San Francisco Comedy Blog

by DNA

My name is DNA, but that’s not important right now. This is about comedy, comedy taken on the road and distributed throughout Northern California. Specifically, the Pawns of Comedy tour that just wrapped up a mini-trip from South Bay to Chico, CA. Chico is like Disneyland for alcoholics and the Pawns of Comedy were ready to ride Space Mountain (with a vomit bag).

Let’s start from the beginning.

I’m new to the illustrious Bay Area comedy scene. If you connected all the dots on my comedy “career”, and I use that word carefully, there would be no discernible pattern. My first gigs were doing comedy magic shows as a child and appearing on the Uncle Floyd show, an East Coast children’s show. Picture a less perverse version of Uncle Howard, where the Ramone’s would sometimes appear, and you get the idea.

Fast forward to 1990, unable to get in to see Will Durst at Chico State (I didn’t have the three dollars, and in that sense, nothing has changed), I entered the competition he was hosting. The Showtime College Comedy Laff-Off was doing college competitions in the region and, first time on the boards, I won first place. For the next 16 years, in Chico, I performed with a local sketch comedy group (Comedy from the Basement), booked and promoted over 2000 shows, ran the funniest Mayoral campaign since Jello Biafra, opened for Ralph Nader, was Timothy Leary’s chauffeur, acted, published etc…

When I came to the Bay Area to finally pursue my dream of performing comedy, it was as if Sheriff Andy Taylor (from Mayberry R.F.D.) got transferred to Oakland. Big fish in small pond gets dropped in Pacific Ocean. Somnambulist is rudely awakened. John McCain gets a telegram from God saying, “You’re going to lose.” Of course, if McCain picks Condoleezza Rice as VP, well… that’s not important right now. And frankly, talk of a third World War is so depressing.

I started finding comedy stages in the Bay that would allow me to use their microphone for five minutes or so. I started seeing other comics on a weekly basis, amazing performers whose styles varied widely from twisted observational humor, to perverse impressions, to crafted stories on life. A smorgasbord of funny laid out in all-you-can-eat buffet.

In my mind, I started putting together a rough idea of a team of comics that could take it on the road. I figured with my experience of promoting, booking, PR, and all the details that are associated with a tour I could associate myself with some funny people, and vicariously, by being associated with them, be considered a comic of a certain degree.

The learning curve was higher than I thought.

I should introduce the other comics that made up this leg of the Pawns of Comedy Tour, though you probably have heard of them. Sal Calanni and Ben Feldman were returning players. There have been several comics who, much like a drummer in a band, have been a rotating cast. This time around, young, tall, Brendan Lynch was the fourth in our quartet.

Now, if you have never been in a band, nor traveled much with a group of people, you may not know about the smells, inevitable squabbles, and other terrors that may present themselves on the road. As the guy who put it all together, rented the car, drove, made the posters, called the papers and radio stations, drew up PR, PSA’s and other promo, booked the theatre, got a charity involved, did the mailing lists, worked the online community, found a band to play, and an intermission vaudeville act, I must say that I was stressed the hell out upon arriving in Chico an hour before the gig.

It should be noted that Chico is an oasis between Sacramento and Oregon. Known for being the #1 party school, the #1 university riot town and #1 cheap Sierra Nevada booze center of the universe, Chico has its accolades. The problem with people from the Bay who come to Chico and party is that it’s a different sort of partying. In the Bay you spend $20 on the town and you have a slight buzz, you lose a Jackson in Chico and you could find yourself in the gutter. Everything is ridiculously less expensive in Chico. Luckily, I was traveling with professional partiers and comics.

Upon arriving and finding that every hotel was booked due to car races at The Silver Dollar Fairground, we pulled into the driveway of the infamous Thunderbird Motel. Under construction, with a red neon vacancy sign flashing eerily in the nearing night, I walked into the clerk’s area to book some rooms.

“Have you checked the other hotels?” He asked.

I thought this strange. I was running out of time before the show and the necessary details I needed to straighten out (were the non-profit volunteers there to usher, when would the band play, how was the stage configuration, lighting cues, was the vaudeville act ready), were piling up in my mind.

I said, “Yes, they are all completely sold-out, so, two rooms please.”

I was in a hurry and threw my debit card at him.

“Are you sure?”

Now, I have never had a hotel clerk try to talk me out of a room, so I didn’t process his overt cues and proceeded to push through the deal. But he wasn’t done with his odd manner of checking us in.

“Do you want to see the rooms first?”

What the duck?

“C’mon man, we’re in a rush; let’s do the deal, where do I sign?”

I got our keys.

Upon walking through a group of young thugs crowding the corridors of the narrow hallway, blocking the entrance to our rooms, we, collectively, The Pawns of Comedy, noticed that aforementioned young thugs:

A. Almost all had one black eye. Some had two.
B. Were snorting meth off their skateboards.
C. Were living, about 25 of them, in the room next door to ours.
D. Had created a strong pungent permeating stink of puke and sex.
and
E. Wanted to fight us.

What was even more shocking to my group of cohorts was that one of the young punks came up and said, “Hey DNA, it’s me, Ahmas.” Initiating what was to be an awakening for the other Pawns of Comedy, I knew every person in Chico (or they knew me). Sheriff Andy Taylor had returned.

Like a scene from the new flick Vantage Point, everything quickly ran backwards. We fled back down the steps, luggage in car, back to the front desk, reversed the charges with the clerk who gave me an “I told you so” look, and we found the 6th hotel stop of the night, the always friendly, rock and roll Matador. I don’t know why we didn’t go there first.

With little time to spare, we flipped a bitch back to our stage at The Blue Room Theatre, a great little black box. I had served as BOD under several reigns of the theatre’s history and loved performing on that stage. I sent the Pawns on their way for grub and began to deal with the details that needed to be ironed out. The band, Biggs Roller, a mix of punk, metal and country, were rowdy and ready to go. The vaudeville act, the infamous Frank Bella, considered a legend in the San Jose underground performance scene, was to sing a karaoke song, “I think of you when I touch myself,” while reading a mocked up copy of PlayPeng(uin) Magazine, while his chick in a penguin suit danced erotically around him (see photos).

I, in my haste to get everything ready, realized that I had: not thought about my act, brought anything to wear onstage, nor prepared to MC. And, in a NY second, the show began.

Like Jim Carrey in The Mask, that friggin’ penguin suit that had betrayed me at my Last Comic Standing audition, called to me, and I slipped it on, ran onstage and began my now trademark penguin routine.

“Have you seen my egg? Damn, this is the same thing that happened to me in March of the Penguins. My wife is going to be pissed!”

The five children in the front row found this hysterical!

What the heck! This was to be an adult show. No children allowed.

Turns out they were the children of the opening band only there to see their pops play tunes. They were ushered out. I was sad to see them go. They were the only ones who “got” the penguin.

Ben Feldman opened. Feldman is an Old School soul. He knows how to work a crowd, can discern between banter, shtick, and hack, can be blue, and the audience loves him. Like other Pawns of Comedy shows we have done, Feldman kills.

Penguin comes back out. Though an animal lover, vegetarian, wildlife activist and Greenpeace member, I am beginning to hate the penguin worse than French Stewart did. I digress.

Brendan Lynch was the next Pawn Star to work Chico. Without giving away any trade secrets, Lynch is smart. I mean really smart. Not like my dumb community college ass. He uses techniques, methods and research for his comedy and life. His act may seem smooth and seamless, but that is the hard work of focus, drive and ambition paying off in spades. The guys in the audience think he’s hysterical, the girls think he’s funny and cute. Lynch is tall, young, smart and funny. I hate him. Just kidding, Lynch has material that is ready for prime-time.

Intermission.

Biggs Roller belts out more tunes. The vaudeville act works well, people like it, but the show is running too long. I need to insure that the audience doesn’t get burned out before the headliner, Sal Calanni, comes on. That is my priority as promoter. This will become a burden before the night is over.

I do my act. I’m later called a “Poor man’s Dennis Miller.” This is the best compliment my act has ever gotten, but I’m so spun-out from being unprepared, I am unhappy about my set. No time to brood, many fires backstage need my personal attention (The band has begun to attack the comics by calling them women’s names and calling the tour the “Yawns of Comedy”).

Calanni takes the reigns. Calanni is a craftsman. He works the audience. He tells his stories about his life, his family, his move from Cleveland to SF. The audience roars. As promoter even I begin to smile. Calanni recounts the tale of The Thunderbird Motel and says, “It was like the film, I am Legend. I was waiting for Will Smith to appear.”

After the show I have to tell the vaudeville act they cannot perform the following night and that the band cannot play during intermission. There will be no intermission. I am not the most popular guy in the room. The band keeps asking about my vagina and offering me Vagisil.

Over the next 48 hours The Pawns of Comedy close out all the bars in Chico, end up arguing in the street about what the SF Comedy Board is really about, experience food poisoning, perform another amazing show to a great audience, drink a bottle of champagne for breakfast, dance all night, meet hundreds of Chico people wandering the streets at 4am and experience a true NorCal catharsis. Explained otherwise, The Pawns of Comedy mini-tour of ‘08 is an adventure.

The wrap-up is that I killed the penguin suit (the penguin is dead to me). Lynch killed an inflatable alligator at a hippie love fest. Feldman killed a bottle of scotch and Calanni is still trying to kill that stomach virus. It may be hard to be a pimp, but it’s harder to be a stand-up comic!

DNA is a South Bay comic who wants to tour. Contact him at votedna@shocking.com.

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