No Laughs Till Brooklyn

Ed Sullivan On Acid, Freddy's Backroom (485 Dean St, Brooklyn), 9:00PM
Host: Pat O'Shea
Nick Turner
Scott Rogowsky
Elon James White

Before I could make my Brooklyn debut tonight at Pat O'Shea's Ed Sullivan on Acid, I had to first figure out how to get into Brooklyn. As a Westchester kid, I've had little reason to ever venture outside of Manhattan when making excursions to the city. Baseball has been the only draw to ever enter the other boroughs: Yankees in the Bronx, Mets in Queens, Staten Island Yankees in... Staten Island. Brooklyn has the Cyclones, the Mets Short-Season A minor league affiliate located right in Coney Island. I happened to be at the game Saturday night to see an old college teammate, Paul Winterling, start in right field for the visiting Aberdeen Ironbirds. But before that, the only other time I had ventured into Brooklyn was on a sociological field study to Williamsburg where I traded vintage t-shirts at Beacon's Closet and reveled in an astonishing abundance of ironic moustaches.

Thankfully, finding Freddy's Backroom on Dean Street was not as difficult as imagined. I caught the 7:23 Metro-North into Grand Central and picked up the 5 train which I rode well past my usual get off, Union Square. I reached the Atlantic Ave station stop at about 8:40 and asked for directions east on Flatbush. After some walking, I found it. I met Pat in the backroom, helped myself to a free drink, and waited.

And waited and waited. Nick Turner showed up, and I introduced myself. We had a nice chat about our brief "careers" (he's been doing standup for about 5 years) and he told me a horror story about his last gig at Comma D's. Elon James White showed up a little after. Paul Goncalves, a comedian and friend of Pat's, was also in the backroom, and that was it. No audience. The show was scheduled to start at 9PM. It was getting close to 10 when Pat started talking about a cancellation, but added that he had only had to cancel twice in three years of doing this show, and if he did cancel he would reschedule us. At 9:50, Pat managed to scrounge together a couple of folks at the bar to come in for the show. With six people in the crowd, including Paul and Peter Ego (another comedian who told me after the show he'll be coming the Otto's open mic), Pat got the ball rolling. Of course, I didn't mind the sparse crowd. I told Pat I'd do the show for just the comics, treat it like an audition for a Tonight Show spot. A Tonight Show on acid.

I went on second and did pretty well. Coming off of last night’s great set at Botanica, I was confident with my approach, and the jokes hit pretty well. King Midas probably got the most laughs, pretty much solidifying it as one of my best new jokes (only the second time performed), as did the line, “And that's when I realized, a lot of people think they’re going to be hanging out with their favorite celebrities in heaven.” My set was baseball heavy because Pat’s a big fan, but the small, international crowd (one woman was Swiss) may not have identified with the Edgar Martinez or Darryl Strawberry references. I mixed in some new, crowd-tested jokes and brought back some oldies (Calendars and Friends w/Benefits), and the result was a solid seven minutes. I decided to end on a slightly vulgar note, “…and when she comes home I fuck her,” only because the laughs on “I consider that a benefit” weren’t all that strong. That’s a tricky joke because sometimes the biggest laughs come after “benefit,” like at my January Botanica show, but sometimes the “fuck her” tag kills (like at my first show at Hopkins, when it brought down the house). I guess it depends on the crowd – the more sophisticated crowd can appreciate the humor in the bagels, the lone drinker on a Monday night needs the “fuck.”

Elon James White closed the abbreviated show with a very funny, mostly autobiographical set, and what an autobiography. The only son of a tough single mother growing up in gangsta-fied Bed-Stuy, he rebelled against his environment to essentially become its exact opposite – the suburban white kid. But not too many suburban white kids get shot in the face and lose an eye, so maybe Elon is gangsta after all. He reminded me of JL Cauvin - the kind of material, the delivery, and even some of the facial expressions.

Val Kappa was also on the bill for tonight, but she never made it.

After the show, I got a “Good job” from Paul and an offer to get booked on his show. Nick also runs a show with Dustin D'Addato - Poker Night (formerly at Ace of Clubs, now at Jimmy’s) - and he invited me to check it out, which I certainly will.

I really enjoyed my time at Freddy’s. Pat is a great host; a really smart dude who compared Williamsburg to the movie Logan’s Run (“No one is over 30”) and proposed that Yankees-Red Sox games be dubbed “The Fung Wah Series,” to keep with the transportation-themed moniker for Yankees-Mets match-ups. He also delivered a brilliantly obscure joke about the Argentina/Germany World Cup match: “That was an interesting game, because the winner advanced to the semi-finals, and the loser got to keep Hitler’s brain.” One had to have knowledge of the rumor that Hitler escaped to Argentina to understand that nugget. Pat might have been the only one.