FunnyPhilly.com

I was on the John DeBella show this morning doing stand up comedy in a contest. It is between me (Jim Mirra from Bensalem) and 1 other guy for the grand prize ($1000 and a paid gig opening up for Adam Ferrara at Helium)

If you could do me a favor and vote for me and pass the link along to your friends via email / facebook or myspace I would appreciate it.

Vote Here
More ...

Helium's Philly's Phunniest Contest.

Check out Helium's 4th annual Philly's Phunniest Contest. 1 Winner out of 150 comedians gets $1000. It is an awesome contest and a lot of fun. Go out and support FunnyPhilly.com comedians that are in this year's contest:

July 28 - 8:00pm
     Jess Carpenter and Brandon Scott Wolf

July 29 - 8:00pm
     Jim Mirra, Erin Mulville, Matt Sorrentino and Charles Keihborth

July 30 - 7:30pm
     Rudy Mezzy

July 30 - 10:30pm
     Jason Hazelwood

Aug 1 - 7:30pm
     Marty Regan

Aug 1 - 10:30pm
     Conrad Roth and LaTice

Aug 4 - 8:00pm
     Carolyn Busa

Aug 5 - 8:00pm
     Frank Genzano, Chris Cotton and Mary Radzinski

Aug 6 - 8:00pm
     Mike Casey

Aug 7 - 8:00pm
     Greg Leone and Tom Riley

Good luck to everyone.


More ...

   I've been getting invitations on FaceBook to join peoples' mobs. While I always appreciate the opportunity to interact with others and while I do see myself as a joiner, I regretfully have to decline these invitations.

   I saw the movie Goodfellas and I know what's involved with being a mobster, first off I'm a little old to park cars or be a barback. Plus, if I'm lucky I get to go to jail for a few years and if I'm unlucky I end up like Spider. (I would so be Spider)
More ...

   I want to make strong initiations (the kind that naturally carry the rest of the scene) and hold onto them. It’s so easy to make an initiation, forget it, and move onto something else, when ideally everything you need to do the rest of the scene is already right there. Unfortunately, I, like many others, have faults and easily get distracted from my initiation. Then, I fumble around at the top of the scene chucking ideas left and right and fishing for something to relate to my scene partner about. I think it’s drilled into every improviser’s head that you need to be on the same page as your scene partner; however, what I struggle with at times is drawing that common ground from the initiation without sacrificing my character’s perspective and/or integrity.
More ...

   A few weeks back, we caught the movie Adventureland. It was billed in Apatow-esque fashion, with an 80’s-mustached Bill Hader spouting one-liners and Freaks and Geeks star Martin Starr getting a real role after his hilarious but mostly silent Unibomber-beard dude in Knocked Up. The experience didn’t live up to the billing though, which was a really nice surprise. There were definitely funny moments, but instead of hearing yet more ad-libbed “Know how I know you’re gay?” lines, we saw a story of a kid getting his first real job, experiencing all of the crazy bullshit that I imagine happens to everyone when they get their first menial job. I know it happened at mine.

   Adventureland is an amusement park in Pittsburgh, where our overeducated and unskilled protagonist finds work when his parents can no longer afford to send him to New York for the summer. My first job was at Ponderosa in Oaklyn, New Jersey, where, at the age of sixteen, I would learn to grill 200 steaks an hour during the weekend dinner rush. I would be paid $3.15 for that hour. Pre-tax.
More ...

   The summer is officially here!

   Any doubt?

   Check your gas prices....

   Why are we worrying about Somolian Pirates?

   Who's watching the fat white guys from Exxon?



More ...

   I say that line all the time at work. Why? Because my job is in sales and when you get that credit number from a client it is hard not to get a raging semi in your new pair of pleated Dockers. But hey you gotta do what any good sales man would do…tuck it under your belt and make your next sales call.

   The world of sales is a complicated world with a bunch of bullshit and a lot of handshakes. To be a sales person you really need to push people into buying your product even if you don’t think the product will do them any good. Now, I am not going to tell you what I sell because I don’t want to fucking tell you and it’s none of your business. Just know that I can sell the shit out of any product.
More ...

   My sister and I have been doing our two person improv show for nearly three years now, and we have found a few things that help maximize the minimum effort for a show. We have developed the following Guide to Working Smart or Energy Efficient or Lazy Improv. However, we don’t really like to use the word lazy, as it gets a bad rap. The image of two talking-head blobs sitting on stage, eating object-worked junk food, and flipping channels with an object-worked remote, comes to mind. Our guide is how to get the most out of the minimum. You might it call the mini-max of improv.

   Here are some general guidelines…
More ...

   “We need you to volunteer”

   “Volunteer for what?”

   “We’ll give you 200 euros”

   “200 euros for what?”

   “200 euros and we’ll put you up at a very nice hotel”

   “Ok, I really don’t get it”

   “We’ve overbooked the flight”

   “Nope, sorry, I really prefer not to volunteer”

   I hate being hassled at the airport. Well, ok, so I’m not normally hassled at the airport, but on this particular day I certainly was hassled.

   “You’re flying unaccompanied, yes?”

   “That’s right, but I have places to be tomorrow”

   “Are you sure you don’t want to volunteer?”

   “I’m not volunteering”

   “Ok, voila, here is your boarding pass Mademoiselle”

   “You forgot the seat number”

   “That is not how we do it here at Air France Mademoiselle”

   “That’s crazy. I’ve never been given a boarding pass without a seat number assigned”

   “Tres bien, Mademoiselle, but that is not how we do it here at Air France”

More ...

   I’m a sucker for the show Survivorman. If it’s a weekend day and I haven’t set foot out the door yet, there’s a good chance Les Stroud is painted across the flat-screen, explaining how to create fire from a radio battery or catch a fish with a piece of broken glass and a harmonica. Each sounding of that commercial bumper chik-oon chik-oon chick-oon signals an increase in my survivability, the set of knowledge that I know would keep me alive were I to find myself in the desert with nothing but urine, or in a glacial crevasse with only one match and a hunk of seal blubber.

   As much as I may fantasize that I could survive the elements in completely implausible scenarios, deep down, I never truly believed that I would put this knowledge to the test. The closest I’ve ever come to a survival situation was being stranded by a blizzard in my office building after hours. I had no food and limited change for the vending machine. But a few short months ago, that all changed during a week-long camping trip.
More ...

   Recently I took my girlfriend to see My Bloody Valentine and Friday the 13th and after seeing them I really feel like I could write a scary movie. The movies themselves weren’t that bad, but I found a lot of similarities between the two. So, I thought to myself, “How hard could it be to write a movie? Just pick the setting, get some kids together, and then have a killer with a soft side murder them in the most gruesome way possible.”

   First, pick a setting where you want your movie to take place. This is pretty easy because there are two choices. Pick either a quiet suburb that has a dark secret or the woods with a dark secret. Personally I might shake it up a little bit and combine the two…….what am I talking about? That might be a little too much. Relax Steve, relax.

   Second, get a group of kids (about 6) and make sure they all look like Abercrombie & Fitch models. Let’s start with the guys. Two of them need to be real good looking. I’m talking if Brad Pitt and Matt Damon had a kid it would like these two. Oh yea, one should have short hair and one should have long Ashton Kutcher hair. Then there is the 3rd guy. He needs to be the quirky one of the group who likes pot or is “artsy”. He still has to be good looking. Not Abercrombie good looking, but at least Sears Catalog good looking.
More ...

   And the Grammy goes to…

   I couldn’t tell you the last time I watched the Grammys. I actually don’t know if I’ve ever watched the show, certainly never in its entirety. But we were flipping through the channels that night, and hesitated for a moment when the image of a large, multi-tiered stage and orchestra appeared. "When ‘The Grammys’ returns, a performance by Best Album nominee Radiohead!"

   We paused, impressed. Radiohead? These guys are innovators in sound, composition, music technology, and with this particular album, marketing. It’s available on their website for free. The band asks that you pay what you’d like for it. Such trust in fans in this era of instant gratification, self-justified digital piracy, and economic implosion is unheard of. So what the hell were they doing being nominated for a Grammy? I thought only top-selling country artists and Coldplay won these things.
More ...

   Many people (and by “many people” I mean my wife and my parents) have asked me what it was exactly that made me think I could even be remotely funny as a stand-up comic. I’m blessed to have a loving and supportive family. However, I’ve been thinking long and hard about this because I found it to be a compelling question and, more importantly, Jim had given me a deadline and I had to submit something for this month’s blog.

   The biggest factor in developing my comic ear is the fact that I have spent my entire working life in the Service Industry. Unless you have been under a rock or a Republican the past 20 years, you would know that the Service Industry makes up 67% of our nation’s economy. (Those numbers are made up, but it has to be close, don’t you think?) I submit that working with the public since I began my working life in 1981 has fine-tuned my comic sensibilities. The most important lesson a service job teaches is how to manipulate people, a skill needed in every comic’s repertoire. I learned how to manipulate people in my very first job!
More ...

   Follow the Fear is my very favorite improv motto. I used to think the message behind it was simply do improv (like it’s scary, but do it anyway). While this is still a highly relevant part of the expression for me the words have become more than just bury the insecurities and get on stage.

   I do a two woman improv show with my sister. About a year ago we were rehearsing and I began a scene as a creepy guy hitting on the barista in a Starbucks – a very basic scene and it felt so wrong! She is my sister and I just couldn’t do it for so many reasons. So, I changed my initial idea when things became uncomfortable. Our coach stopped me and called my crap out on the carpet. He knew I initiated as a creepy guy hitting on a barista and asked why I hesitated to follow through with my initial instinct. The more natural scene progression unfolds when you follow your fear even when leads to an uncomfortable place. Comedy is not pretty.
More ...

The following represent times when “That’s what she said” should not be said.

Funeral
Widow – “He just didn’t have enough time. He came and went to fast.”
THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID!

Job Interview
Interviewer – “Are you willing to get your hands dirty and dive right in?”
THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID!
More ...

   Don't get me wrong. I'm a total movie buff. But special effects are overused in Hollywood and they ruin almost every movie (except Jurassic Park, which was what like 20 years ago now? And still nothing comes close in the special effects department). There is one effect in particular that has got my goat (sorry for the harsh language). You all know it, and you've seen it a million times. The oh so surprising car/truck/bus hit. I can't stand it, and it takes me right out of a movie.
   
    Last week, my chick and I rented Ghost Town. Now, I am a big Robert Kelly fan, as well as a fan of The Office (the British one only; I'm a snob like that, you see), so I decided to give it a whirl. (not to mention it also has that good looking blonde broad, Greg Kinnear) I've seen the trailer so I know that Mr. Talk Soup becomes a ghost at some point in this movie. About fifteen minutes in, he is strolling down the sidewalk and is about to be crushed by a window air conditioning unit that is teetering on a windowsill, belonging to a lovely young couple. (I would love to get into how, in commercials and now movies, men are portrayed as lumbering dummies who can't do shit right. All while their wives or girlfriends are giving that he's an idiot, but he's my idiot smirk to the camera. But that's another blog.) Just when he's about be hit by the AC unit, he steps back, off of the curb, into the street and WHAM! You guessed it, he gets channeled by Oda Mae Brown...I mean he gets nailed by a fast moving vehicle. Why? I don't know, it had nothing to do with the movie. (and by the way, why are these vehicles always going like 99mph? how does a bus go that fast on a city street? This is Ghost Town, not Speed) It might have made sense if his wife hit him with the car because he was cheating on her, but it was just an unoriginal, overused shocking effect that is no longer shocking. Can't these screenwriters come up with a more original and entertaining way to kill someone in a movie? He could have been mugged, pushed in front of a car by a crackhead that got hold of the wrong stuff, or I don't know, maybe hit on the head with a fucking AC unit? I'll admit that when it happened I jumped, but that doesn't mean it was effective. (it probably just means that I'm a pussy) Immediately after it happened I was angry that it had happened again. (by the way it happens to David Brent at the end of the movie too - that's right, twice in one movie. yay!)
More ...

It was a Saturday afternoon like most of the others over that summer in Sea Isle City. Eighty degrees outside, not a cloud in the clear, blue sky, and we were all sprawled out in the living room of the apartment with the shades drawn, lights out, air conditioner on full, each of us huddled in a blanket in Carbonite Chamber-like stasis, watching The Real World San Francisco reruns. I groaned, stretched out my legs, and lurched from the couch into the kitchen. Seconds later, I returned, carrying a sleeve of Pringles.
 “Pringles?” I offered.
Some of the guys kept staring at the TV, mumbling “no thanks”, but a few slowly craned their hungover heads in my direction, eyes red from lack of sleep and prolonged, unblinking exposure to poorly scripted reality television. The eyes dropped, settling on the can of precious, crispy Pringles.
“Sure,” came a lazy reply. Then, faster than any of them could possibly react, I dropped the can to reveal my bare nutsack.
Their groans of disgust were sweet music to my ears. “Jesus, it’s like a wrinkled wallet,” someone muttered. The complaints turned to laughter. I got them. They knew it. It’s like I’d absorbed part of their souls. They were victims of the Medusack.
More ...

If you’re like me you probably have a gym membership, but don’t use it as much as you should. I’ll go maybe 3 times a week for an hour, but I think I just like saying that I belong. It makes me feel less out of shape. It’s not that I don’t like the gym it’s just I’d rather sit at home watching ESPN then run on a treadmill. Ya know, do the American thing where we will watch other people participate in physical activity. When I do get the energy to go to the gym I immediately find certain things that I hate…
More ...

    Should you consider taking a comedy class to further advance your career as a stand-up comic? In this man’s opinion, the answer is a resounding YES!!

   Many comedians who are starting out in the business may feel that they will be able to navigate the business effectively on their own by trial and error. Could you make it by yourself with no help? Absolutely. Will your talent come through to potential bookers without preparing a professional demo tape? Maybe…

    As much as we all love comedy, we need to remember that this is a business. With any business you need a marketing plan to bring the product, (You) to the market place. You may be the most talented and funny comedian of all time, but if you are not educated on how to sell yourself, you may waste quite a bit of time learning on your own.
More ...

My first experience with improv took place when I was traveling in Europe with a friend from Chicago who was insistent that we see an improv comedy show. Being from Chicago she was completely ready and psyched for what was about to happen. I had no idea what improv was nor was I in the habit of seeing comedy shows. The theater was cabaret style and seated about 150. The place was packed and everyone was just a few sheets to the wind. Halfway through the show it was audience participation time. The cast did not ask for or take volunteers. Instead they came out into the audience with a video recorder and stopped directly in front of me. Being a naturally more reserved person I was genuinely horrified and wished I had had more than my regular standby one glass of rosé. What followed was an interview with me up on the big screen in the theater and than a series of scenes ripping apart and making fun of everything I had said. It was awful.
More ...