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Caloroga Shark Media, find me home. Jenny Mack with your Daily Comedy News. Nice job. Bert Chrascher, Tampa native. He’s announced a benefit show for victims of Hurricane Helene or to be at Ruth Eckert Hall on Saturday, October twelfth, eight pm.
Surprise guests will be announced. I bet Burton gets some especially in Florida, get some pretty good people to show up at this. Bert said, I was born in Saint Petersburg, raised in Tampa, and went to school in Tallahassee. Anything that happens at the state of Florida, I always feel like happens to me. I think all Floridians feel this way.
Florida defined me in the Bay Areas family. I’ll do anything to help family. All proceeds from the show we’ll go to metropolitan ministries to aid relief of hurricane victims. Bert aid, is what you want to look up if you want to attend that. The La Times did a nice profile of Ahmed Ahmed.
He started taking acting classes when he was nineteen, met Vince Vaughn and crashed on Vince Vaughan’s couch. He said, I was making good money booking roles as the terrorists. The driver, the sleazy guy called my agent and said, can I audition for the friend, the doctor, the lawyer. The cop ed says, whenever there’s a conflict in the Middle East, that’s when my career either rises or falls. He got tired of the type casting and stereotyping.
He said, it didn’t feel right, and that’s when I decided to shift in a stand up comedy to have a voice. He started doing a weekly show at Dublins on sunset. They had a big metal tub of peanuts and people would throw the shells on the floor. But every Tuesday night, rain or shine, we’d fit three hundred people. This is scary.
In twenty fifteen, after performing at Palestine’s inaugural one thousand and one Laughs Comedy Festival, Ahmed was halted at the Tel Aviv airport. He said he was detained with M sixteen rifles in his face, strip searched and interrogated for twelve hours. He described the Israeli Defense Force as inhumane on Facebook, which resulted in dozens of messages accusing him of anti Semitism. He says, I’m Semitic. I wasn’t saying anything about Jews or israel I was criticizing the Israeli Defense Force.
That’s like NWA saying f the police for the La Times, Ed says, ever since I’ve been irrational, I’ve had blind range. He described some incidents as comic drama between him and other stand up comedians that have gotten and bounced from the comedy store in the laugh Factory. During one show, an audience member made a nine to one to one call. Im Ed had said, how many Muslims are Middle Easian people here in the audience? Great, there’s a small group of us in here, but hey, it only takes one.
Two cops appeared at the club the following night, but he was allowed to continue with the set. I’m at joked, is a terrorist organization good to send their headhunter to an American comedy club. I want you to fly all the way to America. I want you to learn English really good. I’m gonna put you in comedy classes.
Eugene Merman spoke to WPR about appearing on Flight of the Concords way back when it’s been a minute since that show. How did you connect with Bretton Jamine? By the way, are you familiar with the Mandela effect? That’s where, like things you’re convinced happened are true, and then the world changes. I’m originally from a world where the guy on Flight of the Concords was named Germaine with an R.
At some point teleported to where you and I are now, where the guy spells his name Jemmaine. That was not the case.
Also where I’m from.
On Game of Thrones, the lead actress his last name is Heatley. There’s no L in her name anymore. I don’t know what’s going on. Maybe that explains the Bob’s Burgers thing. Maybe where I’m from there is no Bob’s Burgers, and that’s why you guys think there is one.
Something like that. We’ll get to that a second. Eugene said, I did a show in Edinburgh, I think in two thousand and five and saw them and met them, and I believe Dmitri Martin had done a show with them maybe before that, and they were coming to the US. So we did shows together in small venues in New York, and they were at Aspen Comedy Festival when I was there. It’s like anything you meet people you enjoy and you work together.
So I auditioned for the role of Eugene even though they had written it for me. WPR said, you, of course supposedly provide Jeen Belcher’s voice on Bob’s Burgers. Hmmm, Jeene plays pranks and plays the key word. What do you and Gene have in common? Eugene mermans at a certain probably goofy warmth.
Gene is what I would be like if I were a kid, now to a degree. But I think he’s a goofy warmed jokester, So that might be a bit of what we have in common.
Also a love of food.
Hm. Nikki Glaser was on Bill maher As at Club Random. What do you think they talked about? Here? I’ll give you a hint.
The subject is Nikki Glaser. What do you think Nikki Glaser talked about? That’s right Taylor Swift. Maris said, if Taylor Swift said vote for Trump, he’d win. That’s not good Trump with the supporters.
That’s a cult. But so is this. It’s a cult. Maybe a cult leader can be a source for good and not evil, and I think she genuinely is. I have no reason to put her down or desire to.
I always the greatest respect for a success. You don’t want to take on Taylor Swift. Joe Cooy, did that you remember what happened there? Relaxed Scott. I’m not gonna play it.
Billy Gardell said when Bob Heart’s Abashola wrapped up its fifth and final season, he decided to go back to the stage. Billy said, I thought I was done with stand up. I’d take it three years off to make some health changes in my life. And when I came off Bob Hart’s Abashol, I thought, all right, maybe I’m done with stand up. But the bug get me again.
His comic buddies, Chris Titus, Steve Byrne, Alonza, Bowden, Ian Bagg and Jay Leno. That’s a crew, pretty good show, kept pestering him. New how would you line those people up? Let’s say, all right here here, let’s play this game. R It’s Billy Gardell, Titus, Steve Byrn, Alonzo, Boden, Ian Bag, and Jay Lenol.
Right, so Ian’s got to open. He’s at Gardell’s show. Is he the headliner in this? So he’s last, So you gotta put Leno right before him. Alonzo’s a killer.
Steve Burn is not a household name. It is pretty good all right, So I would go Ian Bag then Titus Burne, Boden, Jay Leno, Billy Gardell, you’d go see that show anyway, I digress. Gardell said, I went down and saw Ian performing at the Irvine Improv with my wife, and man, it hit me. I was like, you know what, I’m gonna do this again. And so I got back up on stage and I’m like, I’m a different person.
I’ve lost one hundred seventy three pounds, I’m older, and those were things to write about, and I’m an empty nester now. So I found some inspiration again. It’s just been funny get back up not being said. I’ve gone back to the clubs because you know, nowadays, if you’re not on the internet, no one knows who you are. Man, he had back to back hit CBS sitcoms.
I hope somebody knows who he is. I’m fifty five now. The only channel I watch a CBS. Nobody else cares about me. Twenty five to fifty four year olds.
They care about you. Me, No one cares. I’ll just sit here with my disposable income and not spend it on your products. I digress again, Billy says, so It’s kind of like starting over, but with no pressure, and I’m really enjoying it. At this age, stand up was always my first love.
Elas Gordell, did I say this already. He’s fifty five, He’s three weeks older than I am, so yeah, he should be on CBS. We could watch CBS together. At this age, stand up is always my first love. I love acting just as much, but stand ups Who’s brought me the dance And it’s great to be up on stage in this place where I’m doing it just because I want to do it, like you feel that way at the beginning, and then if you get successful, there’s pressure and commitments and all that.
And I’ve come through that and I’m at this place where I’m just doing it for the love of the game, and it’s very fulfilling. He talked about having the two sitcoms. When you’re lucky enough to get a show, when it ends, there’s a lot of tears and heartbreak because you and the cast of the crew you kind of become a family. We did that through COVID with no audiences and it was just us and they are trying to make this little show about love and family and one of the great through lines of that show was when you marry somebody, you mary their family, and it shows that we’re all kind of the same. We have a crazy mother, we have a wacky sister, we have cool uncle, and it reminds us that we’re all human.
And that show did that beautifully. So when it comes to close, you can’t be two down. You’re obviously sad. We have gratitude because to have that happen to me twice is just beyond my comprehension. To this day, I’m grateful for anybody who’s watched the work that I’ve done, and they’re the reason my kids in film school, and they’re the reason I have a house late night er.
I spoke to Simon Rich, he wrote for SNL on the topic John Mulaney. Simon says, Mulaney’s success is one of the least surprising things I’ve ever seen. It was apparent from the moment I met him he was the funniest person in the world. Was instantaneous, Like, within the first five or ten minutes I was speaking to him, I was convinced he was the funniest person on earth. Truly.
We started writing together the day we met. I couldn’t wait. He talked about the writing process. The writers get together for a few weeks before the show starts to write the commercial parodies, or at least that’s how we did it in the aughts. So I met him on a Tuesday night about a week or two before the season started, and if my memory’s correct, I think we were writing together within minutes of meeting.
Did he have any favorite sketches that did not make it to air? He said, Luckily, we’ve gotten most of them on now because every time Melanie hosts, he forces the issue and gets our favorite sketches over the finish line. A lot of the sketches we’ve had on the show since twenty eleven have been sketches that we wrote fifteen years ago, like toilet Death, Ejector and switcher Root. We couldn’t get him on the air until Melanie became enormously famous. Irene two told the SF Chronicle one thing she learned about comedy in La there’s no such thing as a casual stand up show.
She explains, there could be anyone here at any time. One time, I was just doing a backyard show. I’m like, who cares, We’ll do whatever. Set wasn’t very good, which is fine. Then afterwards I’m like, oh, you guys all work at some big agency.
Oops in the bay. A backyard show was its own reward, she says. Here, everyone’s just like, yeah, we’re just trying to get good at stand up. We don’t even know if we want to do comedy. We’re just kind of hanging out.
It’s more nebulous. All right, this next thing here, I’m gonna cop to. I’m gonna raise my hand and go guilty. I think this is fantastic. I like Irene’s comedy a lot, but this next thing here, I’m guilty of this.
She talks about how she gives off Big They energy. Her tour is called the Big Vey Energy Tour, and it gets its title from what two calls people’s ongoing assumption that, even after she corrects them, that she uses gender neutral pronouns. She describes her comedy as not that gay, but still plenty gay for her core audience, but leaving room to explore other socio political topics. A recent set at Eli’s took swings at both lefty activists and fibroids. She’s also trying to use the stage more move around a little bit.
Some people use the whole stage, and I’m like, but where am I going? Portland Mercury spoke to Tina Frill. Tina said, one time I came home from an open mic and I asked my mom was in the audience, and said, were the clapping because I was actually good? Or were they clapping because I’m disabled? It was inspiring?
And she said, well, maybe a little of both, and that sent me into a total breakdown. I never thought I could be good at being a comedian. It was never something that interested me, but I fell into it on a whim. Something to do. Comedy was a bucket list thing, some way to get on stage.
I never thought i’d get a little in a stand up comedy, but that maybe it would ease my anxiety for stage and I could finally sing on stage and bring myself to perform. But the knack I had for it in the external validation people tell telling me I had something there as for leaning into disability as part of the set or not, Tina said, I remember the first couple of times doing it up with Mike get In talk about disability, and it only took a matter of a few weeks. It was one tag at the end of a joke. Oh, I’ve got a good life, great friends, great family, of this beautiful state. I got a little bit of brain damage, but that’s okay, and it hit It hit like no other joke in a way that was like an icebreaker.
And then quickly after that I wrote the joke of I’m disabled, don’t worry, You’re gonna be okay, and all the jokes orbited around that one concept. For me, it’s the stuff I wish I could say to people in person, on the bus, across the counter, and it comes from rage, the quiet rage that they would just try and go about my life and I would make people uncomfortable constantly. And that’s why I say I suffer from people. It’s got nothing to do with my disability, but all those micro reactions all day, every day. I never set out to write this comedy so people could walk out with an enlightened perspective.
I didn’t want to change them or their outlook. I just wanted to call them out and sort of like get above it. If I’m being honest, I think not wanting to be put in a box comes from some internal ableism. It’s that ronic that often in interviews. I’ll say one thing, which is that I don’t want to be seen as a disabled comic.
Yet my actual comedy a lot of it revolves around disability. Good stuff, they’re really interesting in. That is your comedy news for today. If you enjoy the program, tell a friend about it. They might like it.
Two numbers have been up. Really appreciate you all listening every day. If you would like the program without a commercial interruption. There’s a way to do that link in the show notes. Short version.
It’s five bucks a month. You know it’s October, so you’ll get thirty one of these. Divide five by thirty one. Who can do that? Deacon Mike, do that and send me the answer.
Anyway, it’s probably not a lot of money. You’ll get this and the other shows on the network without commercial interruption. For example, I host another podcast that’s called five Good News Stories, and just this past weekend we started doing on Saturday, five Good News Christmas Stories. I know that it’s early October, believe me. I also like ad revenue.
Christmas stuff sells baby all right, see tomorrow