On stage at Bart's years and years ago.
I just scrapped about two pages worth of feelings about the closing of Club Bart.
Club Bart was a great place for food and music. Bart who owned the place loves both and that showed. Many years ago PJ Butland brought comedy to Bart’s. Later Joel Fragomeni took it over and turned it into a free comedy show that more often than not was less of a comedy show and more of a freak show. Joel sort of ran the show with his friend Corey Hall who aren’t terribly welcoming to new comedians or anyone else they view as lesser than them. They’re bullies. The comedy show at Bart’s was often times a very negative place.
With all that being said, I’m glad that I did a set there just about every Thursday night my first year as a comedian. I feel like being a Bart’s veteran made me a tougher comedian and prepared for everything I could ever expect to face on the road.
The end of the comedy shows there is like a funeral for an uncle who molested you, you’re glad it’s gone, but you kind of miss it because it was family.
With Dave Landau at the Chateau Marmont...about to shoot speedballs!
I’ve been so jet lagged since I’ve been home. Jet lagged and depressed. LA really felt like the land of opportunity. Being in Michigan feels like being stranded on a desert island. It’s not that I can’t get off the island because there isn’t a boat. There’s a boat. It’s within grasp. The only problem is I’m chained to this house. That’s how I’ve been feeling since I’ve been home. Feeling like I have a 700 square foot albatross.
My plan in recent years once I realized I wasn’t half bad at this comedy thing was to get decent enough at my craft so I could go out to Los Angeles and make a fair enough first impression. I’ve always been a firm believer in the idea that you only get one chance to make that first impression and that the first impression is a lasting one. The opportunity to go out to Los Angeles and get a guest pass with the “in crowd” presented itself in April. I’ve been looking forward to this trip ever since. On a realistic level, I was hoping the trip would recharge my batteries. And it certainly did that, plus it gave me direction. On a totally unrealistic level, I was hoping I’d have an experience like Fatty Arbuckle where someone would see my little song and dance act and say, “C’mere kid, I’m gonna make you a star!” Obviously, that didn’t happen. Read the rest of this entry
June 23, 2011 was the last Comedy Night at Club Bart’s in Ferndale. It meant a lot to the stand-up comedians of Detroit. Here are some photos from that night and a couple extra I threw in. Big thanks to everyone who was a part of Club Bart’s Comedy Night.
DOCTOR WHO SEASON 6 REVIEWS- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Since I have no good reason or excuse to explain my month long absence from doing anything productive on the internet, let’s just say I fell through a crack in space and time. (The sad truth was more along the lines of me sitting around in boxer shorts with my wife saying “Hey, don’t you have Doctor Who reviews to write and Podcasts to do” and me saying “I don’t wanna, these swiss cake rolls and Blu Rays won’t eat and watch themselves!” and her saying, “But isn’t this the exact rubbish you’d like to get paid for someday?” and me saying…..well nothing constructive with a mouth full of swiss cake roll.
On any account, the mid-season episode was pretty awesome. We even had an end of mid season soiree where my wife made delicious Doctor Who Cookies. Yes Gentlemen: Get Jealous.
I’ve had a lot more time than usual to reflect on “A Good Man Goes to War, which I think has been really helpful to the cause of reviewing it fairly.
A lot happened. A lot was revealed. A lot of my predictions were proved dead wrong. (I could have sworn River was going to turn out to be a sensorite ((that’s for sure a joke, sensorites have those awesome stethoscopes and Abe Lincoln beards).
Let us brave on to the spoiler filled review of “A Good Man Goes to War”….better late than never.
*Rising Higher – As predictable as it was for it to be the Doctor under that third hood, it was really freaking awesome. And how cool was that recruiting sequence when all we see is silhouettes of the TARDIS and Matt Smith? Plus the idea of the Doctor calling in all his favors is a pretty cool one, as more people owe their lives to the Doctor than that Spikey Haired dude that gives away houses on ABC. I wish we could have gotten even more creatures from the past, but I understand the budget reasons for just using what they had lying around. The whole thing was filled with so much bad-assery, which brings me to the next thing….
* RORY IS SO EFFING AWESOME – It’s hard to even put into words the awesomeness that has become Rory. The initial setup is great too, making you think Amy is talking about the Doctor when she’s talking about “The Last Centurion.” The best bit though was the moment when Rory talked to the dying Sontaran nurse. As the Sontaran dies Rory says, “But you’re a great warrior,” and the Sonataran says, “No, Rory, I’m just a nurse,” echoing Rory’s own identity crisis he was probably feeling.
* LIZARD LEZZIES – Some might see this episode as a return of RTD’s “Gay Agenda”, but the show does it so little now it was nice to see a little rainbow in the galaxy again, especially in the case of the awesomely strange Silurian/Human coupling.
* WHAT’S MY MOTIVATION – Still understand very little about why these people care so much about fighting the doctor, or why they need to steal a baby weapon to fight him. I’m hoping it gets revealed later (in Moffat we trust) but I’ve got to say, I’m nervous that Eye Patch lady will never really get fleshed out like I’d like her too.
*THE WAIT – Seriously…..September? I have to wait until September? *Slits Wrists*
* A GOOD MAN – This whole season has been about identity, and Moffat has made it his mission for us to constantly mix up the Doctor and Rory. We’ve often assumed that River killing “The Greatest man she ever has known” meant the Doctor, but it could also easily mean her father, Rory. What we know with Moffat is that it won’t be simple, but I am predicting that we will see what put River in prison by the end of episode 12, so that 13 can end on a happy note.
BOLD PREDICTIONS PROVED FALSE
*ITTY BITTY TIMELORD- I think that the little girl is Amy’s Baby (still) and that said baby was engineered by the silence to be the first Time Lord (hence all the stuff with the suit, they had do give her second heart a safe environment to grow). Remember this is all wibly wombly timey wimey. The Doctor could easily take part in his own species’ origin story. And then we would finally know why humans look Timelord.
I made this one in Episode 2….I was actually pretty close, but no ballgame.
* The Only Water in the Forest is a River – These foreboding words of the TARDIS are talking about River’s death, which we have already seen (the library in that original Moffat two-parter was originally referred to as a Forest). The Tardis is looking backwards and forwards, but River’s death will have a great deal to do with the events of this season.
I was wrong about the TARDIS’s words in Episode 4, which I’m glad for, since this was a much cooler reveal.
It wasn’t the “HUGE CLIFFHANGER” we were promised (at least it was nothing like last weeks) but it was a great episode to end the summer on. I just wish there wasn’t all this waiting. I’m really excited to see where the series goes on from here, especially in “Let’s Kill Hitler”
My five-year-old son Alex came home a few days ago insisting that he had learned from his friends that E.T. “Has the Force.” My wife chalked it up to him being cute and a believer in all things Star Wars, but he insisted it was true. Of course, she decided she’d show him by ordering E.T. from Netflix.
My wife and I had not seen E.T. since it was originally released 19 years ago, so the details were fuzzy, but she was sure he was no Jedi. Well, we watched the movie, and Alex is more convinced than ever that E.T. “Has the Force,” but now I agree with him.
In the movie, E.T. displays telekinetic powers, not unlike a Jedi might manipulate his surroundings with the Force.
Additionally, E.T. passes a kid dressed up as Yoda for Halloween, and tries to follow him, saying “Home, home.” It appears he recognizes Yoda, or at least his species.
Then of course, a delegation of E.T’s species is visible in Star Wars episode I.
This may not be a new idea, but I am now convinced that E.T. does exist in the same universe as Star Wars, and that while E.T. may not be Jedi, he, and maybe his entire species, is at least Force-sensitive.
Alex and his friends were right.
This is the third in a series of posts on internet trends I think are just plain stupid. Please be advised that my opinions do not necessarily reflect those of Mike Bobbitt, Off the Mike, any other contributors, my mother, or my wife (maybe).
A couple of quickies:
First!
Every comments section, especially if you read Ain’t it Cool News, starts off with the “First!” nimrod, often with several. What are you hoping for? A pat on the back? I have never seen a “First!” post followed by a “Nice One!” post. I’m sure your mom’s very proud of you.
Twitter Hastags on TV
Why do all of my favorite shows now have hashtags watermarked in the corner of the screen? If I’m smart enough to use Twitter, I can probably figure out that if I want to talk about or search for Bones, the hashtag is #Bones.
Once again, the lowest common denominator determines what happens online. Idiots. I’ll be over here listening to comedy podcasts and blogging about why I hate you all.
Last week I was Connxtions in Toledo. The time before this was awful because they hired a new manager who easily was the biggest pile of shit ever to run a club. Well, at least that I came across. He abused his power to bully people, ban them if they didn’t kiss his ass, and just be an unbearable tyrant. Just about the entire staff that had been there since I started comedy has left during his reign of terror. The good news is that he’s gone and has been replaced by Dave from the Lansing Connxtions. Dave, like everyone else at the Lansing club is super awesome and is there to be both professional, but also to have fun because it is, after all, a comedy club. The staff that’s there now had nothing but awesome things to say about him…well…the staff that was there when the last guy was there had nothing but nice things to say about him too, but they had that panic look in their eyes like someone in a kidnapping or terrorist video. “Everything is fine. I like it here. I do not miss you dirty imperialist pigs.” Dave is great, and the fact that he trained with Tina in Lansing makes me positive that he’s going to continue to do well.
There is a couple who have come out to see me every single Friday that I’ve performed in Toledo. They’re an older couple named George and Sharon and they’re absolutely wonderful. Sharon waits for me outside to greet me and let me know if there are any issues with George’s health. They sit front and center every time and are huge fans of the comedians they like. George is not shy to show when he’s not a fan of someone too! He’ll sit stone faced, arms crossed and glare at a comic. He and Jason Russell went at it one time during a show and it was one of the funniest things I ever saw. I love Jason Russell. He’s so laid back and positive. George was having none of it, so Jason directed everything at him in a very good natured way. George simply turned his chair around and faced the back of the room while Jason finished his set!
This past week I was with Felicia Gillespie. If I don’t know who I’m working with, I try to look at some of their clips. Most times, I look at one and say to myself, “I get it.” But with Felicia, I watched everything she had on Rooftop Comedy. She’s smart, clever and super funny! She’s got a very deadpan/aloof style that I find really fun to watch. Additionally, she was very nice off stage too. I feel like I’ve gotten to be a pretty good judge of character based on watching someone’s clips.
After the Toledo run, I slept two hours and headed to the airport to fly out to LA. I’m here now at my allegedly 4 star hotel that I won in a super low bid on Priceline. Turns out I’m not a 4 star hotel kind of guy. There’s mandatory valet parking for $20 a day, I can’t walk two feet with a $4 bottle of water without some bellhop asking if he can carry that too my room for me, and it takes forever to wait for the elevator because I’m on the 11th floor. I’m much more of a Holiday Inn Express or Baymont Inn kind of guy. I know for next time. Err on the side of familiarity!
If a movie took place in a comic book store, chances are it was filmed at Meltdown Comics.
Last night, even though I hadn’t slept for more than two hours and an occasional nod off on the plane when I immediately wake myself up from snoring, I forced myself to go to Meltdown Comics to do the Matt Mira’s Day Off Show. Matt Mira is one of the cohosts of the Nerdist Podcast, which I listen to regularly. They normally have a show on Wednesdays I believe, but Matt just started this Sunday show about a month ago. It was a blast! My only regret is that I didn’t get there earlier. At 5:00 they had a writer’s panel with people from Community, Parks and Rec and Wonderfalls. Wonderfalls?! Christine and I love Wonderfalls! We own it on DVD! I can’t believe I missed it. I missed it because I was hanging out in my hotel room…I have no excuse for missing it!
Matt Mira’s Day Off is cohosted by Matt and Paul Cibis. The two of them open and close the show together and then alternate when bringing up the 25-30 comedians who are doing three minutes each. They have great chemistry together and really kept the show rolling. For the most part, everyone was really respectful and professional and stuck to their time. I can only think of one person who maybe went over a minute, but that seemed like an honest mistake. The show was a blast! A lot of the people went up and did material based on Father’s Day. One guy did a performance piece that I thought was pretty brilliant where he was imagining himself in 20 years and the kind of father he’d be at his son’s little league baseball game. I did “Jokes That Don’t Work in the Midwest” and did my traditional Mike Bobbitt thing where I got sidetracked and started yelling about something random. In this case there was a sweet old lady who seems like she just stopped in with a couple other people. I don’t think they were there for someone specific. I think they just wanted to watch a show. A lot of the comedians commented about how they felt uncomfortable performing in front of her. So my distraction thing happened when I bent down to explain a joke to her and then realized that in the 1960s she was the age of all the comedians, so she’s probably experienced way more than they had. I don’t know. I did well. All the comedians were super nice. I passed out a couple stickers so people can keep in touch. They pointed me in the right direction for where I should try to get on with Friday. Apparently if I play my cards right I can hit two stages on Friday.
Mike and Matt!
I’m kind of shying away from the clubs this week because my feeling is that a club here is possibly the same as a club anywhere else. I really want to hit these alternative rooms and underground shows. Last night inspired me more than I think I would’ve been had I gone to the Comedy Store instead.
I wanted to go see Conan O’Brien today, but it turns out that’s not a thing you can decide you want to do at the last minute! It’s completely sold out for the rest of the month. Oops! I have a bunch of friends here I’m going to see, but you’ll have to wait until next week to find out how that goes. Do you think the front desk will think I’m weird if I go to the grocery store and bring back food for the week? I spent $15 on a medium sized water bottle, sugar free Red Bull and a king sized Payday yesterday. I can’t afford this. Here’s what’s on the room service menu for breakfast. Continental Breakfast: Juice, bread or muffin, coffee for $12.50. Actually…the rest of it isn’t too bad…the beverages though are insane. It’s $3 for juice. And you know that’s just a tiny one serving size juice. I can get a pot of coffee for $11.95. I’m going to the store, buying liquids and will bring it back here and put it on ice. I wonder how much the ice costs. It used to be a liquid. Jesus!
Summer 2011 is shaping up to be a pretty awesome time for movies, especially if you love all things nerdy. Who ever thought we’d see Thor, X-Men First Class, Green Lantern, Harry Potter and Captain America movies all in one summer? It’s a great time to be a geek. Sadly, though, into every summer falls a few garbage family movies. As I’ve stated before, I’m the father of two young boys, and am bombarded with advertisements for things people are trying to sell them. Lately, it’s been movie ads.
These are worst I’ve seen this year:
Mr Popper’s Penguins
What a piece of crap this looks like. I can hear the Hollywood brain trust coming up with this one:
“They’re penguins, What should we call them?”
“Well, what do they do?”
“One is kind of loud.”
“Loudy!”
“One bites Jim Carrey a lot.”
“Bitey!”
And so on… My 5-year old could have come up with more imaginative names. Yeahbsolutely.
The Zoo Keeper, or Night at the Museum at the Zoo:
“Hey, kids like the King of Queens guy, right? …and funny animals? …and T.G.I. Fridays?”
The girl won’t marry him because he’s a zookeeper? Really? Don’t you have to have a degree to do that?
I’m going to make a bold prediction about this one. He realizes the blonde girl is a bitch and ends up with Rosario Dawson. Credits.
I will not be taking my family to either of these CGI animal turds. Luckily, they haven’t shown interest in either, I guess I’m raising them right.
When I’m in hotel rooms I tend to spend a lot of time on Youtube or Netflix. One of the first things I wrote about on this site was stumbling upon the pilot for the Jamie Hewlett created show “Phoo Action”. The BBC aired the pilot, but didn’t pick up the show. That’s unfortunate because what follows is a crazy mix of Tank Girl, Aquabats, Bruce Lee, Dance, and of course a sprinkling of the great Carl Weathers. Check it out!
I’ve been on the fence for a long time about comedy contests. One thing that’s never changed is the fact that I don’t like performing in contests at all. They stress me out and they pit me against my friends. I’ve always felt like comedy is supposed to be a fun thing, but contests always sucked the fun right out of it for me. My question is this. Is that the fault of the contest or my own?
Until just recently, like with most things, I blamed my contest anxiety on an outside source. In my brain I realized that contests are subjective and at the end of the day they really didn’t matter. And while I believe a lot of comedians already know that and they’re able to say that to their peers, it’s hard to get us to feel that. There’s a huge difference between knowing something and feeling something. I know there isn’t a monster behind me on the basement stairs, but I still feel the need to run up every time.
I’ve come to the realization that how I process stress and disappointment is all on me. Contests are not inherently evil. Currently a contest is running at Joey’s Comedy Club in Livonia. The payoff is pretty big. The winner gets to go to Los Angeles and hit some pretty impressive stages. The judging is done pretty fairly, although it’s impossible to completely judge something fairly when what’s being judged is entirely subjective.
Jeff Dunham had a television show because a lot of people find him genuinely funny. That doesn’t mean a television executive thought he was genuinely funny. That just means a television execute knew there was a market for thinly veiled racism hidden within a puppet show.
I think contests serve a greater good within the comedy community. One local teacher slams contests universally if the contestants are required to bring people. Why? I honestly don’t get that. For example, with this Joey’s contest I’m reasonably sure each person probably has to bring a handful of audience members. I think that’s entirely fair especially considering how great the prize is. Stage time is readily available pretty much every night of the week in the Detroit scene. There are no bringer shows other than contests. To hit the bigger stages in places like New York, you have to shill tickets on the street and hope enough people come to see you so you can actually get on. The only hoop you have to jump through to get on stage at any of the clubs here, including the prestigious Comedy Castle, is you have to make a phone call and ask. Maybe because we have it so easy most of the time, some people overlook that when they’re asking to bring people in order to compete for fabulous prizes.
Yes, clubs don’t run contests out of the graciousness of their heart, they run contests because it’s good business. What’s wrong with wanting to run a good business? Comedy is a business and contests are part of that business. Summers are slow and you’ll notice every year when the weather gets warm, Joey’s starts the season with a contest. They also follow that contest with a month or so of specialty shows as part of their mini festival where every local comic is welcome to pitch a show to the club.
Comedy contests pit friends against each other, but only if those friends let that happen. Remember that a contest is just a silly type a show and don’t worry about who wins…even if it’s you who wins. No contest is truly fair because there is not one definitive formula to determine what is funny and what isn’t. Don’t let a contest crush your ego or kill your drive. They simply don’t matter in the big picture.
If you don’t like contests, don’t enter them. That’s the nice thing about them. No one is going to hold a gun to your head and force you to enter. Oh, and if someone does, then don’t even worry about winning. Just remind yourself that you were performing under a great deal of stress what with that gun to your head and everything.
I think the greatest thing contests do is they teach us to be funny quick and work under pressure. They’re also useful in keeping our short game tight. I have to do an eight minute set next week. If I were the kind of guy who liked to do contests, I’d probably feel more confident right now.
I’ve won contests, I’ve lost contests. It doesn’t change who I am. At the end of the day, I know I’m funny for what I do and for my audience. Will I be funny to everyone? No. Nor would I want to be. To be accessible to everyone is to be bland and middle of the road. As more unique as my voice has gotten I feel like there’s less of a chance for me to win contests and that’s okay. I’m not running out to enter any either. When it’s all said and done, a contest doesn’t change who I am. I do.
Matt Busch is cool. Yeah, lots of people are cool, what makes Matt so special? I believe that Matt, along with comedians like Patton Oswalt and filmmakers like Kevin Smith brought a certain amount of awesomeness to nerd culture. They brought nerdiness out of the basement and into the sunlight.
If you’ve been to any comic book convention, you’ve probably seen Matt Busch. There’s usually a horde of fans around him because he’s personable, charismatic and has time for everyone.
At his heart, this is the coolest thing about Matt Busch, he owns his inner nerd. On the outside, he’s a cowboy hat wearing tattooed rock star, but on the inside, he’s still that five year old kid seeing Star Wars for the first time in 1977 anxiously waiting for the action figures to come out.
This is the second in a series of posts on internet trends I think are just plain stupid. Please be advised that my opinions do not necessarily reflect those of Mike Bobbitt, Off the Mike, any other contributors, my mother, or my wife (maybe).
Grrrr...
Zombie Apocalypse
I know everyone loves zombies lately. They’re everywhere – movies, comics, books, video games. I get it. People like to be scared, and they make an easy villain – they can be faceless hordes, or they can be your mom, as the story calls for. The problem I have is the numbskulls out there who are seriously preparing for the possibility of zombie apocalypse.
I’ve heard it on podcasts, and all over the web, some idiots feel that a zombie apocalypse is not only possible, but inevitable. Do they go so far as to actually stockpile supplies and weapons? I don’t know, but they read things like the Zombie Survival Guide as if it were a self-help book.
They build things like this:
Click this pic for more on the zombie-proof house.
The fervor has even lead the CDC to actually release a document on their zombie apocalypse strategy, which I’m convinced they only cooked up to shut these ass-hats up. Find it here. (They do make light of it a bit).
To all you zombie fans: enjoy what you love. Watch the Walking Dead. I have my nerdy passions, too, but I don’t look to they sky expecting that one day the Avengers are going to fly in to town. Please don’t be one of these idiots. Go play Plants Versus Zombies, it’s pretty fun.
If you are one of those that think this is really going to happen, I’ll give you some advice I learned from the gang at Mystery Science Theater 3000, “Repeat to yourself it’s just a show, I should really just relax.” While you’re stockpiling rations, I’ll be on the internet looking for cosplay pics from the next comic con.
Another awesome Hot Dog Monday at the Planet Ant Theatre (Hamtramck).
There’s a free pre-show bbq featuring Michigan’s finest foods (Koegels, Bettermade, Faygo, etc.) Bbq starts at 7PM.
The show starts at 8PM with the a guest team followed by the Home Team at 9PM. This week’s guest team was Motor City Improv.
This is the first in what I’m hoping (planning) will be a series of posts on internet trends I think are just plain stupid. Please be advised that my opinions do not necessarily reflect those of Mike Bobbitt, Off the Mike, any other contributors, my mother, or my wife (maybe).
Planking
Um... OK?
This is what we are doing on the internet for fun lately? Laying down on things? I’ve seen a few dumb memes and trends on the internet in my time, but this is up there with the lamest. Planking is people laying face down on things, trying to look like a plank, just like the name implies. I guess the object is to look like something that shouldn’t be able to hold you up is holding you up. I don’t know, I don’t get it. Maybe I’m just another out-of- touch old white guy.
Why?
Dude, you're not even trying.
The internet is a magical place, full of wonderful things, like limitless porn and cute kitten videos. That is where I will be spending my time, not looking at pictures of people laying down on crap.
Off the Mike 