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COMEDY MATTERS ROUND-UP WITH BILL BURR, PATRICE O’NEAL BENEFIT, KEVIN HART ROAST, DREW LYNCH, COMEDY WITH MAURY, BK IMPROV, AND SO MUCH MORE!!!
13TH ANNUAL PATRICE O’NEAL BENEFIT
Every year since Patrice left us in 2011, comedy exec. Maureen Taran and Bill Burr have worked tirelessly ( especially Maureen! LOL) to keep the love for Patrice alive. And I know for sure it exists because I had the honor of being Patrice’s co-host on the Black Phillip Show on XM radio back in 2008 and I STILL get notes from guys thanking me for the information we put out!
I’ll never forget the phone call from Patrice at 4: 05 in the morning the first night we did the show together. It was me, Patrice and Dante Nero, Patrice’s first co-host. This phone call was also one of my greatest honors coming from Patrice when he told me he wanted us to do our own show!
At this 13th benefit Rich Vos was the perennial host, and as always brought it home with solid jokes. He was a big hit! First comic up was my buddy Matt Richards who I was so happy to see up there. Everyone killed by the way. Followed by Jordan Jensen who said she wears makeup so men can see she has features.
Then one of my personal faves, who I first met up in Montreal at JFL, and was so impressed that I featured him in a pilot I shot at Gotham Comedy Club called “The Raw Side of Comedy.”, the great Drew Dunn! Drew was trying to picture Gen Z if there was ever a civil war. They wouldn’t show up! “They don’t even wannna go to work!“
Next up was Modi who’s absolutely killing it these days, and was the only comic to mention Patrice. He also said he tore up a magazine that referred to him as an up and coming comedian. He also said he wasn’t gay but his gay husband is! #hilarious
The crowd went wild when Tim Dillon came out. He got HUGE applause and deservedly so. Needless to say but I’ll say it anway, he totally killed. Later at the afterparty he held court outside The Stand and we got a chance to catch up cause I hadn’t seen him in quite a while.
Zarna Garg was next who admitted that she and her husband do math for fun! Followed by Adam Ray who was the next to kill and did not come out as Dr. Phil. Funny because Patrice considered himself the Black Dr. Phil. Then a guest spot from Dave Attell drew tons of applause and you can always count on Dave to say something like, ” it happened years before dogs wore clothes!” He also announced that he was the new Supreme Leader of Iran!
And then of course Bill Burr closed as strong as ever, and in talking about his family disclosed that his father was a dentist. I can’t believe he never told me that!!! No wonder they didn’t get along! (LOL) I couldn’t wait to see him at the after party at The Stand where it’s held every year. Comics came who weren’t able to attend the show. And I went to see Bill who always sits in the back protected by a man you would want to protect YOU, Ken Feder, AKA Club Soda Kenny!!! He greeted me by saying, ” Now I know its a party if Jeffrey Gurian is here! That makes it official!” LOL
I brought a picture of me and Bill on my phone from 21 years ago, and Bill liked it so much he put it on HIS phone! So great!!! And he was there with his beautiful wife Nia.
BROOKLYN IMPROV IS AMAZING!!!
I don’t get to Brooklyn much cause I have no beard, but when I got a call from Alireza Ghaemian, the CEO of Levity Live in LA that handles so many major comedy stars, inviting me to come see their new club I threw caution to the wind and decided to make the trip! And I’m so glad I did!
Levity Live now owns this club and 25 in all across the country! Great move, and major congrats to Alireza and Judi Marmel the co-founder and President of Levity Live!!!
He connected me to Levity Exec. Italia Carmona and Jayk Burczyk the Director of Operations who made me feel very at home, and made sure that everything went perfectly, and coincidentally the night I went they were doing Subway Takes LIve with Kareem Rahma, so I was psyched to attend. My own Subway Takes has almost 900,000 views. Check it out on my Instagram, ((@jeffreygurian ) and Gilbert Gottfried’s daughter Lily is in it!!!
I even met Summer, in charge of marketing, whose ripped jeans are exactly the thing I talk about on stage , because the truth is that ripped jeans are basically just torn pants, and if you went into a store and saw a sign that said ” Sale Torn Pants”, there’s a good chance you’d pass it up. But if you rip your pants on purpose now it’s time to hit the clubs! I saw a girl last week just wearing pockets! LOL So when I met Summer she was kind enough to let me take pictures of her legs!!! (LOL)
Well I wasn’t prepared for such a beautiful club. It’s huge with different sections, like a separate bar area where you can just hang out, but the show room is like a casino room in Las Vegas. Really beautiful and in a couple of days from when you read this column I will be back for the Grand Opening party! I NEVER miss a party with or without a beard!!!
Kareem assembled a panel of comedians to judge the “takes” of members of the audience which I thought was an interesting spin on the concept. Included on the team was ex-SNL member Ego Nwodim, and comic Jay Jurden who opened the show!
KEVIN HART ROAST
Having been the main writer for the famed Friars Roasts for 12 years I know a bit about roasting. Kev set the tone with his opening remarks heavy on the “N” word. it just gets tricky when you have too many people performing who are NOT comedians, but are just doing lines written for them by comedy writers. All the comics did great!
There’s a distinct difference between just being loud and being funny. Having Tom Brady come out in the beginning was a great move and Tom was very funny, referring to Kevin as a hobbit. What else can they say about a man as successful as Kevin except to make fun of his size.
Shane Gillis was a great host, and did it in a very humble and respectful way, as if he respected the honor he was given to host this celeb packed event. Shane said that all of Kevin’s ancestors came to America in a slave ship in a bottle, and that in Saudi Arabia at the Riyadh Fest they gave him a sword and a shield and he had to fight a scorpion, two great visuals!
Pete Davidson had all his tats removed and looked very neat and corporate. He told Jeff Ross that he looked like the inside of a clam. Hilarious visual. And then he added , ” Like my Dad if he had somehow survived 9/11.” I feel a great affinity for Pete, knowing him since he was a teen and started out performing at The Comic Strip when I was hosting late night with Jordan Rock. Pete would come in with Jordan and work on his material and he was always so kind and respectful. He’s been through so much and I always hope he’s ok.
Almost all the comedians directed gay jokes at Tony Hinchcliffe who has never come out as gay as far as I know, but sometimes where there’s smoke there’s fire, as they say! I’m always grateful to Tony for secretly telling me not to do his show at Skankfest one year. Someone had signed me up but I was not familiar with the format of the show, and Tony came over and said he didn’t think I would like it, and that I shouldn’t do it. After I saw it I was grateful for the advice! (LOL)
It was no surprise that Jeffrey Ross, the Roastmaster General would kill. He said about Kevin that he put ” the elf in Philadelphia”! So clever!!!
Great to see Big Jay Oakerson on the dais with the streak of red hair in the front and red nail polish on his middle finger on both hands while the rest of his fingers sported black polish. He told a story about how he and Kev both had the same mentor Keith Robinson, as if Keith was dead, but they flashed to Keith who was in the audience hysterical laughing!
Basketball player Draymond Green took a lot of hits especially when Naim Lynn one of Kevin’s “Plastic Cup Boys”, who I met many years ago when I produced Kevin in a benefit for Haiti, said that Draymond Green “sounds like an ugly paint color. I think I’ll paint my bathroon Draymond Green! ” Draymond almost fell off his seat laughing so hard!
I have to say that Lizzo shocked me. First that she was not in a thong, but that she looked absolutely beautiful and elegant in the dress she wore covered with feathers. Not being a comedian she laughed her way through her set. Other non-comedians who appeared were Regina Hall, and Teyana Taylor who were there I guess as eye candy and because they’re so popular.
And then there were the great surprise guests like Chris Rock who totally roasted Kev, Katt Williams, dressed like a pimp, who previously had beef with Kev, and Kev seemed genuinely shocked that Katt was there, and they made up live on set! And then at the end The Rock, Kev’s co-star in so many films, came out to first make fun of Kev and then to honor him, and people went crazy. Absolutely crazy, and Kev took some potshots at The Rock as well!!! A fun three hours!!!
Also lots of fun peeps in the audience, like Hasan Minhaj, George Wallace, Bert Kreischer and John Stamos!
COMEDY WITH MAURY
When you hear the name Maury you know there’s only one and it’s Maury Povich. So director Ari Rubin is having a conversation with comedy videographer/director The Homeless Pimp ( Mike Lavin), who has directed more than 30 comedy specials, and he says, ” I need someone to play a talent agent in this social media sketch with Maury Povich, someone like Jeffrey Gurian.” And Pimp says, ” Well why don’t I just text Jeffrey Gurian?” which he did and that’s how I wound up on this fun project brought to you by AIR, a company helmed by Tyler Strand, which is described as “a platform that revolutionizes creative operations.”
More than that I couldn’t tell you but it was a really fun project and I played a talent agent under my own name who interrupts a Maury Povich shoot to offer a singer a recording contract! It’s actually a lot more complicated than that, but that was the bottom line. It was such a fun shoot and then there was the screening party at the AIR offices downtown that brought out hundreds of people including Maury.
I like bringing people photos of us from decades before as I did with Bill Burr in the opening story, so I did the same thing with Maury. I had done Maury’s TV show 20 years ago which he said was more like 30 years ago, and we had a good laugh about it!
DREW LYNCH THE NON-STUTTERING COMEDIAN
SAY is a wonderful organization that stands for Stuttering Association for the Young. It’s headed up by Taro Alexander an actor I met years ago at Naked Angels theater troupe. I went to support because I stuttered badly for many years, from about the age of 6 or 7 through my 20’s and beyond. It took me many years of hard work to cure myself. And as an avocation I work with stutterers all over the world to teach them how NOT to stutter. My criterion is that if you can speak better when you are alone, then my cognitive techniques can help you.
Paul Rudd is often the face of SAY, not because he stuttered but because he played a stutterer in a play, and relates to the difficulty people face who stutter.
I was anxious to meet Drew Lynch who is often called “The Stuttering Comedian.” I got to speak with Drew, and shoot a video which I will be posting, who was a really nice guy, and I was surprised to learn that Drew didn’t start stuttering until he was 20 as the result of a brain injury. He was hit in the throat with a baseball, fell and hit his head and got a concussion, which caused him to stutter.
His speech sounds great and I was amazed to see that he used many of the same principles I teach to get better. I was not aware that you could accomplish that with a brain injury but Drew is proof that you can. He was being honored and was there with his family and his producer Lydia Rasmussen, who took photos of us together and promised to send them to me. Lydia if you read this please send them!!! (LOL)
SHOUT OUT TO FUNNY AF FINALISTS
Major congrats to two NYC homies Reg Thomas and Usama Siddiquee for making it to the Final Four of Kevin Hart’s Funny AF competition. I’ve known them both for a long time, performed on shows with them. and watched them come up in the NY comedy scene and I can attest to the fact that they are both FUNNY AF!!!
And I think that’s more than enough for this issue of Comedy Matters!!! If it goes any longer I’ll have to look for a publisher cause it will be a book! You can follow Jeffrey on IG at @jeffreygurian and on TikTok at @jeffreylgurian.
SEE YOU IN THE CLUBS!!!
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