Archive

September 6, 2005

I hope everyone had a great summer. It always seems to go by so fast which is why I’m glad I live in southern California now where it’s sunny and 72 degrees all year round. Here’s a quick summer recap:

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A couple of weeks after I did comedy at the Cucamonga Quakes minor league baseball game, I was hired by the Improv Comedy Club in Brea to do comedy for the Fullerton Flyers baseball team. The staff there was great, and I had a blast giving out tickets, starting the wave and goofing around with a microphone. It’s a really tough gig to get people laughing and paying attention at sporting events but I’m actually getting pretty good at it. As you can see in the pictures, I got to wear a Flyers hat and an Improv jersey. I’m still waiting for my free gear from the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes.

Next up, a week working with Kevin Pollak at The Improv in Ontario. The highlight of the week was the fact that Matthew Perry came to the show on Saturday and sat a few seats over from my wife. Kimmy said Matthew laughed hysterically for my entire set which made me feel good. It was kind of cool to give him a few laughs back after watching him on Friends all those years. During the Sunday show, somebody got stabbed in front of the mall where the club is located. Getting stabbed was probably only slightly less painful than seeing Pollak do his Nicholson impression for the sixth time. I kid, I joke.

I spent most of July writing spec. scripts. The first one was of my favorite show, Arrested Development. Then I wrote a spec of another show, Two and a half men which I had a table read of at The Improv Olympic Theatre last week. It was the same weekend Chris Farley got his star on Hollywood boulevard, which was right in front of the theater.

The big highlight of the summer was when I got to perform four shows at the world famous Hollywood Improv with my buddy Gary Cannon emceeing and Jim Gaffigan headlining. It’s easily one of the best weekends I’ve had in comedy. In fact, it ranks right up there with the week at The Improv in DC a few months back. All the shows were packed and sold out on Saturday thanks to Gaffigan . I got to do a feature set in a room that I’ve never done more than 7 minutes in, so it did a lot for my confidence. The Hollywood Improv is great but it’s a really hard room to do well in. I’ve only seen a handful of guys really kill in there, and Gaffigan is one of them. Check his website out at www.jimgaffigan.com , I’m proud to say that all of my sets went extremely well too. All four of my sets were TV clean. It gave me a lot of confidence that I could do so well in such a tough room while still working clean.

I was feeling pretty good about doing my 20 minute clean set in Hollywood, and then I watched Gaffigan take it to the next level, as I knew he would. He gets on stage and does an entire hour of clean material that absolutely destroys. He’s really on top of his game right now, and is easily one of the top headliners in the business. He’s a great source of motivation for me as a comedian. To see him constantly working on new material makes me want to work harder and keep developing my act. As soon as I got home from the shows on Saturday, I started working on some new material. I’m very strange that way. I used to do the same thing with basketball in college. If we had a game on Saturday night , as soon as it was over, I’d take my shower, then go back into the gym and work on my free throws until the janitor or security guard would have to kick me out and lock up. I still have endless motivation as far as working on new jokes, and Jim sets the bar for developing new material in a short amount of time. It takes most people a few years to come up with a perfect five minute set for a TV appearance like Letterman or Conan. Jim is such a prolific writer that he usually comes up with four or five of those sets a year.

I had another Matthew Perry-type incident on the early show Saturday in Hollywood. Tony Hale, who plays Buster on my favorite show “Arrested Development” was in the audience. We chatted for awhile after the show and it turns out he lives down the street from me. Small world.

When I was working in San Francisco, I had to valet my car at the hotel and when they gave me my ticket I noticed this on the back. This is how you know you have a crappy car, as you can see in the picture, where it says indicate damaged area and my entire car is circled. Ouch! That’s a little harsh.

When I was on AOL the other day I noticed this steamy picture above the labor-day travel specials. Wherever these two chicks are making out is where I want to go on vacation!

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More from San Francisco, on Pier 39 the Sea Lions are always hanging out. Another picture of me pointing to an obvious landmark. Me and Alcatraz, we make a cute couple don’t we? I also saw Forest Gump and we had a contest to see who could look dumber. I think I won.

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I got to see the Yankees play in person for the first time since spring training. We watched Don Mattingly throw batting practice to the team. How cool would that be to have Don Mattingly throw you bp? You can see #17, John Flaherty in the picture with Alex Rodriguez. I lived upstairs from his brother Keith Flaherty when I was going to Hartwick College. John was still playing minor league ball for the Red Sox in Pawtucket. He came to visit Keith and went out for a few beers one weekend with us. John was a super nice guy, as was Keith. Pretty cool to see how well he’s doing now. The game was great, Jeter hit the first pitch out, straight away center. Yanks won 7-3. Nice.

I also found a picture of me on the showcase showdown set of “The Price is Right” Was it real or just a dream? My cousin is a racecar driver and will be famous soon, so check out his website, www.greggshivers.net , and try to catch one of his NASCAR races.

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Thanks for Reading!

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