Wiseguys

I was working with a very funny comedian this week. His name is Costaki Economopoulos. It’s greek to me. POW. He’s good enough to work the clubs but he produces his own shows because he’s a regular featured comedian on the Bob & Tom Show, he can sell out in small towns where they have the radio show or bigger towns on off nights where he can bring his own crowd. Our last stop was in Salt Lake City, Utah at Wiseguys Comedy Club on a Sunday night. We had good numbers for most of the week, some stations dropped the ball, but we basically sold out 2 shows of 200 people in Pocatello, Idaho of all places.

A couple of times through the promotion of the radio show we had special guests (usually the radio personality in that town) on the show go up and host and welcome everybody and introduce me. In SLC we had quite a character. I forget his name. Mick or Mitch. He said he used to know my dad. Apparently all those radio guys stick together. Or he’s super famous and everybody knows him. My mom called me, apparently my dad is getting paranoid with creepy text messages and she doesn’t want me to be too revealing on my blog. My dad is the only one who reads this thing. lol. Poor Bob Rivers. Can’t walk around North Bend without being chased by the paparazzi. Sidebar: I’ve always had a little sympathy for those lindsay lohan / paris hilton socialites. They’re just kids, making kid mistakes. Granted, I never did coke off a toilet seat but I’ve been too drunk a few times, and some people still consistently do every night. I had a beer or two before I was 21. You know? We villify these people all over the internet to make ourselves feel better. It’s like those anti-gay congressmen and it turns out they have sex with male prostitutes. I’m sure if cameras followed me around from 19-22 I’d have been in jail a few times. Although maybe if I knew cameras were following me, I wouldn’t have done half the stuff I did. By the way- another sidebar for a joke. All this Linsanity business is making the NBA exciting again, but how was Linsanity not the nickname for Lohan first?

So this wiseguy radio host from Salt Lake City goes up and tells a story about he found out he had a kid with a midget clown from the circus 20 years ago when the kid was 7 years old. To my surprise, he actually got laughs, and had a few jokes. The audience enjoyed it. So I opened my show on “I am his illegitimate child.” It didn’t kill, but it got a good laugh. So that was fun. The last time I was at that venue was watching Patrice O’Neal perform during our contest. I also did a show there on a Sunday that was the last night of the contest and I had my best set and got 5th place. The rest of the set went pretty well, the crowd was very chatty and wanted to feel involved and because I had great sets all week, I felt like I had a little freedom to sort of go off script set wise and if it turned out bad, he would still know I was a good comic.

So I did my hybrid parking joke and a guy goes “Why are you parking up front anyway?” I said “Because I’m lazy!” and it got a good laugh. Something in my head reminded me about all the old gym jokes I never tell anymore that related. I just went for it. “Why would I excersize on my way to excersize? My gym had a bike rack out front. Who does that? Bike to the gym? What do you do when you get there, turn around?” and that got some good laughs. The fun thing about older jokes is they get bumped up a notch if it seems spontaneous. If you take a C + joke in a normal set and the audience thinks you’re just thinking of it. It’s going to get an A response. I kept going: “Why do they even have handicap spots at the gym? I’ve never seen a guy in a wheel chair at 24 hour fitness. You know what a guy in a wheelchair has to do? Find a hill!” it got some good laughs and the crowd kept chatting from the back of the room. I knew there was a woman in a wheelchair in the back of the room but I knew that if I didn’t say anything, most people wouldn’t know. but since the joke worked and the people in back were obviously laughing at THAT fact. I decided to say it: “Yeah yeah, I know there’s a person in a wheelchair back there.” and the rest of the crowd laughed along. Then I threw in one last old one. “I saw 2 large women on the treadmill at the gym the other day and I felt proud. I wanted to go say something. Offer some words of encouragement… to the treadmills. They are working really hard. ‘Keep it up!’ It did pretty good but I flubbed it a little just out of rust.

After the jokes I kinda paused and just smiled and said “Wow. Haven’t told those jokes in a while.” – As chatty as the crowd was. My mic cut out in the middle of the set and nobody said anything for a few minutes. I thought the mic was off, but I couldn’t tell and I wasn’t sure if I was just going crazy. The jokes were still doing well but they would laugh and shut up real quickly. Which I guess means they were confused also and they were just trying to hear the next joke. A comic friend of mine from SLC Jay Whittaker came up and handed me a wireless mic. As soon as I spoke into it I realized the other mic was dead. I made fun of the crowd for not saying anything and just letting me die up there. They laughed along with it. How did I not know the mic was out? What a moron. I must have been drunk on the job like Linsanity. I closed out my set strong and had a good time.

While I was there, my friend Kris Shaw sent me a picture of him and Christopher Titus. They were hanging out together and talking about me. The club I was in had a poster of Titus on the wall. So I took a photo of me and the poster of Titus back to him. He said he showed it to Titus and he laughed. Perfect way to cap off a fun week of shows. If you find yourself in a town that gets the Bob & Tom station, make sure you check out Costaki. He’s a very funny story teller and writes some great NFL jokes.