comedy Archives ⋆ Page 39 of 50 ⋆ Virginia Jones

Dear Dead Comics

There’s a show opening this weekend that has been a big topic of conversation amongst the local comics for a couple of weeks. Like musical tribute shows, we’re doing a cover show of our favorite dead or retired comedians all July, as a paean to the form and as tribute to some of our heroes. I think it’ll be really interesting.

Pros:

1. We’ll have the opportunity to share some older work that we care about with a new audience, which is always cool.

2. Like singing your favorite band at karaoke, there’s a certain satisfaction in posing as someone you respect, stepping into their skin for a minute. When I re-made some of Leigh Bowery’s costumes and wore them around, I really felt like I was understanding things about Leigh’s tendency towards invention over craft, his willingness to be uncomfortable, and his desire to be a spectacle. I am hoping to come away from this show with a similar perspective.

3. I am hoping to learn something from behind the act, by trying to impersonate the timing and cadence of my favorite comedian. Will I get laughs in the same places? Also: will I get laughs at all?

4. My comic is a perfect fit for me, we’re both black-clad Texans with a perverse streak a mile wide.

5. Apprentice painters from the renaissance period forward have cut their teeth by copying the masters. This is much the same.

Cons:

1. Comedy, above all other arts, doesn’t have a rep for aging well. Will older material translate?

2. Will our comics be able to communicate what’s funny about this stuff? Everyone knows comedy is not just in the material, but also in the performance. Well, not everyone. Most people. There was an incident recently where a comic from Davenport, Iowa reproduced Patton Oswalt’s act uncredited, but did not get Patton’s laughs, because he’s not Patton and doesn’t bring his timing, voice, face, etc. to the show.

3. In a medium that values creativity over all other things, is this a worthwhile exercise?

What do you think?

These and other questions will be answered at 8 PM this Friday at the Curious Comedy Theatre at 5225 NE MLK!

Curious Mic Is One Year Old!

I’m proud and privileged to announce the one-year anniversary of the Curious Comedy open mike, happening this Sunday. There will be jokes, awards, rough-housing, and drinking. Please come join!

Very Interesting, Mr. Bond

Here is a list of the most interesting questions I was asked in Hong Kong.

Q. Do you want your orange juice hot or cold?

A. Cold, please. Thank you for asking. “Hot Juice” would be a good name for a band, though. No-one has ever asked me that question before.

Q. Don’t you find that Hong Kong is just like New York?

A. What? Maybe if New York was 99% Chinese. Do you know what the phrase “Melting Pot” means? I saw a black dude yesterday and I thought I’d won some sort of a prize. Hong Kong looks like New York probably will in 2025.
Q. I saw your Facebook profile yesterday, and in one of the photos you looked very thin (indicating in the neck and face where I was looking more thin.) Were you thinner when you were younger?

A. For one thing, thank you so much for asking. Secondly, no, unfortunately I was born this size. Like Athena springing from her father’s head full-grown, I exploded my mother. I never got to meet her, but I did see her bloody shoes left on the floor.

Questions I have for Hong Kong:

Does a giant black skull make people want to buy high-end t-shirts?

Does every event really have to have a mascot? Here’s the one for the Shanghai technology expo.

Can it…is it following me?

Karaoke In Its Homeland

And so it came that I was in Hong Kong for the last night, and had not yet sung any karaoke. Since I was alone, and singing karaoke alone in a foreign land does not make you pathetic, but strong and brave, and because I was worried about oversleeping for my flight, I made the only logical decision available to me: I would close the karaoke bars on a Wednesday night, pack whilst drunk, and stay up until it was time to fly home.

I started out at My Favor Bar in Nathan Street, a bar whose vodka selection was WHITE WOLF VODKA, the cheapest vodka available on the free market. It is so full of impurities, it has a thickness.

This is my friend Jacky, who taught me how to operate the DIY karaoke system. We sang I Love Rock and Roll, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, and Don’t You Want Me, Baby. The barstaff was thrilled that someone who spoke English was singing.

On the one hand, you have to enter your own songs, but on the other hand, there did not appear to be any real stigma to singing again and again. Also, every song has a video. If it doesn’t have a video, it’s not karaoke in HK.

Karaoke is so prevalent that it’s hard to find a bar where it’s NOT offered, but hard to find one where it’s the focus. Out of the three bars I hit, the gain on the mike was so high that it’s best held waist level. The reverb is also turned way up, so you sound like you’re singing in an echoey bathroom. Also, there’s no stage or light, you just sing anonymously from your barstool.

On my way to my third karaoke bar, I cut myself on a glass elevator. This is considered an occupational hazard and is not a cause for concern.

Selection: The English selection holds all your standard favorites:

Centerfold by J.Geils, Spinning Wheel by Blood, Sweat, and Tears, and WHAM’S Careless Whispers. After that, there is an obscene amount of ABBA, Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, and Richard Marx (!). I was asked repeatedly to sing various Richard Marx songs that I had never heard before. No wonder they think we’re mentally challenged. They think we LOVE Richard Marx.

Facilities: This is a really nice way to say- UNISEX TOILETS.

My last bar was named after my vocal range, which is good because I can’t remember anything about it.

Style: The preferred microphone is wireless, and the preferred delivery is sitting, and the preferred song is Cantonese ballads. These are sung by superstars in outfits that make Bjork look like Kathie Lee Gifford. The Chinese find my style, which involves dancing, various attempts to “work the room”, and make eye contact, embarrassing.

By the way, staying up all night before a twenty-hour flight is a GREAT idea until you actually turn up at the airport at 6AM, strung out and surrounded by Australians.

Do You Really, Realistically, Think You Can Avoid: Harem Pants?

From May 2010

That is to say, do you think there’s any way you can get around wearing Harem pants, which were called Dhoti pants last time they came around, and later, pejoratively, Hammer pants? Do you think you’re strong enough?

Will.I.Am is wearing them in Usher’s video about a woman whose boobies are so hot he has to say “Oh, My GOSH” repeatedly.

Gaultier and Levi’s have gotten together to make some.

Every man, woman, and child in Hong Kong is wearing them as if there is no other kind of pant available.

Hong Kong is so trend-conscious that you hit the street and see the same Comme De Garcons t-shirt twenty times and think, did I miss a memo?

2014 Postscript: According to the kids auditioning for So You Think You Can Dance, you can’t avoid Harem pants. Nobody can. They call them Joggers though, which is dumb because no way should you jog in them.

Eye In The Sky Action Review: Bridgetown 2010

The Bridgetown Comedy Festival gets better every year. I have been honored to perform in the festival all three years of its existence.

Sure, I have a hangover, a headcold, a bruised toe and a sprained finger, but I have my memories.

I drove Jason Nash up to his one-man show at Curious Comedy. Later, I caught Veronica Heath’s show, with handsome Dwight Slade, the charming Karl Hess, and the freshly baked Steve Agee. Moving on, I got to my own Portland vs. Seattle show, hosted by my friend Dax Jordan.

Portland comedy was supposed to be doing battle with Seattle comedy, but we all love each other too much. I wandered into my friend Alysia Wood’s show, where I saw the wonderful Heather Thomson. James Adomian closed the show in his new “look”, with a fedora and big beaded necklace. Time for the first afterparty. Mostly Seattle and Portland people the first night. The dance room, dj’ed by Barfly’s Jen Lane, rocked with hip-hop and disco until four-ish.

Friday

Woke up at the crack of noon, did my sketch comedy show from 8-9:30 and ran down to Rubber Bullets, with NYC/Seattle’s Andy Haynes, LA’s Brody Stevens, Hampton Yount, and Rory Scovel as an injured widower who loses money to Joe Frice. Wandered to the Comedy Calvacade, where Brent Weinbach’s character in a Kurta bemoaned the poverty of his childhood, growing up with only one Xbox, and an extremely persistent heckler annoyed Jason Nash, and later found Kevin Hyder’s joke notebook and was kicked out of the afterparty.

My show was at the “technically outdoor” venue Bar of the Gods. My hilarious friends Randy Mendez and Steve Agee were on it, and I also saw Claire Titleman’s amazing self-help method.

Friday’s afterparty featured what was, for me, the highlight of the festival. Warming up, I danced with April Richardson to Pulp. Later on, more drinks led to a FULL BLOWN DANCE-OFF, featuring fake breakdancing by Timmy Williams and a great turn by Seattle’s own Solomon Georgio. I woke up mid-Saturday, barely beating dusk.

Saturday

I hit the lounge show at Hawthorne, watching Phil Schallberger have a GREAT set for a packed house. We rubbed elbows with dashing rogue Jon Dore. He’s very handsome for a comedian, very funny for a Canadian. I accidentally sat next to a hiding or hungover Matt Besser. (listening to stories later, I think he was recovering from or getting onto mushrooms.

I got to see an AMAZING improv show, featuring Janet Varney, Scott Adsit, Oscar Nunez, and Danny Pudi, who dropped a Roald Dahl reference.

David Cope!

Saturday night I hosted my own show with the very funny Paul Jay, heard a meditation on desire and birdwatching by Aaron Cayton-Holland, and closed by the antics of amazing headliner Victor Varnado, who by the way absolutely makes a dance party, if you’re having one.

Saturday’s afterparty started to get crowded, and I started running into local rockers and DJ’s who heard we had free drinks.

The Willamette Week’s Jay Horton commented, “If comedy keeps throwing parties like this, it’s gonna ruin its reputation.” I saw Matt Walsh wandering around after splitting a pot brownie with Besser.

Sunday

Sunday’s shows rocked on, with the Famous Mysterious Actor hosting Ron Funches, Ron Lynch, and Matt Braunger, who pleaded, “Please- don’t throw ham at me!” I really wanted to go to Sunday’s afterparty. I wanted to. But my body would not be pointed across the river. Spirit willing, body weak.

I heard every comic from LA talk about Voodoo Donuts through his beard. Every room was the prom I wanted to go to, full of people I liked and people I wanted to know. I wanted it to go on forever. However, I would have died if it had gone on another day. Thanks, Bridgetown!

In this shot, the cast and crew re-enact a scene from Predator.

Spin Cycle

In earlier posts, I have covered backhanded compliments from comic to comic, and insulting compliments a comic can get from the crowd, but comics of course bullshit about themselves, too. Here are some of our favorite lies to tell each other, or ourselves. And honestly? Whatever it takes to get you through the night. I’ve been to MJ Barleyhopper’s. Here are possible answers to:

How was your show?

1. Great crowd!

Maybe it was a great crowd. Maybe it was 8 people who didn’t speak English, waiting for the Keno numbers. Maybe it was all ten people who won tickets on the radio. The comic figures you don’t know anyone in Pig’s Snout, Arkansas anyway, and prays you didn’t talk to his headliner.

2. Wow, they had a lot of energy!

Small crowd.

3. I killed!

I’m going to kill myself.

4. I had a lot of fun!

I didn’t get paid.

5. I learned a lot!

They’re never, ever having me back, ever. I dug myself a hole so deep, I had to take a bar candle down there to see my notes.

6. They were a party crowd!

They spent my whole set drinking and trying to go home with members of their families. They had no idea what I was doing there.

Remember, if you smile while you eat it, it makes your shit sandwich go down better. Also, it looks better in photographs.