Comedy 101, Skankfest, Naked Roasts Plus News From Paul Virzi, Bonnie McFarlane, Vlad Caamano and More
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Jeffrey Gurian is a writer and comedian in New York who loves to Jump Around. Follow his regular column, right here, to find out what’s happening in comedy, and who Jeffrey Gurian ran into this week in and around New York. This week Jeffrey covered the scene in at The Stand, Gotham, the Creek and the Cave and more.
Comedy 101 at the Stand is Brutally Funny
I’m not gonna tell you too much about The Interrobang Presents: Comedy 101 at The Stand because it’s going to air on SiriusXM later this week, and will get a feature story all its own, but suffice it to say it was fantastic. The concept of the show is Open Mic meets a Roast. Ron Bennington and Gail Bennington hosted the show and make a fantastic duo. Robert Kelly, Bonnie McFarlane, and Rich Vos were the three “mentors”, judges, and executioners, who guided several young open mic comedians into a path of suicide. To the point where Ron asked, “Is that Bonnie or Hitler who said that?” They all had bells they could ring when they wanted to give the young comedian some “guidance”. One of the young comics almost got out a joke! Ron referred to Rich and Bonnie as “the most vicious couple in America” and if you want to see why, stay tuned. Air date to be announced later today.
Robert Kelly Got Pranked on the Set of Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll
After the show, we all hung out in the street and I got to catch up with Robert Kelly who told me that the 2nd season of Denis Leary’s Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll begins on June 30th. They shoot it out in Queens at the studios in Glendale. He said that this season Denis brought in two other writers, and his partner in Apostle, Jim Serpico who directed four out of the ten episodes. Bobby told me they played a mean trick on him one day. He had just gotten a brand new Ford Edge Sport and took care of it like it was a baby. Denis and another partner at Apostle got the art department to paint his car so it looked like it was severely damaged. Like it was smashed into. And they had a camera set up and taped his reaction which he said was almost tears. And they put it in the bloopers video that they made at the end of the season. After he almost had a heart attack, they all laughed and washed off the paint and the car was fine. Despite that Bobby said it was the most fun set to work on and ad libbing is not only acceptable, it’s encouraged. He says that every episode is a work in progress and even things you say in real time, during set ups can wind up on the show. He said that with network shows, you gotta go through like nine people to make any changes. But here, the executive producer is also the director and is on the set, so changes can be made on the spot without having to wait for anyone’s permission.
Rich Vos and Bonnie McFarlane told me they were doing Skankfest on Sunday and they would be the marriage counselors for Big Jay. Bonnie McFarlane also confided in me that she is developing something for TV and also has the strong possibility of doing a major late night show on June 30th. More on that to come!
Skankfest Includes Naked Roasts, Revelations, Baby Birds, and Outrageousness Everywhere
The other huge event this week was of course, Skankfest. All week I was looking forward to attending the new comedy festival produced by Luis J. Gomez, Rebecca Trent of The Creek and The Cave, and Christine Marie Evans. That woman does everything.
I went out to the opening party which doubled as a viewing of Big Jay’s Comedy Central special shot at Webster Hall. I was there for the taping, but it’s the kind of thing you want to watch more than once. Big Jay is like a rock star, and the special was done that way too. Before the special was shown at midnight, I was sitting in the cafe having a bite to eat and was joined by Alia Janine, ex-porn star turned comedian and her friend comic Hannah Harkness. Alia told me she would be doing the Naked Roast Battle the next night with another ex-sex worker, the lovely and talented Kaytlin Bailey who I am a big fan of, and she knows it! I knew that was one show I was not going to miss, and Alia said lots of people were coming out specifically to see her boobs in person. She said they knew them from her videos, but meeting them up close and personal was definitely different. Anyway the party and viewing was great, and Jay was his usual humble self in accepting the well deserved adulation. His 13 year old daughter was there along with her mom, and Jay allowed her to go and get a piercing while she was there. With all his own tats and piercings, how could he not?
Next night I left Ron Herron’s comedy competition at Greenwich Village Comedy Club where I was a judge to run up to Broadway Comedy Club to also be a judge at the Crosstown Comedy Fest, and then run back out to Queens for the official first night of Skankfest and to watch the hilarious Ron Bennington in a mash-up with Big Jay Oakerson on stage headlining the Mash Up Show. So I pulled up to The Creek nervous that I had missed Jay and Ron and saw them standing outside in the street, so I knew I was okay. I walked up and all the principles were hanging outside. Big Jay Oakerson, Ron Bennington, Christine Marie Evans, Rebecca Trent, Luis J. Gomez, Dave Smith, Rachel Feinstein, Michael Che, Tim Dillon, Chris Distefano, and it was sick. Like a comedy party on the street. Rachel was there with her brother who she introduced me to.
Interesting story. A guy from The Creek was standing on a very tall ladder out front doing something above the Creek sign, and I just assumed he was fixing something. Turns out a tiny, adorable bird fell out of its nest and they had it in a cup and were trying to put it back in its nest. But they had to find it first. Bronston Jones was helping and almost didn’t need the ladder to reach the roof. The dude is tall, … like 6’8”. Then I walk inside the club and I see they’re asking Ron Bennington to climb up on a ladder which he’s about to do, and from my angle I don’t see why, and I think to myself, why would they ask Ron Bennington of all people, to get up on a ladder to fix something and he’s actually doing it. The man is a star. Can’t they find someone else to change a light bulb or to adjust something? And then I walk in further and I see why. Rebecca Trent had asked him to sign the wall with all the other performers and it’s high up, so they weren’t asking him to fix anything, just to sign his name!
Then I went downstairs to see them do a live version of Legion of Skanks. The show was insane. The guest was Redacted Tonight’s John F. O’Donnell also known as a psychological warrior, who it seems, and I’ll try and keep this on a high level, had sex with Big Jay’s girlfriend Christine Marie Evans, co-producer of Skankfest, a fact which she blurted out to everyone around her while high one night, and happened to add the fact that John was incredibly well endowed. She told Jay he was much bigger than him. Jay took it well and took most of the show to discuss it. I have never heard such honesty in my life. John smiled all the way through. There are worse things to accuse a guy of than having a big dick! As a matter of fact for most of the show they referred to John as “Donkey Dick.” At one point, they were joined by Michael Che, who added to the hilarity. They actually went into graphic detail as to how it all went down. It was amazing.
And then came the Naked Roast Battle, hosted by Zac Amico who wore his hair in punked out spikes. That’s the only way I can describe it. At least six huge spikes all going in different directions. After he opened the show that’s ALL he wore, along with the naked judges Bronston Jones, Ari Shaffir, and Mike Lawrence. The first roast battlers were Johnny Roque vs. Ryan Hernandez and Ryan said his girlfriend was really pissed at him for doing this show naked, then it was Billy Procida and Andrea Allan who made it clear that they had once been dating and had known each other in a naked way before, and Alia Janine vs. Kaytlin Bailey, the battle of the boobs. Out of respect for the courage it takes to go on stage completely naked, and the fact that I am self-conscious when fully dressed, l will not comment on anyone’s body. I will say that I was sorry I got such a good seat up front! It was a real sausage fest, and I saw more than I wanted to! Zac had a piercing which made my knees literally go weak. And all I could think about was not how he lived through that, but who was the guy who did it to him, and how he had to stabilize his “member” for the procedure?
By the time the show ended and we all spilled out on the street, Skankfest started to look more to me like the Gathering of the Juggalos. The comedy community has gotten very hip to say the least. It was not a Seinfeld looking crowd by any stretch of the imagination! I almost looked normal by comparison! Aaron Berg would have looked conservative. As a matter of fact, his fiance Christine Meehan was there and in the midst of all the insanity, we had a nice chat about their upcoming nuptials in Central Park, which I and most of the comedy world will be attending. Anyway Skankfest #1 was a HUGE success, so big shout-outs to Christine, Luis J., and Rebecca, and I think I can speak for everyone when I say we’re already looking forward to next year’s Skankfest 2!
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I stopped by The Comic Strip to check out Eric Neuman and Marc Gerber’s weekly show and found Richie Tienken backstage sitting with Vlad Caamano who is very excited about being named one of Variety’s Top Ten Comics To Watch. He will be performing in Montreal next month for his second time up at Just for Laughs. Eric who recently did his Break Out show at Carolines, must have done well, cause he told me they invited him back to headline Carolines this coming Tuesday.
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Paul Virzi on Tour With Bill Burr, Fried Pickles and Buffalo Wings
Paul Virzi was at the Stand hanging out with Brendan Sagalow, and told me he was opening for Bill Burr this weekend in Newark on Friday and then traveling down to AC for a show on Saturday and then Baltimore on Sunday. He and Bill recently did Albany, Syracuse and Maine and he told me a funny story about how Bill busted his balls. After the shows, Bill left it up to Paul to order food for everyone, and every single night Paul ordered the same thing, fried pickles and buffalo chicken fingers and wings. After the third night, Bill erupted and said, “What the fuck is wrong with you? You’re killing me with this shit. I feel like I’m fucking pregnant already!” Paul’s debut album One Night at The Stand hit #1 on iTunes, and #4 on Billboard’s Top 100. He said the only straight stand-up album beating his was Jim Gaffigan. He’s working on a new hour and is already in talks to shoot a special within the year! Oh and he’s headlining Absolute Comedy in Ottawa and is very excited about that.
The Crosstown Comedy Fest Has an Amazing Debut
Chris Hamilton is a young enterprising comic who started his own comedy festival, The Crosstown Comedy Festival to be specific, with the help of Camille Theobald, who was hosting the show on the second night I went to Broadway Comedy Club. The festival ran from June 14th thru the 19th and was held in venues in Brooklyn and Manhattan including New York Comedy Club, The Village Lantern, and Broadway. It’s a major undertaking to create and run a festival and I was honored to be a judge in the competition and to also perform. Chris told me that his goal was to allow young comics to have the opportunity to perform for industry. The first night Farah Brook was the host and she told me she’s also producing a show that will benefit the victims in Orlando on Wednesday. It’s called Art: Live and will feature comedians not doing comedy but instead involved different artistic endeavors like slam poetry, spoken word, lectures, dance, short film and many other modes of artistic expression at Over the Eight in Williamsburg, which has strong ties to Pulse in Orlando. Some of the comics featured will be Christina Galston, Blair Socci, the aforementioned Chris Hamilton, Rae Sanni, Katie Hannigan, Ian Fidance, and Dan Perlman who told me that Fox ordered a pilot of his animated show That’s My Bus, which he’ll be casting soon, and the guy who’s doing the animation also does Bob’s Burgers so it will have that kind of look. Farah is also co-producing a show called Harriet named after her grandma, with Blair Socci and Sam Varela on July 6th at Littlefield, and the line-up is major including Judah Friedlander, Gary Gulman, and Ilana Glazer.
Marie Faustin was on the show the first night and afterwards we talked about the show she does with Sydnee Washington who I had just run into in the street moments before rushing to do another show. It’s called The Warm Up at Karma Lounge, I almost got trapped in Marie’s hair trying to get a photo, because my hair got tangled in HER hair, but it was totally worth it!
Yakov Smirnoff Hosts Gotham Comedy Live and Has a New Special and Tour
It didn’t feel like a week since my Gotham Comedy Live debut, but it had to be since I was back there again to see Yakov Smirnoff host the show. The audience loved him. I hadn’t seen him since a show I covered at the American Airlines Theatre a few years before and so afterwards at the after party we sat down to chat, and he told me about his PBS Special Happily Ever Laughter which just got the nod from PBS to be released nationwide. He had filmed it in San Diego in January. It aired in Cali in March and did so well that PBS decided to take it national. He’ll also be doing a PBS sponsored tour in 12 major markets including Canada, and he had just done it the day before we spoke in Beverly Hills. I asked him how he decided on the title, and he told me such a nice story. His little girl was only 7 when he divorced and he’d read her bedtime stories that always ended with someone living happily ever after. She asked him one day why he and her Mommy didn’t live happily ever after and he decided right then and there to find the answer, and to look for the correlation between happiness and laughter. He said laughter is a gauge, and a pulse of the relationship, and if the laughter goes, then intimacy goes and the next thing that goes is your house! Funny and insightful! Also on the Yakov show was Helen Hong, Josh Branham, making his TV debut, Andrew Kennedy who’s half Colombian and half English and speaks fluent Spanish in his act, and Clint Coley who reminded me we met through D.L. Hughley, and it was another great show.
New Club Opens in Yonkers, Paid or Pain Holds a Benefit, New Web Series in Development
Big ups to all the people who send me items for the column. It’s very gratifying to know how many people read it and want to be featured. Ron Herron just signed Vincent Fiore host of the cooking show Mob Kitchen, and The Italian Chicks of Comedy which is a show produced by my dear friend Danny Aiello and consists of Mary Dimino, Gina Scarda, Maryann Maisano, and Regina DeCicco. Cate Weinberg just let me know that she just released the second episode of a web series she has in development called Dive Bar The Series and the episode is called “Go Yelp Yourself.” I watched it and it’s funny. And Cate looks very hot in it! Jay Nog got in touch to tell me that he’s doing a special Paid or Pain Gay Pride Edition also to benefit the victims of Orlando, donating a portion of the profits to WeAreOrlando.org. It will be at New York Comedy Club and Corinne Fisher is the guest host, and he’s being helped by openly gay comic Nicky Paris. And Frank Pellegrino reached out to let me know that Ha! Comedy Club in Yonkers is finally open which will be HUGE, cause lots of NYC comics will make the trip up to perform there, and besides that, it’s just HUGE!
And with that, I’m OUT!!
Jeffrey Gurian is a comedian, writer and all around bon vivant in New York City. Subscribe to his YouTube channel, Comedy Matters TV. Photos below Jeffrey Gurian with Robert Kelly, Farah Brook, and Yakov Smirnoff.
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