Day: September 23, 2008

I saw Todd Glass on film at an Improv before I ever saw him onstage. The comedy club chain had employed Glass to deliver the all-important pre-show announcements for audience members to turn off their cell phones and pagers, sit back, "laugh, shut up, laugh, shut up, laugh, shut up." His conversational style and humor would put folks at ease. Then I saw Todd Glass onstage six years ago. Funny, funny, funny. Jokes upon jokes, jokes about jokes, and Glass had an extra guy on tour with him just to set up all the bells and whistles (and sometimes, seemingly actual bells and whistles) that accompanied his headlining stand-up act. "I used to sometimes have the middle help me out," Glass (captured in photographic glory by Steve Agee) explains to me in the here and now. "I would go, get 33 ready! Get 22 ready!" A Philadelphia native now based in Southern California, Glass often works the road, but makes a fairly rare New York City appearance this weekend at Comix (Sept. 26-27). You can read part of our interview in today’s NYC editions of the Metro paper. Glass said he stopped doing all of the music and sound cues "when I was trying to get a special ready for Comedy Central," and began concentrating more on his stand-up material. "I’ve had two years where I haven’t done any...