“Listening to myself is like self-waterboarding,” he said.

He has been to Buffalo, a long time ago according to him. So long ago that he doesn’t remember where he performed or if it was a good experience. “I’m excited to be coming to Buffalo, hopefully there won’t be freak snowstorm or something,” Attell said. Pretty sure he’s kidding.

He also loves porn. His current show Dave’s Old Porn just got renewed for a third season on Showtime, which he describes as the Mystery Science Theater of porn. “Comics love to hang out and I thought why not sit around and watch porn,” he said. He and another comic watch clips from a chosen porn star, who usually appears on the show as well.

“A lot of it is just riffing. When I had Artie Lange on, we had Vanessa del Rio and they had great chemistry together. I have a lot of the porn stars from the ’80s on, the golden age of porn, and they couldn’t be nicer. Like Christy Canyon, who still looks great and is really smart,” he added.

Insomniac with Dave Attell, which ran from 2001 to 2004 on Comedy Central, featured him going to different cities and sampling the nightlife and hanging out with people working the night shift; often the jobs were slightly off-beat.

I told him Buffalo would have made a great city for it and he agreed. But the unpredictable weather was an issue. “Buffalo is a great party city,” he acknowledged.

He doesn’t miss doesn’t doing the show. “It was hard back then before Facebook and all that. Not everyone wanted us to come into their bar with a camera. Sometimes if we went to the waste management plant to film, people didn’t want that either.  All the planning was done the night of shooting. Now, everyone wants to be on camera,” Attell said. “If I had to do it again I would to a do it again as a chef. Chefs are the new doctors now.”

If you want to make him laugh, just say the word merlin to him. “Yeah, that was a thing between me and Jay Mohr when we were on Saturday Night Live (94-95), which was the worst year of my life,” he said.
“We would sit around and nobody else would talk to us so we would just make each other laugh. I still love hanging out with Jay.” He landed that gig after Lorne Michael saw his Late Night with David Letterman appearance.

Attell speaks fondly of Greg Giraldo, a close friend who died in 2010. “Every time you saw him, he would have three or four new bits that were really good. His specialty was topical humor and it was on par with Bill Maher or other guys who do that type of humor. He was a great joke writer and ready to go to the next level as a performer.”

He feels bad for current comedians, with the level of social media that is involved in stand-up now. “Everyone has a podcast now, and I love doing them but I’m not interested in having one myself,” he said. “I can’t imagine what the next level will be,” he added. “Yeah, I could twitter out a joke but I rather say it on stage. At the end of the day, it’s all about finding the funny, getting on stage and seeing what’s funny. That’s why we need the clubs more than ever.”

Dave Attell performs at Helium Comedy Club, 30 Mississippi St., tonight and tomorrow. Tickets and showtimes available here. 

The post Dave Attell: Pure Stand-Up, Wannabe Chef: INTERVIEW appeared first on Buffalo Comedy: Jokes on Us..

Short answer: no. Long answer: nooooooooooo.

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Kevin Michael Smith performs at the Rust Belt Comedy Showcase Christmas show this past December.

A gaggle of boys from NYC are hitting the road today, on a sojourn that will lead them to Mississippi Street in the heart of downtown Buffalo. Led by Buffalo expat Kevin Michael Smith, the group of friends will be bringing their particular brand of funny to the people of Buffalo and, potentially, open a gateway to an exchange program of sorts between the two cities’ pockets of comedymakers and the people who love them.

Joining Smith will be Eli Yudin (Bridgetown Comedy Festival, writer of @NotTildaSwinton, contributor for Weekend Update with Seth Meyers), Robbie Collier (Time Out New York “Joke of the Week”), Bryson Turner (Austin’s Funniest Comic, Detroit Comedy Festival), and Rick Matthews, winner of the Buffalo Laugh-Off 2012 and host of the Rust Belt Comedy Showcase, every Tuesday night at Nietzsche’s in Allentown.

BC: How long have you been in NYC and where are you from originally?

KMS: I’ve been living in Brooklyn since January 2012. I’m originally from Buffalo — more specifically, North Tonawanda. My (rather large) family still lives in Western New York, and I travel home about once a month to work as a reservist at the Niagara Falls Air Force Base.

BC: How do you and the guys coming in for the show know each other and for how long?

KMS: I met all three of these guys separately around the same time right when I moved to New York. There are so many open mics, shows, and comedians here, and it can be difficult to navigate at first. Eli, Robbie, and Bryson are some of the comics that were very friendly to me at first, but also work very hard. Once you start to notice the same people are getting on stage every day and improving it goes a long way toward making friends. Also, Rick Matthews, the local comedian on the show, was the host of the first open mic I ever performed at, Mr Goodbar.

Bryson Turner owns a heckler in an amazing fashion. Don’t be that guy tonight or ever.

BC: Do you have any stories from nights out in the NYC comedy scene together?

KMS: Not as a group, but Eli and I have been known to tie one on after my weekly midnight show in the Lower East Side. One night in particular, he invited a group of people from the show back to his place in Williamsburg, but we were too loud for his roommate(s) so we went in the backyard and drank beer and ate curly fires while shivering in the cold.

BC: Have you ever traveled for shows as a group before?

KMS: No — we’ve all done each other’s shows in the city, but never traveled together aside from the L train.

8 p.m., Helium Comedy Club, 30 Mississippi St., $12, TONIGHT. Tix available here or at the box office.

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Dinner from Hate This Films on Vimeo.

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Amanda Amico, singer of the Stamplickers, and Kristen Becker, Helium Comedy Club.

Last night was Artvoice’s Annual Best of Buffalo awards party at the Town Ballroom, and the who’s who of Buffalo’s civic, restaurant, and entertainment communities were out in droves. Congratulations go out to our very own Kristen Becker for winning the award for Best Stand-Up Comic! This is Becker’s fourth year to win this award. Congratulations also go out to ComedySportz, who took home the award for Best Genre-Defying Act.

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Part I of the Mezcal Chronicles appears here earlier, and Part II appears here.

By: Julian Goelz

The cop says his name and the guy rises and is escorted away. I somehow feel that this individual frequented this particular establishment, as the cop knew him by a first name. No sooner is this exquisite human being gone when another arrives. A young kid, no older than 20, in dirty gym shorts and a gray Sabres hoodie. He is seated next to me, and no sooner is this kid sitting down when he rambles off to me, “I don’t know man, I had nothing to do with that girl.” No sooner is this moron talking to me when I divert my attention back to the girls.

We exchange some shit-talking about the situation at hand. I remember saying something to the effect of, “really, we’re getting arrested for being asshole college students,” audibly so the room could hear.

The cops seemed angry.

I look back at my fellow male inmate and he says to me, “I’ve got this piece of candy that fell out of my mouth, I can almost get it.” In what looked like an attempt by this young man to perform oral sex upon himself, was actually an attempt to reinsert a piece of hard candy stuck to his grimy gym shorts.

Fantastic.

One of the cops comes towards me and tells me to stand. Jen and Janelle are now being told to do the same. Our pockets are violated by those sick bastards, and I swear the cop is trying to subtly seduce me by dragging a lone finger along my thigh. I’m sure he’s daydreaming about molesting me with that nightstick. That scumbag probably can’t afford to be caught a second time.

We sign sheets indicating what we came in with, and what we’ll be leaving with. I’m separated from the girls at this point and brought to a processing room with two other cops. I’m told to stand in a small box on the floor and face the wall. I start to remove clothing as instructed, first the shoes, then the shirt, then the pants. I’m standing in my boxers (wishing I had worn my batman undies) and my socks. They feel my feet for any paraphernalia, then he pretty much gives me a wedgie and checks out my sexy, hairy thighs.

This is where they rape me.

Or so I thought was sure to happen. I put my clothes on once again, sans belt. I’m wearing a pair of 36 inch waist pants. I’ve lost 40 pounds since they fit me. Needless to say I was holding them up by hand now. With one hand in my pocket suspending my britches, the other is placed on a glass scanning my prints. I’m officially in the system. A scrawny ginger cop with a bad lisp is speaking of his loved one, “Yeah, sho now everyone knows that mai girlfindsh a shtripper.”

I have never bit my tongue so hard in my life.

Trying to give myself a reason to let this laugh out, I crack a joke, “so when I break out of this place, I’m going to learn how to throw a sled off the roof and not get caught!” The police officers and I enjoy a common chuckle and one replies, “Yeah, I wouldn’t say you’re breaking out of here anymore.” Good point, sir.

After my prints are recorded, I’m escorted down a hall to the holding cells. It’s dimly lit and there’s a rectangle of desks in the center of the room. It’s stacked high with computers, binders, books and handcuffs. I turn left and into cell block C, cell 3.

“Let’s put him in a single,” one of the cops says. I was thankful. My 5’x9’ cell was equipped with a dual toilet and sink. Brushed steel, clearly no expenses were left unpaid. My bed is a three plank wide bench. No blanket, no pillow, no shoes. I’m exhausted and lay myself down on the bench and pass out.

The post The Mezcal Chronicles: Misadventures on Allen, Part III appeared first on Buffalo Comedy: Jokes on Us..

I get a simple question with a surprisingly profound answer.

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Questions can be about anything from aardvarks to Zeta Metroids, I’ll answer them with the vim and vigor of a velociraptor!

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8Bit Dungeon Boss and Penumbra by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

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Part I of the Mezcal Chronicles appears here earlier, naturally.

By: Julian Goelz

As the cars pulled over and the officers started stepping out, we ran to the sanctuary of the apartment. Those fuckers couldn’t get in there. Unfortunately I was wrong. Janelle had run off somewhere unknown, leaving Jen and me staring at one another, equally as confused as to how to handle these cops marching up the steps, banging on every door in the building. I shrug my shoulders at Jen, put my head back, and pretend to not hear them. If no one answers the door, then we don’t have to actually talk to cops. Now they have isolated our stronghold as the headquarters for hooliganism.

A furious pounding comes at the door, and a bit of quesadilla, beer and Mezcal escapes my mouth. Not only am I horribly embarrassed, but disappointed in myself and the inability to hold my liquor. I stumble to the bathroom as the cops continue to hammer the door.

“Police, open up,” the faceless voice shouts through the locked door. I keep vomiting into my hand as I try frantically to not get any on the floor. Sorry about that rug, Janelle.

I clear my stomach of excess, and return to the sofa after washing up the best I could. I can smell myself, and fall deeper into embarrassment as I try to ignore this violent noise coming from the other side of the wall. Jen gets up from the couch and meanders into some other room; I remain in my post-puke coma. Finally, the police say they have the apartment manager with them. He tells the officers that he doesn’t have a key, but can get one from the owner of the building. Upon hearing this, Janelle reappears and opens the door. Four police officers along with the building manager enter the apartment. The first, Officer Schultz, walks towards the living room and spots me on the couch. I do my best waking up impression — rubbing my eyes, looking disoriented, which started working out well:

“You were right here and couldn’t hear us pounding on that door!?” Schultz snaps.

“I worked a twelve hour shift today (lie), read over a hundred pages this weekend and wrote 3 essays, I’m a little exhausted,” I reply in a confident, borderline smartass tone.

Schultz seems unimpressed.

He begins interrogating Janelle about the rooftop rabble-rousers. She goes with the immediate first choice when dealing with cops: deny, deny, deny. Even the hulking Schultz, whose resemblance was eerily similar to my bulldog, could see past our lies. Janelle’s roommates appear, annoyed that they have been awoken at 2:30 in the morning. They stand in a daze, trying to decipher why the hell there are cops in their apartment.

I’m ordered to stand up and present my identification. I stand, reach for my wallet, and retrieve the grimy driver’s license. I hand it to him while I’m trying to get my feet beneath me. My senses otherwise are heightened by the intense fear and overwhelming amount of testosterone in the air. Despite my attentiveness, my mouth runs.

“Where’s Baldwinsville?” Schultz asks condescendingly.

“It’s a little left of Syracuse,” I reply with a smirk on my face.

Then a whole shitstorm of bad noise begins flying around the apartment. Talks of evictions, arrests, charges being pressed. Tensions grow, and the cops reach for their trusty handcuffs. Shut up Julian, be polite, do as you’re told.

Click-ick-ick-ick-ick.

Handcuffs are really uncomfortable.

We’re paraded down the stairs and onto the street for any curious onlookers to criticize and judge us, like we’re common street whores. We stand idly by the police vehicles as the pigs figure out what to do with us. The girls in one car, I get my own.

I’m placed in the back of one car then moved to a different car, this one occupied by the driver. He’s reading the Buffalo News sports section. Poor showing Bills. My curiosity gets the best of me, and I tell him that I’m a journalism major about to graduate. A feeble attempt to humanize myself. I begin to play journalist, and pick his brain about why he chooses the paper over other sources of news, e.g. TV, Internet, radio… He entertains my inquiry and says he doesn’t know why he chooses the paper, suggesting maybe nostalgia.  A quarter of the way into my next question, his partner gets in the car, and buckles me (upon my request) then it’s all business. Seriousness falls over the car and all communication breaks down. We’re driven to the holding center about a mile away in downtown, and escorted into a sort of new prisoner front desk.

As we’re walked into this room, the girls are sat upon a bench near the entrance, and I am in a cell, door wide open, with about five cops mostly just milling about. Janelle is rambling off apologies with numbers in the thousands. I heard her, and responded by saying I know, and don’t worry, but she didn’t seem to comprehend. For the record: Janelle, really, it’s cool.

Sitting next to me, though momentarily, is a large, drunk-ass black dude.

The post The Mezcal Chronicles: Misadventures on Allen, Part II appeared first on Buffalo Comedy: Jokes on Us..

(Clockwise from the top: Lucas Gardner, Kyle Turner, Rick Matthews, Jimi Pidd). Photos by Brian Hayward.

By: Brian Hayward

A guy walks into a bar and watches a great night of comedy. Maybe that’s an awful punch line, but it’s a damn fine way to spend a weeknight.

Thursday I had the privilege of spending the evening with four comics and one emcee. Allen Street Hardware hosted the “Speakeasy de Mayo,” the fourth monthly installment of a local comedy showcase featuring some of Buffalo’s best up-and-coming as well as established comics. The charm of the venue is in its duality; Hardware is simultaneously a restaurant with a delicious and varying menu and a night-time hot spot where you can down a few cocktails and see a DJ, a jazz ensemble, or (like this night) comedy.

Arriving around 7:30 pm, I spent some time enjoying the atmosphere of the bar area (they have Blue Light, but not Blue?!?!). I then headed to the more intimate space of the back room. I took my place among the rest of the patrons: a group consisting primarily of girlfriends out for a fun night, couples, and guys out on the town.

Local comic Brian Herberger produced and emceed the event opening with some lively banter while striking poses for the photographer. I completely identified with his bit about beefing with Chicago over Lake Erie and his material regarding contemporary smut classic 50 Shades of Grey.

Opening the show was Kyle Turner who warmed up the crowd with spot-on relationship humor.

Next up was Lucas Gardner whose straight-faced delivery put a smile on the face of everyone in the room, except for his (but that’s kind of his thing).

Jimi Pidd attacked the stage with his usual vigor. Some may classify his humor as crude while others may find it refreshingly honest. All will laugh (and be a little afraid).

Closing the show on a very high note, headliner Rick Matthews completely delivered with a 30 minute set. Topics ranging from the mundane such as parenthood to the sacrilegious (POURING LYE ON JESUS – “JUST TO BE SURE”). He may have been more psyched about his marathon set than the audience, which was entertaining in itself.

And that’s what really made the night. Sharing a cozy space with a group of hilarious guys playing off each other and loving what they’re doing as well as restaurant staff intermittently interrupting by carrying meats and bottles from the adjacent cooler accentuating the experience. It’s an intimacy that you can’t get just anywhere.

Buffalo’s underground comedy scene is great because a show doesn’t have to be your only destination. It can be a facet of your evening.  After the show was over, many patrons were still enjoying food and cocktails both inside and on the patio. With the show ending at 10PM, attendees were presented with the choice of heading home at a reasonable hour or staying out and making bad decisions on a school night. I won’t disclose which door I chose on that one…

Brian Hayward is currently working on his five year plan of becoming a moon base captain. You may recognize him from your local neighborhood pub or from his porch where he sat staring at you creepily as you walked by.

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By: Josh Pierce

Pic snatched & remixed from underthebutton.com.

As I foray deeper into the world of stand-up comedy, I face the realistic challenge of being perceived as a clown.  To an extent this is okay, even necessary.  On the other hand, I risk others laughing at me at my own expense.  Which will be fine – as long as it eventually pays off financially, the joke will always be on them.

The other night I had the opportunity to network with a self-proclaimed freak-show and juggalo.  Following the “open-mic” he whipped out a bookbag with nails in it and began showing us how to jam them down his nostrils.  Then he got a rat trap out and latched it to his tongue.  It was amateurish, but amusing.  He whipped out a used bunny suit from his bag as well, and I seized the opportunity to put it on, then hopped around like a rabbit, ramming the circle of people like a bull for a few minutes.  Thankfully nobody got so annoyed that they kicked me in the face.

I grew bored of that and sought another venue to visit.  I walked down the street to a place called the Steer.  It was a Monday night, and there were twenty or so college students milling about the bar, drinking.  I turned heads when I walked in, and ordered a beer.  The man made me show my face and ID, then gave me my beer.  I walked around the bar, trying to make people laugh, and slammed the pint. The bouncers quickly got irritated with me, and gave me a two-minute warning.  I wasn’t surprised, given how content they seemed sitting there doing nothing.

I used these two minutes to make one more lap around the bar and tell everyone what a shithole it was, and that I was being extricated from the place in a few minutes.  They seemed shocked.

I sensed security ushering me towards the door and began saying my final goodbyes, when I heard a faint voice at the door say, “Be vewwwy quiet, I’m hunting wabbits.”  It was the owner of the bunny suit.  Incidentally, his resemblance to Elmer Fudd was uncanny.  The moment was perfect.

“Shit,” I thought.  “I’m a wabbit.  I better get the fuck outta here.”  I turned away from the exit to which I was headed and ran towards the middle of the bar…straight into the crossed arms of a security guard.

A moment later, Elmer grabbed me by the ear and dragged me from the bar, where we both delighted in the perfect exit we had just accidentally made.  He helped me save face from that familiar feeling of being escorted out of a bar on a Monday night (hey…at least I had my pants on this time), and I brought new life to his bunny suit.  A win-win, for the most part.

We shared a moment on the street, both acknowledging that what had just happened was a divine comedic moment.  Elmer was upset that he missed his bus downtown to a gathering of the juggalos or something.  I didn’t believe him, but he was right, I was indebted to him.  And since my friends were coming to pick me up, it was now their problem – sorry guys.

We dropped him off and I left, seriously considering a career as a carney.  At age 27 I never expected my life to come to this, and I have mixed emotions about the whole thing. Nevertheless, there is a moral to this story and it is this:  don’t wear strangers’ bunny suits unless you’re prepared to suffer a mysterious skin rash the following morning.  Luckily, it disappeared with a shower.

Special thanks to Elmer Fudd for making this night unforgettable.  That’s all folks!

Josh is currently job searching and living at home with his mommy. He wishes to thank Heather Stack for hosting the open mic at Broadway Joe’s and to wish her a speedy recovery.

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