Random Comedy Notes From Beantown

Things are going good so far. I've got some upcoming dates at the Comedy Studio, I recently performed two shows at Jimmy Tingle's Off Broadway Theater (Thanks to fellow comic Myq Kaplan for helping me get those and thanks to Jimmy Tingle for letting me perform) and I've been invited to participate in a local documentary about aspiring stand-up comics. Elsa and I've been getting out and seeing a lot of Boston. Next month we'll be back in St. Louis for a few days. We're really looking forward to seeing everybody again.

Congratulations to local Boston comics Shane Mauss and Dan Boulger for their strong showings at the Aspen Comedy Festival, especially Shane who won best stand-up.

Boston's a great comedy scene. There are open mics every night of the week. It's nice to be able to perform on the weekends even when you're not booked to perform at a regular show.

Yes I'm falling into the typical Boston sterotype. I've found myself completely addicted to Dunkin' Doughnuts coffee. I can't live without it.

The last five months I've been doing a lot of writing. I've got notebooks filled with ideas, mostly crap. Occassionally something decent will come along. Since I've been here, I've come up with 7 minutes of good solid material and another 7 minutes of what I'd call "B" material. That might not seem like a lot, but it's difficult to come up with material that's consistent everywhere you perform. For me I've been performing at clubs, bars and even an ice cream shop. It's great, everytime you get to a punchline, the blender goes off. One thing I'm trying to be is realistic with my material. Just cause a joke gets laughs once, doesn't mean it's going to get laughs all the time. That's why it's very important to me to get a realistic guage of how much material I have. I've also been writing with a couple of other comics and it's good to have other comedians to bounce ideas off of.

Next to the Comedy Studio, my favorite place to perform here in Boston is the Emerald Isle. Rich Gustus runs the best open mic in the city. All the comics are real supportive, it's a great place to try new material and hey there's free pizza.

Happy St. Patricks Day everyone. Thanks for reading.

JG

Who The Heck is John Harrison?

It's been almost four months now since Elsa and I made the move to Boston, and so far so good. The new job's going ok. We're finally getting settled in here and so far we really like Boston. Now don't get me wrong, we still miss St. Louis very much. We were out there for the holidays and got to see everyone and had a great time.

As far as the comedy scene out here, I really like it. There's a lot of stagetime. I've been hitting as many open mics as I can, and have been invited by other comics to perform in shows. Last Friday I had my first paying gig here which was great. I also got a chance to perform at the Comedy Studio.

For those that don't know, the Comedy Studio is one of the best clubs around. It's been a great training ground for Boston comics. The producer of the Conan O'Brien show called it the "greatest comedy club on earth". It's one of the reasons why Elsa and I moved out here. So when I got booked to perform there, I wanted to make the most of it.

When I got to the club, I noticed they had my last name wrong. Instead of Garrison, they had Harrison. Now I could've said something, but my feeling was this, did it really matter what my last name was? I mean if I bomb, who cares if I bombed as John Garrison or John Harrison. Besides if I did bomb, I can always claim it wasn't me, it was that John Harrison guy. Man he's so unfunny, he should just give up.

So I went up on stage being introduced as John Harrison. My set went really well. I had a great time and the audience seemed to really like me. One thing about the Studio that I like is it brings in smart crowds. Afterwards I left the stage and the host said "Give it up one more time for John Harrison". Feeling confident afterwards, I went up to the owner of the club and said my last name was Garrison, not Harrison. He apologized and noted the correction. It was no big deal and I just thanked him for the opportunity to perform there. I did find it funny that my best set so far in Boston was as John Harrison not John Garrison.

I've been booked to perform at the Studio again. I just hope I do as well as John Harrison. That guy's pretty funny.

Riding the T

I'm still trying to figure out this MySpace thing out. For some reason my blog is set to private. Not sure why, not like anybody's going out of their way to read this thing. Hell I have only two friends and I'm going out on a limb and say Tom's not checking out my site.

I've only been in Boston for a week but I got to tell you, riding the T's pretty entertaining. My wife and I live in Dorchester and you see some interesting characters at the station we go to. So far we've seen a grown woman stop and take a piss in public, and today I had to listen to a guy with Terrets growl and scream the word "F*ck" over and over again. After a while he started doing it in harmony. I started tapping my feet, it was better than most songs I've heard. This is s**t I never saw in St. Louis.

Now for making fun of the poor guy, watch me get stricken down by God with a bad case of Terrets. "F*ck me!"

Grettings From Boston

Well I did it, I'm finally in Boston. After several years of talking about it, my wife and I made the plunge last weekend. So far so good. We're getting settled in, it's going to take a while to get used to everything but I think we're going to like it.

I also have a new MySpace page up. Don't have any friends yet but that's typical for me. I'm a loser even on the Internet.

I'm trying to get immersed in the Boston comedy scene, it's going to take time I know. Tonight I'll be at the Comedy Vault. Should be fun. I'm also looking into taking a writing workshop here in town and there's a stand-up workshop in NY I want to take but it probably won't be until early next year when I can take that. I have been doing a lot of writing and I'm feeling pretty inspired so that's a start.

We'll see what happens and hey so what if I end up failing at this, it's only my life. What's the big deal?

JG

Story of My Life

So here I am, sitting on the floor, drinking a bud light, typing away at my laptop and staring at the empty surroundings I used to call home. Yeah nothing like staring at an empty house to make you suddenly realize you're about to make a life altering move. This Saturday, Elsa and I head out to Boston. The last few weeks have been real busy for us. We've been going around saying our goodbyes, hitting some of our favorite St. Louis places, and oh yeah there's that little thing about selling our house. Since this will be my last blog entry before I officially become a Bostonian, I wanted to share a few thoughts. I also wanted to talk about the "Real Men of Comedy" contest I was in last week at the Funny Bone.

First, I wanted to say thanks to all the comics here in St. Louis who I've met over the last couple of years. Alot of the guys have helped me get work, offered encouragement and have just been real supportive. I really appreciate it. One regret I do have, is I haven't been very sociable off-stage. Comics have made more of an effort to talk to me than I have with them. Problem is I'm a very shy person off-stage and this is something I've got to work on when I get to Boston. There are a lot of good young comics here in St. Louis. Come to a Tuesday open mic at the Westport Funny Bone and you'll see.

Secondly, I plan on having a new MySpace page up soon. I deleted my old one because that was the only way I could figure how I could set up a page in the MySpace Comedy section. I'm also working on re-doing my website. I know I've talked about in the past but with the whole Boston move, it's time for me to take it seriously.

Now about the RMOC contest last Tuesday, it went great. On Friday I got a call from Matt Komen who let me know I made the finals. I met Matt at the Judy Carter Conference last year and he told me about the contest. I got to the club with Jammer Bicks and hung out before the show. I met the other finalists which were Brett Clawson, John Doelling, Joe Lehnig and another comic who was from KC (I had not met him before and his name escapes me). Matt filled us in on what the order would be, how much time we'd be doing, etc. Dan Chopin hosted the show and did a great job warming up the crowd. Joe was the first contestant and he had a great set. I've seen Joe several times recently and he's really gotten strong as a comic. I was up next. I stood in back waiting to go on. Now let me say this, my goal that night was to have a really good set. If I won, great, but what was more important to me was just having a good show. The week before at the open mic, I didn't like my set. My energy was off and I felt like I just "went through the motions" when I performed. So I wanted to have a better showing especially since this would be the last time I perform at Westport for a while. I felt relaxed, confident and decided I was just going to have fun and see what happens. My set went really well. Afterwards I had several people come up and tell me how much they enjoyed it. I got some good compliments from the other comics including Greg Warren who was the headliner that night.

In the end Brett won and John Doelling got 2nd. Didn't bother me, they're two of my favorite comics and they both had great sets. After the show Jammer and I hung out at the Blues bar next door. I got some more compliments and then a really cool thing happened. Dave Carlow, who runs the Funny Bone, went out of his way to come over and tell me how much he enjoyed my set. He was really nice and we talked about the contest, etc. He then said he'd like for me to start working at the Funny Bone.

For over two years I've been trying to get noticed there and now when it finally happens, I'm moving halfway across the country. I just had to chuckle and think to myself...

Story of my life.

JG

RMOC Finals

Hey everybody, I wanted to pass along a quick note. I will be in the finals for the "Real Men of Comedy Contest" at the Westport Funny Bone, Tuesday the 19th. This may be the last time I perform in St. Louis for a while, so for all those people who keep bugging me about when's the next time I'm performing in St. Louis, well, here you go.

Show starts at 8pm. Call the club and reserve tickets now (314-469-6692).

Hope to see everybody there.

JG

Off to Beantown

Well so far I've had two people ask me to update my blog. Since that constitutes 50% of my loyal fan base, I figured I had no choice but to do so. I wish I could say I've been busy with comedy, but that'd be a big fat lie. Instead I've been busy getting ready for our big move. Yes it's official, Elsa and I will be moving to Boston at the end of the month. As some of you know, this has been in the works for a while but I didn't want to say anything until it became official.

As far as comedy is concerned, Boston is a good move for me. It's one of the best cities to develop as a comedian. A lot of great comics got their start there. There's a lot more clubs, a lot more open mics than St. Louis, etc. Also NY is only three and a half hours away.

(Disclaimer: The next paragraph was written by the over dramatic/whiny part of me)

The thing is this, I'm very proud of what I've accomplished comedy wise in the last three years. However I still have a ways to go. I need more stage time. I need to develop more. I need to define who I want to be as a comic (God I'm being really overdramatic about this.) This is a not a knock on St. Louis. It's a nice town to develop but the reality is there's one main club. If you get in with them then it's a lot easier to build a career here. If you can't, it's awfully difficult to get consistent stagetime. Any success I've had with comedy has been in spite of me living in Saint Louis. I've had to go outside the city to have the success I want. I'm on the outside here and it's time for me to make a fresh start somewhere else. I need to go somewhere where I can get more stagetime. Case in point, take three of the comics I peformed with in the "New Comics" competition at the 2004 NYUCF. One has performed on "Premium Blend", one has performed on "Live at Gotham" and the other was just at the Montreal Comedy Festival. Now don't get me wrong they're all very funny comics and they deserve the success they're getting, but I also know that one of the main reasons to why they've had the success they've had, is they are performing a lot more than I am. They're performing almost every night of the week. I'm lucky if I'm performing four times a month.

This is one of the main reasons for the move. Yes it'll be hard and I don't expect things to come easy. I'm going to have to prove myself just to get consistent stagetime, etc. But my feeling is this, I got to try and see if I can do it. If I don't, then I'll have this big "What If?" and then I'll be unhappy and then I'll be a whiny little bitch and then that'll irriate Elsa and.... You can see where this is headed. So I need to just go out and give it a chance. If I go out to Boston for 2-3 years and don't develop the way I envision, then it's because of one of two reasons:
1) I didn't work hard enough at it.
2) I just wasn't as good as I thought.
I could handle the second reason but the first one would kill me.

Thanks for reading.

John