Late Night Dice Stories, NY Gets a New Comedy Venue, and Luis J. Gomez Helps Get Himself Banned From Shows
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 was at Gotham, The Stand, The Standing Room, and took a late night phone call from a comedy and cultural icon.
The Diceman Calleth, Drops Some Knowledge
Well, my phone went off at 2:44 A.M. one morning and I answered it in a fog, to hear someone say “ Get well soon Fuckface!” but the voice was unmistakable. It was Andrew “Dice” Clay, so I immediately woke up cause I don’t care what time “Dice” calls me, I’m always ready to talk to him. He’s always funny and always has great stories to share. He was outside a recording studio waiting for his sons Max and Dillon who were recording some new songs for their band, Still Rebel, including one called “Breathin’” which he said he really loves. Dice is so proud of his sons and says his son Dillon has the kind of stage presence that he himself had at a very young age. Dillon fronts the band and writes all the music. Dice described it as a 3 piece power band.
Dice has a HUGE year ahead of him with a powerful part in the Scorcese/Jagger rock and roll show Vinyl debuting February 14th, along with Bobby Cannavale, and Ray Romano. He said it was a little too early to talk about it, but he did tell me the show was gonna be a monster hit. And he told me this great story of how he found out he got the part. He was playing Vegas at The Hard Rock in their club which happened to be called “Vinyl.” His manager had been trying to get a hold of him to no avail, because sometimes Dice is hard to reach. He’s not an e-mail guy and not on his phone too often either. So just before he went onstage to perform, his wife came and told him that his manager has been trying to reach him to tell him that Scorcese called to tell him he got the part. Dice said he went out on stage so dazed and confused that he had to tell the audience what had just happened. He wasn’t able to focus right away and felt he owed the audience an explanation. He said he had always wanted to work with Scorcese and this was a dream come true.
He told me that he and Sorcese get along really well, and that there were some people on the set who told him that Scorcese wouldn’t like it if he goes off script but Dice said that everything he does, including going off script, he does with Scorcese’s knowledge and permission. And we both talked about how cool Bobby Cannavale is and how talented an actor he is. He and Dice are tight. Dice is also looking forward to his new Showtime series appropriately called Dice and his sons are in it too. It comes out on Sunday April 17th, and he even sent me the flier which he said will start appearing on buses very soon! Trust me it’s gonna be a banner year for Dice and he really deserves it.
And there’s more! He told me a great story about how he helped to get Guns and Roses back together. He said he was performing in Australia and happened to run into Slash in his hotel. And he told Slash that Guns had millions of fans who would love to see them get back together. Then Dice was at The Hard Rock in Vegas and Axl Rose was in another room. Axl found out that Dice was there and had Dice open the show for him, and Dice also told him they should get back together. Dice was there with his wife Valerie and his two sons Max, 25, and Dillon 21. Dice said that after he opened the show Axl played for three hours. Then a few months later Dice ran into Duff McKagan who came to see Dice’s son’s band. They used to be called L.A. Rocks, but changed the name fairly recently Duff felt that Still Rebel was ready to break out. Dice, also mentioned to Duff that he thought Guns should get back together. The final step was telling Tom Mayhew, the road manager who’s been Dice’s friend for like 27 years that they gotta get Slash to Tweet something good about Axl, and he did. I think it was a birthday Tweet for Axl. Anyway it now looks like they’re getting back together again at Coachella and Slash and Axl will be on stage together for the first time since 1993.
I stopped by Comedy Juice to see what was up. Rachel Feinstein was on the show and told me she’s still working on her pilot and is thrilled that her friend Amy Schumer is producing it. She swore to tell me more as soon as she could, but her special Only Whores Wear Purple, which is what her nanny used to say to her, comes out in April on Comedy Central. Really looking forward to that because Rachel is just so funny and does the best voices! Sam Morril was there, he is very busy these days traveling to cities like St. Louis, Winnipeg, Chicago, Dayton, Ohio, and he flies everywhere. I asked him what the traveling was like for him and he said that even though he’s young it wears him down sometimes, both physically and emotionally, but he gets to do longer sets on the road which he says you need to do in order to get good. And he says he doesn’t drive because he’s “a typical New Yorker.”
I went down to the new space on West 29th Street, The Loft which is part of The PIT to see Von Decarlo, Patrice O’Neal’s wife who has her own one woman show called Lasagna which is how Patrice used to refer to the loose skin on her belly that she got from giving birth to her daughter Mimi, who is now 16. Von has a great voice and really did a super job. It’s a very empowering show. I sat with Derek Gaines the host of MTV’s Broke Ass Game Show who is waiting to hear if they got a third season, and manager/producer Ron Herron from Herron Entertainment. Von was there with Jason Steinberg who used to manage Patrice and they are two of the producers of the Patrice doc Better Than You which she says is coming along well. Still lots to do, but coming along well.
Luis J. Gomez Promoting Anti Luis Petition
Then Derek and I headed over to The Stand to see what was going on. He’ll be heading out to LA for pilot season and is working on some new material for a special tape he’s planning to make. More on that to come. He told me that Yamaneika Saunders was just taken into the Six Foot Nothing Crew which makes it now 14 members, all comics mostly from Philly. Luis J. Gomez was hosting and told me he was VERY excited about promoting the petition being circulated online to get himself kicked off of his own podcast, Legion of Skanks, started by some of his listeners who were upset with something he said. He even Tweeted the link to Robert Kelly because they also wanted to ban him from YKWD and he asked Robert to help spread the petition: Now that’s the kind of confidence that comes with martial arts training! Dave Smith, another co-host of Legion of Skanks was also there, and he told me he was psyched that his podcast Part of the Problem was now going to twice a week instead of just once. It’s a political podcast, which he recently moved to Luis’ GaS Digital network.
And then when I left, I ran into the third member of Legion of Skanks, Big Jay Oakerson outside in the street with Christine Marie Evans who was one of the Executive Producers of his recent special with Seeso, What’s Your Fuckin’ Deal? Big Jay had just gotten back from the Impractical Jokers cruise on which he did a few shows and told me it was a crazy time, as you might expect, and so much fun. He also told me that Dan Soder does an incredible impression of me, which is something I will have to check out!
At The Stand I saw Pat Brown, originally from Kansas City, who taped her first special CD/DVD last month at New York Comedy Club. It’s called SexTape, which she’s currently shopping around looking for the best opportunity with a record label, and is planning on having a release party sometime in The Spring! Pat is a former winner of “Best Female Comic” at the Las Vegas Comedy Festival, and the 2013 winner of the She Devil Comedy Festival, and a very cool girl I might add! And Nick Alexander who’s opened for Sinbad was there. Nick recently featured on Neko White’s Breakout Show at Carolines. Nick will be heading out to LA in March for pilot season and staying with Shang during which time he’ll be doing a Comedy Time taping at the Ice House!
During a stop off at The Standing Room, I ran into Giulio Gallarotti of the Fat Baby shows who was hosting. He’s one of the founders of Fat Baby along with Ben DeMarco and Josh Wesson. Fat Baby does two shows a week one downtown on the lower east side and the other at The Stand, and he told me that in the next couple of weeks they’ll be doing a Fat Baby Drag Show featuring drag queens mixed in with the regular comics and at least one comic, unnamed as of yet will appear himself in drag. That should be fun! He said that Fat Baby is a very “gay friendly show”, but in talking about it neither of us could exactly figure out why, since theoretically all shows should be gay friendly shows! After several minutes of trying to come up with a reason, we decided to just accept the fact on it’s merits that it’s a gay friendly show, and leave it at that!
Mingling with Industry at the APAP Conference
In my efforts to cover all things comedic, I jumped over to The Hilton Hotel to check out the 59th annual APAP conference. APAP stands for The Association of Performing Artists which according to them is “dedicated to developing and supporting a robust performing arts industry and the professionals that work within it.” That includes comedy managers, agents, performance venues, touring companies and the like. I went to visit with all of the major agencies like APA, CAA, UTA, and ICM as well as a couple of the better boutique agencies like Bob Kinkead’s The Kinkead Agency and Howard Beder’s First Class Entertainment. Between them they rep just about every comic you’ve ever heard of, and I was happy to say that just about everyone knew The Interrobang, and for those that didn’t I schooled them in how to spell it and what it was about.
Each agency had it’s touring roster, and it was interesting to see who reps who. I also ran into some comedy friends I hadn’t seen for a long time like Howie Rapp of The Rapp Agency, Buddy Hackett’s son Sandy Hackett who with his company Hackett/Miller has a book and a live show about his Dad, called My Buddy a one-man show in which he plays himself but does his Dad’s voice as only he can. He did a little bit for me, and I felt like I was talking to Buddy back in the day, and comic Mary Dimino, who has not only one but TWO one person shows Me and My Old Man, and Scared Skinny about her hundred pound weight loss. She shared a booth with Andrew Goffman, whose show Accidental Pervert is now in it’s 8th year off-Broadway and has played in 10 countries on four continents.
Gotham and Stand Up New York Wrap Up the Holiday Party Season
Gotham Comedy Club likes to do it’s holiday party early in the New Year and Stand-Up New York felt the same way and I went to both parties. The Gotham party was wild and really fun. They had a DJ downstairs for the dancers, and a live band upstairs for the watchers and a huge walk-in photo booth downstairs, that could accommodate groups of people, and it was run by a girl with not much of a sense of humor since I asked her if she had to carry the booth with her on the subway, and she gave me a serious answer, that she didn’t. There were passed hors ’d’oeuvres, and mini-burgers, and all kinds of good stuff, plus tons of comedians. The only way to try and describe the party is to mention some of the people who were there, so it was Bonnie McFarlane, Derek Gaines, Monroe Martin, Conan Smith from Converge, Dan Naturman, Frankie Hudak, Adam Mamawala, Marina Franklin, Joe Machi, Alyse Kenny, Tamara Holder from FOX, Jimmy Failla, Rich Vos, Kenny Garcia, Robin Montague, Pat Brown, Carmen Lynch, Tom Ingegno from Omni-Pop, Jackie Martling, Robin Fox, P.J. Landers, Mark DeMayo, Gina Brillon, (who I saved from falling, by being in the way of her fall so she could grab onto me!), Danny Cohen, Marion Grodin, Chloe Hilliard, Nick Alexander, Phill Hunt, Jordan Rock, Marie Faustin, Janelle Jones, Jordan Ferber, Chris Murphy, Gibran Saleem, Nore Davis, Reg Thomas, and Ryan Reiss to name just a few.
A couple of nights later I went to the Stand Up New York Party and that was packed too especially around the open bar area with comics like Chris Distefano, Leighann Lord, JC Knows Best, Cate Weinberg, Howard Feller, Jon Fatigate of the 78’th Street Labs podcast empire, Danette Rodriguez, Monroe Martin, Jamie Roberts, Talia Reese, Harrison Greenbaum and so many more.
There’s a young producer in town named Alex Gruhin and he created a new show out in Brooklyn called Nightcap Riot – Mombucha at a space called Magick City. Alex billed it as a total night out experience where you enjoy a concert, beverage tasting, comedy and a play all in one night, with only 50 people and at $50 a ticket. It’s an event that features artists from across the entertainment spectrum and I was honored to be the first comic to kick it off. About half an hour in the doors get locked and no one can leave or enter. It was a fun experience performing to an audience of people who were already standing because it was a guaranteed standing ovation!
Anyway that’s it for me this week! 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 include Jeffrey with Alex Gruhin, Derek Gaines, Luis J. Gomez, Derek Gaines and Dave Smith, Von De Carlo.
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