June 4th-Six months of Procrastination

It’s true what they say, comedians that update their websites all the time aren’t very busy. You might say,”No update since January? What the hell have you been doing?”

Well, first off, I want to say thanks to everyone who came out to The Improv in Washington, D.C. last week. It ranks up there as one of the best weeks I’ve ever had in comedy. Jim Gaffigan sold out eight shows and added a ninth that sold out as well. He is the best in the business right now and it was a pleasure watching him work. Just being around him gave me a kick in the ass and inspired me to be a better comedian. I spent hours each day analyzing my sets and making my show better every night by tightening up old jokes and writing new, cleaner material.

The word “clean” may seem out of context but it’s something that Jim really stressed to me about performing on television. I’m pretty clean to begin with, but working “TV” clean all week really forced me to work hard on my set and by the end of the week, I really had the confidence that my stuff is ready for TV. Within my feature set, I have two separate “TV clean” five minute sets that are really strong and I would feel confident performing either one of them on a show like Conan, The Tonight Show or Letterman. Hopefully, I’ll get that chance.

Special thanks also to Joel Haas at XM Satellite Radio. He took me for the grand tour of the studios and came out to one of the shows. They’ve been playing clips from my CD on the XM comedy channels and because of that we’ve been getting tons of traffic here on the website which is one of the reasons that I wanted to get an update on here. Thanks also to all of the people who have been buying my CD over the last few weeks. I’m mailing them out as quickly as I can.

I’ve had three or four nice articles written about me in the last month or so, and there’s also a pretty nice review of the CD, so check out the links on the homepage to read everything.

I also taped something for the Comedy Time Network. I had no idea what this was before I got a new cellphone this week. If you have Sprint PCS (and you really should, no company on earth sucks more than Verizon. I’m being dead serious, they suck) one of the applications on Sprint phones is MobiTV, and the Comedy Time Network is one of the channels. So you will be able to watch me on your cellphone during Math class, while you are driving carelessly or performing life saving organ transplant surgery.

Sorry this wasn’t that funny, but I really had a lot catch up on. I’ll try to update the site every week or so from now on, so keep coming back. Here's some pictures from months past.

SEA WORLD- We went to Sea World and had lunch with Shamu. It’s not the real Shamu, she’s dead. There’s probably been about twenty Shamu’s, no one really knows. Being Shamu is kind of like being the Pope. When one Shamu dies, they just name the next oldest whale in the world Shamu. The whales spend a lot of time pushing women around with their noses. Not really much fear of the “killer whale” anymore I guess.

YMCA SHOW- It was a pleasure performing for the YMCA of the Pacific Palisades. I’ve work at a few YMCA’s in my life and have been a member of several, one of the great organizations in our country. I performed at one of their fundraisers in front of Vlade Divac and Ted McGinley. That’s life in Hollywood.

MONTEREY- After doing absolutely everything in Monterey the last time I worked there, I decided to change it up and do absolutely nothing except eat at Denny’s (twice).

MILITARY SHOWS- I was lucky enough to perform for our troops on the strangest Island I have ever been on. San Nicolaus Island is a military Island off the coast of Los Angeles. There were no civilians except for contractors. There is only a few hundred people on the whole Island. One store, one bar, one airport. We put on a show for those who call it home. The drinks at the bar are free. I'm not sure how that works out for them but no one seemed to be worried about it. Everyone on the entire Island was drunk at the show. It was hilarious. What a trainwreck.

I also performed at a Navy base in El Centro, California. I know what you are thinking, “I didn’t even know we were fighting there.” Ha, ha smartass. The sad part is, the people on San Nicolaus probably have more to do than the people in El Centro. They definitely paid more for drinks. During the headliners set, a guy from the crowd wanted to tell a joke and proceeded to tell one of Mitch Hedberg's jokes.

PAUL VS. THE VOLCANO- Kimmy and I went to Hawaii's Big Island for a little fun. Here’s a few pictures.

EAST COAST SWING- I performed at the new Geneva Comedy Playhouse. Sold out crowd on Saturday and my picture on the front page some newspaper in Auburn. Doesn’t get any better than that. Performed at the old Comedy Playhouse in Lake Ontario. Stayed in the Harry Potter room again. Someday soon, I’ll get to stay in the big room.

I blew the roof off of Youngstown, OH with the help of Dan Grueter. Actually, I helped him, he was the headliner. Then, went over to the other club and closed the show for Eddie Ifft at the Funny Farm in Boardman.

ELVIS COSTELLO- I saw Elvis Costello perform at The Wiltern in L.A. The greatest live show I’ve ever seen. He played 36 songs in two and a half hours. I was sitting a few rows before Jon Lovitz and Dave Foley. I also saw John Cusack trying to disguise himself by wearing a hat over his face. Like David Letterman said,”Elvis Costello is single-handedly saving Rock N Roll.”

SPRING TRAINING- I lined up work at a shitty club in Tampa just so I could go see Yankees Spring Training. I should have just took a week off of comedy. What a horrible comedy experience. I learned more about how to not run a comedy club and how to not treat other people and other comedians. This week made me realize exactly what I want my career to NOT be like in twenty years. Went to two Yankees games, sat in the 1st and 3rd rows. It was awesome.

March 30- Mitch Hedberg RIP (1968-2005) Mitch past away at a hotel in Baltimore. It’s a great loss for the world of comedy. A comedy rock star, one of the nicest guys I ever had the pleasure of meeting.

HUNTINGTON BEACH- We had a few days so we went on vacation about 30 miles from our house to Huntington Beach. By the way, Arrested Development is the greatest show on TV. They tape it a mile or two from our house.

Thanks for Reading,
Paul Morrissey