I got back from Tahoe and was asked by my buddy Roger (he was the guy that helped me get into the audience warm up business) to perform on his second annual fundraiser for bulldog rescue. We did it last year in Irvine but this one was in Brea. I did it with two buds John Dicrosta and Paul Morrissey. It was a great show and we raised a lot of money for http://www.socalbulldogrescue.org/
So if you keep up with my BLOGS, and I know you do, you read that in January of 2011 I found out I was going to be performing on the Dave Koz Cruise to Alaska. Dave and I met when I was doing warm up in 2010 on an Emeril Lagasse talk show in New York. When I was asked to perform on Dave's cruise, I was told I could bring a guest. My dad passed away a few years ago so he was out as a possible candidate. I asked my mom to go in January. Now the cruise was eight months away but needless to say she was packed and ready by early February. The cruise went above and beyond my expectations. Even though I found myself working every day of this seven day adventure, I had a blast.
I did everything from hosting bingo to doing audience warm up before the musicians took the stage. The crazy thing was most of the passengers got motion sickness on the second day of the cruise. And the second day was my busiest day hosting a bunch of different activities. Luckily I didn't get sick. But my mom did. She was laying on the sofa in the room and couldn't move. She was so depressed because she really wanted to come and watch me hosting all these events. Well, the good news was by the time dinner came around she was feeling better. She came and watched me do a little comedy and warm up before music legend Sheila E's show. It was a very cool moment when I got to bring her up on stage. She played for over an hour and closed the show with Glamorous Life. And it brought the house down.
Since we had over 2,000 passengers on the ship (all Dave Koz fans) each artist did two shows. One show was done as people were at dinner. Then the people from first show would go to dinner our group that just ate would come in and enjoy the show. I would do the comedy/warm up for both shows. During the second show my mom went back to the room to rest up because at midnight I was doing late night comedy. Now my mom never stays up past 9 pm but she really wanted to be there for my comedy show. During my two comedy/warm up shows for Sheila E, we had 1,000 plus people at each show. The energy was amazing. The audience loved me. But things were about to change. Needless to say most of the passengers were tired and sleeping before my show started. I couldn't believe my mom was still awake. It was almost midnight and I looked out into the audience that once had 1,000 plus people and saw maybe 65 people. In a room that seats over 1,000. And of those 65 people were the likes of Dave Koz, his manager, other musicians. This was going to be painful. I knew it. I was told I only had to do 45 minutes. Which was probably 40 minutes too much. I went out there and I was right. Painful. But after about 30 rough minutes they started to hop on board and I had the audience right where I wanted. Granted Dave and the others left at about the 20 minute mark but once I had them at 30 minutes I wanted to keep going. I ended up doing over an hour and the audience loved it.
The next day was our first port of call in Juneau, Alaska. We also stopped in Skagway, Alaska and Victoria, BC before making our way back to Seattle. My favorite part of the whole experience was seeing how much fun my mom had. My mom never travels and never does anything for herself. And she is a huge Dave Koz fan. Has been for years. So if we had just done a cruise to Alaska she would have been thrilled. But now throw Dave and over a dozen other talented musicians into the mix and she was truly happy. And since I would do jokes on stage about my mom she suddenly became a mini celebrity on the cruise with many passengers wanting pictures with her. It was very cool for me to see that. I think my favorite part of the cruise was waking up and seeing my mom sitting on our balcony drinking coffee and watching the water go by. Seeing her happy made me happy. I felt like it was the first time I could pay her back for everything she did for me. When we got back to Seattle her flight left that Friday night back to Michigan and mine left the next morning back to LA. I made sure she got to the airport ok and before we left each other she gave me a big hug and started crying and told me how proud she was of me. I told her control yourself bitch. We are at an international airport. She slapped me and said thanks for the free vacation Dbag. We haven't spoken since.
Here are some great pics from the house photographer. These are great and certainly better than I could have taken.
After I got back from Alaska I got a call to do warm up on a couple of shows I had never worked on before. The first was America's Funniest Videos or AFV. I had worked with Tom Bergeron before on Dancing with the Stars. One of the nicest guys ever. So AFV was a lot of fun to work.
The second show I did was Dr Drew Lifechangers. The show had just premiered on television but I guess it had been taping for a few weeks when I got a call. The producers said to me they hadn't used an audience warm up person because they didn't think they needed one. But Dr Drew was getting a little frustrated with the audience because a lot of people who were on camera seemed bored during the taping and it didn't look good on camera. When the producers brought me in they said they needed the audience to look more engaged. I had not seen the show since it had just premiered so before the show began I grabbed the microphone with loud music pumping in the back. I started yelling and getting the audience excited as though it was a college pep rally. I told the audience I had free stuff going away to my most enthusiastic audience members (I didn't have anything to give them.) I just wanted the audience to be great for Dr Drew because I knew they were looking for someone to do this show full-time. So the audience is fired up. Smiling and excited. I was thinking I'm going to get this job. Dr Drew comes out and the show starts.
He starts reading the teleprompter "Meet Diane. She was gang raped behind a dumpster and left for dead." I was like holy shit. I thought this was more of an upbeat show which is why Dr Drew wanted them more upbeat. So I look at the audience sitting right behind Dr Drew and I see 40 plus people smiling with big grins and they only thought they have is free stuff. They didn't just hear that Diane was gang raped and left for dead. I tried waving to them motioning the audience to tone back the smiles but they didn't see me. Needless to say it was my first and only day at Dr Drew Lifechangers.
After my awful experience with DD, I went up to San Francisco to work with my buddy Ralphie May. I started comedy in SF so it's always great coming back to the bay area.
Here is the crazy thing. When I started comedy in SF there were two main clubs, Punchline and Cobbs. Comics usually worked one or the other for some reason. Not sure why but that's how it always worked. I worked regularly at Punchline while my buddy Steve Mazan was a regular at Cobbs. Well the crazy thing was we were both working in SF that same week. Steve was at Punchline and I was at Cobbs. It was fun. We both did morning radio together with SF radio legend Don Bleu. This was also fleet week in SF so we got to watch the Blue Angels do their thing over the bay. And the weather was awesome. Just a fun week in SF.
Next it's off to Phoenix. I love playing in Phoenix. For years I played the Tempe Improv which is right by Arizona State. That was one of my top 5 favorite clubs ever. LOVED it.
But at some point one of the main owners was ousted and although the club was still fun it was never what it use to be. As the club lost it's original feel a new club opened up in downtown Phoenix called Stand Up Live. This new club is owned by a guy who owns a bunch of clubs in Florida. All of his clubs are great. This was my second time here. First time earlier this year with Pablo Francisco. But this time I played with Bert Kreischer (from tv show Bert the Conquerer) and local comic Boomer Nichols. This club is just very classy with an awesome staff and a great bar attached to the comedy club. I'm not going to lie. I miss the Tempe Improv. But I don't expect I will ever work there again. I haven't worked there in a few years plus I think the Improv doesn't work comics who work the new Stand Up Live club. I will be back at Stand Up Live in January 2012 with Norm MacDonald.
Back on the road again. This time off to Jacksonville, Florida and meeting up with my buddy Ralphie again. I've played Jacksonville before. The place is a little odd. I remember the first time I showed up there and checked into the hotel, a Ramada Inn. I asked the front desk girl how far the comedy club was from the hotel. She pointed right behind me. I looked and there it was. A comedy club right in the hotel lobby. Certainly convenient but not for families who are trying to pass through getting to their rooms and can often hear the comic on stage talking about how he fisted some girl in the back of a Ford Focus. So I apologize to any families from the area simply trying to get from point A to point B and having to hear the show. In fairness at least you didn't pay to hear bad jokes. In Jacksonville you could tell Ralphie wasn't himself. He seemed pale and had very little energy. He got through the week like a pro but something crazy was about to happen on our next gig together. Keep reading.
Working in Jacksonville was convenient because our shows ended on Saturday night. On Sunday Ralphie and I had to be in Tampa because we were performing on a cruise for our buddy Cowhead, a popular afternoon radio DJ based in Tampa. Every year Mike (AKA Cowhead) does a cruise for his listeners called the Cowhead and friends cruise. It leaves out of Tampa and heads to Mexico for about a week. Ralphie has been friends with Mike for years and has done the cruise ever since it's inception which was probably 2006. I met Mike a few years ago when I was working in Tampa with Mitch Fatel and I tagged along with Mitch to do afternoon radio. Mike and I quickly got along and after Mitch's appearance we quickly became friends. Well, in 2010 another comic that usually performs on the cruise with Ralphie, Bert Kreischer, couldn't do it so Mike asked me. I did it and had a blast. So Mike asked me to do it again this year. This one was longer than the one in 2010. This cruise was seven days compared to four last year. We were leaving from Tampa the day after our shows ended in Jacksonville so we drive through the night and got to Tampa around 5 am. Fell asleep in the hotel and had to meet Cowhead downstairs at 11 am and head to the ship. When Ralphie arrived downstairs he looked awful. He had no energy and just wasn't saying much. Cowhead insisted to Ralphie he stay back in Tampa and just go home. Ralphie said no, telling Cowhead he didn't want to disappoint the people who were coming on the cruise to see him perform. Again Cowhead insisted he stay back but Ralphie ignored this advice which would later hurt him. We all board the ship. We only do one show and it's on the first night. I do about 15 minutes and Ralphie despite being sick goes up and gets through about 45 minutes of material. You could tell he wasn't feeling great but he plowed through it. This was a Sunday night.
We would see Ralphie on Monday night and then that would really be about it. Ralphie hid in his room the rest of the week. He didn't join us on any of the great excursions. He said he just wanted to rest and not be around a lot of people. Cowhead and I tried checking on him but he usually wouldn't open the door to his room and just call out that he was ok and he didn't need anything. Ralphie has a lot of pride and doesn't want anyone helping him. It wasn't until Thursday when I got an e-mail from Ralphie's wife Lahna saying she was worried about Ralphie. She asked if we could try getting him help. Again myself, Cowhead and numerous others tried but no luck. It was now Friday and we knew we would be back in Tampa Sunday. Well, Saturday morning I got a call from the ship's hospital and they said please come down right now Mr. May is here. I was like holy shit what the hell is going on. I got down there and Ralphie looked awful. He is a big guy and he was in this small hospital. He told me he had walking pneumonia and it was worse than he thought. Ralphie was in a state I had never seen. He looked scared. He knew if he didn't get his levels up right away he was in big trouble. I've known him for a long time and this was the most vulnerable I've ever seen. They wanted to fly him off the ship but there was a hurricane between us and Tampa so the doctors said let's try and get his levels up over the next few hours and then decide what we need to do.
Fortunately, his levels did go up and he started to get better. Ralphie stayed in the hospital that Saturday night. It was the Cowhead Halloween party that night so a bunch of us went down in costume to cheer him up. Despite being very sick and very scared he was in amazing spirits. I remember saying to him as he was sick something like, "Hey is this a bad time to ask for more clubs dates with you in 2012?" Ralphie always loves me busting his balls asking him for work and he started laughing when I asked him for work especially when he was at a low point. The ship docked into Tampa at 7 am and an ambulance was waiting for Ralphie. He was the first one off. He went straight to the hospital where his wife Lahna was waiting. I hate to say this because Ralphie was sick the whole time and most of us didn't know the severity of it but I had an amazing time with Cowhead and the entire group of passengers. We had a blast. Went swimming with dolphins, cave tubing, snorkeling. It was truly a blast. We went to Costa Maya, Belize City, and Roatan. It was truly an amazing trip. I must say I've done a few cruises now including the one in the summer to Alaska and nothing is better than taking a cruise with a balcony room. The balcony makes all the difference in the world. If you're thinking about going on a cruise do yourself a favor. Spend the extra money and get a room with a balcony. Amazing.
Here is an article about Ralphie and his return to Tampa 10/30. Ralphie cancelled 95% of his tour dates in November and December so he could get healthy.
When we got back into Tampa I needed to be off the ship immediately because I needed to be back in LA by 4 pm that day for a comedy show. A television show called Who Wants to Date a Comedian needed to film me doing stand up for an upcoming episode I was in. The show features a comic going out with three women and you eliminate the girls one by one as the day goes on until just one is left. Well at the beginning of the show they feature the comic (ME) doing stand up at a club. I guess to prove to the audience that I really do stand up. I could show the audience the 9k i made in 2010 and prove I do stand up without the actual live performance. So I knew if my flight from Tampa to LA was late they couldn't film be doing stand up which meant they couldn't film my day with the girls the following week which would have delayed everything. Luckily I made it back in time for the show. A few days later we taped the show. Me and three girls aggressively trying to win my affection. And I'm sure the money they were offering to the girl I picked. Let's not kid anyone. And for the record my girlfriend was totally cool with me doing the show. I think two of the three girls had boyfriends. Sorry if you own the box set of this show and I've completely ruined your illusion of the show. We taped the show over six hours. It really was a blast. The episode will be posted on my website as well.
After the filming I flew to NYC with my girlfriend. I was working at my fav NYC club Gotham. And she was running the NYC marathon. She is a runner and has done several marathons but this was her first in NYC. She said it was amazing. After being on the route watching her run with thousands of other cheering onlookers I could see why. We had a great time in NYC. The weather was awesome and it was warm for the marathon which made it even better...
These next couple of weeks proved busy which I loved. From New York I came back to LA for a few days before flying to Dallas. I was hired to do a corporate gig for a company called Tetrapak. They found my website and read I perform at do corporate gigs so they called me. I do a lot of corp events. Some good. Some great. Some awful. These guys at Tetrapak were awesome from the word go. Just a first class group. They took great care of me. They put me up where they were having their conference (a place called the Gaylord Texan). They were decorating the place for XMAS and it looked like a mini Disneyland. It was great. I had dinner with the people from Tetrapak and then did the show. It's weird having dinner with people and then being introduced as the comic and you just stand up and start doing your jokes. It takes a few minutes to get a groove going but then it's usually ok. Usually. This was a fun gig and thanks to everyone who made me feel so welcome.
Right before I went to New York I got a call from a guy named Kent. He said he got my number from comic Steve Byrne and Steve was doing his own sitcom for TBS in November. The show was called Sullivan and Son and it was a pilot which means they would shoot it and TBS would then decide if they liked it or not. If they liked it they would agree to produce more episodes. The show was about a corporate attorney (Steve) living in New York and he decides to move back to Pittsburgh to run his family's neighborhood bar. The cool thing is that Steve is friends with Vince Vaughn and Peter Billingsley (Christmas Story movie) and they were the two executive producers so the show was in great hands. So Kent calls and says Steve really wants you to do the audience warm up on the show. Steve and I were friends but not close friends. I was so surprised he thought of me for this show. He knew a lot of guys. A lot of comics but in the midst of getting ready for this big day he thought of me. He would later tell me he was on the Craig Kilborn show years ago when I was doing warm up and he thought I was really funny so when his show came around he thought of me. In Hollywood not a lot of guys would think of you years later like that. The fact Steve did was a huge deal for me. I was very humbled for him to ask me which meant I needed to nail it and make sure the audience was the best audience ever. Before I got to the show I read Steve's dad was being played by Dan Lauria who was the dad on the Wonder Years. That was my fav show as a kid and still to this day. Love it. Maybe because it reminds me so much of me and the dad reminded me of my dad. Now I'm working with him. It didn't get much cooler than this. The show went great. We will know in February if it gets picked up, I think it will. Fingers crossed. Steve is a talented guy and definitely deserves this opportunity.
The great thing about the last couple of weeks is that I got to do so many different cool things. Working on a cruise, dating show, corp gig in Dallas and then the sitcom. I love doing so many different things. I don't like routine. It gets old. I love mixing it up.
It was Thanksgiving and I was off to work at the Improv in Vegas. I enjoy working the Improv in Vegas. The club is in Harrahs which is right in the middle of the strip. Great location. My girlfriend came up for Thanksgiving and we enjoyed dinner at the Paris buffet. My friend Sean came up for Thanksgiving as well. He had to drive back to LA on Saturday so Michelle drove back with him because she needed to work on Monday and if she waited for me I wasn't driving back till Monday morning. Well, my birthday was the Saturday they both left. I wasn't bummed because I knew I was working and had stuff to keep me busy. Plus I secretly thought my friends Lee and Steve were coming up from LA that night to surprise me. I didn't know for sure but I had a suspicion that they were. Well most of the day went by and I never heard from them so I thought they weren't coming. Well at around 11 pm they called and said they were an hour away. They showed up just as my second show ended. We had a great time. Drove back home together Monday morning.
I didn't have a crazy busy December which was fine with me since the last few months were nuts. But I did do a cool gig at the Westfield Shopping Mall in Canoga Park. My friend Allie organizes a Santa walk through the mall once a year raising money for underprivileged kids. She asked me to come out and do some comedy for the Santas before the walk started. I thought this could be a disaster. Comedy for Santas at 8 am before the mall opened but what the hell. It's for the kids, so why not? Well we had about 100 plus Santas that showed up to walk that morning. Not many people were listening but I was still doing my thing. At one point I said hey there is no mall security here at this hour so go ahead and help yourself to anything you want. The Apple store is on level two. It got a big laugh. A few minutes later the head of the mall came up to me and said hey you can't tell people to steal they might think you're serious. WOW really? People dressed in Santa outfits here to raise money for underprivileged kids are incognito and plan to ransack the mall. Interesting. The funniest thing ever happened right after the lady left. This guy who was running the audio for the event looks at me and said, "She doesn't know how hard it is for you to get up there and do comedy." That shit was funny. Screw her. I thought that was the funniest thing of the day. We raised a lot of money and I was back in bed by 11 am.
Right before I flew back to Michigan for XMAS I did warm up on the show Top Gear. I've worked on the show before and the hosts Adam, Tanner and Rutledge are all great dudes and a lot of fun to work with. The nice thing about working on it this time was the weather. Last time we filmed it was mid summer and we filmed outside. This time weather was great and we filmed inside. Should have done it the other way around.
And I got a call from my friend Craig Shoemaker and he said he was heading to Anaheim to do a gig for the Anaheim Angels holiday party and asked me if I wanted to be part of it. So, I went down with him. Had fun and got to meet some cool people including Angel's manager Mike Scioscia.
The last quarter of 2011 was awesome with so many cool gigs. Off to Michigan for the holidays. No snow but still fun seeing the family.
From Michigan I flew to Tampa. My buddy Cowhead was doing a NYE show and asked me to be part of it. Cowhead has a band called Pitbull Toddler and they were going to play that night and bring in 2012. He asked if I would do some stand up before they went on. Flew down there and had a great time. A nice way to bring in 2012. The end. For now.
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