediately ramps up the intensity, working the crowd, working it hard, riffing away. Another comic wonders if he has material. Does it matter? He did well. Turns out he’s also ramped-up offstage.

9) Peter Tudosio: How old is that mug shot on the Festival site? The Romanian keeps saying “you a hip crowd,” “nice crowd” even though they’re not really hip to his act, since it’s not hip. He rips Yakov Smirnoff. What a country.

10) Jason Lawhead: Panders to the crowd with pro-Red Sox jokes, but turns out he’s from Cleveland. What’s up with that hat? Why is it so quiet? Must be the hat.

11) Vargus Mason: Finished second in the San Francisco contest, which means he’s due for fame and fortune (see Robin Williams, Dane Cook). The theatrical training shows.

12) Steve Brewer: Married with kids and not happy about it. Funny bit about turning his nagging kid into a human snooze button. Angry but funny.

And your prelim 7 winners: Dan Boulger and Vargus Mason. No complaints here. Honorable mention from me to Pete Johansson.

I'm judging you, Boston (part five)

If you thought prelim 5 of the contest proved tough to judge, what to make of prelim 6, which had comics all over the map from good to bad to ugly? Well, let’s attempt a recap!

Prelim 6 (in order of appearance)

1) Dana Eagle: The old I may look prim and proper but I’m crazy trick. Perceptive self-reflective opening line: “Number One is good at the end of the night!” Showed her panties for laughs. It worked. Talked about the phenomenon of tattooing one’s backside. On hers it’d say: “Road blocked — go around!”

2) Rich Aronovitch: Horshack’s kid is pretty funny. But. As he even remarked, “I open with porn, I close with porn. I do Holocaust jokes in the middle.”

3) David Reinitz: He opens by telling people not to read the paper, so he’s automatically not funny in my book. Not funny! Closes by reading the side effects of ads for Zocor, Viagra. But he does accurately point out that having Southwest Airlines as the festival’s official airline sponsor is ridiculous, since Southwest doesn’t even fly to Boston.

4) DT Owens: Church and bible jokes, from a guy from Birmingham, Ala. Who knew?

5) Dale Jones: Ernest Goes to Jim Carrey Camp.

6) Shane Mauss: Is there an applause break curse? Shaner gets one on his first joke! (Kelly Mac got an applause break the night before, to no avail) I will also note that before he went up, he whispered in my ear: “So far, I’m winning.” After his very funny set, he’s right. But there still is half a show to go.

7) Chicken Towel: I didn’t catch his name when he went onstage, so Chicken Towel it is, since that was his first of SEVERAL long routines. Actually, maybe his name should be Cirque du Silly. Actually, maybe I should look up his name. Michael Rayner. And he’s turning out to be actually quite entertaining. But he went on and on and on so long, he couldn’t possibly win. Did he care? I didn’t get a chance to ask him. Someone suggested that perhaps, he just wanted the stage time to impress the real judges in the room and get some gigs.

8) Dwayne Gill: He’s a cop. Anything I say can and will be used against me in a court of law and public opinion.

9) Brad Upton: I remember him from Seattle. And frightening enough, he remembers me. But why is he here? He’s a headliner. Does he need some new road gigs, too? I had a theory about white guys in suits (they don’t do well in contests, but black guys in suits do). But that’s just silly. And Upton is funny. On immigration and aliens stealing “our” jobs: he recently hired a 20-year-old foreign girl to do a job his wife wouldn’t want to do! The crowd loves him. Good for him.

10) Joey Carroll: He’s been in Iraq. So this should be smooth sailing. Until he tells a joke about Anna Nicole Smith’s son, who just died. Earlier, though, he had a winning bit about Halloween, including the one time he dressed up as the Grim Reaper and kicked in his grandma’s door. “C’mon! Let’s go!”

11) Frank Santorelli: Another longtime headliner in this contest. What gives? “Listen, I don’t need to be here tonight. I was on Star Search. I shook Ed McMahon’s hand on television. What did you do tonight?” He rips on host Jim Lauletta: “A very funny man…offstage.” Tells the crowd he is 48, but feels young by shaving his pubic hair. Ah, youth.

12) Dan Sally: Opens with all new material! Suri Cruise pictures! His newlywed wife is preggers! As they used to say on TV: “For originality, a perfect score of 30!” Closes with his tried-and-true engagement story. Good stuff.

And the results are…another three-person advancement!

Brad Upton, Shane Mauss and Frank Santorelli move on to the semis! If only they had room for four, Mr. Sally. If only they had room for four…

I'm judging you, Boston (part four)

What do comedy contests and criticism offer to the stand-up comedian? Validation. Feedback. Two things most comics desperately desire. Or, another way to look at it: Am I funny? Why did they think I wasn’t as funny as that other comic? At the Boston Comedy Festival, the annual stand-up contest has its own quirks. Among them, the lack of feedback. The comedians who don’t place in the top two (or three) have no idea what happened. Did they get disqualified or penalized for going too long? In Seattle, everyone in the room, audience included, knows if a comic goes over the time limit by seeing the red light. In Boston, you don’t know Jack unless you ask Jack, the volunteer with the pen flashlight. Also (and I hate to keep using Seattle as the reference, but it’s the one I know best), all of the comics know where they rank each night, from first to last, and that allows them to gauge what’s working and what’s not. So perhaps having me judge one of the prelims (I got asked to fill in at the last minute) will offer even more guidance and feedback.

For instance, the scoring system. Each judge is asked to give a comic from 1-10 points in the categories of stage presence, originality, audience response and judge’s opinion. Top score, then, would be 40. On my sheet, you would’ve seen a lot of 8s and 9s, with a few 7s and 10s and rare 6s. One of the comics asked me later last night how he did, because he truly wanted to know. For everybody else, here is the recap.

Prelim 5 (in order of appearance)

1) Brian “Sheckymagazine.com” McKim: A fiendishly delicious treat, not just to judge the Male Half of the Shecky enterprise but also to watch him perform. McKim somehow manages to be comfortably stiff onstage, so to speak. A nice turn on the age-old “Employees Must Wash Hands” sign. Jokes about Phoenix, Ariz., that I appreciated from having lived there, even more so because he managed to describe the heat in jokes I hadn’t heard hundreds of times before. Did he do that for me? Probably not.

2) Taylor Connelly: Young Boston comic. Essentially delivers his Comedy Studio set, opening with riff on his first name. Funny observations, including, “People will try to eat chalk if you put it in an Altoids container.” His closer, on hipping up Jesus, gave me a brief flashback to David Crowe, not that many people in the room would know that. The crowd loved him. Taylor, I mean.

3) Jan Davidson: Describes how she is a terrible mother, but humorously explains “The Facts of Life” to her daughter (and the audience). Ends with a clever closing bit, showing her best actress delivery on saying goodbye to the audience. A strong set. Already three good sets and still nine comics to go. Why are the comedy blogging gods mocking me?

4) Mark Serritella: His Festival bio says he could be seen on Dat Phan’s 2006 College Tour. Is that something to brag about? Fortunately, he does not mention this onstage. Instead, he explains why women never need breast implants and describes his life as a kindergarten teacher. Funny remark about how no one knows the new Iraqi prime minister, but he might as well be named Hassoontobe Hassassinated. Note: I might not have spelled that correctly.

5) Jennie McNulty: Talks about how all politicians are crooked and suggests that anyone who wants to be president automatically should be ineligible; instead, fill the office like jury duty. It’s funny, but I’ve heard it before. She also plays football (that I haven’t heard before), and describes how the emotions play out on the field. And yes, she is a lesbian.

6) Renata Tutko: Good set. However. The front of the room didn’t love her nearly as much as the back of the room. That’s a weird sensation. I wonder what the people sitting fairly quietly up front were thinking while they heard all of that laughter behind them.

7) Mike Whitman: Got off to a slow start, it seemed, as he tried to find his words and his place onstage. Made up for it in the end with his bit about the absurdity of chainsaws in horror movies.

8) Marty Laquidara: He’s a scream, all right. No, make that a screamer. He loves the ladies, or so he keeps saying. He also did drugs — only one time — from 1989 to 1997. Get it? The audience laps up his true cocaine story nonetheless.

9) Amy Tee: I’ve seen Amy Tee do well and I’ve seen Amy Tee bomb, so I wasn’t sure which Amy Tee I’d see. OK. I have to stop writing the words Amy Tee. Let’s leave with a joke of hers about being separated from her wife. That’s not an image people want in their heads: “Two lesbians not having sex?”

10) Kjell Bjorgen: Opens lamely by asking the audience if they want to rock, Ashlee Simpson style. But Kjell quickly senses this, saying, “Too aggressive? Let’s take a step back.” From then on, all solid gold. Makes a case for sneezing on children rather than yelling at them or hitting them. Also a strong closing bit about keeping records as a waiter.

11) Ryan Hamilton: Wait. Didn’t I see him last year as the Sierra Mist comedian of the year, or something like that. And isn’t Sierra Mist sponsoring the festival? Not that I’m suggesting anything dubious. Or am I? Anyhoo. Hamilton starts by referencing his look. Yes, he looks sort of like a white Chris Rock, and looks/talks sort of like a blonde Jerry Seinfeld. Uses the overused, “I am single, if that’s not apparent” line. Funny joke about speed dating, though, followed by “a facetious heel kick — you don’t get that very often.” Jokes about Lasik seem very familiar, but then again, I did see him last year.

12) Lamont Ferguson: Announces that the happy train ride is over, time for Mr. Cranky. Notes he has been performing stand-up for 24 years, and his experience shows. He talks about getting rid of hyphenated American labels. You won’t find an African-Englishman, he notes. True enough.

Moving on, advancing, winning, whatever you want to call it were: Ryan Hamilton and Kjell Bjorgen.

Is that what I had on my scorecard? No and yes. Who do you think I rated higher? Can you tell from this recap? Do you want to be able to tell from this recap? Stay tuned for part two of last night’s prelims…

I'm judging you, Boston (part three)

Prelim 4 is when everything you thought you knew about the Boston Comedy Festival contest went out the window and onto the bricks and cobblestones below. A much stronger field of contenders — perhaps five or six of the 12 comics could’ve landed the two semifinalist slots. And yet. Well…let’s go to the recap.

In order of appearance:

1) Jim Tews: Remarks on his Coast Guard past and how that’s not exactly the best thing to have on his resume. Has interesting uses for the memo line on checks. Being poor is the difference between bologna and ham. “Bologna tastes like failure.” Closes with a letter he wrote to cigarettes not long after quitting smoking. Understated, but quite funny.

2) Stewart Huff: Looks like a mini-Me Mitch Hedberg, but with a Tennessee drawl (and lots of other differences, but enough about that). His mic gets disconnected early on, which could spell trouble (they eventually trade out mics later in the show). Most of his set revolves around hick gas stations — the “pump-n-munch” — but it’s a fully-formed, solid routine. A good start to the show.

3) Benjamin Roy: Drinking, jail, sex, in that order. It’s funny, yes, but too raw for this type of contest.

4) Danny Rouhier: If you go to his Web page, you’ll see a Current TV video titled: “Are you a hack?” Rouhier ends his set by mocking the Boston accent and its misuse of the letter ‘R.’ I’ll now refer you back two sentences.

5) Mike Baker: Apparently, Mike has sex on the brain. Audience members want to make out with him, but he’s married. With kids. And that’s a problem. Because they’re cockblockers. Can I say that on this blog? Can he devote almost his entire set to not having sex with his wife and make it to the semis? Stay tuned.

6) Adam Ginivisian: I can describe his set in one word. Emersonian.

7) David Powell: Wry observations, one after the other. Each one of them quite funny. The kind of set that wins comedy contests. And yet…

8) Brent Sullivan: Acts out a delightful scene depicting how you’d react to a raccoon in your trash can, and suggested an intriguing telephone game to try out. The game: “Who would you rather f—?” “Try to keep them on the phone for at least three names,” Sullivan advised. It was funnier than it looks here on non-paper.

9) Murv Seymour: Why is Sinbad cursing onstage? What, that’s not Sinbad. My sin. My bad. Otherwise good jokes about black people going to Denny’s, shark safety tips (in both cases, why? and why? respectively).

10) Kelly MacFarland: Gets an applause break for her bit on running. Infectious personality. Funny stuff. Like I said, this judging will be interesting. Afterward, her quote to me: “Kelly MacFarland was funny, in a kind of cutesy way. And she had nice hair.”

11) Bob Gautreau: Calls himself an “impressionist,” which is another of the most overused, misused phrases in comedy, if not the world, since he is an impersonator. Monet was an Impressionist. Gautreau impersonates Robert DeNiro AND Sylvester Stallone. Can you believe that? Wow. I’m going to stop now and let Mike Baker take over: “If Kelly and I lose to Bob Gautreau, I’m going to…” Let me stop Baker right there, since he has eaten those words.

12) Tim Kaelin: Devotes almost his entire set to drinking and driving. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

For time-killing, Mr. Juston McKinney. Good stuff from the former Mainer. Although, as my memory recalls, in 2002 in Aspen, he won the festival prize for cleanest stand-up. Times have changed.

The judges have tallied the scores. Your prelim 4 winners, Huff and Gautreau. May I refer you to my first-night remarks on comedy contests and judging. Thank you.

I'm judging you, Boston (part two)

Monday, Monday...

OK, comedy fans. Whether or not you have a financial stake in the outcome of the Boston Comedy Festival contest, you still want to know what really went down last night in the third and fourth preliminaries. So here’s another opinion. But first, another opinion: Why didn’t host Kevin Knox explain the rules? Did Sunday night’s host skip that portion of the program, too? Because methinks most people in the audience, at least, might want to know, how come the guy or gal I thought was really funny didn’t win? The judges have these complicated scoring sheets — and even though I didn’t see them, they must be complicated because it takes 15 minutes to deduce the winners — so there must be several factors in determining the funny. In similar contests, those factors would include originality, stage presence, audience engagement and audience approval, in addition to the judge’s own subjective funny ranking. Also, there are several cameras taping the sets, but no mention of what that’s all about. The stage, changed from the usual Comedy Connection backdrop to the old cliched fake brick wall, also has a MySpace banner. Is that it? (Sources say no, that the tapes are for sponsor Sierra Mist, but shouldn’t someone let everyone else in on that?)

Right. Enough questions. You want answers. Or at least a recap.

Prelim 3 (in order of appearance)

1) Jake Sharon: Long-haired guy (not what’s pictured on the festival program/site), eats the mic, also ate it onstage, as his blue humor didn’t set the proper tone, especially with all of the white-hairs in the audience.

2) Mark DeCosta: Opens with losing five pounds today on the Taco Bell Diet. “Now I know why they say think outside the buns.” Hello! Rim shot, please! Not helping. But his set improves with dry humor about his childhood and how he teaches children life lessons.

3) Tymon Shipp: Billed on the program as “clean yet hilarious,” as if the two things cannot coexist. But the program also says he’s been on Leno nine times. Nine times? Really? Maybe as a bit player, but not as a stand-up. His set is functional enough, but, eh.

4) Erin Judge: Clever, but not connecting with the Connection crowd. Only her most direct jokes worked on this audience.

5) Darryl Lenox: Comes out with a definite POV, as they say. Politics is like Amway. “Do you think the guy who owns Wal-Mart has a house full of Wal-Mart furniture in it?” On being afraid of chemical attacks five years after 9/11, noting we’ve been eating McDonald’s for 50 years. “You think Shaq got that big drinking milk?” Solid. Very solid.

6) Tim the Dairy Farmer: Larry the Cable Guy’s big dumb brother. Only without a catchphrase. Let’s move on.

7) Josh Gondelman: The soft-spoken Josh Gondelman. Yeah. Earnestness is a virtue. But it won’t win a comedy contest.

8) Tom Van Horn: Polished stuff on Kmart, fish as pets on life support and the improbability of being angry whilst wearing flip-flops.

9) Floyd J. Phillips: Suggested cell phone companies shouldn’t disconnect your service, but interrupt your calls, if they want you to pay up. Tells his new neighbors he’s a registered sex offenders to keep the kids off his lawn. Funny. Speaking of abortion…funny…pro-lifers should kill bartenders. Don’t shoot me. That’s what he said. How about this line: “Domestic violence is the second reason why I don’t date men.”

10) Ira Proctor: Listen all y’all it’s a sabotage! What Ira was thinking: Hey, I’ll have fun by playing off of the last guy and start with some racial humor. What the audience was thinking: Why is this white guy making jokes about blacks? What Ira was thinking: Why isn’t this audience laughing at this, this is funny stuff? What the audience was thinking: We’re scared. Ira, move on to plan D. Dunkin Donuts. He ranted and rallied. But the damage was done.

11) Kendra Cunningham: Hates her job, wonders about the excuses drunks have that avoid the reason they’re drunks, and uses one of the most overused phrases in stand-up comedy, “So I’m single, surprisingly enough.”

12) Marshall Chiles: From Atlanta. Not Hotlanta. I don’t think the kids call it that anymore. His opener about airport security trying to turn us into fundamentalist Muslims (no razors, no shoes, no shampoo) is intriguing, but also silences the crowd right off the bat. As does his next joke, about troops fighting for the right reason: Tuition. “Damn right, I started with that s—!” he said. Later compares sports refs to wives. It’s all good material, but he came off too rough to be liked.

The timekiller: Eric Schwartz. Man, that white boy rapping schtick never stops being funny, doesn’t it? His official site is www.suburbanhomeboy.com and no I did not make that up. Nor did I make up the fact that he made the contest finals last year. Did he? Wasn’t I a judge last year?

Lenox and Phillips advanced. Van Horn deserved an honorable mention.

I'm judging you, Boston (part one)

The Boston Comedy Festival kicked off with its ever-random charm last night, a stand-out stand-up show off the comedy club grid, a well-attended gay-themed show (last year’s had to be canceled) and two equally unpredictable preliminaries in the comedy contest.

I’ve told people this before. As both a former participant (Seattle, 1998) and judge (Seattle, 2000; Boston, 2005) in stand-up comedy contests, you really need to take it all in with the proverbial grain of salt, throw caution to the wind, je ne sais quoi, devil-may-care attitude. Because — brace yourselves — comedy contests, more often than not, never determine who the funnies person in the room really is. There’s politics involved. Lots of BS. Your look might sway people as much as your 5-7 minute set. What’s the crowd like? Who are the judges? Have the judges seen your act before? What’s the scoring system? Where are you in the lineup? Who’s in your preliminary? And Boston adds another layer of madness, since it tries to fit the entire contest into one week. At least San Francisco and Seattle have full weeks of prelims and semifinal competitions — several nights in several different cities and venues — to weed out the flukes and let the premier comics rise to the top. Boston’s contest offers no such luck. Or rather, it’s often about luck. The funniest person in the entire contest might not even survive a prelim.

With that, here are last night’s results.

Prelim 1 winners: Logan Jacobson and Matt Malley

Prelim 2 winners: Frank G, Chris Tabb and Russell Bell

Which, of course, means some of last year’s finalists and semifinalists (Rob O’Reilly, J-L Cauvin) didn’t make the first cut. EJ Murphy, who was in the first prelim, told me he thought everyone in his group “crushed,” so it was hard to tell who’d advance. Chris Tabb, meanwhile, said he was unsure how he’d fare, since he often relies on crowd work and longer stories. “I don’t do five minutes!” he said. Last night, he must’ve figured out something. Also talked last night with Darryl Lenox (that’s the official spelling, despite all of the variations you may have seen elsewhere), who I had the privilege to open for back in the day (and no, that day was not a Wednesday, but a weekend back in 1999, or was it 2000, in Seattle and Bellingham) and can verify his funniness. Of course, Lenox also has won the Seattle contest, finished runner-up in San Francisco and Boston, and appeared this summer on Comedy Central’s Live At Gotham. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll win — last year he got bounced out of the prelims. This year, he says he’s focused on putting that behind him. But he’s in a prelim tonight with fellow Seattle contest winner Floyd J. Phillips and fellow Boston finalist Ira Proctor, among others. Something’s gotta give.

But first, a report from the Abbey Lounge, where Doug Stanhope found fans aplenty to pack the hot room last night for the “Cruel and Unusual” show. Stanhope took the mic at 9:18 p.m. when no one else would, and with his voice hoarse, brought up Brian Joyce, a guy originally from Somerville who had spent a year in Ireland. Naturally that led into material about alcoholism and not letting the terrorists win by backing off of that, somehow transitioning into prison rape (which reminds me of another pet peeve of mine, which I won’t get into here) and gay marriage. Joyce brought up Esther Ku, who dazzled the crowd into revered silence. They were afraid to laugh at Ku’s racially realistic observations, but showed their approval by giving her rousing applause at the end of her 7-minute set. Tom Dustin followed by ripping on both Ku and the Abbey. Dustin also delivered a killer bit about HPV, which I won’t repeat here. Next up, Spike Tobin. Tobin provided the old-school Boston comic set mentality, and even received interference from Annette Pollack, which should tell you something. But Tobin turned Pollack’s heckle around right quick, making her scarf out to be her panties. A final unadvertised set from Norman Wilkerson and then, finally, Stanhope.

Over the course of 57 minutes, Stanhope, despite the hoarse voice (and the weirdness of performing with family and friends nearby, since he was born in Worcester and had a gig there the night before) covered familiar territory and offered new insights on life. Yes, his first request was for liquor: “Do you have any clear tequila?” But the shot was for his girlfriend, suffering with flu-like symptoms. I hadn’t seen Stanhope in close to four years, back when I lived in Arizona and he was coming off an Aspen appearance and about to get married and famous. Now he lives in Arizona and is unmarried, still flirting with fame. Anyhow. Back to his set.

Stanhope reflected briefly on his month in Scotland, where he got lumped into a media report on anti-Semitic comedians, which led him off on a wild tangent about Jew-hating material. “I hate Jews?” he pondered. “You hate cats, but you don’t want them all put on trains and gassed!” Eventually, he came back to a oft-repeated premise of his, that religion causes too much nonsense and too many wars. No wonder some critics try to compare Stanhope to the late Bill Hicks. Stanhope isn’t a comedian in the traditional, stereotypical, set-up punch, jokey joke vein. Rather, he’s more of a truth-seeker, soapbox kind of comic. Is that like Hicks? A bit. But it’s also court jester, too. The kind of guy who can say the most outrageous things and get away with it, because, well, there’s quite a bit of truth to what he’s saying, and because, well, look at how foolish he looks. It’s not as if we have to worry about this guy, do we? That’s what makes the whole Stanhope for President in 2008 idea — on the Libertarian ticket — so intriguing. Is he serious? Outside, after the show, Stanhope told a fan that he doesn’t really want to the rule the country. “I don’t want anyone to rule the country,” he insisted, which is a Libertarian way to go.

Some other highlights of Stanhope’s performance last night: Noting that guilt has nothing to do with being Jewish, using man’s evolutionary relationship with apes as an obscene example. Noting that nationalism only teaches people to hate other countries and to take pride in things they’ve never accomplished (Example: Bailing out the French?). A funny aside about Boston: “There’s an awful lot of history in this town, but not a lot of future.” Some candid reflections about turning 39 and not being able to keep up his wild lifestyle. Wondering why the only new drugs are prescription medications designed not to expand our consciousness, but close up our thinking so we forget our depressing and dull our lives truly are. Noting how the world revolves around women, and particularly, sex with them, which is why the government and religion tries so desperately to make sex seem shameful. At one point, Stanhope engaged the audience in a discussion on monogamy, wondering if it’s instinctual or learned, and what that might say about love. He said he loves MySpace for its marketing efficiency, and joked about comedians who make fun of MySpace, wondering where the comics are who first made fun of cell phones and e-mail in the early 90s are now. But Stanhope hates the idea that the media makes MySpace out to be full of pedophiles — which led to a prolonged routine on pedophilia. Don’t worry, parents, he said. For one thing, online pedophiles are far less dangerous than the old-fashioned real-life pervs. And for another thing, “odds are, no one wants to f— your child!” This riled up him to a killer closing routine about child pornography, describing how it cannot be rampant as people think it is, how it’s the only crime you can be nabbed for simply by looking at it, and then wildly figured out a way to use child porn as a way to attack an anti-abortion campaigner. Never have you heard the phrase “pre-term necrophiliac child molesters,” or so I’m guessing. I’m also guessing many of the people in the crowd hadn’t seen Stanhope perform before. Who knows what they were expecting? They didn’t get an out-of-control, ranting lunatic alcoholic (if that’s what they were expecting). All in all, they heard thought-provoking and funny stuff.

Josh Blue in the wake of Last Comic Standing

Josh Blue is experiencing that phenomenon known as TV fame in the wake of his win this summer on the fourth edition of NBC’s Last Comic Standing. Had him on the phone the other day, fresh off a gig in Charlotte, N.C. — Blue is in town this weekend at the Comedy Connection with fellow LCS finalists Michele Balan and Kristin Key (in a couple of weeks, Chris Porter and Roz will be here, too).

“It’s a whole new game,” Blue told me. How so? “I don’t really need to explain myself anymore. Before I had to explain who I was and make myself comfortable with it. But now, they know who I am. I can go basically into what I want.”

And what’s that these days? “Just I talk about the show a lot.”

How do you decide how much to talk about your cerebral palsy? “I don’t know if I’ve ever decided enough is enough,” he said. “I just tell the jokes I have. Might tell the new jokes, too. I don’t know. To a certain point, you don’t want to beat it into the ground. It depends on what the audience wants, too. If they’re getting bored about that subject, I try to steer away from it.”

Blue went to Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., a place all Seattle comedians know as a carefree institution where the students really care for the evergreen, if you know what I mean. How did Evergreen influence Blue’s comedy? “It was huge. That’s where I first started doing it. I studied stand-up comedy my senior year.” His first gig was at 7 Cities in Tacoma. “I also had my own Josh Blue Comedy Hour at a coffee shop,” he said. What did that entail? “It was me doing terrible comedy. I was doing a whole new hour every week. I don’t think I could even do an hour now!”

What’s the relationship like between you and Chris Fonseca, another stand-up comedian with CP who has made it big? “I studied him in college,” Blue said. He acknowledged that LCS has resulted in “a little bit of a falling out” between the two comics. “It really bums me out because I really look up to that guy.”

Blue was supposed to perform last year during the Boston Comedy Festival’s contest. “And then Carlos Mencia offered me a spot on his show, so I didn’t perform,” Blue said.