Boston Comedy Festival 2014

What festival celebrates by making art objective? Comedy festivals! Your life's work gets an 8. Moving on to the next round...
James Huessy had a damaged, boyish smile on his face. He just had gotten eliminated from the first round of the Boston Comedy Festival (BCF). He did win the new comic on the scene slot, an unofficial dubbing, which was occupied by Jamie Loftus last year. He still flashed his performer badge with pride. He was talking with a bittersweet sense of himself. This is when his Vermont personality revealed itself. He started talking doing damage. Self harm.
"Dominoes"
He wanted to heal the wounds with the pepperoine grease that he and his fellow Vermonters have made their lives rife with strife for over the years. I could not find him a bowl to smoke so I left him to his own decisions.

The only night I the organizers needed me to volunteer for was the night of the finals at the Somerville Theatre. People clamored in and made the seats groan, some more than others. No comics made the audience groan, however, though if I had seen one of the co-winners perform that night I do not know if the former statement would hold true. Texas minority hack with mainstream premises - he impressed Liam, though, and he is a smart guy. "He's clever" Liam said out of the side of his mouth as he always does, head askew. I wanted to see my buddy Ryan Donahue perform but I had to do some clean up at the Davis Square Theater a block away, before Ted Alexandro took stage. Pretty ladies were there, quite a few. Most, I think, were married or with somebody so that explains the low risk flirting on their behalf.

Al Park won it. He's pretty broad.

5 Most Excusable Sellings-Out

Selling out is compromising the work or art of an artist or the like. While it is only "unfortunate" in these instances, selling-out is flat out gnarly and flattens the legitimacy of any person. It does, however, get a few excused write-offs from Staleaponia.

5. Grizzly Bear, Beach House, many other very good bands - (Twilight Saga Soundtrack)
WTF? How did this happen? All these mofos snuck in and probably made a bank for putting their music in this ever so lame movie series to mass appeal. They didn't even watch watch the movie. I know it. It's not really selling out, that's why is excusable, but it is for commercial purposes. It's just shitty they made their artrock synonymous with the movie teen moms identify with when they get in fight with their "rustic" boy husbands. Not that that's the only demographic, probably very good suburban students and what not. Fuck it.

4. Rogue Wave - ("Lake Michigan" - Verizon or something + Zune)
Remember the people, I don't know, city folk, walking pastorily around in a field with Rogue Wave in the background? Good song. I didn't think much of it besides it was one of the best songs heard in a commerschill in several years. Then somebody close to Staleaponia exposed the whole album Asleep at Heaven's Gate and found a new, solid band. Felt wary and discredited that the match maker here proved to be mawfackin SPRINT!

3. Class Actress ("Bienvenue" - Visa Mastercard commercial)
This ad featuring the ultra extravagant sounds of Class Actress were spared for this very short-lived commercial featuring young professionals being new in the world and having some major credit card company seem sincerely there for the young couples of the nation made Staleaponia uneasily look away. This simple, true tune seemed to represent the old foagies high above the Mastercard offices trying to connect with the youth to reel in years of acceptance to the system in general and their fuckin' credit card. Class Actress gets an excuse because her music emits the most lavish and enjoyable chillwave beats that will motivate for some good time in the future. Update - the duo also sold "Let Me Take You Out" to Honda

2. STRFKR (Sir Rawnald Gregory II - Target ad)
Admittingly, this is how Staleaponia found out about the Portland, OR pysch pop band, thus elucidating the benefits of selling art to corporate shit (just like finding out about Rogue Wave). This catchy tune played in the background of the Target pharmacy campaign. Of all the acts and groups on the list, Starfucker really seems the least likely to have sold out to corporate America. They have put out five albums with 9/10 songs dance-able and repeat worthy. Staleaponia likes to think that they would have come into the foreground without Target's help, but who knows. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYdvpO_FMmU

1. "And it feels just like I am too close to lose you!"  Syke.... fuck that guy.
    PFM (Papa John's, Buick)
Peyton Fucking Manning gets the number one spot for his very stupid commercials for Papa John's and Buick. They are the dumbest and most likely insufferable for any non-Broncs fans, but for Denverites, they make aponia give the yeeeeeeeeeee since this guy is taking are team from being led by sketch shitheads like Kyle Orton and Jay Cutler. The main reason this gets excused is because he's an athlete, so he's endorsing or whatever. He's not doing what he does for the company. He's not throwing a fucking breadstick down the field. He doesn't have a Buick symbol on the side of his helmet. Athletes are expected to do commercials, and PFM gets to try one time after another for a chuckle worthy stint, were they're so awk and poor premised that they're good. Besides, I think his neck injury may have effected his ability to make any solid business decisions so he gets the special pass, too.  

5 Least Excusable Sellings-Out to come soon!

Super Moth Black Rainbow

My housemate got freaked b/c a "big bug" came into her room. That bug was a moth. Another housemate, also female, tried to help her capture it of all things. The girls screamed girly screams while trying to capture and release the bug back into the wild. They were so loud I could not really hear the television so I eventually went in and saw what the deal was. It was a big moth. I got hold of the paper and mug female roomie 1 had been trying to use to escort the moth out of the room. I took over and got up on the chair used to reach the bug on the ceiling. The thing flew around erratically like moths do in the half foot cubed area the lamp made. I thought there was no way I could kill the thing, tweaking out rapidly in the lamp. I had not told the two I was going to smear the bug, but all of a sudden it landed still on the ceiling and I went in for the kill. I was not even that fast but I squarely pushed its body in, as though the time had come. I could feel the moth's face get crushed motherfucker as I compressed it. Before I killed it it looked about as cute as a moth could. As I brought the bug body down from the lamp area it was on its back on white paper. I slowly and carefully lowered the bug as it descended. The bug seemed to sacrifice itself of give up as it did not use its bug reflexes of insane quickness to escape my murdddda murda. He was like, "I will die so you, John Staley, can look like the man in front of these two ladies." I felt bad about making the little gray stain on the ceiling, not for the sake of the mess but because I personified the bug as a sacrificial figure.
I realized something that rinsed my anxiety to a lower level; the fact that the bug died in a spot that it would want to be most means I killed it in its paradise. A light packed ecstasy. That bug was on moth heroine. Moth horse - so fuck it. It went that way.

Staleface Earns First Stand-Up Dough Amid Sketchiness

Staleface made himself a cool $5.50 at the Out of the Blue art gallery in Central Sq., Cambridge, MA on Thursday. Coaxed by his housemate to go to the $5 entry open mic (later found out to have contest format) instead of local favorite Grandma's Basement near Fenway, he staled his way through a set that had a few red flags (not on his part). The first deterrent came in the form of 5 bones to do open mic. Fuck that. But it had a potential payoff of 10% of the door (50 cent more than the entry it turns out). The wacky host Bob Gatreau also raised a red flag mostly by his zany characterture of himself for an FB profile pic. So I went into the mic knowing the host had jaherkov eminating from his persona. The motherfucker showed up in a salmon tie. Shaped like a river fish. Wow! FUNNY SHIT! He had super campy material about, like, Frankenstein's mother and Dracula's mother, how rock singers sound like farm animals and like shiet. He brings up my housemate and he does a few notches under alright and then brings me up right after according to the random selection process.
So, I go on stage and start with observations and feelings about the room. About a minute into it I saw in the upper right-hand corner of the room Bobby's camcorder taping the whole thing. He mentioned to somebody else (not the all the performers) that he would tape. That meant early in my set I thought "Oh fuck" for the next 5-7 minutes. After my set I approached BGizzle as he finished a cigarette of all things (hacks smoke? Yeah... for the edge) and asked if he recorded for promotional purposes or something. He said he just wanted to have it which means he will later use it for promo if one of the performers at the mic makes it, also to nab my or other's jokes. He would not post the video but would sell it to me for $25. So after I sort of make my presence felt he replies, "I'd give you a copy but I wouldn't want to see it because of the audience reaction. So this guy who sneakily records the show tries to take me down a peg by saying I did not get reaction. What he then said is he wanted to see me in front of a crowd, meaning a big one. So he meant the video could use more audience but he could not help slide in some cowardly passive aggression.
Take the money and run. To quote Ice Cube, "I ain't going back" despite the cool Ukrainian chick that worked the door (Go Ukrain :) and though I made it to the semis, Gafaux makes the semi-finalists pay door. This "open mic" lacks talent and works as camp central, but I did make enough for a sticker pack from Hippy Tree. Perhaps I will post my set from the show later.
Later.

Surprises from The Gas!

Philly came to Boston at Allston's The Gas @ Great Scott. The Philly comics performed as expected. Funny. Alex Pearlman opened the Philly ending to the show with a tear of solid comedy the style this writer likes. He riffed on the traffic in CT on the way over to Boston. It had a taboo-but-not-really-come-on, as this writer puts it, theme. The show featured stand out sets from Ryan Shea and Caitlin Durante. Shea awoke the crowd from, as the Dedham band Magic Magic's front man puts it, "the Boston Coma" by talking about Boston of all things. That and he release a guttural, visceral scream about Badminton that connected on two pleasing levels. His Boston material refreshed this reviewer and it did so skillfully because some comics talk about Bean and this writer could care less. He turned on the humor switch.
Caitlin Durante started her enjoyable, intellectually stimulating set with a misdirection joke that pulled the audience hard and got a big laugh of surprise. It caught this comic off guard. It shot energy into the crowd and they got excited for what came next. Her set had all well constructed jokes. She got some classic "comedian" laughs from the audience as she raised the bar in the room with jokes coming from a constructed character of superficiality. Pro female comics do that type of character and Caitlin made this writer realize how much he likes that kind of comedy. An innovative set that left the audience in soft awe.
See these comics perform live! Worth the five bucks :)

Good Vs Evil

When bad brings its A game, one considers it evil. Good has its base level of good. Casual good beats the highest extent of bad.

The Good Kind of Warm

On the bubble of mid-level comic Will Noonan looked at me like I would get pissed. He said he snuck or squeezed in the open mic list at Grandma's Basement (1271 Boylston St. Boston, MA) just before my turn to perform. Maybe I would have ribbed him in the quintessential comic style if I needed to hurry off somewhere after my set, but I had time so I chuckled to myself. I chuckled to myself during the beginning part of my set because for the first time in seven years doing comedy, an audience felt warm to me. Literally warm. It had a pleasant warmness to it, opposite from that of a public pool. How did this happen? The comic known as Noonan (or just Will as he would probably say) made his seemingly off-the-cuff set from the night's topic of strip clubs. Apparently more than a few joke slingers dumped on gentleman's clubs for various reasons. Will said he did not appreciate the stigma attached to strip clubs because as the "type of guy" who liked going to strip clubs "to watch a Celtics game and see a butthole" (the dressed-down energy and delivery admittedly made me chuckle and feel levity amid tenseness), he saw strip clubs as a sort of "Cheers"y type place (he can use that if he wants). He knocked the pins in the room down by jesting strip club DJs on their sobering misfortunes and hackneyed jokes. He made the strip club atmosphere come to life with his accurate impression of a particular DJ and his interaction with an unfortunate bachelor. His performance of the situation at the club also elevated the comedic topic of strip clubs and their DJs. I heard gasps for air from the crowd amid laughter. I got slightly jealous. He damn near killed. He had to truncate his set due to time. This all benefited me (minus the truncation) in my performance because I went up, told my first joke and the crowd appeared without the usual thick black leaden sense of "turning-it-over" like a beater car engine to get laughs. I could sense warmth akin to an apple pie that Willy baked for me. I mischievously/playfully dipped my jokes into that pie and in turn they slicked from punchline to the next one's set-up with gooey delight. I do not know if I kept it warm for the next comic, Rich Karski (I must have because when Karski said Hitler, minding his evil or something, could get shit done, he got a burst of laughter) I did, however feel that set went more enjoyably, strongly, and comfortably than pretty much any other at that mic thanks in considerable part (bloggable even) to @willnoonan.