The International Incidents

I took the list of clubs to check out, based on the suggestion of my friend from NBC, and decided that Saturday night was just as good as any to take in a show at one of these venues.  I saw that two were close to each other, the Steve Allen Theatre and the Ramada on Vermont (however, the Ramada was not at 1401, it was at 1160.  There was another hotel in roughly the same spot as 1401 would have been, maybe this used to be a Ramada years ago.)

I decided to take the bus to Hollywood Boulevard and Vermont Avenue, which was somewhere in between both places.  I found the Ramada and made a note of it because the next night I would be going to check it out.  Every Sunday there would be informal comedy shows there and I thought perhaps they might be some kind of open mic, or a show I could get on the next night (I hadn't done standup since Saturday, August 26th at the Comedy Studio in Harvard Square).

I walked back to the Steve Allen Theatre and saw a sign that The Tomorrow Show would be on that night...at midnight.  It was 8:30.  

So I went across the street and walked up the stairs in the park.  It lead to the Barnsdall Municipal Art Gallery.  There were a small group of middle-aged folks that had blocked off a part of the balcony looking towards the Hollywood Hills.  The gallery was closed so I went to a cafe table just outside the entrance and pulled out the LA Weekly I picked up on the way.  In it I saw that the Tomorrow Show was hosted by Craig Anton, Ron Lynch, and Brendan Small.  I'd seen Brendan Small several times at the Comedy Studio back in Cambridge, MA.  He was also, of course, the star of the cult cartoon "Home Movies" and the current Cartoon Network hit "Metalocalypse."  I would later learn that Ron Lynch was also a veteran of the Boston comedy scene.

I also saw that the Walsh Brothers, Dave and Chris, would be in town for Comedy Death Ray at the Upright Citizen's Brigade Theatre on Tuesday and the Improv on Thursday night.  So I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone and see the Walsh Brothers and go check out the UCB on the same night.

In order to kill more time and get something to eat, I went to Fatburger, a regional burger chain on Vermont near the intersection.  Before I went in, I saw some twentysomethings eating at a cafe table of their own.  One of them was wearing a green Red Sox cap and they were talking about Boston, so I joined in and we chatted about Boston vs. LA and I told them about the Tomorrow Show before they left.

Fatburger is expensive for what it was.

I got back to the theatre and it was still too early, so I took a walk.  When I got back, I saw some Tomorrow Show fans and chatted with them about comedy before going into the show.

The three co-hosts came out with Ron Lynch and Brendan Small on guitars and Craig Anton on drums.  They performed a parody of Green Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends" called "Wake Me Up When Tourgasm Ends."  I've noticed that LA's alternative comedy scene has a lot more Dane Cook bashing than in Boston.  Actually that makes some sense since Dane Cook got his start in Boston.  They then did Jimi Hendrix's "Manic Depression" and a purposefully and uncomfortably long scat song and started their show with delightfully absurd banter and introduced the next comic.  This was the format of the show.  It was actually shorter than I expected ending around 1:30.

In the audience, I saw my friend Erik Charles Nielsen, a comic I hadn't seen for two years, the last time I was out in LA.  We chatted about the LA scene and he recommended some shows and then I talked some more with some people that work at the theatre.  Before I knew it the time was 3:30 AM and I needed to get home.

I walked down Hollywood and stopped across the street from the Hollywood and Vine subway stop.  Right there at 6225 Hollywood Boulevard was Buster Keaton's star on the Walk of Fame.  But the weird thing was that the center logo was for television.  The best silent film comedian in history had a star recognizing him for television!

I walked across the street and asked the subway officer what my best bet was for getting home and he said to take the subway at 4:40 and switch to the blue line and take a bus from Pico.  So I did.

But the Pico stop on the blue line drops one off at the Staples Center and at that time in the morning the buses only run once an hour.

So I decided to start walking and stop every other bus stop for a few minutes.  I chose the wrong bus stop.  I passed one and a bus flew past me and I waved it down like a taxi.  I was only about five yards past the bus stop, and I thought the bus was slowing down to pick me up, but it was just a light that was about to turn green.  It taunted me.  I ran as it flew from my sight.  So, with my feet dragging I walked for a few miles and about half-a-mile from my place I finally caught another bus.  I looked backwards, east, and saw the dawn and got on board.  I fell asleep at 7AM.

On the way to the show at the Ramada I boarded the bus and a black woman said to a Korean woman "You should've said 'Excuse me!'" to which the Korean woman replied half-heartedly.  But then a black man across the aisle started spouting racist notions about puny Asian brains and how they just don't think right.  I was a little uncomfortable and began preparing my fake Spanish accent if needed.

I got to the hotel and went downstairs to the lounge.  I didn't want to disturb the guy doodling away some jazz improvisations on the piano, so he waited for a pause and asked me if I was here for the show, to which I responded in the affirmative.

I talked to the host, Josh Fadem, about getting booked and he said I might even be able to get on stage that night since someone cancelled.  "Oh, you're from Boston?  Do you know the kids from Hendershaw?  Mookie Blaiklock, Harris Whittles, Dave Horowitz?"  They were all kids that I knew from my senior year at Emerson.

The format was pretty loose, but surprisingly well attended.  The show started with a rap group called Faux For Real.  They were fun, young kids with songs about partying, but they did a half-hour and I wanted to watch some comedy.  The show began and each act was given an ample amount of stage time.  I didn't get on, but I did pick up a flier for a show at the same place the next night.  I asked around to see if anyone knew what was up with the next night's comedy show.

The next night, I went to the show not expecting to see anyone I knew, or had met, as noone knew what the deal was with the show when I asked about it.  I introduced myself to the people running the show and mentioned I was from Boston.  "Oh do you know the Walsh Brothers?"  I turned around and saw Dave and Chris on the other side of the glass doors.  Dave saw me and comically turned around midstep as if to avoid me.  So, I felt much more at home.

They bought me a Coca-Cola, a hotel Coca-Cola!  I also saw the kids from Hendershaw, that Emerson sketch troupe, and Ryan Stout, who was just watching the show but a friend I made a year ago in Boston when he was at the Boston Comedy Festival from San Francisco.  He won the festival and moved to LA.  I told him, "Hey, guess who took the crown from you."  He already knew but I told him anyway the news I heard from back home that 20-year-old Dan Boulger, one of the best writers in Boston.

The Walsh Brothers did one of their character sketches and then one of the regulars got on stage and did some time.  He immediately started complaining that there was a black guy talking outside in the hallway.  I thought this must've been a character or a sketch because who's that blatantly racist without being ironic?

This guy, apparently.  So we didn't know if there was going to be a barroom brawl or what.  It was tense to say the least.  The show never really recovered and the role of house headliner (an in-joke meaning last person on a really long show, often an open-mic) was Jeff Richards of MadTV and SNL.

The show was pre-booked like the one the night before.  So, I'd just email another person for stage time.  Before I left, Dave said to me, "Listen Eric, I'm gonna see about putting your name on the list for the show."

The next day I started applying for jobs online.  Then I went to the Getty Center for a brief architecture tour and a job application.

I juggled that, my bag of resume folders, and about a dozen bus schedules.  I was starting to get the hang of this!

Which is why I ended up about a mile from the UCB.  Apparently the order in which numbers appear on an address is important.  I got to the theatre and asked if they were hiring.  I also found out about their open mic night, which was the previous night!  But I stuck around for three shows that night.

The first one was a series of podcasts to be broadcast over several weeks, so there were some in jokes that wouldn't work because the episodes were recorded out of order and there would be weeks between them.  But the show was hosted by Doug Benson and featured a guest with whom he'd talk about movies, comedically in front of a live audience.

Then there was Comedy Death Ray.  It was hosted by three young guys that had a wacky almost Animaniacs-esque quality.  They'd have a silly sketch in between each act.  When the Walsh Brothers came on they told one of their most notorious stories from Boston and absolutely crushed ("crushed" is like killing but moreso).  Andy Kindler headlined and then opened the next show See You Next Tuesday.  I saw my friend Erik Charles Nielsen perform with only two bits I recognized.

The next night I went to Westwood Brewing Co. to see what I was certain was an open mic.  I was wrong.  I asked about their open mic, which was the previous night!  In fact the waitress at the UCLA bar wasn't sure there would be a show.  It was a long bus ride, so I decided to hang kill time reading ironic coffee table books at Urban Outfitters until the supposed ten o'clock show would start and then head over.

This was actually a pretty cool show.  The kids from Hendershaw were there.  This is a show I'll look forward to playing.  Again, there were more people than I expected there to be and they were a great little crowd.  I took two buses home changing at Sunset and Vine, a stop with which I'd become quite familiar.  I'm glad I got of the first bus when I did as another race riot between white and black seemed to be heating up.

On Thursday I played tourist in an attempt to get a job.  I walked up to places like the world famous Capitol Records building or the Kodak Theatre and said things like "Hello, I was wondering if you guys were hiring?" and dropped off resumes in the hope that I might answer phones for the record company that distributes the Beatles or the place that hosts the Oscars.

That night, I went to the Fake Gallery.  It's this cool little place on Melrose that has a show that people sign up for on Thursday nights.  So I went in asking about the show which is booked through emails only!  I hadn't been on stage since August.  I was itching to get on stage and my search was especially frustrating this week because I was so close but so far.

But I talked to the guy who ran the show further and he knew Jim DeCroteau (A few weeks earlier I wanted to go check out the show at the Fake Gallery starring one of the founders of the Comedy Studio, Jim DeCroteau.  I didn't get the chance.).  I also met someone who was a workhorse in the open mic scene and promised to email me a list of the relatively better open mics.  I did very much the same thing when I met new comics in Boston, except I was operating under the premise, those who can't, teach.  So, I'd give new comics a brief recent history of the Boston scene and where all the shows were by day of the week.

The show at the Fake Gallery was particularly good.  It was held in a gallery/theatre.  On the stage were a pile of television sets, all of which were on.  On the bottom two were images of the hosts being taped live from what, I found out later, was the balcony.  They were hosting the show and would bring up the comics.  Each comic had five minutes, except for three which had two and Patton Oswalt who had ten.  They were timed by a videotape that counted down from five minutes and flashed at increasingly frequent increments until it started counting down from fifteen seconds, like film leader.

In a strange way the tone reminded me of a show I used to frequent in Boston: Kim Davis' Lizard Lounge Show.  His show also had a gimmick for the comics in the form of a contest for the best five minutes with two minutes of new material and it also was hosted by a couple of leftist middle-aged comics.  I liked it.

So on Friday I decided to take my new friend's suggestion on a Friday open mic and I went to Improv Olympic West, not far from Hollywood and Vine.  Finally I had found a place I could perform!  It was a little open mic with half-empty pizza boxes, too many comics, and I didn't do too well, but it was good to be home.

Actually the show started off with a couple of acts that were almost embarrassingly confessional and then I went up and just told jokes.  I think that made me relatively distant, but some jokes worked pretty well.  Later on, I heard the guy who hosted the Wednesday show I went to, Paul Jay, tell a new joke and I slipped him a piece of paper with a tag on it (tags are punchlines after the first punchline).  I must have started something because I saw others doing it too.  I could just be deluding myself.  That's just being neighborly, the way comics can be sometimes.

I walked to Borders, at Sunset and Vine, and grabbed a piece of mudpie cheesecake and took the bus home from the stop with which I had become familiar.

Back at my apartment I uploaded a video of my standup on my MySpace page here and on YouTube here.  You'll notice there's some text in front of me.  That's because I used the trial version of the DVD ripper software.  If anyone knows of any free software without the watermark, let me know.

Tonight I'll probably check out the Tomorrow Show again and maybe see about the UCB's tenth anniversary of Comedy Death Ray.

Next week I'll report to you on some of that list of open mics.

Thank you, I'm Eric Cheung.  I'm on MySpace and Live Journal.