Notes from the road in Boston, and some video to entertain you

Null — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 11:38:05 +0000

I ran across this video the other day, it a fucking hilarious translation of a freestyle rap battle that Ben Hays and his friend Ryan of www.BenandRyan.com made.

I thought it was one of the best videos I’ve seen in a long time.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s the original rap battle, which is actually just as entertaining and almost just as funny.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I also ran across some video of Evan Tanner talking in depth about life and the lessons that he’s learned along the way.
I received a ton of email from Evan’s fans about my blog entry about his death, so I wanted to put this up for the people that hadn’t seen it yet.
I think it’s a perfect example of what made Evan a really unique and special dude.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’m in Boston right now in my hotel room at 3:21 in the morning, and I’ve got to leave in 2 hours to head out to the airport, so i figured I would just stay up and write a blog. I had a fucking tremendous time here this weekend.
The show at the Wilbur theater was off the hook. That place is an awesome spot for comedy. It seats a lot of people, but it’s all on 3 separate tiers so it’s really like 3 intimate comedy clubs sandwiched on top of each other for one big, bad ass show.
It’s literally the perfect theater for stand up comedy, because usually when you get over a 1000 people in a room you lose some of the intimacy, but the way the Wilbur is built everyone is right on top of you.
The crowd was fucking fantastic, and I hadn’t been there in almost 2 years, so I got to treat them to all new material.
Boston is where I started doing stand up, and coming back here to perform after I celebrated my 20th year of performing was a real trip down memory lane.

The weekend was also an interesting contrast of then and now, because after doing the historic Wilbur theater in Boston on Friday night, I did comedy at a Chinese restaurant in Chicopee tonight. Chicopee is way out in western Mass, and when I was starting out I did a ton of gigs out there. Back then you could make a decent living as a comic in the Boston area, but you had to do a lot of driving, and much of what I did was way out in western mass. As a matter of fact I did my first paid gig out that way when I opened for Lenny Clarke at a nightclub called Jay’s in Pittsfield.
I had barely been doing open mic nights for a year when I met Lenny, and he not only let me open for him, he also gave me some great advice and encouragement. Lenny had just come off of an HBO performance on a Rodney Dangerfield special and was a legend in the Boston stand up community, so the night was fucking huge for me. I’ll never forget it.
I’ll also never forget all the other times I drove out there, doing comedy nights in local bars and restaurants. It was where I cut my teeth as a comic, so it was a real treat to go back with Joey Diaz and Ari Shaffir and do some old school road comedy.

We had a great fucking time this weekend, and got some funny video that Brian will be editing and putting up as soon as we get back to LA.

I’ll be in Omaha, Nebraska for a gig at the Funny Bone on tuesday night, and then the UFC on Spike TV on Wednesday night, and topping the week off at one of my all time favorite clubs, The Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa beach, CA on Friday and Saturday.
To keep up with all my gigs so that you don’t miss when I’m coming to your town, sign up for my mailing list.

Thank you to everyone that came out to the shows this weekend, we had a fucking blast!!

Minneapolis video, San Francisco, Seattle, and the ghost of Lenny Bruce.

Null — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 05:02:44 +0000

We had an awesome fucking time last week in Minneapolis.
The show at the Fine Line Music Cafe was a hell of a lot of fun, especially for my first time performing in Minneapolis. The people were cool as fuck, and luckily since we were there in the summer, the weather was great too.
Talking to people that live there and asking them how cold it gets in the winter can really scare the fuck out of someone that’s been living in California for the past 14 years getting soft.
It gets 30 below zero, every year.
Maybe that’s why the people are so nice there. They’re probably just happy it’s not winter.
They even have these enclosed walkways downtown that connect all the buildings together so that you don’t have to go outside to walk across the street.
Sometimes when I see how fucked up the traffic is in California I just think that maybe it’s worth it to live in a place where it sucks for 3 or 4 months out of the year to keep the weak willed from clogging up the highways.
Then again, I like wearing shorts in December…

Brian Redban made a cool little video about the weekend, and we’re gonna try to put one of these out after every one of these crazy UFC weekends.
Check it out:

Click here to view the embedded video.

This weekend I’m at the infamous Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco on Friday night, and the Moore Theater in Seattle on Saturday night, and I’m extremely fucking pumped for the shows. I’ve always wanted to perform at the Fillmore, as it’s one of the most historic venues in the country. I’ve got a framed poster on the wall of my house from back when Lenny Bruce was there in the 60’s, and many a time I’ve used it for inspiration, or to just ponder what it must have been like back then when Lenny was literally taking the first steps of the modern stand up comedy movement.

Without his contribution stand up comedy would likely be far different today. Pryor, Kinison, Hicks, Carlin – they all passed through the doors that Lenny opened up.
Sometimes when you watch stuff from that long ago it’s hard to put yourself in the mindset of that generation, and realize that his approach was completely revolutionary for the time.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s going to be a tremendous honor for me to perform in the same building where Lenny did, and the fact that it’s in San Francisco – one of my favorite cities ever, just makes it ever the more sweet.
On Saturday night were taking the freak show up north to the Moore Theater in Seattle, and that should be awesome too.
Seattle is always fun, and I don’t get to perform up there very much.
Hopefully Joey Diaz’ warrants won’t come back to haunt him up there.
See you motherfuckers this weekend!!

The Joe Rogan Experience » Reichle

Notes from the road in Boston, and some video to entertain you

Minneapolis video, San Francisco, Seattle, and the ghost of Lenny Bruce.