I recently had the opportunity to experience a performance by an 11 member sketch troupe with the unlikely name “Onassis.” When I asked how they chose the name this is the answer I got : “It’s a handsome name on its own and has a regal connotation, but also conjures up subtly horrific images and the idea of a dark past.” Just what I would have guessed!
Most of the time I’m afraid to see sketch troupes, especially if I know someone in the troupe, because I find it very hard to tell them it was a great show, if I didn’t enjoy it, and unless it’s Monty-Pythonesque in style, which is the only way I can describe the fantasy-type sketches I enjoy, I usually come away feeling disappointed. Not so with Onassis!
(L-R) Jocelyn Deboer, Jason Saenz, Benjamin Apple, Ben Rameaka, Dawn Luebbe, Lauren Conlin Adams, Eric Cunningham, Emily Altman, Rob Michael Hugel, Seth Reiss, Mike Scollins, Frank Hejl!
Sketches are easy to get into but very hard to get out of, comedically speaking that is! There’s lots of funny premises, but the endings mostly fall flat as far as I’m concerned, … and no one really knows how far that is! LOL Again, not so with Onassis. I actually asked them afterwards if they minded being compared favoritively to the Pythons and they said they were flattered. Who wouldn’t be? LOL
Onassis is the house sketch team for The Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, and they premiered a film as part of the Friars Club Comedy Film Festival, at the Clearview Cinema in Chelsea. One of my assistants, Corinne Fisher turned me on to Onassis, as she is connected to the troupe through one of the members Frank Hejl.
Debuting in January 2011 Onassis has gone on to win acclaim as one of the best sketch teams in New York City and was awarded the FrISC Sketch Comedy title at the Friars Club Improv + Sketch Competition in June 2011. Along with the award came a prize of $5,000 to commission a short film for the annual Friars Club Comedy Film Festival, which is the film I got to see!
The resulting work, “Onassis”, features one man’s wild journey to convince a small town to rename New York City’s Central Park. Directed by The Onion head writer, Seth Reiss, written by and starring Onassis, the project was filmed August – September 2011.
The film is serving as a pilot episode of an upcoming Onassis sketch TV series. I would definitely watch this!
Click here to see the Onassis interview with Jeffrey Gurian of Comedy Matters TV! It was one against eleven, but I think it worked out okay! (LOL)
And make sure to go and see their next live show this coming Monday, 11/14/11 at 9:30 P.M. at the UCB Theatre in Chelsea.
You can find out more about Onassis online at:
Facebook.com/OnassisComedy
Twitter.com/OnassisComedy
Andy Kaufman was one of the most unusual, most talented, most creative comics ever to hit the stage. He left us too young, but his memory certainly lives on. Manager/producer Wayne Rada, produced the 7th Annual Andy Kaufman Awards at Gotham Comedy Club and I spent two nights there watching the semi-finals and then the finals.
Andy Kaufman performing on the Johnny Carson Tonight Show wearing a turban, while singing a Slim Whitman song, “My Rosemarie”!
Contestants are not supposed to try and copy Andy, as if anybody could, but they are supposed to try and capture the essence of his spirit and creativity. He had no fear in doing what he thought was funny, whether it was wrestling women, or real wrestlers, or coming out on the Carson show in a turban and diaper singing a Slim Whitman song.
Andy Kaufman had the courage to come out on stage dressed in a diaper and turban to perform on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson!
On the first night the judges were Rory Albanese, a very funny comic in his own right, but more importantly the producer of The Daily Show! To me, that’s more impressive than even being Jon Stewart! You get to produce one of the most popular shows on the air!
Jeffrey Gurian of Comedy Matters TV with comic/producer Rory Albanese, the producer of The Daily Show! How’s THAT for a credit?
I was so glad to see Rory. I had been waiting over a year to tell him how funny he was in the South Beach Comedy Festival last year. I had never seen him perform before and he was absolutely hilarious! I wasn’t able to find him after the show, but the good thing is that it’s never too late to give someone a compliment. He didn’t complain and say, ” Why did you wait more than a year to tell me?” He was a perfect gentleman and just said ” Thank you!”
Then there was Comedy Central executive Anne Harris, who always extends herself to come out and be helpful at these type of events, joined by previous Andy Kaufman winner and Comedy Central darling Kristen Schaal, and lastly Andy’s younger brother, ( by 2 years), Michael Kaufman.
(L-R) Judges Rory Albanese, Anne Harris, Kristen Schaal, and Michael Kaufman at the Andy Kaufman Award show at Gotham Comedy Club!
I remember going the year that Reggie Watts won and I actually met Andy’s Dad who was there with George Shapiro of Shapiro/West. ( Seinfeld’s manager! You knew it sounded familiar right??? LOL I have to find that video somewhere!) Reggie was actually the guest performer on the next night for the finals.
Jeffrey Gurian of Comedy Matters TV with Reggie Watts at Gotham for the Andy Kaufman Awards!
The first night there must have been at least 15 semi-finalists. Some of them tried to reach Andy’s level of creativity by dressing very strange in outlandish costumes and several chose a stage personna. I snapped photos of a few I thought were funny and entertaining.
First there were the “Nice Brothers”, who both wore shades, and punctuated their repartee with the word “Nice” every so often. I liked them.
Nice!
Then there was Mike Amato who came out and sang a song like he was one of the Ratpack, or maybe Perry Como, if you even know who that was, then ripped of his clothes and became a stone cold rapper, with two hot dancing girls. I thought he was good.
Mike Amato and his dancing girls! I wish I knew their names but I don’t!
Then there was Dave Thunder who came out as a character named Jimmy DeLuca, a Lower East Side kind of kid who told a very scary story while eating a piece of cheese. And every so often he broke into that “scary” voice that camp counselors would use when telling a scary story to campers on an overnight in the woods. I thought he was funny too! I actually laughed out loud!
Dave Thunder as Jimmy DeLuca telling a very scary story about a guy named Frank Tanzarian!
It just goes to show you how subjective comedy is cause none of those people won. The next night for the finals, Harrison Greenbaum was the host. He’s always hilarious!
Harrison Greenbaum on stage at Gotham Comedy Club hosting the finals of the 7th Annual Andy Kaufman Awards!
The winner was a guy named Nick Vatterott, who must have gotten permission to have the longest set of anyone else on the show. Every other performer got about 5 minutes. Nick left the stage and kept coming back because his act consisted of screaming obscenities at the audience and threatening to never come back again, except he had to keep returning cause he forgot his keys, or a couple of milk containers, and each time he came back he’d “interrupt” the show, and scream again. He screamed right into the faces of people in the audience. And I mean SCREAMED! With all of his might!
I for one would not have been happy if that happened to me at a show, but the audience members he screamed at were either too embarrassed or too startled to respond, so they just laughed. And he won!
Wayne Rada is such an accommodating guy. He knew I had to leave early to host the late shows at The Comic Strip so he arranged for me to get photos with the judges and guest stars during the show. As a matter of fact, when Kristen Schaal got off the stage from doing her guest spot, she was kind enough to run out into the hallway so we could get our shots before the next act went on!
Jeffrey Gurian of Comedy Matters TV with Kristen Schaal at the finals of the Andy Kaufman Awards! She is such a doll!
Wayne also books CB’s Comedy Club, a great little club downtown on MacDougal Street, with an amazing Italian restaurant attached to it, also owned by the fabulous CB. Check it out and tell Wayne and CB that I sent you!
About ten days ago, the comedy world was shocked to hear that Patrice Oneal had suffered a major stroke. It’s still hard for me to wrap my mind around it. When you think of the proverbial gentle giant, you think of Patrice Oneal.
I know and have loved and respected Patrice for a long time, although expressing that sentiment might have made him uncomfortable! I was always drawn to him from the first time I met him. We had a little mutual admiration society going for us. I always felt good being around Patrice, and he always seemed to light up when he saw me! We were drawn to each other. Maybe it was the disparity in our physical beings. One of the first times I met him I suggested that we become roommates so we could share clothing! He thought that was funny!
Jeffrey Gurian and Patrice Oneal on 11/10/01, almost ten years ago to the day!
When we were planning on doing a show together I suggested that he come out holding me in his arms like a baby!
We connected on many levels. Patrice is a thinker. He’s a comedy philosopher. Really smart dude. He has everything figured out to a “T”! ( Whatever that means! Why do they use the letter “T” as a symbol of perfection???)
Jeffrey Gurian of Comedy Matters TV under the protective arm of Patrice Oneal! i still think we’d be great roommates!
We shared a deep and well thought out philosophy on women. He made fun of me being respectful to women, but at the same time gave me props for being genuine. Our approach to meeting women was world’s apart, … diametrically opposite, … but our end goal was the same. People might have mistaken him for a misogynist. I know him as a lover of women! He was just offended by their power, and how weak and dumb guys become around them!
When he asked me to be his co-host on The Black Phillip Show, (a radio show we did on Sirius), part of Opie and Anthony’s Saturday Night Virus, I was really honored. It was me, Patrice and Dante Nero, plus other guest comics. Patrice and I argued over our “meeting women philosophies”, with Dante often taking my side and explaining my thinking to Patrice and the audience. (LOL) What also swayed him to invite me to be part of his show was that he said I was the only white man he ever met who knew all the words to “Bitch Betta Have My Money”, an old-school hip-hop classic from AMG back in 1991! It happened to be his theme song!
Patrice talking about me is a big part of one of my demo reels!
I brought lots of fun girls on the show, after warning them of course about what they could expect from Patrice, who typically was very complimentary to them, but at the same time fascinated by what made them tick, and how they used their feminine beauty as a power! I was disappointed that we only got to do a few shows together before it ended.
Jeffrey Gurian of Comedy Matters TV and Patrice Oneal after judging The Lottery Show at The Comic Strip on 9/27/11!
I saw him kill on the Charlie Sheen Roast recently, and then saw him in person a few weeks ago when he was a guest judge on The Lottery Show at The Comic Strip, along with Robert Kelly and Paul Mecurio. Some fun video of that is below.
(L-R) DJ Jordan Rock, Robert Kelly, Patrice Oneal, and Paul Mecurio judging The Lottery Show at The Comic Strip!
Comedy manager/producer Wayne Rada is also a long time friend and colleague of Patrice and when I saw him last night at the Andy Kaufman Awards at Gotham Comedy Club, which he was producing, he told me that Patrice’s comic friend Harris Stanton, told him that Patrice is in a hospital in New Jersey, breathing on his own, but on a feeding tube. At this point he’s only capable of blinking his eyes.
I’m a very big believer in the power of prayer, so hopefully everyone who reads this post will say a prayer for Patrice, and put that Healing energy out to the Universe, and help him to recover as quickly as possible.
Please respect his family’s privacy at this time. An email has been set up for fans to send him well wishes and his family will make sure he gets them. You can write to [email protected].
I think it was Chris Rock who said during an interview I did with him for the book on the history of The Comic Strip, … and I’m paraphrasing here,… that a comedy club is to a comic like the gym is to an athlete. You go to a comedy club to work out. That’s where you try out new stuff, … if it’s a “safe room”!
Most comics don’t work out new stuff during a weekend show, because that’s where you bring your “A” game, but The Comic Strip has always been known as a “safe room” to work out stuff during the week. So no one except the audience was surprised to see Louis CK drop by to work out some new material for the special he’s doing on Nov. 10th at The Beacon Theatre in NYC. As a matter of fact, the audience was thrilled!
Louis CK working out some new stuff at The Comic Strip!
Louis has two daughters, 6 and 9, and you can tell he’s probably a really great and fun Dad, but he says things that other people just think, but would probably never say out loud. Louis has no fear in saying whatever comes to his mind, and the audience loves it.
He’ll say things like “the hardest thing about having kids is that it’s boring!” And then he proves it!
Or he wondered how he’d break the news to his wife if he took his kids camping and they got eaten by bears. What would that phone call be like, as he had to deliver the gruesome details of the unfortunate incident. As a Dad myself I don’t know if I could tackle that subject comedically, but Louis manages to make it funny!
In talking about the sexual things that go through men’s minds on a constant basis, Louis compares men and women with the genius observation that “women are tourists in sexual perversion, while men are prisoners of it!”
Louis has always been a good friend to The Comic Strip, and to Richie Tienken, and spent some of his early days there. We’re trying to work out a time for him to do the interview for the book.
Louis CK backstage at The Comic Strip for a benefit for The Red Cross with owner Richie Tienken!
I saw him win an award at the Comedy Central first Annual Comedy Awards this past year and again in Montreal at the Just For Laughs Festival!
Jeffrey Gurian of Comedy Matters TV with Louis CK on the red carpet of the Comedy Central Comedy Awards!
Make sure you to and see him at The Beacon on November 10th and tell him I sent you!
Carlos Mencia is the 17th of 18 children, believe it or not, and was born in Honduras. As an infant he was sent to the US to be raised by an aunt and uncle in the Maravilla Projects in Los Angeles,” (the city of Angels” in Espanol), but went back to Honduras as a young teenager to get away from the gang culture in his neighborhood. When he came back to the US, the school system took notice of how smart he was and automatically put him into the 10th grade, …proving that ” The Mind of Mencia” was not just the name of his hit TV show on Comedy Central from 2005 to 2008!
Carlos Mencia onstage at Gotham Comedy Club making a very pertinent point!
( I had a choice with that tag! As a comedy writer, I could have said, “the school system took notice of how smart he was and automatically put him into the 10th grade. Unfortunately he was 19 at the time!” and gotten a cheap laugh, but I like Carlos, so I didn’t do that! LOL )
Carlos started performing stand-up at The Laugh Factory and went on to become a regular at The Comedy Store, which is where I first met him. He performed there every night and drew quite a following. There was always a buzz about Mencia.
The “fluffy” Carlos Mencia I knew when I first met him out in LA! “Fluffy” being Gabriel Iglesias’ term for slightly overweight! LOL
So when I found out he was headlining Gotham Comedy Club I made sure to attend. But he lost so much weight I almost didn’t recognize him.
The newly thin, healthier, and funnier than ever Carlos Mencia onstage at Gotham!
To address that, he comes out and right away tells the audience that he doesn’t have AIDS. One day a friend of his made a comment that he was fat! (I understand it was Gabriel Iglesias who said it, which is hysterical, on many levels!)
Jeffrey Gurian of Comedy Matters TV and Gabriel Iglesias at a Latino Comedy Festival in LA! Gabriel is shocked by the size of Jeffrey’s big pen!
The next time they got together, Gabriel Iglesias got the bigger pen and Jeffrey Gurian of Comedy Matters TV got stuck with the smaller pen!
Carlos couldn’t believe it cause he never thought of himself as being overweight! Then he saw photos of himself, realized he was fat, and decided to do something about it! That’s what is known as “taking back the power!”
The man is half his size! But if he’s half his size, he’s twice as funny, with a wealth of material that most comics could only wish for.
He talks a lot about how great it is to be an American, and makes sharp racial observations like discussing why it’s a common thought that most Black people can’t swim. “Cause we used to chase them away from the pool. So ironically they became fast runners, but they never learned how to swim!”
A very thin and very funny Carlos Mencia killing it on stage at Gotham Comedy Club in NYC!
He also does great dialects including African, French, Spanish of course and Japanese.
But the one concept that stood out to me the most was his take on Columbus discovering America, when the Native Americans were already living here. I’m paraphrasing here, but he said something like, “You can’t discover a country if people are already living there!” He envisioned a guy from Mexico jumping the border and when he was stopped by border guards and told he was entering a sovereign country, would plant a flag and say, ” I am discovering this country for my people!” That’s comedic genius!
Last night Brett Ratner was honored at The Friars Club during the third annual Friars Club Comedy Film Festival produced by powerhouse Exec. Director Charlie Prince, and his team some of which are Senior Programmer Susannah Gora, Social Media Director Sue Constantine, Programming Director Eric Johnson, Managing Director Jor Law, and Director of Communications, Jaime Marsanico, who did a fantastic job coordinating last night’s event.
The festival screened over 60 films over the five days that it ran and they were from an international pool of films. It was a HUGE amount of work and they are to be commended!
Brett Ratner is one of the most accomplished and respected film, and music video directors in all of Hollywood, and he’s only 42. He’s known for the Rush Hour series starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, as well as The Family Man, Red Dragon, and X-Men, The Last Stand. He was also a producer on the Fox drama Prison Break and will be producing the 84th Academy Awards next year, on Feb. 26th, 2012, with co-producer Don Mischer, and with Eddie Murphy as the host. What a team that should be!
Jeffrey Gurian from Comedy Matters TV with Brett Ratner after he received his Lifetime Achievement Award from The Friars Club, during the Friars Club Comedy Film Festival!
Eddie recently received the Comedy Icon Award from Comedy Central at the First Annual Comedy Central Awards and was presented that award by Tracy Morgan!
Tracy Morgan presenting Eddie Murphy with the Comedy Icon Award at the First Annual Comedy Central Awards!
But in 1990, Brett was still a film student at NYU. How he got in is an example of his determination. He was initially rejected due to his poor grades, but he got in to see the Dean himself and after literally begging him to watch one of his films, impressed him enough that he let him in as a student.
Brett’s student film was ” What Ever Happened to Mason Reese?” It starred Rebecca Gayheart, Anthony Michael Hall, and of course Mason Reese, an actor who became famous as a child in the 1970’s for a TV commercial he did for Underwood Devil Ham that swept the country, in which he mis-pronounced the word Schmorgasbord as “Borgashmord”. People loved it and he was an instant star.
Jeffrey Gurian with Mason Reese at Mason’s birthday party! He served a Borgashmord of course!
As an aside, for anyone who’s wondering about where Mason is now, he’s right here in NYC and doing great! He currently owns two restaurants in NYC. One is Paladar, a Pan-Latino restaurant located in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and the other is “Destination Bar and Grille” located on Avenue A in the East Village. He’s an old friend and I see him a few times a year!
Brett found himself short on funds to finish his film, so he made another spectacular life-changing choice, and sent out “plea letters” to 20 different producers in Hollywood asking for monetary assistance to finish his film. He got only one response, but that was all he needed. Of all people, Steven Spielberg, of Amblin Entertainment sent him a check for $5,000, without ever meeting him.
Brett brought that same film to the attention of Russell Simmons, who was impressed enough that he got Brett into directing music videos, for the likes of Jay-Z, Mariah Carey, and Madonna! Not bad credits for anyone’s resume! (LOL) Russell has since been a close friend and was asked to present Brett with his Lifetime Achievement Award.
Brett once said he wouldn’t attempt to direct a feature film until he had directed 100 music videos. In 1996, the director of a film called ” Money Talks”, starring Charlie Sheen and Chris Tucker, dropped out and Russell suggested Brett Ratner to take over, which he did. That launched his career and led to his multiple big-screen successes.
Russell Simmons himself is not only known as a music impresario, but also throughout the comedy world for creating Def Jam Comedy. I recently attended some tapings he did for Comedy Central that were hosted by JB Smoove, with DJ Cassidy on the ones and twos, that starred comics like Tony Rock, Capone, Tifffany Haddish, Wil Sylvince, Earthquake, Owen Smith and tons more!
Russell Simmons with Jeffrey Gurian of Comedy Matters TV on the step-and-repeat for Brett Ratner, at The Friars Club!
JB Smoove host of Russell Simmons Comedy Central Stand-Up NY specials with Jeffrey Gurian of Comedy Matters TV at the Edison Ballroom!
DJ Cassidy, super hot DJ for Russell Simmons’ Comedy Central special with Jeffrey Gurian of Comedy Matters TV!
Russell Simmons came to present Brett Ratner with the award, and even billionaire Ron Perelman dropped by to say a few words and pay his respects to his good friend Brett.
Russell Simmons making his opening remarks before presenting the Lifetime Achievement Award to his pal Brett Ratner!
Ron Perelman paying his respects to director Brett Ratner at The Friars Club in NYC!
Everybody is anxiously awaiting Brett’s new film “Tower Heist” starring Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, and Matthew Broderick, which is set to open November 4th 2011, and should be a big hit!
(L-R) David Wain, Michael Ian Black, Jeffrey Gurian, and Ben Stiller at Fez, circa 2000!
The Tower Heist poster, showing the incredible cast for the film opening November 4th, 2011.
Video of this fantastic Friars Club event can be seen right here, showing not only an interview with Brett, but also with other celeb guests such as Richard Belzer, and Aisha Tyler!
Russell Simmons chatting up the gorgeous comic/actress Aisha Tyler!
Karen Koeningsberg is the founder of the charity called Cherished Feet which collects shoes for indigent people all over the world. I’m proud to say she is a friend and so I immediately accepted her invite to attend her private birthday party at the prestigious Boom Boom Room in the Standard Hotel, in NYC’s ultra-hot Meatpacking District.
Jeffrey Gurian of #Comedy Matters TV, Karen Koeningsberg of Cherished Feet and actor Paul Sorvino in the Boom Boom Room celebrating Karen’s birthday!
It was a beautiful event packed with beautiful people, one of whom was blogger Megan Averbuch of Belles and Rebelles, who was so interesting and so well dressed that I felt the need to take photos of her!
Megan Averbuch writing down her information for me effortlessly, … with my big pen!
Megan Averbuch’s “hot” shoes which only served to enhance her world class legs! (LOL)
Karen Koeningsberg with her brother Manfredo at her birthday party at The Boom Boom Room!
I was also glad to see my old friend Paul Sorvino there. I hadn’t seen him in so many years, but I was glad to see that he still looked great and that his operatic voice was as strong as ever. You should have heard him belt out “Happy Birthday”, and how long he held the note!
Paul Sorvino guiding Karen Koeningsberg on how to properly cut her huge birthday cake! His eyes rolled up as he thought about how good it would taste!
It made me recall so many years ago back in the 80’s when Paul and I hung out at a place called “Columbus Cafe”, which was a phenomenon in NYC. I don’t think that ever before or since has there been such a celebrity hang-out in New York. Paul claims to have been the first to start hanging out there. It was on 69th Street and Columbus Avenue and was run by two brothers, Paulie and Charlie Herman. Paulie is now out in LA running a restaurant called Ago.
I too was a regular, and met everyone at Columbus, including Sly Stallone, Bruce Willis, Christopher Reeve, ( before his accident), David Bowie, and even Mike Tyson. Anyone who was anyone in show biz hung out there when they were in NY.
I was there the night Mike Tyson picked up Robin Givens, threw her over his shoulder and walked out of the place with her like that. Not only was I there, but he literally pushed me out of the way to get to her. I had struck up a conversation with her downstairs outside the rest rooms, not knowing who she was, and Mike came by, shouldered me out of the way, picked her up caveman style, threw her over his shoulder and walked up the steps and out of the place just like that. And it never even occurred to me even once to start a fight with him! Not even once!
Jeffrey Gurian and Paul Sorvino back in 1991 right after he did Goodfellas!
I also reminded Paul Sorvino of a story I knew he would never remember. He played the part of “Big Paul Cicero” in the Scorcese classic Goodfellas, and it’s hard to believe it came out in 1990, cause that’s 21 years ago. I remember the day like it was yesterday,because for some reason, I was supposed to call Paul that day. I had just come from seeing the film, and he was so realistic in the role that I was literally nervous to call him. I’m not kidding when I say that. It’s the truth. I was really nervous to call him. And when I told him that on the phone, he said to me, ” What are you a shmuck? I’m an actor, not a gangster!”
He told me playing that part so well affected him for the rest of his life because people really think he’s a gangster. He actually comes from a long line of noblemen from the Naples area of Italy and says his family goes back 1,000 years. He explained that he’s technically a knight from a group of knights whose job it was originally to protect the Pope. Paul looks like he could protect anyone. He’s 6’4″ and massive, but very gentle in the way he speaks and acts.
Chris Mazzilli is a special kind of guy and a very charitable man. I don’t think it’s any accident that there are so many charitable events at Gotham Comedy Club. Laugh for Sight is a national charity which raises awareness and funding for Retinal Degenerative Eye Disease Research benefitting the Scheie Institute at the University of Pennyslyvania.
Jeffrey Gurian of Comedy Matters TV with Gotham owner Chris Mazzilli at Laugh for Sight!
It was a very eclectic mix of performers at this packed event, with the always funny Dan Naturman as MC. Dan has a unique style and delivery all his own, which is the key to successful comedy. No one else should be able to take your jokes, if they are crafted towards your own comedy personna.
Jeffrey Gurian of Comedy Matters Tv with MC Dan Naturman, at Gotham Comedy Club!
Dan says people on the internet lie about their age. He received a photo from one woman that had the Berlin wall in the background, … and it was under construction!
I also love his take-off on the TV commercial encouraging patients to ask their doctors about Previcid. In response to Dan’s Dr. telling him he has a condition that nothing can be done for, Dan asks, ” What about Previcid?” and then ponders, ” Shouldn’t HE know about Previcid? How is that MY job? “
First up was sight-impaired comic Brian Fischler and Nash, his canine companion, and Brian was very funny. Next was Jessica Kirson, a real crowd-pleaser, who is so animated, and takes impromptu breaks onstage in the middle of her act, to talk to herself, offering herself little bits of advice and encouragement like, ” You just have to realize that wheat bread is still bread!”
Jessica Kirson with Tom Papa who looks like he’s going into a swoon, waiting to perform at Gotham Comedy Club, at the benefit for “Laugh For Sight”!
Jess was followed by Tom Papa, TV and film star, and currently the host of Jerry Seinfeld’s NBC hit, The Marriage Ref. Tom says that men don’t care that much about getting married. That’s why there’s no Groom Magazine! Men don’t even wear their own clothes to get married in. They rent them.
And he opines on Wall Street guys who kill themselves after losing all their money. “They’d rather die than live like us!”
He talked about hating cliches, the way I do when during the summer, people who think they have a sense of humor ask ” Is it hot enough for you?” Those same creative geniuses can’t wait till Winter to switch to, ” Is it cold enough for you?” Those two “Bon-mots” can keep a guy with absolutely no personality going conversation-wise throughout the year!
Tom Papa killing it onstage at Gotham Comedy Club in a benefit for “Laugh For Sight!”
Tom’s example of an obnoxious cliche was, in answer to the simple question ” How are you?” ” Still about a million dollars away from being a millionnaire!”
Then Eddie Brill took the stage. Eddie is the consummate showman, and will be making his 10th appearance on Letterman very soon. Eddie also books the talent on Letterman which must have been very difficult for him trying to convince himself to put himself on! I heard he auditioned for himself several times before he agreed to let himself appear! (LOL)
A very thin Eddie Brill performing onstage at Gotham in a benefit for “Laugh For Sight!”
Actually Eddie can’t book himself. He’s too humble a guy to do that. I hear that Letterman himself is the one that requests that Eddie appears.
Judah Friedlander, star of NBC’s 30 Rock, is one of the funniest guys to come along in a long time. His “World Champion” hook is one that most comics only dream of. It’s a never-ending source of material for him. What’s cool about Judah though is that as famous and popular as he has become, he’s still totally approachable to his fans. He honors every request for photos and chats with fans after every show.
Judah Friedlander onstage at Gotham Comedy Club in a benefit for “Fight For Sight!” Judah’s look is his brand!
As World Champion of everything, Judah claims he’s been on Twitter since 1985, is an extra-dark Black belt in Karate, and weighlifts weighlifters while they’re lifting weights to keep in shape. He doesn’t even wait till they put the weights down, which he could conceivably do without anyone doubting his masculinity. But instead, he actually lifts them while they’re holding the weights which makes it much more difficult! Then again, he IS the World Champion!
Judah was standing behind where I was sitting when Steven Wright took the stage, and it was great to hear him laughing out loud at Steven’s rare and obscure observations like, ” It’s a good thing that other people speak foreign languages, otherwise those people would have no one to talk to.”
Jeffrey Gurian of Comedy Matters TV with Judah Friedlander after his set at Gotham Comedy Club at a benefit for “Laugh For Sight”!
“In her spare time, she liked to waste time!” ” He majored in Calcium Anthropology – the study of milk men!” ” I have two pair of reading glasses, one for fiction and one for non-fiction!” ” The Earth is bi-polar!” ” Do you know what time it is?” “No, I’m not from around here!” ” A friend of mine has a trophy wife, but apparently it wasn’t First Place!”
I think that Steven was probably an inspiration for comics like Mitch Hedberg, and maybe even Judah. I know he was an inspiration to me, and that Chris Mazzilli, who often leaves at the end of his long day, actually stuck around to see him!
Jeffrey Gurian of Comedy Matters TV with one of his most important comedy influences Steven Wright, at Gotham Comedy Club!
Judah Friedlander at Gotham Comedy Club with Steven Wright, after Judah and everyone else enjoyed Steven’s masterful performance!
Robert Klein brilliantly closed the show and followed Steven because he was probably the only one who could!
Robert Klein closed the “Laugh for Sight” benefit at Gotham Comedy Club!
Way back when, a court jester’s job was to amuse the king. But what if the king had such a good sense of humor that he didn’t need a court jester? He’d be his own court jester! That kind of describes Andy Nulman, the current President of the Montreal based, Just for Laughs Comedy Festival, the biggest and most prestigious comedy festival in the world. Andy’s the King of the Festival, but he’s also a funny guy in his own right!
Not “stand-up comedy” funny, but funny as in entertainingly funny, as you’ll see in the photos below where we took turns being huge!
The inspiration for this action on our parts, was that when I went to see Andy backstage at Russell Peters hit show, “Best Night Ever” at the Place Des Arts in Montreal, Andy and everyone else were being guarded by two “HUGE” guys, the guys that run security for the festival, Alan “Fluffy” Schwartz, ( which is not the usual name that you would expect for such a HUGE guy! LOL ) and Big Bill. I decided to hang between them! I’m not sure they even noticed I was there!
Alan Schwartz and “Bill Bill” giving Jeffrey Gurian of Comedy Matters TV some support backstage at Russell Peters’ show in Montreal!
Andy Nulman, President of Just For Laughs in Montreal and Jeffrey Gurian from Comedy Matters TV taking turns being absolutely “Huge” backstage at Russell Peters show in Montreal! In this shot Andy is the “Huge” one!
Jeffrey Gurian of Comedy Matters TV, taking HIS turn at being “Huge”, next to with Andy Nulman, President of Just For Laughs in Montreal!!
As current President of the festival he helped found 29 years ago, Andy currently serves as the President of Festivals and Television, something he is truly accomplished at. Taking the festival from it’s original two days, and turning it in to a month long event, Nulman has created/Exec. Produced over 150 festival TV shows, all over the world, as well as bringing in multi-million dollar corporate sponsorships!
In the attached exclusive video interview Andy did with Comedy Matters TV’s Jeffrey Gurian, he tells the story of how the festival almost never got off the ground until Bob Williams of the Spotlite Agency got him Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno in the early days, and how in 1988 Marty Klein a top agent from APA who was also a Montrealer, told Andy that the next year he would get him John Candy as his host, and he’d get the festival a deal with HBO. That’s what turned the tide for the festival. A great story!
In 1999, Nulman left the Festival’s full-time employ, and limited his participation to directing the star-studded galas, which until recently were at the St. Denis Theatre. Now they are held at the much nicer Place Des Arts.
To say that Andy Nulman is a successful businessman would be such an understatement. It would be like saying, ” Einstein was a pretty smart guy!” Andy is also the founder, President, and CMO of Airborne Mobile, a media-space company, which he wound up selling to Japan in 2005 for almost $100 million smackeroos (Smackeroos are very similar to Japanese yen. I think the conversion rate is 15 smackeroos to each Yen!) Which is basically why I felt comfortable asking him to break a twenty for me!
In 2006, Airborne was cited as North America’s 4th-Fastest Growing Tech Company by the Deloitte Fast 500, so in June of 2008, Nulman and his partner Garner Bornstein re-purchased the company. ( With all that money you’d think he could buy a better name than Garner Bornstein! LOL )
Andy was always a go-getter. Even before helping Gilbert Rozon found Just For Laughs, he was a journalist, starting at the age of 16 at the weekly tabloid The Sunday Express, and was eventually promoted to the positions of Entertainment Editor and Promotion Manager. He was a freelancer for publications like Variety, Us Magazine and the rock ‘n’ roll music bi-weekly Circus Magazine. He even toured the US with comic superstar Howie Mandel another native Canadian!
Listen to Andy tell it in his own words right here!
Every Tuesday night at 10:30 at the legendary comedy club in NYC, The Comic Strip, there’s a fun, live, streaming reality type show called “The Lottery Show.” Created by club manager JR, along with owner/founder Richie Tienken, young comics try their hand at passing to perform at the club, and are judged, … very honestly I might add,… by seasoned comedians.
(L-R) Robert Kelly, Patrice Oneal, Paul Mecurio, Richie TIenken and JR judging The Lottery Show at The Comic Strip!
The Comic Strip opened on June 1, 1976 and is still going as strong as ever after 35 years. It launched the careers of people like Jerry Seinfeld,Paul Reiser, George Wallace, Larry Miller, Ray Romano, Adam Sandler, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock and many many more!
The past few weeks has seen stars like Artie Lange, Tony Rock and Colin Quinn come in to be Lottery Show judges, and the show is quickly gaining popularity as a “hip” thing to do in the comedy world.
Jeffrey Gurian with Artie Lange backstage after a show in 2009!
Jeffrey Gurian from Comedy Matters TV with Tony Rock, the night he was a judge on The Lottery Show at The Comic Strip!
This past week the three judges were Robert Kelly from HBO’s Tourgasm with Dane Cook, Patrice Oneal, one of my favorites, and a guy who pushes the proverbial envelope today the way Lenny Bruce did way back when, and Emmy award winning national headliner Paul Mecurio! The judges change but the host stays the same, and that position is filled by VH1’s Sherrod Small who’s due to break huge any day now.
Jeffrey Gurian of Comedy Matters TV with his exact look-alike Patrice Oneal, after Patrice was a judge on The Lottery Show!
Sherrod is not only hysterical, but he controls the audience in a way that few comics can. And his bit about thanking certain segments of the audience after almost every joke, is a real crowd pleaser! And Jordan Rock is keepin’ it down on the ones and twos!
Sherrod Small and his longtime muse, … the lovely Marisa!
In this week’s show, which I will be providing a video of very shortly, you will see Patrice go off the way only Patrice can do. The judges were arguing very loudly over a call on whether a certain comic was funny or not, and why, and during what almost sounded like a street fight, a show broke out!
I will always be honored by the fact that Patrice chose me to be his co-host on his Sirius radio show, “The Black Phillip Show”. A couple of them are still up on the internet. This is one of them where Patrice is absolutely fascinated by the “hot” girls I’m with!
Jeffrey Gurian from Comedy Matters TV and Patrice Oneal all the way back in 2001!
Can’t wait to finish editing the video tape of The Lottery Show so I can post it. Stay tuned for that!
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