The last month or so has been an important point of progress in my comedy career. Vargus Mason, producer of the Nappy Fro Show (that I have now performed on nine times), invited me to come perform on a special event show he was organizing. This show, while on the usual Main Stage at the Comedy Store, would be a chance to show off for an assistant talent coordinator of the Montreal Just For Laughs Festival. If you know anything about standup, you know that Montreal is where careers can be made or broken. This show wasn’t an audition for the festival, but rather a chance to be noticed by a representative of the festival in hopes for a future spot. The fact that I even get the chance to perform for a rep from the festival in my short time as a comic is incredible.

The comics on the show were all very good – a refreshing change from the usual mediocre to bad comics that usually perform on it – and I believe I had the fewest notable credits of anyone there. “This next girl has been on BET’s ComicView, she toured Iraq making the troops laugh… Tiffany Haddish!”. I have nothing like that under my belt… everyone else has 5+ years of experience, I’m just over 2. Nevertheless, I kicked ass at the show. I improv-ed a lot, my material killed, and I was very comfortable the whole time. Every time a show goes that well, it reinforces to me that yes, comedy is what I want to do for the rest of my life.

A few days later, I performed at the Irvine Improv on a show called ComedyJuice. ComedyJuice is done at the Hollywood and Irvine Improvs, and the Ice House in Pasadena. It’s arguably the best show on the west coast, and one of the best shows in the country. Anne and I have gone to the show at the Hollywood Improv a dozen times and seen comics like Dane Cook, Dave Attell, Dov Davidov, Dave Chappelle, and many other huge names. The fact that I was on a ComedyJuice show is an honor. I checked the website over and over for the week prior to the show to see who I’d be performing with. Finally the list went up – Dan Levy, Adam Hunter, and Iliza Schlesinger. Winner of Last Comic Standing Iliza Schlesinger. Saw her a year ago when I moved to LA in a tiny tiny upstairs room at the Westwood BrewCo and developed a comedy crush on her Iliza Schlesinger. Said my parents, “We saw her on Last Comic Standing – she’s like a female you!” Iliza Schlesinger. And now I’ll be sharing a stage with her! F yeah!

I performed on ComedyJuice (feeling like a professional comedian after the show director asked me what song I’d like to go onstage to, how awesome is that? Nothing Is Real by Bottom Line, in case you’re wondering), and I did really well. Tons of laughs. Immediately afterwards, Iliza approached me, introduced herself to me, and said she thought I was great and asked me to come perform on her Comedy Store show next month. We’ve been emailing back and forth and now I’m booked for April 6th. Hopefully I’ll have a new video for you soon after.
What I’ve been hearing from friends, acting coaches, and other comics a lot lately is that I need to stop doing my day job (Make It Work) so much and go out on auditions for TV pilots and commercials. I really want to do that, but the financial insecurity that comes with hoping to maybe get booked on a Snuggie ad is a little scary considering the stabilty that I’ve found with Make It Work. My boss and the COO of the company have started having meetings with another tech (whom I trained) and I every month to discuss what ideas we have for making the company run better. Pretty cool. It doesn’t come with any extra money, but I may be able to work out a deal with them that I only work 3 days a week or something like that.

On that note, I just paused in writing this post and sent a long email to a commercial agent asking what work schedule would be appropriate to go out on auditions.

I need to start making the transition. Fingers crossed.

Finally, g27 is running on a reliable server!

I’ve gone through several webhosts in the past, and my last one was Midphase – the hosting was ok, but my site would go down for a few hours at least once a month (that I noticed), and more and more their mail servers were being flagged as spam so I couldn’t even email some of my friends.  Lame.

So hellooooo GoDaddy!  It was tricky but I got my whole Wordpress installation over here, jumpstudio, the g27 photo gallery, my email address, everything.  Sketchy webhosts begone.  Viva GoDaddy.  Viva.

And now, onto the news.

First, and perhaps most importantly, I have a new standup video for you!  I had another killer show at the Comedy Store Belly Room, but the video was no good, but I was immediately invited back to perform on the Main Stage a few weeks later.  Thanks to Geoff, The results are as follows, my complete set, uncut and unedited:

It feels incredible to finally post new material for everyone to see.  All of my friends have been asking for months about when I’m finally gonna post a new one, and it took way longer than I would’ve liked, but I’m glad to finally have it out there regardless.  I’m not completely happy with any one single joke in there, but the set as a whole was good enough to share.

I’ve been hanging with Geoff and Jon a lot more these days.  Sometimes Geoff’s brother Zandy comes out with us, but not as much as he’d like to.  It feels great to be developing some close friends out here on the Left Coast.  In high school I had Ed and Colin, in college I had Alden, Paul, and Jake, after college I had Erik, and now that I’ve settled, I’ve found Geoff and Jon.  I still talk to my non-local friends, but it’s far more difficult to maintain a real relationship with them when they’re 1000+ miles away.  Paul has been romanticing the idea of moving out west for a while, and it’s only a matter of time until Erik gets the hell out of Colorado and joins me in SoCal to destroy some standup stages together.

“What about Dan, Kevin, and Shine?  Your roommates! Aren’t you close with them?  That Christmas card last year was epic!  Here’s a bunch of cash in a duffel bag!”

Ok ok relax.  I have one last piece of news for you.

I get better at my Make It Work job every day.  Going into strangers’ homes and befriending them while solving all of their 1001 computer problems is only getting more and more comfortable the more I do it.  I’m really beginning to develop relationships with my regular clients that go past client-employee.
Desiree at the Make It Work office gets a call from a new client saying they would like someone to come out and redo their wireless network.  It’s in Beverly Hills and they said I can come over, scope out what they need, and then order whatever it is, money isn’t a big issue.  I get to their house, they’re really cool, silly people, and we end up ordering them all new wireless routers, repeaters, and a new iMac.  I come back about a week later to set everything up.  Tom (the man of the house) got his new iMac in the mail, and I set it up.  In the meantime, Leslie (his wife) dropped her laptop and bought a MacBook Air, so I set that up too.  Tom wanted a new laptop too so he bought a MacBook Pro.  I’m there for 11 hours one day, 8 hours the next, and I leave at 11pm on the second day and come back at 8am the third day.

“Peet, you’re here so much you might as well move into the guest house behind the pool!  Ha ha ha”

So. I. Did.

I am now living in my own little house in Beverly Hills, 90210.  My rent is the same as it was in my 4 bedroom Santa Monica townhouse, it’s about the same size, but now I’m down 3 roommates.  I adore Tom and Leslie; they’re both really fun and silly and hip and sharp as hell.  I’m not on call for computer stuff 24/7 like you’d imagine – I think I’ve helped them out 2-3 times in the last month of living here.  She’s a screenwriter and he’s a  writer/producer/director.  I’ll post pictures of my new place as soon as I’ve unpacked all the way and decorated a bit more.

Not bad, huh?