After School Comedy Special tonight

February 28, 2006

Highlights from the show:

Matt McCarthy (who is white with red hair) did an amazing impression of Louis Armstrong beating a hooker. He had the voice down perfectly!

Josh Kaufman just got married. A friend had the nerve to ask him if his wife is hot. “No,” he said. “She’s gross but I’m with her ’cause she’s good at math.”

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I will entertain you more soon, my darlings

February 28, 2006

My mother tried to put it delicately:

“I check your blog every day or every other day,” she said, “to see how you’re doing. I always know you’re okay, and even if you’re not okay, you blog about it. You even blogged after being hit by a cab! But when you don’t blog at all, well….”

Her theory was that a cessation in blogging meant I was doing better than okay. And indeed I am.

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this is what I look like making the best of the flu onstage

February 27, 2006

Me hosting Laughing Liberally on Friday. Photo by Ryan Brenizer.

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It’s free and it’s Monday

February 26, 2006

Here’s where you can find me. At Pete’s, with free candy and free comedy, where I’m usually sucking down a Java float and entertaining til I pop. ‘Tis a small room, but there are those who love it.

Monday, February 27th
The After-School Comedy Special
This week’s theme: Breakdancing Gives You Scoliosis
Pete’s Candy Store
(L train to Lorimer — see map)
7:30-9pm
Free

Featuring Becky Yamamoto, Josh Kaufman, Nick Cobb, Drew Wininger, and Matt McCarthy.

The After-School Comedy Special (formerly “Comedy Show & Tell”) mixes performances by top young comedians with nostalgic diversions including free candy, and Mad Libs!


p.s. – I named that image “elvira.jpg”

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announcing … the Deadly Venom Dutchmen (well, their clarinetist, anyway)

February 26, 2006

My BFF Megan is performing in the polka band that will grace the Jenny Vaudeville stage on March 8th. This photo was taken at Pete’s after the spelling bee.


Secret Jenisfamous stylebook decoder:

pigtails = dirty hair

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the Laughing Liberally report

February 26, 2006

Laughing Liberally last night went fantastically. I showed up:

1) fighting off the flu
2) in a miniskirt

…which about sums up my general approach to life.

The miniskirt got me a free livery cab ride the last few blocks to the show, as the driver pulled up to me at a stoplight and said something about my legs (I was wearing knit sweater-tights, but it doesn’t take much to be the most scandalously-clad comedienne on a corner in the freezing cold). Normally, I wouldn’t get in a strange man’s car, but, well, it was a cab! He has a license and permit and stuff. Shut up. Stop lecturing me. You’re not my mother.

Anyway.

I introduced four great performers (Bob Smith, Syd Bernstein, Jamie Jackson, and Benari Poulten); broke that totally extraneous fourth wall by taking the wireless mic with me as I climbed on the empty front row of chairs; and made jokes about South Dakota trying to ban abortion, Hillary Clinton’s election prospects, liberal do-gooding (my excuse for going gay in college — kind of like chaining yourself to a tree to protest logging), and Christopher Hitchens’ encouraging neocons to protest in favor of Denmark’s cartoon industry by showing up to the Danish Embassy in DC bearing signs that say “Buy Havarti” and “Buy LEGO” (What a way to send a strong message to the Islamic world! Should we avoid the build-your-own-minaret kit?)

Laughing Liberally is a great little show. Also, you should hire me to emcee stuff. I provide an extremely high level of service.

xo,
Jen

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"You know how hard it is to get stage time in this town?"

February 26, 2006

I have a great love of performance pranks:

Angry Bob crashes an all-women comedy show

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overhurdy

February 26, 2006

Saw a woman on the 6 train platform at Union Square playing the hurdy-gurdy.

“What’s that instrument you have?” asked a man pushing a stroller.

“It’s a hurdy-gurdy,” she replied.

“A what?”

“Hurdy. Gurdy.”

“Well, you’re very good at it.”

“Best one on this platform.”

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DayQuil, and then NyQuil

February 24, 2006

Am I destined to get the flu once a quarter? Doesn’t that seem excessive?

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photos from the big show I produced at the Lucky Cat in Brooklyn

February 24, 2006

Photos by Brian Van. Go here for the complete gallery.Mint won the tell a Jen joke contest with her impeccable retelling of my “blowjob lips” joke. The other two contenders in the contest either forgot half the words, or added a whole lot more. Mint totally made everyone laugh and won (a DVD and a drink) by audience applause.From Nasty Canasta’s Catholic schoolgirl act. This girl is smart, funny, and, dare I say, perfectly put together. Not an unflattering picture of her anywhere.

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it didn’t take any word-verification to get into your mom

February 24, 2006

Look, my contacts are ALWAYS foggy. I don’t know. I blink constantly, and I have this special contact-cleansing solution that requires that my contacts be suspended vertically in a special Iron-Maiden-like case and doused in bubbling chemicals that have to be allowed to neutralize for at least four hours so my eyes don’t get eaten away when I put the contacts back in. And my contacts are two-week disposables and I do change them regularly, although it doesn’t seem to make a difference whether I’ve been wearing them daily for two days or three weeks. If you see me squinting really hard, it’s to temporarily clear up my contacts. And it’s not that I’m just being vain by wearing the problematic contacts; my glasses are so heavy I can’t wear them for more than an hour.

So, am I the only one who really has a hard time with this?

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I really can keep it to myself, really and truly

February 24, 2006

I just wrote this to a friend and colleague and thought it was worth repeating:

I meant to ask you — how much do you care about this stuff? You can think of grammar, spelling, and diction on a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 being unreadable, and 50 being a high school dropout’s casual notes tacked on the refrigerator, and 80 being most people’s emails, and 90 being good enough ALMOST no one would notice any mistakes, and 95 being so close to perfect that only a real bitch like me would go pointing out a misuse of the subjunctive mood, and 100, of course, being perfect. I can provide any level of modification you desire (or none). I’m not trying to annoy the living shit out of people.

You know, I was seventeen when my high school boyfriend (he went to prep school and I went to public school, a source of some serious class-based resentment) corrected my use of the subjunctive. I had never heard of the subjunctive. I’m sure I brushed it off (“Oh, who cares, you know what I meant”), but a person doesn’t forget such a thing. Oh, you prep school boys know when to say “were”? I’ll do you one better. Eternally.

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Police! That My Little Pony is trotting away with our prize saddle!

February 24, 2006

It’s not Wonder Woman, but Spider-Man has robbed a comic book store.

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Jen hosts Laughing Liberally

February 24, 2006

I’m hosting Laughing Liberally tomorrow night. My Wonder Woman co-blogger Syd Bernstein will also be performing. Here’s the info:

The Laughing Liberally Lab
@11PM
@ the 45th street theater
@ 354 W. 45th (btwn 8th and 9th), 2nd floor

$10 for admission and beer

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Citibank, your mom’s ASS is outsourced

February 24, 2006

Just before the big show, my credit card numbers were swiped and someone bought $1300 worth of crap on my card. The bank called to ask if I had been making large purchases in the wee hours of the morning, and when I said I had not, my account was frozen.

I just got my new card and called to activate it. I was eventually connected to a woman (I’m still on hold with her) with an unmistakable Indian accent who asked for my card number eight times before entering it correctly. Her English-language vocabulary seems to be made up entirely of the phrases “No problem, ma’am,” “Just give me a minute,” and “Please bear with me.” She was completely unable to parse the sentence “I am trying to set up my online banking with my new card number, and I keep receiving an error message.” (“You are trying to online revenue card computer bank now?”)

At one point, she asked “How are you today?” and I said “Fine,” and she replied in the most awkward way possible: “That sounds good.”

I know that this is considered a good job in India, but this woman sounds just as miserable as she’s making me.

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