Blake Wexler - Would you see this guy at a Comedy Club?

I know nothing about this dude but...

Comedian Pete Wexler

He is wearing a Topps Baseball Card hoodie!!!

Near as I can tell Pete Wexler is a LA based comedian who originally hails from Philadelphia. He has worked with a local AOR station and his website and tweets point to him being a bit of a sports fan.

On Wednesday he is performing at the Philadelphia Club Helium.

I went to his site and enjoyed the routines he has posted, he has a bit of stage presence with a decent delivery.  

What Say You Card Bloggers
I will put myself at your mercy. Vote in the comments and/or on Twitter to decide if I should see Blake Wexler at Helium.

Sources and Links
Blake Wexler
Twitter - Blake Wexler
Helium Philadelphia

Vittles OnStage

This is an Index of our Live Performance Related Postings including Music, Theater and Comedy

2014 10 18 Steve Poltz at Ardmore Music Hall


Theater
Toni Stone 2019 07 27

The Cherry Orchard 2015 02 12
The Elephant Man 2014 12 25 
Leaving 2010 06 xx

Comedy 
Bill Burr 2014 05 22
Gary Gulman 2014 12 13
Conan O'Brien 2014 05 22
Tig Notaro  2014 05 22
Janeane Garofalo 2015 07 08
Laura Kightlinger 2014 05 22

Book Signings/Author Events
Bill Conlin 1997 07 xx
Stefan Fatsis 2008 07 22 
Rob Fitts (Masanori Murakami bio) 2015 06 27
Charlaine Harris 2010 05 25
Tim McCarver 2008 08 21

Moneyball 

Music
VittlesTunes

2015 07 08 Janeane Garofalo @ World Cafe Live Philadelphia

This past Wednesday night Janeane Garofalo’s brought her Stand Up act to Philadelphia’s World Café Live. The Veteran Comedienne put on a great show that kept her audience laughing for the entire 90+ minutes she performed.

Garofalo briskly moved through several divergent set pieces which evolved/devolved on amusing tangents. When she veered off topic some subjects got dropped, but she typically returned.

Janeane Garofalo 2014 1226 at EastVille Comedy Club

I didn't take any pictures at WCL on Wednesday Night, so you get this one from last winter.

At the time Garofalo was working on new material during at a Comedy Club in New York City. A couple of those pieces were brought out more fully during the long format show including bits on Student Debt, House Hunters, and Elitist Food Trends.

She did extended routines on How to Handle Your Intervention, Walking/Talking Dead, Danny Aiello, and the Sierra Club repeatedly asking her for more money even though she is already a monthly contributor.

The Aiello was particularly memorable, On most of her Celeb bashing Garofalo tended to open with I don't know (miscellaneous celeb), I am sure they are very nice but... Well with Danny she had a personal experience, the two shared a train car and she painted Aiello has a person in need of chronic attention. He kept begging people to notice him on the train car - including singing.  Then Aiello kept repeating his love of congressman Ted Cruz. And as she often does in her set Garofalo was able to tie a funny story to a political point.  

Classic bits of hers were updated. She has been doing a Prescription Drugs and their Side effects routine since I first saw her in the early 90s apparently the side effects have escalated to death at this point. She also continues to name dropped Law & Order mentioning to Millennials that yes there was a time that L&O did not exist.

2015 07 08 Janeane Garofalo ticket World Cafe Live Philadelphia 

etc,,
--Opener David Hill delivered a decent opening set, His delivery takes a bit of getting used to it, but he had enough good routines to earn a twitter follow.
--I was presently surprised how much warmer World Café Live had felt this visit. In the past the room seemed a bit too bland. There didn’t appear to be any major changes – maybe some subtle ones or possibly I am just getting used to the place.
--Lastly there was a 10 year girl performing on WCLs other stage. It was a bid odd to emerge out of the main room to see a 10 year autographing CDs and other keepsakes.
 

LIVE: Gary Gulman @ Bowery Ballroom 2014 12 13

We saw Gary Gulman at the Comedy Cellar a few years ago. His short-form set that night was marred by someone talking during the performance. Gulman had to admonish the patron - It was the right thing to do but the incident burned my focus for a good portion of his set.

Gary Gulman at the Bowery Ballroom 2014 12 13

Despite being disappointed with our initial encounter with the comedian, this past weekend we gave him a second shot. Friends we were staying with in NYC were going to the show based off their enjoyment of Gulman's recent NetFlix release.

I am happy to report that on Saturday Night at the Bowery Ballroom Gulman gave a solid performance. It was the final show on his fall tour in front of his home crowd. For me the show was good, but lagged a tad in the 2nd half - perhaps it was I that dragged. Consuming a half dozen drinks in various haunts across Manhattan can do that.

Gulman opened by mining his Massachusettes roots discussing Patriots fans and their love of Tom Brady. Warming up a New York audience by picking on the team that the Giants faced in two Superbowls is a good move. His sports related intro segued into his own experiences on the playground. Gulman who is of Jewish Heritage deftly discussed the athletic ability of his counterparts growing up. He is mystified by the protective instincts of elders who deemed protective backboards necessary - "There are four people in history who have broken backboards, not one of them was a 10 year old Jewish Boy"

Other routines during his set included themes Gulman returns to frequently and hits well - Trader Joe's and our generation dissatisfaction with modern conveniences. Gulman revealed he gets back at rude Trader Joe's patrons by slipping something out of their bags that he thinks will be critical to their spouse. His hit on the complaining set was those with a a distaste for airports - It is basically a Mall, There are worse ways to spend an afternoon.

Gulman defied convention by not making the audience coerce the standard encore - simply announcing he would do two popular bits based off of prior response via social media. His chosen hits on Saturday night were the grapefruit routine and his Sugar Cookie rant - "A cookie without sugar is a cracker"

Random Notes 
- Joe List opened/introduced the night and did a nice 15 minutes set covering dating and nerdisms. He was then followed by a 2nd comedian who was quite forgettable.

- The Bowery Ballroom is very nice theater with decent drink selection and standard markups. Staff was friendly and efficient. My one issue was the show was advertised at 10:30 show with 10pm doors. Doors didn't open till close to 10:30 and I am pretty sure that the opener didn't hit the stage until 11:30.

- Gary Gulman was noted on the December 12 edition NPR's Hear and Now in their On Stage segment. Click Here, Scroll down to On Stage: Comedians Under the Radar

Sources & Links
Phungo On the Road - NYC 2014 12 13

Conan: May 22 2014

Conan show ticket: 2014 05 22

As part of our recent trip to LA Team Phungo met TeamCoco. TeamCoco is the name for the fine group of folks that put together the Conan O'Brien show aired by TBS.

I think this is the first time I ever got to see a show taping. It was an interesting and fun process. The Guests for our show were Ellen Page (who we knew from "Juno" but was discussing X-Men ), Comedian Bob Saget who was plugging his new biography "Dirty Daddy", and Country artist Jennifer Nettles.

Conan's monologue was solid, timely and he worked well going to the audience to show off some of his improv skills.

The show also included 2 video segments and one featuring Andy putting together his outdoor furnishings for a barbecue (essentially an ad for Lowe's) and a second with Conan (a non-gamer) reviewing the upcoming "Watch Dogs" 

During the show I didn't feel that any segment was outstanding. This is partially because I was watching the workings of the show, also it is a bit disconcerting to see Conan looking into the camera rather than to the audience. But when I re-viewed the show that night I really enjoyed it.

Pre-Game
One of the things you don't get to see at home is Jimmy Pardo warm up the audience for the show. What Pardo does is much more similar to what a standup comedian may do during a comedy club gig. He has maybe 15 minutes to make you laugh and really can't bomb.

During his bit he also covers some legalese - no cameras/phones don't be a jackass etc and he also introduces a fire chief who lets you know to behave if there is an emergency. The whole day at Conan struck me as getting ready to board a plane - you stand in a line a lot, go thru a metal detector, and just before take off somebody tells you what to do if there is an emergency.    

Pardo is assisted by the very capable Basic Cable Band led by Jimmy Vivino. They do a terrific job firing up the audience. Different members of the band parade through the aisles of the 300 seat theater while playing a rousing version of the Conan theme.      

One odd thing happened during Jimmy Pardo's pre-show bit. He was bonding with the audience and one of the folks he talked to was a rapper, Asoka.  I don't want to accuse him of being a plant but it just so happens that Asoka had a song featured on a Conan Christmas Album


Conan Tickets

Getting tickets for the our show was not a problem. We went on-line picked out a date and filled out a request. A few weeks prior to the show I received an email containing a pdf "voucher" which was used to get the ticket above.

The day of show formalities are a bit of a hassle. You need to get to the lot (actually a parking garage) fairly early in the day - they recommend between 1:30 and 2pm with a hard cap at 2:30. Since we were unfamiliar with the area and LA Traffic is unpredictable at best we got there on the early end. Unfortunately The Conan show doesn't start till 4:30 and a Conan Ticket does not entitle one to get onto the Warner lot. This creates the issue of being stuck in Burbank with nothing to do but wait. As noted LA Traffic is a hassle so you don't want to get to far away, and other entertainment options near the Warner lot are limited.  We did run some errands during the middle couple hours and checked out the scenic LA River.

Post Show
Following the show Pardo returned to introduce a clip from the Pete Holmes show which airs after Conan on TBS. I had never heard of the show but the clip (a fish barrel parody of the Duggar family show) was a) Terrible and b) unbearably long. A Day later I read the Pete Holmes show had been cancelled.

Yes the Pete Holmes Show really did exist - and it shared a parking garage with Conan and "2 Broke Girls". 

Tig Notaro, Bill Burr and Laura Kightlinger @ Largo at the Coronet 2014 05 22

Pardon my vagueness in the following, the show was six weeks prior to me finally filing the review. 

Last month during our LA trip we got to see an excellent comedy show. Tig Notaro hosts a monthly production at the Largo at the Coronet. She invites other comics to join her as openers for the an evening which is dubbed "Tig has Friends".

Notaro's notoriety ballooned a few years ago when she announced she had cancer during a set at the Largo. The Largo is a small 300 seat theater, but one of the folks watching the show was Louis C.K. who tweeted "In 27 years doing this, I've seen a handful of truly great, masterful standup sets. One was Tig Notaro last night at Largo." Suddenly everyone who followed comedy knew who Notaro was and that she had cancer.

Notraro's guests for the show were Bill Burr and Laura Kightlinger who provided an interesting contrast. Kightlinger's opened the night, much of her set was dedicated to derailed relationship stories and parent-bashing. I found her set to be funny at times, but it was the most wanting of the three - It sort of felt like a "Sex and the City" script read - updated to include Sexting jokes.

Bill Burr dedicated a significant portion of his set to a story about a man who attempted suicide by jumping out of a tour helicopter - yeah I know not so funny stuff, but Burr makes it funny. Beyond that much of his humor dealt with current events and a focus on sports. He did a bit on LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling. He also targeted first ladies Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama with a couple of jokes - a tough sell in a room that was there to see Tig Notaro and had a bit of a feminist bent.   

As I mentioned the two opening acts provided an interesting contrast to the Tig Notaro headlining set. Laura Kightlinger interacted with the audience the least and provided personal stories. Burr was more involved with the audience and went to the audience asking us to question our own standards.

Notaro had a few set pieces but they were loosely connected by a lot of improv and Questions for the audience. At one point she invited an aspiring actor up on the stage to show off his skills - the two of them had mixed results. At another point Notaro had a large fly buzzing around the stage and worked that into her show.

Notaro concluded the night by relating a story of an excursion she had with her writing partner, Kyle Dunnigan. It involved looking for a Santa Claus impersonator for a short film. Notaro pokes fun at their own glee at finding the perfect Santa, but things don't work out. The interesting thing about the bit is that it is the kind of story that if mishandled turns into a "You needed to be there" moment - an inside joke that is really only funny for the participants.

I had seen Notaro use these writing partner stories on youtube and it makes for an interesting basis for a routine. She does a good job of filling in the details and bringing out the funny aspects of the story.

Overall I highly recommend the Tig has friend shows if your in LA. The comedians are top notch, to some extent they are working through material so it can be a bit hit/miss, but it is enjoyable to see the comedic writing/performance process in motion.

Largo at the Coronet
I really enjoyed the Largo as a venue. The small theater has assigned seats, but you don't get your seats until you arrive. Once you pick up your seating assignment your free to roam elsewhere in or outside the venue. They have a tiny b-stage that has a small service bar - This smaller theater is where the Sarah Silveman HBO special "We Are Miracles" was filmed in front of just 39 people.

We arrived 45 minutes prior to the show and received tix 4 rows from the stage, although they were on the wing of the double aisled theater. Staff was courteous and professional, drinks at a bit of a markup but were not unreasonable.  

Sources
Fresh Air
This American Life
YouTube
HBO