I believe that constant success from an early age makes you lose one of the most important things a comedian needs to truly be great; perspective.
For several years I really struggled in comedy. I came close to quitting, especially when I was deep in the trenches of one of the worst jobs I’ve ever had. And yet, now that things are happening, and continue to happen, in my career, I can really appreciate them.
I was listening, the other night, to a comedian complaining that he could “only” get on television a few times a year these days, a figure that would be astonishing to anyone in the business, but especially, I bet, himself when he was doing open mics. And whenever I’m tempted to complain about the good things in my life, I remember where I was a decade ago. … Continue Reading
When I was a kid, I watched the footage of the Berlin Wall being dismantled. I wasn’t old enough to have lived through the bulk of the Cold War, but I’d grown up in the shadow of the threat of nuclear annihilation; one of my favorite movies as a kid was War Games, a lighthearted romp about a young kid who hacks into NORAD’s computers and almost accidentally triggers total nuclear war. Another was Dr. Strangelove.
But I certainly knew enough that what I was watching at the time was history in the making. It was quite possibly the most significant global political moment in my young lifetime, and still one of the most important I’ve ever witnessed on live television (another would be the day the entire country watched Obama announce he had killed Osama bin Laden).
I felt that same way today, watching footage of the removal of the Confederate Flag of the Southern Secessionists, a mere 150 years after they lost the Civil War. There’s a lot of sentimental attachment to this flag, and frankly, if you want to fly it from your home, your pickup truck, you want to wear it as a bikini or paint it on the roof of your car, I don’t… well, I won’t say I don’t care. I personally despise everything the flag symbolizes, but I also wouldn’t want the police taking away your right, as a private citizen, to wave it, to worship it, to wear it, to take it home and make love to it even.
For all its faults, and all the mistakes its government makes, I believe the United States in America is one of the greatest experiments in a citizen-led republic in all of recorded history. I do believe that the Bill of Rights is one of the most noble documents ever forged, and that the beauty of the Constitution is that it’s strong enough to form an entire society, but flexible enough to change along with the times. That our Founding Fathers, for all their faults, were geniuses, and men of vision.
To remove the flag of the Confederacy is to acknowledge that this is the United States of America. It’s ironic that to this day you will hear “America: Love it or leave it,” from people who proudly wear the emblem of those who tried to leave it. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say that this is the dawning of a new era; people are people. Stubborn, angry, prejudiced, flawed. And everything that i love about people is attached to the same things that make me hate them, too.
And to those who are upset that the flag was taken down by an honor guard; don’t be. Sure, it owuld have been nice to have it removed by the courthouse janitor in the middle of the night, but by giving it a proper military removal, we remove the power to make it a symbol of martyrdom.
My biggest regret is that i won’t live forever, so I won’t get to see the myriad ways in which history will play itself out over and over. But I’m always glad I get to see it being made.
at QED 27-16 23rd Avenue Astoria, NY 11105 8:00pm * $5.00
Frank Conniff (TV’s Frank on Mystery Science Theater 3000) hosts a variety / stand-up show in the guise of a fake kid’s show.
Frank hosts the show in character as Moodsy, the Clinically Depressed Owl, and shows a bunch of weird and crappy old cartoons between stand-up, music and sketches.
This month features John Fugelsang, Rick Overton, Liam McEneaney, Leah Bonnema**
Past performers include Janeane Garofalo, John Fugelsang, Lizz Winstead, Aparna Nancherla, Myq Kaplan and more.
“It’s like a kids show done in Bosnia” – Patton Oswalt.
Frank Conniff is an actor/writer who is best known for his portrayal of TV’s Frank on Mystery Science Theater 3000. He has written for, and appeared on, television shows like “Sabrina The Teenage Witch,” and “Invader Zim,” and “Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell.”
I’ve been in comedy for a minute, and I’ve seen some truly great comedians emerge and find themselves. Every morning when I check the mirror, heh heh heh. But there are great comedians, and then there are capital L Legends. The ones you see live and in the flesh and tell your hypothetical grandchildren about someday.
I’ve seen a depressingly small amount, and I really want to get out there and watch them while I still can, since my chances of seeing these guys get smaller every day. Which is why I heartily encourage you to get out there and see these comedians while they’re still alive and performing. Especially since truly great comedians, like musicians, never seem to fall off too terribly in their old age, unless left physically incapable of performing.
With that being said, I did limit the qualification for being a comedy legend a bit. While comedians like Louis CK and Patton Oswalt and Sarah Silverman and Jim Gaffigan, as an example, have raised their game to the point where they are consistently turning out great material, enough time hasn’t passed from their peak popularity and performance to judge where and how it drops off. That being said:
BILL COSBY
Let’s get this one out of the way. I’ve seen Cosby twice now, and I am very grateful I had the opportunity before supporting him or his works became indefensible. Because even if, as a person, he’s a complete monster, as a comedian he is still The One To Beat. Look, I’m not saying I’m the real victim here; I’m just saying I’m grateful I could enjoy Cosby while i could.
GEORGE CARLIN
I saw Carlin in the late-’90s, when he’d fallen a bit from his peak as a social observational comedian, and was more concerned with message than punchline. It’s a lot easier to appreciate what he was doing now that he’s gone, and I can watch his specials out of that context, but at the time, the expectation going into a George Carlin concert was seeing “Seven Dirty Words” Carlin. Which isn’t to say I am not grateful for the chance to see him at all.
It was a time when I had started doing standup, had gotten fired off my first tour, but I was still burning off the last of my classes at Queens College before quitting entirely. So, because I was also the Op/Ed editor at my paper, when we were given courtesy tickets to see Carlin live on our campus, I snagged two. I brought my fellow open mic’er Ritch Duncan, and he returned the favor a year later, when the radio game show he was hosting got some tickets to see:
BOB NEWHART
I saw Newhart at Carnegie Hall as part of the Toyota Comedy Festival, which may be the only nice thing I will ever have to say about the Toyota Comedy Festival. Newhart doesn’t generate new material; he’s a major sitcom star who still tours the standup for fun. So it was definitely a “greatest hits” package, which was fine with me. His greatest hits are pretty goddamn ridiculously great. In fact, the only change he made was explaining that his act was written in the early 1960s, decades before political correctness had become a thing (this was the late ’90s also). And he acknowledged that jokes about women drivers may be passé, and I think he made a point of changing an offensive Asian joke. Otherwise, it was vintage Newhart.
LOUIS CK
I almost feel like this shouldn’t count because of course, everybody I know saw Louis back in the day at Luna Lounge and Rififi. I also saw him on one of his surprise shows at The Bell House, warming up for a tour a couple of years ago. If you can see a Big Comedian in a smaller space, I highly recommend it. Past 400 people in the audience, and the show is still one of the best in the country, but you lose that feeling of intimacy that, to me, creates an event.
CHEATS: STEVE MARTIN
I went to see a Simon & Garfunkel reunion show in the ’90s. It was pretty great; Paul Simon did some solo work, Ladysmith Black Mambazo came out and did a few songs from Graceland, and of course, Simon & Garfunkel. Before The 59th St. Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy), they brought out surprise guest Steve Martin to introduce it. He explained that he remembered when he was a kid lighting up a joint and dancing along to that song, and he wanted to recreate that moment. So he did, rolling and lighting a joint, and dancing around while Simon & Garfunkel played the song. Considering he’d retired from standup decades before I got into it, that’s as close as I’ll get.
WOODY ALLEN
Another hero who put away his standup shoes before i was born (unless you count his appearance at the 2002 Academy Awards, which I kind of do). In advance of the release of Small Time Crooks, Woody gave a talkback at NYU for film students, which I got invited to thanks to an intern at a company I was working at at the time. While he wasn’t particularly “funny,” a kid asked his favorite joke and he gave a nonsensical answer about a horse sitting on watermelons in a stream. Still and all, I’m grateful to have had the chance to be in the same room as the guy.
GROUPS:
SPINAL TAP
I saw Tap play at Carnegie Hall. The Folksmen were their opening act, years before A Mighty Wind had come out, and the crowd spent the whole set shouting for Spinal Tap, not realizing that that was Spinal Tap playing.
THE KIDS IN THE HALL
Caught these guys at Town Hall on their first reunion tour. Considering how Brain Candy had gone, I was a bit concerned, but I shouldn’t have been. Top notch stuff.
AND OF COURSE:
Two of the great thrills of my career.
TRIUMPH THE INSULT COMIC DOG
I got to write material about myself for Triumph to say:
LEWIS BLACK & GILBERT GOTTFRIED LIVE ONSTAGE ON MY PODCAST
It’s hard to describe why I started Tell Your Friends! without giving you my entire life story. I’m not going to do that. I’m going to give you the abbreviated version. I started doing standup when I was 19. When I was 23, I took over my friend Brody’s show, The Brody Stevens Festival of Laughter, a weekly show at a coffee shop in the Flatiron District called Eureka Joe. I liked running a show. I got to see friends, I got to meet and book comedians I’d never met, and it was a great place to workshop new material and get better. I ran a show at what was then a youth hostel, the Gershwin Hotel. My friend Patrick Borelli ran a great show there Thursdays. Crowds built.
I was bullied out of this show by the bookers of the space; one week, they hired a jazz trio to play outside the door to the room where the show was held. Another week, they told me that the room where the show was held had been booked. I could produce my show in the front cafeteria, or I could produce my show on the roof, which would have been very cool, but I’d have to pay them a hundred bucks, to pay the building’s handyman to set up chairs on the roof. I got to the hotel that friday, and of course the showroom wasn’t booked at all, and when I asked the handyman directly, he told me he never got paid extra to set up the roof for other events. There was a lot going on like that.
I got booked to perform on Comedy Central’s Premium Blend, realized I didn’t have to put up with this bullshit, and moved on. I did a lot of other things in my career, and along the way, I missed having a space where I could fail over and over again. My act was stagnating, and part of the reason was that i went into every show afraid to fail. I stuck, for the most part, with the tried-and-true, even with shows that didn’t pay and that didn’t have an audience, because I knew that bombing meant I wouldn’t be asked back.
So to make a very very very long story short, I walked into the Lolita Bar on Broome Street in the Lower East Side in 2005, which had previously hosted a show by my friend Amber Tozer, and proposed a new standup show to be held in their basement. The owners figured nothing from nothing is nothing, and allowed me to start my little show. My idea was to have a standup show that was an open mic for people who are too big to do open mics. The first show featured a headlining set from Andy Borowitz, who had just moved back to NYC and had decided to give standup another shot. People came from all over to fill that little basement, including a couple from outside Atlanta Georgia, who had driven all day because they’d heard Andy was doing a free show.
That first year was rocky, but aside from a few dead and empty shows, Tell Your Friends! took off in a big way.
TELL YOUR FRIENDS! BLOWS UP!
Demetri Martin and Rachel Trachtenburg. Photo taken in 2005 on a disposable camera
The neighborhood where Lolita stood (it was sold in 2012) is now a part of the sprawling hellhole that is the Lower East Side Party Zone, with hipster-big-deal restaurant Dirt Candy around one corner, a high-end coffee place and a South African restaurant around the other place. But when I started my show, Lolita was an outpost in the middle of Chinatown. Towards the end, it became a hellish place on weekends, with NYU trust fund kids and finance popped-collar types, the types who travel in packs of five in matching clothes searching for a pack of women to terrorize/hit on. Back when I started my show, though, Lolita was still a cool place to hang, a place for locals in the know to hang out and seek refuge from that scene, which was raging north of Delancey.
I could stand in the doorway most Monday nights, when my show was, and if I saw a white person approaching, I knew they were coming to my show. We had a lot of college students, until the NYPD started cracking down on underage drinking in the neighborhood, and we had a lot of locals, New Yorkers, comedy fans. Most nights, no matter the size of the audience, the vibe of the audience was mellow, friendly, like a tight-knit group.
In addition to Andy Borowitz, we had established comedy stars come through there, like Todd Barry, Nick DiPaolo, Marc Maron. We had friends of mine who were in the process of becoming famous, like Demetri Martin, Christian Finnegan, Kristen Schaal, Reggie Watts, and so on and so forth. There’s a lot of pictures and information on this website if you want to learn all about it. In fact, go here.
But I always had my eye on the larger prize; I had a vision for TYF!, and that was not to just make it one of the best shows in New York City, but to make it a part of my larger legacy. As crazy as that sounds when I read it back to myself, I had a feeling that TYF! could occupy a permanent place in comedy history. And if you’re going to say that that seems a little grandiose, I have to politely disagree; it’s incredibly grandiose, and crazy, and as it happens, correct.
EATING IT, INVITE THEM UP, and COMEDY DEATH RAY
This was long enough ago that Aziz didn’t even make the front cover!
The granddaddy of “alternative” comedy shows in New York City was Eating It, a show held in the back of a rock club called the Luna Lounge on Ludlow Street in the Lower East Side. A lot of big names performed there, mixed in with up-and-comers and for years it was the hottest show going, and proof that you didn’t have to work comedy clubs to get seen by “industry” or build a career.
That spawned shows by myself, and Borelli, and Eugene Mirman, whose Wednesday night showcase, Invite Them Up, in the back of a former revival house movie theater/cafe would become the next iconic “indie” comedy show. Everybody went to Eugene’s for years, and he was the first person to book acts like Reggie Watts, Flight of the Conchords, Modest Mouse, Aziz Ansari, who would go on to be huge fixtures in the comedy world.
On the West Coast, a similar show, by two former Mr. Show writers, BJ Porter and Scott Aukerman, called Comedy Death Ray (now Comedy Bang! Bang!) had launched first in LA’s M Bar and then at the Upright Citizen’s Theater when it opened in Los Feliz.
In two successive years, Comedy Central Records put out compilation albums (and i’m really eliding a lot here in service of what is, ultimately, my own story), featuring some of the best acts out of both shows. And I took notice. Because, as I said, I also had one of the country’s best shows, and I wanted recognition for it. A year later, I pitched a similar Tell Your Friends! album to Comedy Central Records, and received a polite refusal; sales for the previous two were not all that they had hoped. This was, after all, the age of peer-to-peer audio sharing. Album sales had taken a huge dip, and the sort of young, hip comedy fans who would be expected to buy these sorts of compilations were stealing them wholesale.
But I’m grateful for the rejection.
VICTOR VARNADO AND THE AWKWARD COMEDY SHOW
l to r: Victor, Hannibal, Marina, Baron, Eric
My friend Victor Varnado had been doing standup and teaching himself the basics of filmmaking for years. In 2009, he produced, directed, and headlined a comedy special, called The Awkward Comedy Show, with fellow “nerdy” black comedians Eric Andre, Hannibal Buress, Baron Vaughn, and Marina Franklin. The five most confident, least awkward comedians I’ve ever met. But no matter; I went to the taping and, as you’d expect with that lineup, it was a great show. Victor sold it to Comedy Central, and I produced the release show, featuring the cast, as well as surprise guest W. Kamau Bell, and after-party with DJ Prince Paul. As is the case with almost every show I’ve produced, now you could sell out a large theater with that lineup, but at the time I was busting my ass to fill the Comix Comedy Club.
By the way, please don’t feel I’m understating Victor’s accomplishment here. To take an idea from scratch (in this case, take the Kings of Comedy template and transpose it onto the comedians he performed with; in fact, his original title was The Kings of Awkward Comedy until the gentleman who actually owns the legal rights to the Kings of Comedy name put an end to that). to rent out a crew on a shoestring budget, to figure out how to give the set dressing a professional look, and to direct a live show while also performing. That’s a huge accomplishment. And for Victor to do all of that and then sell it as an actual TV special with his name all over it?
Again, I took notice.But I was focused, in those days, on my own standup career. I had submitted for a half-hour special, and was particularly confident in myself that I’d get it. 2010 was my year, and I’d take the money from that special and move to Europe for a couple of years and completely rebuild my act and, most likely, drink myself to death in Kreuzberg. Instead, I found out that I’d been passed over for a new crop of comedians who had all started seven years after I had. That was a big reality check. On top of that, I did a show that night with most of those guys, and completely bombed, and sat there after they all killed one after the other. Another reality check.
I biked home that night, drunk and in an emotional freefall. And I quit comedy. And then a week later, I realized no one noticed that I’d quit comedy, and I decided that the I was going to put myself into a position where I had the power to quit and have it actually affect people.
I was insane. I was grandiose. I was, it turned out, once again absolutely right.
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WATCH TELL YOUR FRIENDS! THE CONCERT FILM! ON HULU:
Liam McEneaney: Comedian, Writer, Producer 