Some Serious Funny Business

I arrived in Toronto late Tuesday night in preparation for my set Friday for the Great Canadian Laugh Off, and so far, its been a blast. Most of my day yesterday was spent wandering the streets of Toronto with my camera … it was raining in the morning, but cleared up into a nice day as the day went on. Wandering Yonge Street yesterday really brought back some old memories of wandering the same street as a teenager here in Toronto, attending Upper Canada College. Today I plan to head up to the old campus with my camera to get some pics … UCC is talking about discontinuing boarding in the near future, so I really want to get some pics of the boarding houses before they disappear.

The big show

It’s going to be an interesting week.  Last night, I spent my evening at Dickens Pub, doing a set for Comedy Monday Night.  As usual, a good time was had by all, and it was great to see some of my friends like Derek Sweet, Dustin Hertel, Marc Hallworth, Karen O’Keefe, Dan Guiry, and Amanda Perrin.  Last night was also a prep night for a few of us … Dan, Derek, and I, along with another local comic, Lori Gibbs, are all on our way to Toronto this week for the Great Canadian Laugh Off, the national comedy contest sponsored by Yuk Yuk’s.  Dan and Lori do their preliminary round sets on Wednesday night this week.  Derek is on Thursday, and I do mine at the early show on Friday.  I am also doing a warmup set at McVeigh’s Pub in downtown Toronto on Thursday, April 10th … I’d rather see you come out to the Friday set (or both) but if you are busy Friday, come down and check out my preview of the Friday show at McVeigh’s on Thursday.

The Big News Announcement – Great Canadian Laugh Off

There are a few people who already know about this, and I have mentioned it briefly on here in my tribute to my mother last week, but now its official. I am going to Toronto in early April to compete in the national round of the Great Canadian Laugh Off. The invitation came as a huge surprise to me, since I competed in the local Alberta round of the contest and didn’t make it through my preliminary round set. At that point, I thought the 2008 GCLO was over for me, and I wished the winner of the local rounds, a good friend from Dickens, Lori Gibbs, the best of luck in Toronto.

The Great Canadian Laugh Off – Preliminary Rounds

This coming Monday, Feb 11th 2008, I’ll be doing my set for the preliminary round of the Great Canadian Laugh Off. Sponsored by Yuk Yuk’s, the Alberta preliminaries are being held at Dickens through the month of January, in place of the regular Comedy Monday Night show. There are three preliminary rounds, with the top three from each night advancing to the final round on Feb 25th. The first preliminary round ran this past Monday, on Feb 4th, and I’d like to extend my congratulations to Amanda Perrin, Dan Guiry, and Chris Gordon for advancing to the final round. Hopefully, I’ll see you guys in the finals on the 25th.

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.