Funny And Nice

Lucas Lewis Week is nearly at an finish, so bear in mind to check out Lewis’s performance at The Gas tonight at Fantastic Scott. He’s taping his set, and it really is always very good to have a full crowd for that. Thanks to Lewis for his operate this week. One more coming — a lengthy Q&A with Mehran. — Nick

By Lucas Lewis

BOSTON — Let’s say you happen to be a comedian in Boston. You’ve been at it 4, maybe five years. You’ve started to have some success, and you’re effectively-identified to the comedians and bookers around town. You have played all the regional clubs to rave critiques, entered some festivals, possibly even gotten some road gigs.

So what comes subsequent?

A lot more than probably, you are going to start to assume about the subsequent phase of your profession, and a lot more than likely, that is going to entail moving to New York or Los Angeles. The time frame may possibly differ but the common consensus is that you will need to leave Boston in order to succeed as a comedian.

“It’s actually to do it for like 10 years and then at some point move to L.A. or New York,” says comedian Eugene Mirman. “Really it’s so significantly about tenacity that if you literally just retain performing and it and carrying out it, you’ll almost certainly at some point get good. But you have to leave Boston. Undoubtedly in terms of finding function, there is just a lot much more in New York and L.A.”

***

I graduated college with a degree in theater. And I’m unemployed…because I have a degree in theater. I just moved into my very own apartment. It’s near where my parents live. It’s across their hallway…because I have a degree in theater.
— Ahmed Bharoocha

Ahmed Bharoocha, 27, spent the very first half of his life in Southern California, moving to Rhode Island just just before beginning high school. He attended URI and, right after a brief foray as an engineering significant — largely to please his parents — he eventually graduated with a degree in theater.

His parents eventually came about.

“At that point I had began performing standup and they had witnessed it,” he says. “I assume they could just inform it was something I was actually severe about. Soon after that they didn’t give me a lot of guff about it.”

Bharoocha started performing standup comedy in earnest in 2004, occasionally heading to Boston or New York for gigs but largely staying in Rhode Island at 1st. He met fellow Ocean State comedian Tim Vargulish and the pair soon began traveling to Boston with rising frequency — first monthly, then weekly, and ultimately numerous occasions a week.

As an outsider, Bharoocha discovered the Boston comedy scene intimidating and challenging to break into. That perception was turned on its head when he started attending open mics with regularity, and he was soon assimilated into what he now considers a really supportive, accommodating scene. It was a stark contrast from the “bringer” shows he did in New York, exactly where stage time was contingent on how numerous people you brought by means of the door, and the crowds had been often hostile.

“With Boston, there is a lot of stage time where you can get up all the time, a lot of open mics exactly where folks will listen to you,” he says. “They may well not laugh, but they will pay attention to you. In New York, there are a lot of truly rough, angry open mics.”

Bharoocha soon came to take into account himself a Boston comedian. He set objectives for himself that he rapidly realized, including grow to be the Comic-in-Residence at the Comedy Studio. He earned invites to prestigious festivals, which includes the Boston Comedy Festival, the Seattle Comedy Festival, the Excellent American Comedy Festival and the Bulmer’s Comedy Festival in Dublin.

He started out to get perform on the road, too, but he had a nagging feeling that he needed to move to New York or Los Angeles to take the subsequent step — or at least to attempt.

“I kept placing it off, and it was obtaining to a point in Boston exactly where I was cozy — I did most of the points I needed to do, and I was worried it would be too late if I didn’t go,” he says.

Final winter the Boston comedian Zach Sherwin, aka MC Mr. Napkins, moved to L.A., exactly where he now hosts a free of charge standup showcase (“French Toast”) at Taix in Echo Park on Sunday nights. Sherwin had Bharoocha on the show his 1st evening in town.

***

“I’m initially from Wisconsin. I used to have this crazy job there where me and all my co-employees got paid to get drunk all day. It is call roofing.”
— Shane Mauss

Shane Mauss, 30, grew up in La Crosse, Wisc., and came to Boston in 2004 in aspect to pursue comedy. Only, he didn’t actually know how one particular did such a thing. That didn’t stop him from getting an almost-absurdly quickly — and certainly unusual — rise in the comedy planet.

“I had no thought what I was carrying out so I just opened up a phone book — individuals nevertheless used mobile phone books back then — and I called around all the different clubs. Rick Jenkins was the guy who was just like, come verify out some shows.”

Mauss soon got himself on a bill it was OK. Jenkins encouraged him to take a standup comedy class, which he did with Wealthy Gustas at the now-defunct Emerald Isle in Dorchester. (Tough neighborhood, he says he the moment got mugged outside of the class.) The graduation show was eight weeks later, back at the Studio, and Mauss — as they say in the business — killed it.

He right away started acquiring booked on larger shows around town, and soon he was hosting. He produced it to the finals of the Boston Comedy Festival in 2006, and on the strength of that overall performance he was invited to the prestigious (but now defunct) Aspen Comedy Festival, where he won Finest Comic. He identified management and was soon being booked all over the nation.

Much less than 3 years from the time he started performing performing comedy, Mauss appeared on Conan.

Even even though he’s from Wisconsin and lives in Austin, Mauss considers himself a Boston comic. He’s not the only one. Mauss was recently 1 of six nominees for The Phoenix’s Finest Comedian award in the Finest of Boston readers’ poll — some thing his does not realize until I inform him.

“I’m in the operating for greatest comic in Boston right now? That is funny, I had no concept. Effectively, that is a mistake on their aspect.”

Whilst he had adequate perform to move wherever he desired, he thinks for most aspiring comics, the road nonetheless goes by means of New York or L.A.

“I really feel like if you have been performing standup and have been doing effectively for like five to seven years, and possibly been in some festivals and carried out pretty properly, and possibly are featuring a fair amount, then I’d say there is going to be a point exactly where you might have to seek out New York or L.A. to catch a break,” Mauss says.

But Mauss’ story, while an exciting situation, is hardly representative.

“I do not know, my path was diverse just simply because I got seen in a festival and invited to one more festival and issues just sort of blew up for me. So I never needed to go to New York or L.A. to be discovered.”

***

Bethany Van Delft was born in New York but moved to the Boston place when she was small, ultimately ending up in Dorchester. She always loved comedy but was “debilitatingly shy” expanding up, and it wasn’t until she had a quarter life crisis a lot more than a decade ago that she mustered nerve to try standup.

“I was a restaurant manager, I had a three-story townhouse in South End and an great boyfriend — and I was so incredibly bored,” she says. “I thought when that time comes, you are just happy, and I was miserable.”

She signed up for a comedy writing class at the Boston Center for Adult Education and was the only lady — and the only person who wasn’t white. She dropped out after three classes, frustrated with feedback that either seemed non-applicable or like a double normal. But she still showed up for the graduation show at The Comedy Studio and actually had a decent set, excellent sufficient to earn a monthly spot from Jenkins.

Van Delft continued on this path for a couple of years, writing a new set every time and normally just sustaining but not improving. Jenkins would constantly inform her she essential to go to open mics, but she never ever did.

“Obviously you know you cannot get good at comedy undertaking that,” she says. “I didn’t truly get what you had to do to turn into a comic.”’

But about six years ago, something clicked. Van Delft produced the rounds, introducing herself at all the clubs and performing virtually each and every evening at open mics or function shows. She killed. She bombed. All of it made her much better. And now she has a decision to make.

“I know that I have to go somewhere,” Van Delft says. “Probably New York, I would believe. It’s just truly difficult. I started comedy later in life, like I wasn’t 19 and in school or anything. I wonder how a lot that has to do with a comic’s success…

“It’s a tough selection I’m trying to perform out proper now. I have to do it. To be at the next level, I have to do this. I’m at a crossroads right now.”

Boston is a starting point, but it really is in no way the endgame.

“Boston is not where you ‘make it,’ says Mehran, who final year was named Boston’s Very best Comedian in The Phoenix Best of Boston readers’ poll. “That requires a specific pressure off of development. A comic can uncover her or his voice with less pressure and temptation to compromise to far more formulaic templates right here.”

Kaplan, Sherwin and Mauss — who not all that coincidentally share management — represent the final exodus of great Boston comedians. Josh Gondelman, Van Delft and Mehran are possibly the subsequent wave.

And if there’s one negative to the Boston comedy scene, it really is this: The location cannot retain its talent. Seems like as soon as someone gets truly excellent, they leave.

But the void never ever lasts extended.

“One of the wonderful things about the Boston scene is how it replenishes itself constantly,” says Nick Zaino III, who has covered comedy for far more than a decade and runs the Boston Comedy Weblog. “Every few years, a bunch of men and women leave, and you wonder, who’s going to take their spot? Who is going to step up? And it may not be obvious who that is, but there is usually someone there who gets great and starts actually creating and finding hot.”

That next an individual might be Matt Donaher, aka Matt D, a New Hampshire native whose ascent in the Boston comedy scene has been downright Mauss-like. Last month he was voted Boston’s Finest Comedian in The Phoenix readers’ poll — just two years into his comedy profession.

Donaher’s razor-sharp a single-liners (ex: The critical thing to don’t forget when committing a murder-suicide…is the order) have earned him slots at large clubs and festivals, and there is far more on the horizon. But the 25-year-old says he’s not going anywhere at the moment.

“I do not actually feel the itch because Boston’s been so good to me,” he says. “I’m happy with what I’m undertaking and I know for a reality if I left proper now it would be to my detriment.”

Ultimately he’d like to be a writer, perhaps for one of the late-night shows, and he thinks skipping town before he’s developed much more would be a mistake. Nevertheless, he already understands that at some point he’ll probably need to leave.

“It’s much more that I do not want to hit one of those lulls, so that would call for a move to jump start it all,” he says. “If a year from now, nothing at all from this conversation has progressed, that wouldn’t be very good at all.”

But if — or, more probably, when — he does leave, one particular factor appears particular: There will be someone else waiting in the wings.

The Boston Comedy Weblog

The final installment of Lucas Lewis Week, wherin Mr. Lewis interviews Mehran, one of Boston’s rising stars of stand-up. I’ve spoken with Mehran for this blog and the Boston Globe before, and when you’ve covered someone for a while, there are questions you might stop asking because you think you already know the story. That’s where an interview like this is refreshing — I get to see someone else approach Mehran from a different perspective. There’s a lot here to chew on, so dig in. And remember, Lewis is at The Gas tonight, and Mehran is hosting Criscoteque Two: Preaching for the Choir at Oberon. The Gas starts at 7:30, and Criscoteque at 9:30, so you should be able to make both. Thanks again, Lucas! – Nick  

Mehran hosts Criscoteque 2 tonight at Oberon in Harvard Square

When and why did you start doing standup comedy?

I had just been laid off from my job at Harvard University where I’d worked in a number of different offices doing high-level admin work for three and a half years. I started temping at Harvard because I’d pretty successfully burned every bridge I had in the hospitality industry (rat fucking bastards) and I needed to not live on the street. I figured I could write, had strong computer skills and needed to explore potential career-paths that came with some degree of job security. My first temp role had me licking envelopes for three days. On my second contract, I happened to luck out and caught the fancy of one of the University’s top managers and, with her personal and professional mentorship, I moved up the ladder at rocket speed. Within 18 months, I was the Project Manager to the Office of the President and Provost, sitting across the hall from Larry Summers in what was his last year before his forced resignation. It was a circus.

You have to understand that up until that point, I had always fancied myself something of a boozy, acidy, weedy, comedic performer. I emceed underground arts shows and concerts, did some BIZARRE performance art, directed some funny one-acts, studied theater and acted wherever I could… so the transition to a desk job, especially one in such an occasionally austere environment, was both jarring and, in a sense, deeply depressing. Something of my family’s voice in me was pushing me toward a sustainable life-long career and I was, in listening to that voice, ready to accept that entertainment wasn’t going to happen for me beyond a hobby. Then in my last year at HU, working at the School of Public Health, my department saw some pretty severe budget cuts as a result of Bush-era slashes in federal public health funding and I was let go.

I collected unemployment and kept looking for work back at the University, but everything just felt too damn unhappy or underpaying to commit to. So to make my job-search time less agonizing, I decided to connect to my performance roots and signed up for the first standup comedy class in Boston that came up on Google. Standup was just about my favorite entertainment medium, but I thought that it was the kind of thing that you were either born doing or it wasn’t meant for you. I actually believed that. I hadn’t committed to writing material, EVER, and I thought that standup wasn’t for me because I didn’t open my mouth and instantly sound like Janeane Garofalo’s HBO special.

Debate on the merits of comedy classes to one side, that leap motivated me to write my first five minutes and, most importantly, it assured me to the fact that development was a process. Our final showcase was on November 1, 2007. That was my first time performing my own standup material in front of a seated audience and, accepting that this is going to sound unbearably trite despite its truth, I FELT my life change in that moment. Everything clicked. Walking home with my friends from that performance, I’m not even kidding, it’s the walk I’m still on. My life has been clearer to me since that night.

Can you give me a quick summary of how you went from newbie to Boston’s best comic (per The Phoenix)?

Well it’s the Phoenix Best of Boston POLL. It’s a voting campaign driven thing—it’s really not about THE BEST. For Christ’s sake, the other nominated comics on my year were ALL frigging legends. I just happened to mobilize my facebook army the best into voting for me. Period. It had and has nothing to do with any qualitative measure of comedic superiority. Me, in my second year of comedy, a better standup than Kelly MacFarland? It’s an insane suggestion.

But if this question is about how quickly I rose in the ranks or how I manage to do alright in Boston’s entertainment landscape, then we’re looking at a whole different set of factors. For one thing, I’ve worked. I’ve put in my time, eaten it HARD in venues large and small and have seen humbling levels of support. Also, and here’s where personal opinion comes in, I brought myself to the table. I have material, sure, but I’m also the culmination of a pretty interesting life and I think people tune into that. I rarely take the blessing of getting to perform for people for granted and my audiences and I trade a lot of love.

You obviously have a unique voice; how did your act develop, and how deliberate was it?

I told the truth and I told it in my real voice—who I am onstage and who I am offstage are the exact same person. Also, I didn’t start at 21. I probably could have—the core sense of humor is still the same—but at 31, I’d already done the bulk of my soul searching, unleashed myself on the world in a million different ways and survived multiple crises of depression and identity. I think that’s a huge part of the standup experience for an audience, witnessing that specific human being in communication and tuning into her or his unique take on life. For the performer, standup can almost serve a function of social instruction and to do that, she or he has to have some degree of intimate self knowledge and mastery… something that I couldn’t claim to have had ten years ago when I was still licking the wounds of my troubled adolescence and embarking on the life I wanted.

My act started where so many acts start… toilet humor. The difference with me being that there it has remained. Somewhat kidding. My life is always mineable for material because it’s loaded with outrageous shit.
As for deliberateness, sure there were some deliberate moves. I started with the Iranian homo thing… in part because it’s my unique angle and in part because I’m a fucking Iranian homo. The rest, like most comics, I think, has been a process of discovering how I, in the medium of standup comedy, would shape what I find to be funny. The only thing really deliberate about a discovery process is the commitment to keep showing up and see it through. I can say that in that process, I took risks, shared myself and made some of my bigger mistakes earlier than most.

What are the venues or people that helped in your development?

How long have you got? Jesus.

The Comedy Studio, Rick Jenkins, Erin Judge, Tim McIntire, Mottley’s Comedy Club, Kelly MacFarland, Maz Jobrani, The Wilbur Theater, Jim and Helen McCue… Robby Roadsteamer/Potylo… they’ve all represented opportunity, mentorship, guidance, support, ENDORSEMENT… deeply, deeply humbling generosity and I hope to be able to repay them all someday.
Then there’s the community of local comics who have been incredible to watch and learn from. I remember my first nights going to the Studio—they have a policy where you have to attend three shows before you can take their stage—I remember thinking “how am I ever going to do that??” Lamont Price, Tom Dustin, Myq Kaplan, Dan Crohn, Ira Proctor, Micah Sherman, Ken Reid, Renata Tutko… there’s no way to start naming them all without leaving key people off the list or repeating names I mentioned earlier. It’s a very impressive group of inspiring, original talents who blew me away at day one and continually renew my resolve/anxiety to improve. Hell, some of the newer comics these days are bringing it hard, too.

Development is a big topic. There’s the slow climb of improvement—that’s facilitated by regular stage time and, again, we don’t have enough ink to thank all the bookers, local hosts and open mic organizers who make it possible. The other side of development, I think, has to do with the opportunities where you’re challenged to take on higher-stakes gigs. These are evolutionary jumps for a performer. The Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival, performing in front of your comedy heroes, the Boston Comedy Festival, playing packed theaters like The Wilbur, The Berkeley Performance Center, The Lisner Auditorium… you learn a lot about who you are and what you’re made of as an entertainer in those moments… where you might fit, practically, in the greater comedy landscape.

Have you experienced discrimination in comedy? If so, in what ways was it similar or different than the discrimination you’ve encountered in everyday life?

Listen, my shit-kicking and shit-detecting skills were engaged at a very early age because they had to be (I’ve been out of the closet in a fairly conservative Iranian home since I was 15) and to that end, I’ve been lucky to know how to shut a lot of bullshit down before it ever gets a chance to start. I’m a big, fun extroverted gay man who self-identifies as Iranian, sure, but above all, I’m a strong, real, present person who doesn’t let iniquity slide. People tend to ascertain that quickly enough to preempt nonsense and spare themselves significant pain and misery. I don’t bring a victim mentality to the table and, no, discrimination has never been an issue.

The other side of this is that in the year 2011, the gays have pretty much won the war of visibility. I don’t have to fight that much anymore because people who would be stupid enough to air their prejudice in public are in the statistical minority and most likely fear being summarily shut down. I’m fine with bigotry being silenced by fear. I’ll take if from there and show them the light.

MIND YOU, I’m not being booked for Elks Lodges or to entertain the troops… but that has more to do with demographics and propriety than anything else. You wouldn’t hire GWAR to play a conservative corporate concert unless you wanted to watch a bunch of terrible people melt down. Which I happen to love doing.

Why do so many great standups come from the suburbs of Boston? You went to high school with Eugene Mirman, right?

Eugene and I went to high school together, indeed. That was Lexington, MA and for all of Lexington’s white moneyed shittiness and separation from the real world, we mostly got to be the trippy lifeforms we were there. I look for that in comedy—the trippiness of the source. The Eugene I know today is pretty much the exact same guy from 1992. Only he’s everyone’s idol and deservedly so.

Boston is a thinking person’s town and it’s counterbalanced with a rich and delicious tradition of assholeism. The right Bostonian will point out exactly why you don’t need to be so psyched to be alive, tell you to go fuck yourself and somehow invigorate your day with that information. I love it. Also, and I’m sure you’ve heard this a million times, Boston isn’t where you “make it.” That takes a certain pressure off of development. A comic can discover her or his voice with less pressure and temptation to compromise to more formulaic templates here—if just for lack of example. This creates a culture of unstrained, unforced individuality and that’s a huge gift, particularly in one’s starting years.

You’re notorious for having feuds — you even did a show featuring comedians you’d had “issues” with. How much of this is serious?

Notorious? FEUDS? Really? I mean… there’s probably some reputation there for being outspoken and not shying away from conflict but “notorious feuds” is tabloid exaggeration. I withhold less than the average person. It’s that simple. I also believe in the fundamental value of the truth as an agent to bring about positive change… and truth is typically in rare supply in environments where networking plays such a pivotal role in scoring work. Fuck all, do I hate networking. Give me honest, trustable dialogue and relationships any day.

Some of this perceived quarrel is also hazing, which I own. I was hazed on my initiation into comedy and trust it to be an essential ritual. It trains one to think more critically and respect the institution of comedy that preceded one’s involvement. Most of the folks who put me through the wringer in this city have since either moved on or diminished in their social presence on the scene. Giving newcomers a modicum of grief is a service I perform mostly out of necessity. The veterans aren’t around that much to do it anymore and we can’t go throwing a bunch of bladder-headed babies into the fray.

In the rare instance that I have a real issue with someone, sure, it gets to be serious. But I’m not an agent of seriousness, I’m an agent of laughter. There isn’t a bridge that can be burned that can’t be rebuilt stronger, smarter and funnier. Hence the capacity to mend relationships and book a show entirely with comics I’ve at some point driven mad. That was a great show, by the way. I’m glad I was able to get back on the good foot with all those talented people.

Generally speaking, what is your take on the Boston comedy scene? The good, the bad and the ugly.

Good: the support network, the general originality of voice that happens here, the opportunities for mentorship and development, the ease with which one can fall into the scene and find stagetime, the possibility of being a big fish in a small pond.

Bad: small pond. you reach a critical capacity here and have to move to New York or Los Angeles to make a play at greater distribution. we can’t retain our talent.

Ugly: Tom Dustin. (I love you, Tom)

Alternative comedy is a blanket if not meaningless term often used to describe an array of different acts. What, if anything, does the term mean to you? Are you an “alternative” comic?

In my experience, alternative comedy is just poster short-hand for shows booked with hipper, non-traditionally dressed, potentially disenfranchised comics whose acts are marked by greater absurdism, sexual weirdness, politically leftist incredulity and/or references to marijuana/psychotropic drug culture. I happen to fall into all of that and who doesn’t like playing to an audience that’s on open to all of one’s eccentricities and peccadilloes? So in that regard, sure, I’m an alternative comic. Still, one has to broaden the scope. Comedy is comedy. Funny is funny. Some of my most rewarding comedy experiences have been in rooms where the audience didn’t see me coming and you can come out of those situations with some die-hard fans and advocates.

Tell me about Quiet D — the genesis, your involvement and your takeaway.

It started as a phone conversation between Robby Roadsteamer (né Potylo) and myself. We were talking about how fun it would be to film a show about our talks and interactions (both of us being pro-drug and, well, awesomely damaged funny people) but to pump up the absurdity. Robby took it a step further to suggest that the show could really showcase some of the city’s talent so that, perhaps, not so many of us would have to defect to NYC or LA.

Robby’s tremendously motivated and what could have been just a flight of fancy idea between two friends, quickly became a steady stream of shoots featuring dozens of Boston comics with Joe Madaus behind the camera. Over the course of about nine months we shot thirteen or fourteen webisodes. Rob and I continued to talk daily and batted some of the ideas around but the vision, the coordination, the direction, was almost entirely Rob’s. (Except for my scenes, which Rob would rush and butcher in editing.)
With each passing webisode, it became clearer that we had very different ideas about where the show needed to go—I felt that there were too many cameos and that we had to get more organized, loyal to plot lines, etc., if the show was ever to transition to a 22-minute televised format. I did my best to communicate these ideas delicately, but Robby ultimately took my concerns more as artistic criticism than collaborative feedback. Tensions escalated for months until Rob couldn’t bear me socially and I couldn’t bear him professionally. The partnership caved.

After about nine months of radio silence, Robby was approached by a production company and they bought the broadcast time on MyTV and I was invited back. I agreed, under the condition that I’d be able to exercise a degree of creative control to, by my standards, increase the value of the show. I didn’t want to be associated with something that I didn’t agree with aesthetically or otherwise and wouldn’t lend my image without the assurance that I wouldn’t have to tip-toe around changes and suggestions. This time, I was unabashedly forward in communicating all the work that I thought the show needed. Robby was on board for about a month and we saw some great strides but, yet again, things turned hostile. This time, after roughly two weeks of insurmountable disagreement and rabid barking on both our parts, I decided to back away from the show sooner rather than later. I didn’t want the craziness to negatively impact my work in standup and that worked out for the best. I haven’t watched since episode three.
Lessons: Know when to bow out of something when you know you disagree with it and it isn’t going to change. Pull the trigger before things get heated. Never go back to a stubborn situation, no matter how great you think it could be. GET YOUR CONTRACT UP FRONT, otherwise, prepare to toss in a boatload of effort for pure grief. Define your boundaries and be honest about how you work. That, at least, I did get right the second time around.

What are your feelings on Rick and The Comedy Studio?

I love Rick Jenkins. Personally, I have all the warmth in the world for him and professionally, I don’t know that I have too many people in comedy to thank more. He gave me key advice and asked me deep questions up front that absolutely accelerated my development. He’s absolutely a mentor and I can count on him for good and precise advice when I need it. People joke that he likes to take credit for comics once they go on to succeed in the business. Me, I look forward to being able to thank him for all of his support and guidance. I can experience some catastrophic comedy failure somewhere and as soon as I walk into The Comedy Studio, I know I’m home. If you knew me better, you’d understand how welcome, rare and meaningful a feeling like that is for me.

Do you feel like you’ll need to move to New York or LA to take the next step? Why or why not?

Yes, I will have to move to one or the other. I’m still weighing my options. I don’t know LA. I’ve never been but Lord knows I would prefer the weather. New York is a taxing bitch of a city where I play regularly enough and already and know a host of SUPER-talented comics. It’s certainly the easier of the two, transition-wise. The biggest factor is that I’m not rich. Moving is going to be expensive, as is living in either city. I also don’t look forward to liquidating my life in Boston. I’ve accumulated a metric fuckton of crap.

I have to move because I want to do big things and I want to up my game. There are just more greats, by sheer numbers, in NYC and LA. If you’re going to try and jump over the bar, you have to put yourself in front of it

What IS the next step for you?

I mean… I love doing standup and I love producing shows that showcase standup in new and interesting ways. I’m super proud of Boston and deeply in love with some of my fellow comics. To find a way to bring what I do now to its next level… to increase its reach and viewership… to drive my own personal agenda in comedy and spread my unique signature of joy… help some people while I do it… that’s the dream.

I’ve been doing these rave/standup comedy hybrid shows that are a hoot. Next one is at Club Oberon in Cambridge on May 27th and it’s a benefit for this AMAZING choir in town, Coro Allegro.

And on May 14th, I’m in the Montreal Just for Laughs Comedy Festival final audition round in NYC.

We’ll see!

What’s the worst show you’ve ever done?

There have been some doozies. Like the one where a Latina lesbian chased me off the stage while the audience was like, “she’s right!” I had made a joke about the blind children of Mexico being more violent than their blind peers from other countries… because they think everything is full of candy. It was a shitty drag show and most of the audience was made up of these white-guilt liberals who didn’t cotton to my political incorrectness. The host was off somewhere not giving a fuck about the show. Meanwhile, I was doing my residency that month at the Comedy Studio AND I was on my second day of waking up at 3AM to film 20 spastic episodes of Deal or No Deal (if you look them up, I will find you and kill you.) So I was at the end of my rope anyhow and having some crazy Latina all up in my grill on a shitty runway stage was more than I was interested in for the night. I promptly collected my shit and got the fuck out of Dodge. Mind you, I felt FINE about leaving and never really thought about it again. If we’re talking about shows where I’ve hated myself afterward and/or hidden in public toilets and/or not left my apartment for a week over… well… that’s a whole other interview.

The Boston Comedy Blog

Lucas Lewis Week continues with this piece on Boston’s tradition of comedy in Chinese restaurants. – Nick

By Lucas Lewis

BOSTON — There’s something about Chinese restaurants that appears to bring out the best — and the worst — in Boston comedy.

Back in 1979, it was Barry Crimmins establishing the first complete-time comedy club in town at the now-legendary — and now-defunct — Ding Ho in Inman Square. Today there’s the Comedy Studio at the Hong Kong in Cambridge, possibly the most revered and respected comedy club in New England (see “The Studio”).

But across town, in the shadow of Fenway Park, there’s a lesser-acknowledged venue forging the Chinese comedy connection: Grandma’s Basement, an intimate lounge linked to a Chinese restaurant at the Howard Johnson Hotel. In Boston, as elsewhere, comics congregate around the exhibits they can get on — mostly little showcases and open mics. Grandma’s has the added allure of being a tiny area (a dozen individuals can make the 44-capacity area search full) run by 1 of their very own, and as a result it has become one of the premier hangouts for regional comedians in the past year.

Bar manager and sometimes host Benny Bosh (nee’ Boshnak), who shares booking, hosting and bartending duties with fellow comic Tom Dunlap, is pleased that this happened when it did.

“We’ve grown in recognition at a best rate alongside our — mine and Tom’s — comedy efficiency,” Bosh says. “That is to say, I’m glad it wasn’t this well-liked a year ago, because then I would’ve looked like a full idiot on stage. Now I just type of search like 1.”

The insider cache — along the Chinese restaurant bit — is a marked similarity to the Ding Ho, which Crimmins created to be a comedy clubhouse. “The secret of the Ding was that it was of, by, and for comics,” he wrote in a 1999 retrospective for The Boston Phoenix. “The Ding treated all its acts like stars. Comics did not pay for drinks — ever. They could put anybody they liked on the guest list.”

Grandma’s Basement has other parallels to the Ding Ho, too. On Fridays and Saturdays, Bosh or Dunlap are typically behind the bar, slinging strong — and on occasion free of charge or discounted — drinks to the comics assembled.

A typical weekend show (which is canceled when the Red Sox have a residence game that begins later than 1 p.m.) will feature about ten comedians doing five-7 minutes apiece, even though there are exceptions: Earlier this year, regional comedian Shawn Donovan recorded his very first album, Couple of Mourn, at Grandma’s Basement.

“Donovan’s album recording I nonetheless feel of as one of our greatest successes as a comedy venue,” Bosh says. “He is with out a doubt a single of my preferred comics in Boston and in comedy, and I’m so pleased he got that out there and I was ready to help obtain that.”

As for Chinese restaurants bringing out the worst in Boston comedy? The Ding Ho was as notorious as it was noteworthy, with comedians almost running the location into the ground with their bar tabs and after-hrs shenanigans. Grandma’s Basement hardly ever approaches that level of debauchery, but The Phoenix did not too long ago dub Thursday’s open mic “The Very best Worst Night of Comedy” in Boston for 2011.

Bosch, who hosts most Thursdays, wears the distinction as a badge of honor.

The Boston Comedy Blog

Much more from Lucas Lewis, since it really is Lucas Lewis Week. Today’s piece is about The Comedy Studio in Harvard Square. – Nick
&nbspBy Lucas Lewis

Other clubs say, “Tell all your close friends about us.” We want you to keep this quiet, due to the fact we’re not positive the Chinese know we’re here.
— Rick Jenkins

Rick Jenkins of The Comedy Studio

CAMBRIDGE — Tucked away on the third floor of the Hong Kong restaurant in Cambridge, across Massachusetts Avenue from the gated majesty of Harvard Yard, sits what many funny individuals think about to be the greatest comedy club in the planet.

Amongst them are Eugene Mirman, who has released three comedy albums, written a book (“The Will to Whatevs”) and acted in the HBO show “Flight of the Conchords” Joe Wong, a Letterman preferred Shane Mauss, who had a Comedy Central specific and released an album on the station’s imprint and Frank Smiley, the senior producer (and talent scout) for Conan O’Brien.

But unless you are a comedian, there’s a excellent likelihood you’ve by no means heard of The Comedy Studio. That’s by style. When owner Rick Jenkins starting performing Sunday night exhibits at the Hong Kong 15 years ago, he didn’t set out to generate the kind of cookie-cutter, two-drink-minimum comedy club that proliferated in the 1980’s.

At 1st, he didn’t set out to produce a comedy club at all.

“I was nearly 35 and had not made it as a standup comic, and clearly wasn’t going to make it as a standup comic,” Jenkins says, “and I got a day job at a bookstore for minimum wage figuring, ‘Alright, I got to do comedy for 10 years and now I have to start the true globe.’”

Instead, his Sunday night exhibits starting carrying out well, so he added Friday and Saturday night shows. There is now a magic-themed show on Tuesday nights, and Wednesdays and Sundays have a tendency to characteristic much less polished comedians than weekend nights, but the format — about 10 comics undertaking 5-7 minute “feature” sets — has remained reasonably constant.

That’s 1 issue that separates The Comedy Studio from some of the larger clubs downtown, such as Nick’s Comedy Quit, which a lot more usually than not comply with the normal format of characteristic performer (undertaking about 30 minutes), out-of-town headliner and maybe an emcee.

One more is the crowd. Jenkins likes to joke that he doesn’t want the audience to inform their pals because “we’re not confident the Chinese know we’re here…and for the first 10 years that was genuinely accurate,” Jenkins says. “People would call the Hong Kong and they would have no notion what they were talking about.”

Jenkins is fast to point out that it’s not generally overrun with Harvard individuals, but the Cambridge location does lend itself to a intelligent, hip crowd.

“Boston is a pondering person’s town, and it’s counterbalanced with a rich and delicious tradition of a**holeism,” says the comedian Mehran, who grew up in Lexington (and attended high school with Mirman). “The right Bostonian will point out precisely why you don’t want to be so psyched to be alive, tell you to go f*ck your self and somehow invigorate your day with that information. I enjoy it.”

Smiley is the senior producer for The Conan O’Brien Show. The first time he went to the Studio, he looked at 10 comedians and had 3 on the show in the following two weeks.

“That’s pretty much unheard of,” says Jenkins. “Usually it requires at least a year of them tracking someone, and out of ten they may discover one particular they want to track.”

Not surprisingly, Smiley returns usually, and he’s quoted on the club’s system:

I take into account it the greatest comedy club on earth. It’s a return to the days of wise audiences, which I locate are rare, and I’ve been everywhere. You go to the Comedy Studio and then you come back to the New York clubs and you fall into a depression.

“The Studio has such a good crowd,” says Ahmed Bharoocha, a Boston (by way of Rhode Island) comedian who moved to Los Angeles earlier this year. “They’re normally intelligent and they’re going to like you. It is not like a road space where you have to bang it into (their) heads — which is a great factor to find out, too. I believe Rick really wants you to get your set prepared for what you believe it’d be on Television.”

And that is the most crucial ingredient of The Comedy Studio: Jenkins himself.

***

“Seven chairs on that side,” Jenkins tells a comedian who’s helping him transform the third floor of the Hong Kong into a comedy club.

There are four 20-foot long tables plastered with snapshots and press clippings that constitute the bulk of the seating at the Comedy Studio. Six nights a week, Jenkins is here to set up, even though mercifully he only has to break down four of those nights. Each and every show begins at 8 and ends by ten.

Girl Speak is playing more than the speakers whilst a comedy DVD menu circles repeatedly in silence. Along the back walls is extra seating, and right after setting up the tables, Jenkins takes to arranging a handful of promotional signs from more than the years along the back wall. One features a black and white photo of a much younger-hunting Jenkins, when the Buffalo native, who’s approaching 50, nevertheless had a full head of hair.

Then, as now, when he dons a dark suit for his hosting duties (he emcees most of the weekend exhibits), Jenkins seems surprisingly straight-laced for the proprietor of a hip club regarded as to be a bastion of “alternative” comedy (see “Indie Comedy”). He credits comedian Eugene Mirman, who was a staple of The Studio for four years ahead of moving to New York in 2000, with shifting items in an experimental direction.

“He’s really the 1 that took my mainstream instincts and pushed them towards the gorilla operation,” Jenkins says.

But Jenkins’ mainstream instincts and appearance are in aspect what enable The Studio to thrive. Audiences who wander in off the street may be place off by the bizarre antics of a single comedian, but five-to-7 minutes later they have Jenkins up there smiling and delivering the type of setup/punchline jokes they expect in the course of the segue.

And it largely operates like a actual comedy club, apart from the fact that the comedians don’t get paid, so there is a professionalism and efficiency to every little thing.

“Rick does a wonderful job operating it,” Mirman says. “It has a wonderful spirit to it. It is got so numerous components that come together that make it fantastic place.”

Comedians are in a position to experiment the audience is exposed to different kinds of jokes than they may possibly see on Television without having getting pushed out of their comfort zone for too lengthy and Jenkins gets to feature a range of comedic acts and designs.

“You’ll hear a lot of comics say you require a location to fail,” says Nick Zaino III, who has covered the Boston comedy scene for much more than a decade (for The Boston Globe, among others) and runs the Boston Comedy Blog (bostoncomedy.blogspot.com). “The Studio is usually that spot, where folks are supportive enough that you can truly swing massive and whiff at times.

“But if you make contact, you’ll really have something. That’s not a thing you can get all over the place. And the Studio isn’t a huge club, but it is an established spot, so it indicates a thing to individuals to get to a certain point there.”

***

Jenkins’ willingness to attempt new things and let comedians experiment is unusual for a legitimate comedy club, especially a single that normally pulls a good crowd, but it’s central to his mission. He doesn’t just pick talented and distinctive voices he helps to foster them, usually from the beginning.

When comedians get in touch with him about obtaining on a show, he’ll send out a welcoming care package, replete with a filled letter, articles on The Studio, a listing of open mics and a free pass to the club. It’s not clear what Jenkins gets out of this, but for aspiring comics it is a excellent primer for the scene.

“Comics actually create here,” Jenkins says of Boston usually, but he could be talking about his club. “It’s truly more like a graduate school.”

He rarely provides advice without having being asked, but he has it at the ready. Jenkins even has a Comic-in-Residence program, a sort of finishing school for young comedians. Each night for a month, the Comic-in-Residence does a set at every single show, hosting or taking the bullet (going 1st) for crowds that range from teenagers to tourists to grizzled veterans of the Boston comedy scene.

One of the 1st Comics-in-Residence was Myq Kaplan, the Final Comic Standing finalist. When Kaplan initial carried out at the Studio ten years ago, he was an aspiring singer-songwriter who just believed he’d attempt some of his funnier songs onstage. He was crestfallen when he located out he only had seven minutes.

Also on the bill that night had been Jonathan Katz and Louis C.K., although at the time neither name meant very much to Kaplan. Later, when he became significant about comedy, he hosted a show at the Studio with Micah Sherman before moving to New York a couple of years ago.

“Basically Rick was the 1st person to place me on stage,” Kaplan says. “The Studio I think of as my property club. That’s where I got started out, I adore going back there. It is just a genuinely great place with excellent audiences and Rick is wonderful.”

“I don’t want to blow smoke up his a**hole a single more time, but The Comedy Studio was a actually important terrarium for me to do stuff,” adds Zach Sherwin, who performs — and not long ago released his 1st CD on Comedy Central Records — underneath the moniker MC Mr. Napkins. “Rick gave me that weekly hosting spot and then I’d do a couple other spots a month, and it just was a actually excellent community of intelligent, appreciative men and women who gave me a lot of excellent feedback early on. The Comedy Studio was enormous.”

Sherwin and Kaplan are among the most current batch of Boston comics to locate good results only to skip town. Yet another is Shane Mauss, who now lives in Austin. Mauss’ rise was downright meteoric (see “Onward”), but like Mirman and Kaplan just before him, it truly began with the Comedy Studio.

“I think of the Studio as my house club,” Mauss says. “As far as really performing, it really is my favorite club in the country. It really is not often super intelligent comedy that you see on stage, but the audiences are typically up for what ever — dumb jokes and wise jokes alike.
It’s a single of the few areas where I can do my actually weird substitute stuff, but then I can also do my blue collar-y stuff talking about drinking or my old construction job…I haven’t really noticed that in too several clubs.”

For his portion, Jenkins thinks the recipe is simple: “If you have good audiences, comics will want to be here, and if you have good comics, audiences will want to be here.”

***

You can point to several issues as evidence of the Studio’s central spot in the Boston comedy landscape, the respect it engenders amongst comics in specific. The club has sustained itself with out a single qualified promotional push. Smiley and other scouts regularly look to Jenkins to produce showcases so they can locate the town’s leading talent.

But one of the most impressive things is this: The Comedy Studio occupies this elevated space despite the fact that it doesn’t pay its comedians. The space is too little and the tickets too low-cost to support something more than Jenkins and his Hong Kong restaurant overlords. But it doesn’t appear to matter. The greatest out-of-town comics typically try to make a pit quit at the club, even when they’re playing far larger, far greater paying (and this would consist of anything that’s paying) gigs downtown. Todd Barry and Gary Gulman have recorded CDs here.

Whether it is the crowd, Jenkins, the space itself or some combination in in between, the alchemy has worked for 15 years. When asked what sacrifices he’s produced to make that take place, his dismisses the thought totally.

“I’m producing a living undertaking one thing I really like, rather of generating a decent living performing one thing I hate,” he says.

In The Comedy Studio, Jenkins has created the variety of club he’d want to attend.

Just do not tell your pals.

The Boston Comedy Weblog

Eugene Mirman at the Paradise in March

A sidebar to Aspect I of Lucas Lewis’s series on local comedy. Lewis will be recording a set Friday at The Gas at Fantastic Scott. – Nick

By Lucas Lewis

JAMAICA PLAIN — On a warm evening in late April, a crowd assembles in the living area of the Whitehaus, a 3-story Victorian in Jamaica Plain that has been placing on rock exhibits in its basement, and in this specific parlor, for the final number of years.

Only on this occasion, music is simply the sideshow: The main act is the Union Square Round Table (unionsquareroundtable.com), a comedic assortment show that started out in Somerville and is typically held at PA’s Lounge in the show’s eponymous square the final Friday of each month.

PA’s accidentally double-booked this month, so the show moved to Somerville’s progressive counterpart on the other side of the river, JP. It turns out to be a fortuitous move. The area is packed with very first-timers, and it is a younger crowd than the USRT usually attracts. Rockers. Hipsters. Bohemians. Other JP stereotypes seemingly come to life.

Keira Horowitz, who has been involved with the show for most of its 5 years, is encouraged by the turnout. Before she goes onstage to speak about her private history of Jamaica Plain, she says the group will probably attempt other locales, too.

Eugene Mirman, a successful comedian (see “The Studio” and “Onward”), former Somervillian and buddy of a number of of the group’s founding members, utilised to carry out at the show with some regularity, and Horowitz confesses that till not long ago, she assumed he was their main draw. Tonight’s show is evidence to the contrary.

In some ways, the USRT is the type of cerebral, multimedia assortment show you may anticipate from an educated collective of 20- and 30-somethings: sensible (if obscure) impressions, oddball videos, faux professorial lectures aided by PowerPoint and an overhead projector.

But then there are unexpected wrinkles, too, like the married musical duo Cotton Candy performing flawless renditions of actual commercial jingles from years past, or the chocolate pudding cooked in the kitchen more than the course of the show and served at the end by the mustachioed Round Table knight TD Sidell.

As opposed to numerous of the comedy exhibits around town, none of the featured players seemed to be attempting to “make it” in comedy.

“The Union Square Round Table is seven-or-so people who are largely embarrassed by comedy but attempt to do it anyway,” USRT member Chris Braiotta writes in an e mail. “We try to steer clear of a lot of things, but we specially attempt to avoid becoming too significantly like dudes. We are all millionaires, which takes a lot of pressure off.”

Residence exhibits (at times referred to as “basement shows,” for apparent good reasons) have been a staple of the underground music scene for years, and the Whitehaus is 1 of the greatest acknowledged and longest-operating establishments in the city in this regard. Its proprietors attempt not to publicize the exact location lest they draw the ire of the police — “ask a punk” is the classic, though now somewhat ironically invoked, phrase affixed to flyers exactly where an address may well otherwise be printed.

There appears little likelihood of the cops coming tonight individuals are sitting cross-legged on the floor.

Basement comedy exhibits are much less common, although this hardly an isolated incident. For a time, the comedian Jenny Zigrino and her housemates held the King Cobra Comedy Evening not far from right here on Greenough Street — in their living space.

Like “indie rock,” “indie” or “alternative comedy” are rather amorphous terms that encapsulate a broad range of styles. Substitute comedy is the much more dated of the two, beginning with comedians like Janeane Garofalo and now synonymous with comics like Patton Oswalt.

“Alternative comedy wasn’t genuinely a distinct style, there was just a sincerity and an energy to what people were performing, and it wasn’t attempting to locate the lowest common denominator to get on Television,” says Rick Jenkins of its origins, which mirrored the development of his club, The Comedy Studio. “Ironically, all these people ended up on Tv since they were so great and special and different.”

It might not have a clear definition, but it can nonetheless be valuable shorthand, specifically when it comes to describing the kinds of comedy that are on the rise in Boston. According to comedy writer Nick Zaino III, Oswalt has described alternative comedy as merely what takes place when neither the performer nor audience have a preconceived notion of what standup comedy really should be.

Sometimes it indicates a comedian whose material is unorthodox or pushes the envelope. Occasionally it’s as easy as performing a standup show in a rock club.

“I feel at one point it, like music, it started out as a term that meant as an choice to mainstream,” says Mirman. “But the truth is comedy clubs are a creation of the 70′s or 80′s. Most of the places I do stuff (now) have music or trivia.”

And at times they are just a living area.

The Boston Comedy Weblog

Guest Blogger Lucas Lewis

Beginning nowadays, I’m declaring this “Lucas Lewis Week” on the Boston Comedy Weblog. Why? Simply because Lewis is recording a set for the 1st time Friday at The Gas, he’s going to be leaving town shortly, and he’s written this fine, multi-portion piece on Boston Comedy. He’s gotten into very a couple of corners of this scene, and there is a lot to discover. He also interviews me. So in a really lazy way, I am posting something I stated, too. Lewis was not lazy, even though. And you’ll see the fruits of his efforts right now by means of Friday, which includes an extended Q&ampA with Mehran, who will be putting up Criscoteqhue two at Oberon Friday. Take pleasure in! — Nick
By Lucas Lewis

CAMBRIDGE — Rhys Thomas paces nervously in front of the Middle East Corner on Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square. The 22-year-old Beverly native and student at North Shore Community School is preparing to perform standup comedy in front of a crowd for the very first time, at the weekly Corner Comedy Open Mic, and he’s, well…

“I’m a wreck,” he says matter-of-factly.

Thomas has been taking a standup class at nearby ImprovBoston with Josh Gondelman (joshgondelman.com), a young but seasoned comic thought by numerous to be among the city’s best. Gondelman won Atlanta’s Laughing Skulls Comedy Festival last year, and in June he’ll record his 1st CD.

But Gondelman is also a preschool teacher who’s widely thought to be “Boston’s nicest comedian” — a persona he plays with on his site — and his soft-spoken demeanor is no doubt a comfort for fledgling comedians like Thomas.

The impetus for Thomas to really pick up a mic, even so, came as a outcome of one more show put on by tonight’s host, Rob Crean of Anderson Comedy.

“It’s been a thing I’ve usually enjoyed, but I never believed I could really do it,” Thomas says. “I went to see Rob’s show sort of by accident, ‘The Gas’ (a showcase that takes location each and every Friday Evening at Allston rock club Excellent Scott), and that’s the first time I ever saw regional comedy.”

Boston’s neighborhood standup comedy scene is experiencing a second renaissance, producing shows at the rate — if not the profit margin — that made it recognized as a comedy hub in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, when the likes of Denis Leary, Lenny Clark and Steven Wright patrolled the stage.

The Middle East Corner’s Tuesday evening show is just one particular of numerous comedy open mics about town Boston comedians regularly go on to seem on Comedy Central and, sometimes, the key network late night shows and choice shows are cropping up all around the city, from rock clubs in Allston to cramped living rooms in Jamaica Plain.

Not all of this is new, of course, but the manner, scope and character of these independent comedy ventures are exclusive, according to far more than a dozen comedians, club owners and journalists interviewed for this series.

Thomas aside, the cast of characters at the Corner Comedy Open Mic doesn’t appear to veer substantially from these comedians showcased elsewhere on Friday and Saturday nights. In this respect, it is similar to the other main comedy open mics around town: Sally O’Brien’s in Somerville’s Union Square (Monday), Grandma’s Basement in Fenway (Thursday), and The Banshee in Dorchester and Rosebud in Davis (Sunday).

You quickly start to see a lot of the exact same faces.

This is 1 of the issues that sets Boston apart — it really is tiny sufficient that there is a genuine sense of community. There are Facebook groups as properly as the Boston Comedy Softball League. Rather of stealing material, Boston comedians have a reputation for suggesting “tags,” or added punchlines, to 1 one more.

When Myq Kaplan, a finalist on the last season of Last Comic Standing, got started out in 2004, “I didn’t understand how welcoming and supportive and encouraging the Boston comedy scene was,” he says. Kaplan, who has released a comedy album (Vegan Mind Meld), now lives in New York — a place that, simply because of its size and scale, lacks the camaraderie of the Boston comedy scene.

“To me it was just extremely supporting,” adds Shane Mauss, who inside months of starting standup upon moving to Boston in 2004 was acquiring prime gigs and invaluable advice thanks to other comedians. A lot of that had to do with the truth that he was good, of course, but it really is a sentiment echoed by most of the comedians interviewed.

Possibly when Rhys Thomas conquers his nerves a small far more, he might discover the very same thing. In spite of getting petrified, he gamely delivered his material, which was based on the premise that he’s worried about men and women who are telepathic due to the fact he feels like his brain is a messy apartment. A line about there being “porn everywhere” got a laugh.

Ultimately, Thomas was pleased with how his first show went. Contacted a few months later, Thomas hadn’t carried out once more aside from the graduation show for the class he was taking. But he was resolved to transform that.

“I’m nonetheless terrified,” he says, “but in the past two weeks I have began writing out bits that I like, that I’m laughing at, as an alternative of just premises.”

Even with his somewhat peculiar, alternative brand of comedy, Thomas can expect to locate a warm reception.

The Boston Comedy Blog