Oh boy, oh boy, it’s stand up comedy festival time again! I’m performing stand up comedy on Thursday, June 14th at 11pm, & Saturday, June 23rd at 11pm in the Hollywood Fringe Festival. You can get info on both shows over on my stand up comedy calendar, or RESERVE FREE TICKETS, or join the FACEBOOK EVENT.

Normally, stand up comedy is a solo sport. It feels good to be near lots of other comedians like this, all at one time, because we’re all fucked up enough to need everyone around us to laugh at everything we say, and I rarely hang out with sufficient numbers of other people who understand that to ever feel like I’m in normal reality. Sure, everyone has anxieties, but comedians have the special twist of pointing their energies massively outward, dissecting the world with their minds for lack of ability to dissect their own inward souls. Seeing all those needs in one room — hundreds of comedians under one roof — is always good for a hoot, even offstage.

I haven’t hit the festival circuit since the North Carolina Stand Up Comedy Festival in 2011. I’ve opted out of most of the recent fests in favor of working college gigs and doing fun internet stuff like building my Open Mic List app. I’ve heard the last two years of Bumbershoot have been amazing. I’m thinking it’s about time for switch. I’d like to take the skills I’ve developed over the last two years and dive back into the stand up comedy world, outside of just college campuses. Believe me, colleges have been a lot of fucking fun, and a great career move, but there are tons of other fun places I want to take my stand up comedy.

The festival environment is about showcasing something. You wanna know what I’ve got? Here it is. It’s an all or nothing, comparatively high stakes sort of situation with an audience partially of my peers, whereas a more typical performance at a college or club might involve a more relaxed experimentation, at least in terms of my own performance mindset. It feels good to have the fire turned on my ass. To not just want to make people laugh, but to want to win by making people laugh.

I once watched a Chris Rock interview where he compared comedians working up to a show with boxers training for big fights. Knowing the specifics of the environment, knowing what you’re walking into, and, months later, being prepared to do exactly that kind of battle. I think it’s an apt metaphor.

Of course, this festival is only two weeks away, so I’ll have to pick a date farther off for something that I would really ‘train’ for, comedically, but I’ll bet this festival will be a damned fun time with a lot of funny things worth remembering.

Hope to see you there,

M