VOODOO COMEDY part 2! EARL SKAKEL!

Folks, if you are in the Los Angeles area, please come out on LABOR DAY to my brand new show Voodoo Comedy! It's at a great venue, at a great location, and it's FREE! All we ask is a 2-item minimum from the House of Blues menu / bar to help justify our existence.

If you can't make it, please help spread the word! Based on the success of this show, we could potentially make this a weekly gig.

Our headliner: 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xxow4v_earl-skakel-sly-stallone_fun

Voodoo Comedy at the House Blues!

Folks, if you are in the Los Angeles area, please come out Monday to my brand new show Voodoo Comedy! It's at a great venue, at a great location, and it's FREE! All we ask is a 2-item minimum from the House of Blues menu / bar to help justify our existence.

If you can't make it, please help spread the word! Based on the success of this show, we could potentially make this a weekly gig.

Here's a preview of our awesome headliner LAURIE KILMARTIN!

On the Road: Nicci Tina!

Folks, Nicci Tina is many things, she's a drag queen, an activist, an author, a speaker, but mainly she's a 6-FOOT TALL TALKING CIGARETTE! She is also the alter-ego of Joanna Cummings, someone I was fortunate to meet on the road and now consider a friend.

And she's funny too! Check out our video together in the link below. And DON'T EFFING SMOKE!

COMEDIANS!

This post is for the comedians in the Bay Area:

A lot of the newer comedians in the Bay Area probably don't know me as I've been away for a couple of years but I used to run a club in SF, which formerly housed the "Walk the Plank" comedy competition you may have seen me post about. 

A little history: 
I started the club as a means to increase stage time for local comics, and we did the first "Walk the Plank" in 2009, mainly to help keep the club alive during winter season, but it was amazingly successful and rewarding. Performers and audiences alike loved it, had a great time, and we felt as if we really helped contribute to the bay area comedy community. Two more years and 2 more contests followed, both just as magically as the first. We produced 2 CDs out of it, filmed multiple documentaries (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLbIELnCjL0), helped a few comedians increase their booking visibility and to this day it remains something I am really proud of. 

I don't live in SF anymore, don't have a club there, but I'd like to see Walk the Plank, as an instrument in community building continue. I've partnered with some great folks that run venues all around the bay and hopefully, if things go well it can continue as a tradition that is not dependent on a particular venue or promoter.

That depends on you, please consider signing up. thanks! The information is located at: www.drbrianking.blogspot.com/p/walk-plank.html

Walk The Plank!

Folks, after a year of hiatus, my Bay Area comedy competition IS BACK!

For info, check out: www.drbrianking.blogspot.com/p/walk-plank.html

Your Boobs

Your boobs are the highlight of my day.
Better than a Vegas buffet,
Or a fine Cabernet, with a fruity bouquet,
They remind me that I'm not gay.

On the Road: San Diego Mardi Gras!

With my tour schedule this year, unfortunately I was unable to make it to New Orleans for the Mardi Gras celebration, so I had to make due with a west coast alternate. I've always heard that San Diego has the largest celebration out here, and now that I live down in southern California, I grabbed my friend comedian Dave DeLuca and headed down to join in the festivities.

Let's just say it's no New Orleans. I knew that going down, but San Diego has an area downtown similar to the French Quarter called the Gaslamp District. It's a few city streets lined with old buildings housing bars and restaurants, and this night a block party in the streets. Plus there's a shit-ton of Mexicans down there, and where there are Catholics, there is lent. I figured we'd still have a good time. 

San Diego's Mardi Gras is NOTHING LIKE NEW ORLEANS. The only similarity is that there are lots of beads being worn, but the beads aren't being thrown from parade floats or balconies, they are being passed around by marketing teams and included corporate logos or sold by street vendors. A lot of people, myself included, recycled beads from Mardi Gras past, but just walking around wearing beads does not make a party. Flashing boobs for those beads helps, and I saw maybe one pair of boobs (well, barely - there was an attempted flash that exposed a little bit of nipple).

The bulk of the block party was an expensive street rave that most people seemed uninterested in. It cost about $40 to enter and looking through the fence it seemed that very few people in San Diego had forty bucks to spare. Mardi Gras techno party, yeah that's a tradition right?

Dave and I got duped into eventually shelling out some cash for a so-called VIP ticket to all the area bars, which included free drinks (1 shitty drink per bar) and VIP access to get in. The problem was it seemed as if EVERYONE who did not pay for the rave bought the VIP package to the bars so the line to get in was just as long as the regular P line. AND the free drinks had to be purchased before some stupid hour, I think eleven, so basically we wasted money trying hard to not waste money. 

Fuck San Diego Mardi Gras. Next time it's New Orleans or nothing. 

I did manage to get some horrible video of the night, enjoy!

On the Road: Stalking Honey Boo Boo

If you've been following me for a while you probably know that last year comedian Erin Loftus and I met the family of Honey Boo Boo in Georgia. You may remember this photo of me and Mamma June:

Well, if you weren't following closely you may not know the whole story behind that photo. Here now is "Stalking Honey Boo Boo"

Toothless Justice

Another one from the vault, this time 20 years ago...

Toothless Justice

On Tuesday April 16, 1993 I had to appear in court. No big deal, I thought, I've been to hearings before. However, this was to be one of the most bizarre mornings of my life and it went a little like this:

First of all, the court was in some tiny spot on the map between Houston and Austin, and I had to be there at 9:00 am. I am never anywhere at 9:00 am, so this was going to pose a problem. It was a hearing about a speeding ticket that I had pleaded not guilty to. I had gotten the ticket on my birthday, January 2, coming back from a disastrous day of being lost for four hours among Houston's highways but that's another story. Anyway, my offense was going too fast, obviously not fast enough because I still got caught. I was going 97 mph in my friend's car. We had just gotten pulled over 10 minutes before for his third ticket of the day and decided to switch off for the next one (sort of a lets-take-turns-getting-busted game). I remember my arresting officer very well, he had a great sense of humor and laughed out loud when he saw our three previous tickets on display on the dash board. He said something like "damn boy it's only been 10 minutes since your last ticket, and only 5 minutes between these two!" I said, "No sir, those are his tickets, we are taking turns." I realized that there was no way I could hope to explain going 97 mph in a 55 mph zone at 2:00 am on a foggy night, so I just took the ticket and said thanks. I threw it on the dash with the others and asked my friend if it was a local cop or a state one. It was state, and I knew I'd actually have to take care of this one. (There are, no doubt, warrants for our arrest over the other three tickets but we'll never go back to Houston)

Anyway, I had to be at some small town courthouse at 9:00 am. I figured that if I woke up at 7:00 and left Austin at 8:00 I could do it, if I speeded. I only scheduled this thing because I had heard that a lot of the time at hearings like these, the witness against you doesn't show up (cops must live such busy lives) and you can get off. This is what I was hoping for. I drove down the highway from Austin and thought about how ridiculous this whole thing was. Why didn't I just buy that radar detector I was going to get? It would have undoubtedly been a hell of a lot cheaper for me than this. I could barely afford the gas for the trip down there. I found the town with no problem at 8:50 am. Now all I had to do was find the court. I decided not to waste my precious remaining minutes by driving around the country and getting lost in a field somewhere, so I stopped at a gas station to ask for directions.

A toothless old man walked up to my car. When I say he was toothless, I'm really just exaggerating as I tend to do. He had teeth, three of them as a matter of fact, it's just that they must have been pretty useless to him with one being in the upper right corner and the other two in the lower left. I couldn't understand a word he said. Maybe he was drunk. Maybe he was stupid. Maybe he was just toothless, I don't know but he did look at me like I was an alien with a third eye or long green tentacles or something. At least he could lift his arms, I'll give him credit for that. He did manage to make some sort of motioning gesture as he was grunting and I figured that was about the best I'd get from " ' him, so I took it and followed the street he waved at.

Four blocks down I found a building with a cop car in front of it. This couldn't have been it. I've been inside bigger Taco Bells. I mean this place couldn't possibly be a courthouse. I kept driving and realized that there was absolutely nothing else down the street so I decided to check it out. I walked in at 8:59 and was told that the judge was busy so I should wait in her office for my turn. She would come out and get me when she was ready. Right here I feel I need to give a little description of this place. It was like something right out of a movie like “Deliverance” (actually I've never seen “Deliverance”, but I hear it's pretty good). The place was so Andy Griffith-ish, it looked like the whole town was built for a Twilight Zone episode, I mean how could people live in a place like that? Did they even have running water? It was just so damn weird. Being a former New Yorker, I think my opinion of the place may be a little culturally biased, but there was this other guy waiting for the judge too. He looked pretty consistent with the local ambiance, cowboy hat, missing teeth, limited gene pool, and bright red arms and he started a conversation with me with the opening "damn, now this is a hick town!" It was so surreal, so Beverly Hillbilly-esque, so backwoods I couldn't believe it.

I think I waited for at least 45 minutes for that judge. During this time "Bubba" and I talked. I'm not kidding here, he told me his name was Bubba with a straight face. Bubba was there for the same reason I was and we were both hoping to get off on the technicality. As we were waiting, we saw a cop enter the building and go into the courtroom. I heard him speak, recognized his voice, an immediately realized that I had wasted my time. This was my cop. (I didn't tell Bubba this, I would've hated for him to get off and me not to). Suddenly the judge came and got me. I can't believe it! She wasn't busy, she was just making me wait until the cop got there! What about my technicality, I was there on time! It's just another way to keep liberal white guys down.

My hearing was quick, I changed my plea to guilty because of the cop showing up and then told them that I was not financially able to pay my fines. Another hearing was going to be scheduled to determine if I was indeed as broke as I said I was. I thought damn, I'll have to come back here, when the judge turned to the prosecutor and asked him if he could do it then.

The prosecutor asked me a bunch of questions about my income, my bills, my tuition and such. After declaring me broke, he suggested that I perform community service instead of pay a fine. This meant that I'd have to make several trips back to this crummy town and service its toothless community. I would have been okay with the idea if it was my own city, but really I didn't want to do work for this town. Besides it was such a small town what kind of work could I really do? I only saw maybe four pieces of litter on the street coming in. After picking that up, then what? Odd jobs for the state? Washing the police car? Picking up lunch for everyone in the office (probably no more than five people)? Or even babysitting the judge's kids? I just couldn't see it. Finally the judge put me on a payment plan to last the rest of my life and sent me on my way. I passed Bubba as I left and told him that I got off. "wasn't my cop," I added, "good luck".

I ran outside to my car, tore off my tie, changed my shirt, and got out of that place as fast as I could. I couldn't believe my morning and couldn't wait to get back to Austin.

I was doing 93 when I got pulled over again.

YOU NEED TO MEET ME

Who am I? I'm a relatively unknown comedian. But I have a magic power. Meet me, and you'll get a TV show on Comedy Central. I can't stress this enough, simply SHAKING MY HAND will bring good fortune to anyone seeking a career in comedy.

Meet me. You want to meet me.

Here are a few of the people who took this advice last year:

Jeffrey Ross. A comedian's comedian, meaning that he's funny but pretty obscure. He was most known for doing the Comedy Central Roasts. That is, UNTIL HE MET ME.

Jeffrey Ross was just another loser hustling the circuit. Then his life changed on May 12th, 2012 because he met me. Now, he's the host of Comedy Central's "The Burn"

These two are Anthony Jeselnik and Amy Schumer, two names YOU WOULD HAVE NEVER HEARD OF if it hadn't had been for an encounter with yours truly.

Jeselnik, was just a goofy dude from Pittsburgh with an unpronounceable name who's only real asset was insanely awesome hair.
Schumer, besides occupying a huge section of every comedian's spank bank, was basically known as Jeselnik's chick.
UNTIL THEY MET ME.

Now they host "The Jeselnik Offensive" and "Inside Amy Schumer" respectively. 

Young comedians very often ask me how to make it in this business. I cannot stress this enough: 

You need to be funny. 

You need to work hard. 

But, most importantly, YOU NEED TO MEET ME.

See you at a show!