ED NOTE: Sorry this is late! Did not have the time I usually do for editing and publishing yesterday.
Wednesday, March 13 – SAPL Rocks! Studios, Arcadia, CA
Before we record our latest episode of our silly little comedic music review podcast, Lily notices the Brody Stevens pin on my denim jacket. “Who’s that?” she asks. Baseball-loving Ricardo knows, naturally. So we grin and tell her all about a true original.
Brody is a comic I miss dearly. I had never heard of him before moving to LA, but after I became a door guy at the Store and saw him go up night after night, he quickly became one of my all-time favorite comics. He was hyper-present, so good at being in the moment but not letting the moment freak him out. His act was a mix of crowdwork, improvisation, and material, but unlike other comics who I’ve seen over the years – even the crowdwork-focused ones, who are always canny enough to build a branching decision tree in their heads of what to say given almost any possible response – I could never really pinpoint what was going to come out of his mouth next. I loved him for his reliable unpredictability. Always funny, never the same twice. Some call his act performance art. They’re not far off.
I already think about Brody often, but maybe that’s why he’s on my mind a little more this week than usual.
Thursday, March 14th – Lyric Hyperion Theater & Bar, Los Angeles, CA
We’re bringing WRONG! here for the first time, so my energy’s a little wonky. The show goes fine overall, but the major note for me is that I could’ve done more to bring the energy up from the beginning.
“You have to be your own warm-up guy,” Daisygreen says on the drive home.
I think back to Brody, who would often descend from the stage and into the crowd when his jokes weren’t connecting. I think about the clowns I’ve watched over the years, Natalie and Zach and Courtney and Eli and beyond, who make it a point to involve the audience in unexpected ways, invading their space and keeping them engaged. I think about John, who likes to remind us in our Sunday class that we have a responsibility as performers to implicate the audience in what we’re doing up there.
And I think about myself, in a different venue, doing the same show, but physically going into the audience instead of staying behind the fourth wall when I felt like we needed to shake things up a bit.
It might be worth doing a little more shaking things up.
Saturday, March 16th – Def Noodles Comedy Club, West Hollywood, CA
I’m teaching my very first stand-up comedy class. It’s reminding me a lot of my experience as a sponsor in 12-Step programs.
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