The Acme Comedy Club, is Minneapolis comedy Heaven?

Where have you been all my life Minneapolis?

How did it take me so long to find you?

As a comic you learn to adjust your shows to the crowds as time goes by. This is necessary to get the laughs that get you booked again and again, but often that adjustment is at the expense of the quirky cool stuff that you find most funny. The obscure references, the playful whimsy of a chance improv that might not come to fruition of laughs, these are left behind for the always working steadfast staple comedy topics and bits that make our shows some what repetitive to us as performers.

Minneapolis encourages the parts of your show that we love to perform, it is the best audiences for references I have ever experienced and they are fans of stand up, which makes sense considering the awesome talent this city has produced. Nick Swardsen, Mitch Hedberg, KP Anderson, Dave Mordal, Maria Bamford just to name a few. And I was always curious to see where such unique characters such as these could develop, as many are too refined for the harsh heckler, drunken one nighter land that stretches this continent, and I have discovered that oasis here in Minneapolis.

The club has you doing a ton of radio, the stations treat the comics really well, and people listen and show up. They treat comedy with a respect you just don't get very many places anymore, and after the shows the enthusiastic crowds engage and talk and become a part of the experience. Minneapolis is comedy heaven for someone who really loves the fine nuances of watching or performing fine stand up.

I can only hope that this excellent club management style is rewarded, and its doors stay open so that other establishments around the country can learn, and evolve to the place where comedy has become a balanced enterprise of art and commerce, rather than the laugh mills for beer money that place good comedy last infront of the short term windfall of quick alcohol sales that is pulling this industry in the wrong direction elsewhere.

Toronto Life

So I finished my week in TO. Other than battling the worst flu of my adult life, it was a really good week of shows. The crowds were informed, smart and plentiful. But, as you know I am a complainer... so here goes....

I never have really enjoyed my time in Toronto in past, and this is a sentiment that most if not all western comics seem to repeat, its that the people are really, really distant and uptight.

I hate, I really hate that I have to agree but man! Are we that different out west? Cause it seems like the idea of hospitality and gregariousness are completely foreign to both the crowds and the comics... And I don't want to believe it. I mean the city is so cool, but is it just accepted that you don't talk to outsiders?

I'm sure its me, and I'm projecting my own crazy insecurities on this city of 5 million. Or, and this is probably most likely is that I'm a complete jerk and people just don't ever want to talk to me. But hey, at least get to know I'm a jerk, then cut me off.

Not one person... not one came up to talk to me after my shows. They all looked happy, turned the other way and left. It fucked with my self esteem on such a collosal level, all that goes through your head is "God am I incredibly ugly?" or "While making people laugh, did I make them hate me? And how does someone that makes you laugh that hard make you hate them? Is that possible?". Toronto makes me need therapy.

I do comedy for approval. I sure as shit don't do it for money. I do it to have an immediate impact on someones life, and thoughts and feelings. And apllause and laughter is great, but the occasional "Hey you were great man" or "Thanks I had a blast" is very welcome after the shows. Now I know that sounds needy, but I guarantee that other comics motives when analyzed are equally fucked up when put under the psychoanalysts microscope, I just happen to be open and honest about mine.

Now, this is not normal out west, in Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Tempe, Austin, San Antonio, San Diego, Sacramento, or any other place I play out west people bee line it for you after the shows... Just to say hi, thank you, or welcome to our city...

How is the culture so different in Toronto? How did that evolve, did comics used to hit welcoming audience members? I am glad I did not try to sell any merchandise, that would have been an embarrassing nightmare of just standing alone with my product looking like I just got stood up on a date..

And I'm not imagining good shows, they were, they were really good. I'm not an idiot, I can tell...( see Birmingham Alabama).

I am spending three weeks there in June, I will keep you up to date on how lonely I get. Man what a decade to quit drinkin!

Why we will all die of H5N1 Virus...

I am very sick. Snot running down my nose, non stop hacking(yep, funny), phlegm and many other spraying unpleasantness.
I need to fly to Toronto first thing in the AM , 7 to be exact, but I am in no condition to fly.
I called my lovely airline WestJet, who is usually a very good service, but this is where that disconnect between pretending to be a caring company and really just being a company that cares less about the general well being of people than it does about the soothing color of its ad campaign.

I explained how i have another couple of days before I have to be in TO, and I would pay the change fee if I could get a later flight when I'm more healthy...

An exceedingly chipper, toned clerk informed me that my ticket would cost more than double its value to change.

Why?

When you change the return leg of a ticket its only 50 bucks, sometimes a hundred.. Why would it cost so much more to change the departure?

It just does.

OK, well I'm really sick, and i would venture that the aerosol of sneezes and coughs are contagious, so maybe we could make a deal or something for the greater good of the plane?

Nope. Is there anything else I can help you with?

Well, maybe burying the mountains of corpses that that type of closed minded un-human thinking will lead to when the next pandemic decides to pry the ones you most care about from your arms with its cold death grip.

Sorry, its not WestJets policy... blah blah blah.

You really can't see the problem with this thinking?

I'm sorry if you are upset sir.

Not half as upset as the immune suppressed passenger that comes up with the digits of the seat next to mine for five hours tomorrow.

Well maybe you shouldn't fly?

Well then another un feeling corporation won't care that I can't pay a bill because I'm sick and I will end up homeless.

Are we all finished?

It would seem we all are, now that we aren't people anymore.

Thanks for flying Westjest!

You bet! That's what they'll all be saying come the end of the week while 75 more people need to fly home sick and can't change their tickets...

I like the math on this...

Everybody laughed, so we need to take a meeting.

Comedy is without question subjective. Two people will often have very different feelings about the same joke, but it can also be a place to find common ground between two distinct peoples as well. But there is no absolute in Comedy.

I have long accepted that, and understand the notion. But I never wanted to take away the thing the made others laugh when it did not have that affect on me, I guess I just figured it wasn't my thing... and I moved on.

This is where college and real life become two separate entities. This is also the idea where political correctness actually undermine the truest Idea of freedom in this wonderful world.
Above is a picture of a student council meeting to discuss my show after my performance. It was a descent show, it wasn't a very big crowd, and it was demographically diverse. There was a nine year old, whom I warned the parents before I began that it might not be appropriate for a nine year old, but they said it was fine. And they did laugh all the way through my show, yet it was not OK for two eighteen year old girls who got up and left after sitting down for only two minutes in an out of context piece. Now I did not mention what was mentioned to me about what their religion was, because I don't think it really matters, and I don't think that offense necessarily comes from religion. Most deities showed examples of great tolerance and understanding in their behavior and teachings, I think this is more about self righteousness than anything else.
It's kind of sad, but its this fear that builds walls that make this world hard for everyone. But there is no logic in it. My show was anti drug, anti drinking, anti smoking, and I made fun of myself and my insecurities, as well as some very bad decisions in my life. But those would be in context if you listened to what I said, but if you just heard words you would be offended, because context comes with the message and Idea.
And I don't mind if you are offended, I'm offended everyday by things, but that is the price of my freedom to believe and function as I do in a free society.
But I don't understand why I would go to something in order to be offended, then leave then try to take away what others liked, because of my taste, that's not freedom at all.
I spoke with a lot of the kids after the show, they were very smart for college kids, they also seemed like they all enjoyed the show, at least they all told me they did on an individual basis, but as a collective they shied away from an overall positive. I was at the show and I watched and most of them were laughing most of the way through, but then afterwards they felt guilty about it...

I guess a lot of this is me over thinking it. But it was surreal. And I am always interested to see where the vast cultural divides take place in America. And this sleepy little college was a million miles from the 80 percent of the population that lives in its urban areas, and this was a microcosm of the divide we see on the news, and me voyaging fearfully into their territory and learning from them was of value, and I believe them seeing and possibly even learning something(if I have anything other than perspective) from me.
But right now there's a meeting taking place.

A meeting about jokes.

A meeting about fear of ideas.

A meeting about one person deciding what's good for another.

A meeting that serves no purpose.

If my ideas change someone's beliefs, they never truly held those beliefs and I'm not the problem.

I actually have a great deal of respect for the community, and religion of the people who were at my show tonight. And I think they are a valuable asset to our society, and are to be admired for their strong family values, and as a group some of the most patriotic Americans out there.

Which is why I can't believe there is a meeting about what is appropriate.

Cause a hundred years ago the same laws and ideas and freedoms that I believe in; That protect the wacky ideas and thoughts that I have today, also defended a struggling young religion, from people who in their ignorance tried to tell another group of people what was and wasn't ok.

that's why I can't believe there is a meeting, when there should instead be people who enjoyed the show, and people who didn't.

And both sides should be amazed that that's all it comes down to... Personal taste. Personal beliefs, and the wonder that we can share such vast differences with each other as citizens.

Not meetings that will make rules that will separate us, and make us wary, and suspicious, and distant.

I actually ended my show acknowledging the courage of those who listened to ideas they did not share, but I must say they were for the most a wonderful group, and I really enjoyed performing for them. And I would say most had a really good time, but it did end in a meeting, so certainly some did not.