The Definitive Guide to Comedy
When the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival put together a "Sick & Twisted" show for its annual gathering this month in Aspen, Colo., there really was only one stand-up comedian who could headline the gig: Doug Stanhope. This is a guy who was planning his birthday bash earlier this week with …
"People always criticize one-man shows for being self-indulgent," comedian Marc Maron says during a phone interview from his home in New York City. "So I took it to a level of grandiosity never before seen." That’s Maron for you. The cultural critic, storyteller and frequent guest of Late Night With …
After five straight nights of traveling, joke-telling and ego bruising, many of the comics are ready for this week to end. It is fitting that the first round should end in a casino. For this is a mighty big gamble. The winner of this competition gets $3,000. But there is …
Well, well, well. As we headed into night 5 of 6, things began to get a bit ticklish for many of the comics. The comics in the middle of the pack, score-wise, are feeling the pressure, knowing that they still have a chance to make the top five overall and …
This is a good opportunity to explain how life on the road for a stand-up comedian is not always all it’s cracked up to be — if you pardon the cliche. Club Broadway is a big old four-story building in downtown Everett. The venue offers multiple shows every weekend. That’s …
Or so you might think. Before tonight’s show at the Cloverleaf, several comics come up to me looking for pointers or advice on local places they can use for their jokes. Somehow they got the impression that I know something about comedy. This was the one night when I knew …
Let me introduce a couple of my friends. Joe Vespaziani. A man among men. Who else among us in the competition can say they’ve had a bum kidney, endured the pain of a catheter, and then written a hilarious bit about it? Who, I ask you? Who? Joe lives in …
I’m sick. I’m tired. So officially, I’m sick and tired. I stayed up most of the night Tuesday balancing my day job (yes, some of us comedians — that would be the bad ones — still have one of those), watching election returns and desperately trying to figure out if …