2007 … a year in jokes

Well, we’re coming up on the end of 2007, and all the “year in review” shows are starting to come out now. Its one of the things I love about this time of year, the chance to reflect on the things that have happened in the past year, and think a bit about the future. In my stage act, I do a fair amount of topical, news based humour, and I thought I’d share a bit of that with you today as my version of a “year in review” post.

Happy Holidays to all …

Just a quick message to everyone today wishing you the best of the season. Here’s hoping Santa left great presents under your tree, and those damn reindeer didn’t leave ANY presents on your roof.

Enjoy the food and fellowship today, and I’ll see everyone in the New Year.

New content at GAS … The Spirit of Discovery

The Spirit of Discovery…

December 18, 2007 by lbateman | Edit | 0 comments

By Lyle Bateman
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

Mars is perhaps the most storied planet in our solar system. For centuries, writers and thinkers have been telling tales about the red planet. These tales have ranged from Mars as the God of War, through the vast civilizations of Edgar Rice Burroughs and HG Wells, to the more recent story of a dead, lifeless planet.

Yuletide Greetings

Its a week before Christmas, and as usual for recent times, part of the Holiday season this year is the debate over the use of terms like “Christmas” and other Christian terms for the holiday. Many Christians and “traditionalists” are fighting back against a wave of “political correctness” in recent years that has sought to remove many of the Christian labels from the Christmas season. Rather than Merry Christmas, lately we are encouraged to say “Happy Holidays” to include more people from faiths other than Christianity.

A Dickens of a good time …

As I’ve often said, the beauty of Comedy Monday Night at Dickens is the mystery involved. Its a bit of a risk, for sure, given that when you walk through the door, you never know who you’ll see, or perform with, that night. It all depends on which comics decide to come down, of course, and as with any risk, it doesn’t ALWAYS pay off, but when it does, it can pay off in amazing ways. Witness the lineup for December 10th, 2007. Depending on your definitions, there may very well have been a dozen bona-fide headliners in the crowd and on the stage this past Monday.

Lazy Week

It was a lazy week this week, but a good one. I did have two shows early in the week, as my last post indicated, and both went quite well. The pics at the start of this post are from my Monday night at Dickens Pub. Once again, Comedy Monday Night was host to some very funny people, and its always a blast to be able to share the stage and take pictures of the show. This past Monday, Jason Blanchard, James Uloth, Amy Trofimuk, and Allyson Smith were among the performers to hit the stage, with the entire show MC’d by Daryl Makk in something of a drive-by booking (James volunteered Daryl for the MC job about 5 minutes before show time). Check out Kerry Raz’ MySpace review for a very good, objective review of the entire show, and check out my Flickr page for more shots from that show, and others.

More shows, a new page, and some discussion of Elron …

I’ve got a couple of shows coming up in Calgary this week. Monday Dec 3rd I’ll be doing my regular Monday Night gig at Dickens Pub. No idea who will be down there this week, but thats part of the fun of Comedy Monday Night … when you walk through the doors at the beginning of the evening, you have no idea, really, who you’ll see that night. Tuesday Dec 4th I’ll be heading down to Yuk Yuks again for a short set. I haven’t been to Yuk Yuks in several months now … in fact, I’m pretty sure I haven’t been there since before I did the Foley Loaded show way back in May. I was still essentially doing my original set then, with very little different material, so I am looking forward to going down there with a new show to see what happens.