Some of Chicago’s finest comedians have joined forces to make a funny video for Starbucks. Mike Lebovitz, Michael Sanchez, Dan Ronan, and Joe McAdam star in “Copstache”. Directed by the very talented Michael Sanchez.
Posted: May 26th, 2011 under Video.
Comments: 38
Rooftop Comedy is proud to co-present a benefit for the Hearing and Speech Center in San Francisco, Ca.
When: Friday, June 3rd at 8pm
Where: The Purple Onion at 140 Columbus Ave, SF
Featuring: Will Durst, Michael Meehan, Tony Sparks, Melissa Gans, and Leo Gilreath
Tickets: $15 in advance, $20 at the door
Sign language interpretation available upon request.
The Hearing and Speech Center is a nonprofit dedicated to making a difference in the lives of people with hearing loss. We are a community agency serving people of all ages and income levels through clinical, social and educational services. Event proceeds will support our early educational programs.
Posted: May 25th, 2011 under Cool stuff from Rooftop Comedy, Shows.
Comments: 30
Rooftop favorites W. Kamau Bell, Nato Green, and Janine Brito, three fearless and thought-provoking comedians based in San Francisco, have banded together to create Laughter Against The Machine, the guerrilla style stand-up comedy show Fox News doesn’t want you to see.
Laughter Against the Machine will be making its debut appearance in the sprawling metropolis of Santa Cruz, CA on Thursday, June 9 for one night only.
Tickets will be $15 in advance, $20 at the door. There are special discount $10 tickets with student ID or nonprofit organization employment. Also tickets will be free if you’ve ever been arrested by the Arizona police or are currently on strike. They’ll GIVE YOU $10 if your name is Angela Davis.
Have a look at their new spiffy highlight reel and visit www.LATMComedy.com for more info.
Posted: May 19th, 2011 under News'n'stuff.
Comments: 35
San Francisco based comedian (and Rooftop Comedy’s “Joke Librarian”) Emily Heller and San Francisco’s funniest bike mechanic Marcello Fama host a weekly radio show called “Slumming It,” and it’s hilarious. The show features “Comedy, Music, Games, Freaks, and More” and can be heard live on FCCFreeRadio every Monday night from 8pm-10pmPST or via download.
This week’s episode features GREAT interviews with Karina Denike (formerly of the band “The Dance Hall Crashers”) and local San Francisco comedian Chris Thayer. Emily also discusses her recent trip to Israel and there’s a great “joke off” about a serial pantser near the end. You’re just going to have to listen.
Posted: May 18th, 2011 under Ruminations, theorizations and stuff.
Comments: 28
By Carrie Andersen, Punchline Magazine
On his debut album, Wizard Hello, comedian Alex Koll immediately pulls the audience into his mystical world, presenting himself as a wizard (of course) and describing the ins-and-outs of “wizard comedy,” which apparently involves telling jokes to magical crystals. From there, Koll takes us on a tour of the most surreal nooks of his imagination, spinning yarns about what Prince’s ostensibly dream-driven “1999” should have described had he actually been dreaming as he wrote it (a fight with giant lobsters and chocolate shark hands, for starters), or what Sasquatch “heavy on the sass” might sound like (“Yeti or not, here I coooome!”).
Read the rest of the review at Punchline Magazine
Posted: May 12th, 2011 under Ruminations, theorizations and stuff.
Comments: 45
First, let me start by saying I’m not going to make any “beaver = vagina” jokes. It isn’t that they are immature or not funny. It is because they have all already been used and now they are cliched and that sucks. Whatever. Thanks a lot, world.
“The Beaver” is an interesting film. For one, it is Jodie Foster’s first film she has directed in 16 years. Two, it stars Mel Gibson, who has been chastised and pretty much publicly shunned since audio recordings of his fights with his former girlfriend leaked to the public (if you haven’t somehow heard these, let me sum it up for you: Gibson has a bad temper and says mean things in loud voices.) And the screenplay is a blacklisted screenplay from a few years ago written by first-time film writer, Kyle Killen.
Also, it is just a weird story. Gibson plays Walter Black, a troubled and depressed husband who has nothing going for him. His family hates him, he is terrible at his job, and he just wants to die. He has no idea how he got to this place, and does not care. So, he is forced to move out of his home.
While throwing some of his items away, he comes across a beaver hand puppet in a dumpster. He picks it up, goes to a hotel, gets super drunk, wakes up the next morning with the beaver on his hand and it is talking to him in an amazingly funny cockney British accent. The Beaver (I will capitalize that now because it is a physical character. So there you go, grammer nazis. Fucked up your complaints about the lacks of beaver capitalization from before!) is telling Walter what to do, how to get better. And for some reason, Walter listens.
From here, Walter gets back in his family’s life in a big way (and rather quickly, too. It is kind of odd how this happens in about a 12 hour span.) His wife, played by Foster, is happy and his younger son loves The Beaver (damn you world! That would have been a good joke, there.) But his older son, Porter (Anton Yelchin) is not happy. He already hated his father and this makes him hate him more.
Porter has his own issues, though. He doesn’t want to be like his father, going as far as writing down each similarity and trying to avoid them. He is the smart kid at school, writing papers for people and getting money for it. One day, he is approached by the Valedictorian, Norah (Jennifer Lawrence), who needs him to write her Valedictorian speech (this is kind of a stretch here, but I guess if I can accept a man talking through a puppet, then I’ll accept this.) Porter likes the girl and wants to do a good job for her, but being like his father, messes it up along the way.
“The Beaver” is definitely a film you should see. It is funny and interesting, but ultimately, way more dramatic than I thought it would be. I remember reading about the screenplay years ago, reading that it was a dark comedy. This is more like a drama with some funny parts sprinkled in. Foster took the film a different direction for some reason. I like the results, but rarely does a film come along that I wish had two versions. This one, and the dark comedy version. If she had gone down the comedy path, I think this film would stick out amongst the summer pile of films way more than it does. As it is, the film isn’t being seen, and that is still sad.
I’m trying to think of a good joke it end this on, but all I keep coming up with are lame beaver jokes. I’m really upset by this.
Posted: May 11th, 2011 under Ruminations, theorizations and stuff.
Comments: 46
Joe List may be an atheist, but he certainly believes in his own holy trinity: sex, drinking, and race. Those topics drive his signature style of comedy, which has taken him to NBC’s Last Comic Standing, the prestigious Just for Laughs festival in Montreal, and the pages of Maxim magazine. Rooftop recently chatted with Joe about his family’s love of dick jokes, staying in Saddam Hussein’s palace, and why he used to be intimidated by Nick DiPaolo. You can hear more of Joe on his debut album, So Far No Good, now available from Rooftop Comedy Productions.
Rooftop: Describe your style of comedy.
Joe List: I talk about sex for about 20 minutes. Then I talk about drinking and driving for 20 minutes. Then I talk about race for about four minutes.
RT: That’s quite a regiment.
JL: Yeah, dick jokes, black jokes, and drunk jokes—I think that’s pretty much the gist. At first, I was kind of embarrassed about the first half hour of my CD being basically dick jokes. Then I started to embrace it—give the people what they want.
RT: Do you ever feel weird about your relatives listening to you tell dick jokes?
JL: No. People ask me that a lot. I’m very open with my family. They’re like my friends. I’d feel insincere not doing that material and not talking about it in front of them. To me, if my family is at a comedy club, they’re at a comedy club. I don’t talk like that at the dinner table, but once you’re at a comedy club, those are the jokes. I don’t have any other material to do.
RT: Did anyone in your family push you to do comedy?
JL: Not really from my family—more my neighborhood. We had a really young neighborhood. We were always hanging out and a lot of my friends were filthy and funny and I think all my comedy instincts and influences come from just hanging out in the neighborhood. My family is very funny, but not in that way I don’t think.
RT: You’ve regularly toured with Nick DiPaolo for years. How did you guys connect?
JL: It’s a funny story actually. I don’t know if Nick knows this story. I was scheduled to work the Comedy Connection in Boston years ago. I was a regular there. It was my home club. I couldn’t do the Thursday show for whatever reason and a buddy of mine filled in. He tried starting a conversation with Nick and Nick said, “Hey, we’re not girls. We don’t need to force the conversation. Just sit there quietly”. My buddy told me that story, so I was afraid of Nick and just sat there in the green room and didn’t talk to him. At the end of the weekend, Nick said, “I like you. You tell good jokes and you keep to yourself. Do you wanna go on the road with me?” So I didn’t talk to Nick the first year and a half on the road.
RT: You’re the second environmentalist comedian I’ve talked to this month.
JL: I think that’s the biggest issue of today. I’m an environmentalist for kind of selfish reasons. I don’t care about the next generation. I care about myself living as long as I can without getting hit by a rogue wave or a horrible tornado. I think we’re in deep trouble, so I’m trying to do the best that I can do. I actually just got back from volunteering on a sailboat for eight days, teaching kids about the environment and the importance of the future and stuff like that. I try to give back and take the train as much as possible, donate a lot of money to environmental issues and try to vote properly, ‘cause I care goddammit.
RT: Has being an environmentalist impacted your stand-up career at all?
JL: If I was a little more successful and was able to demand more, I think it would affect it. If I was famous, I might be able to travel more environmentally friendly, but I’m at a point where I have to take any and every gig I can get. So I try to do what I can when I’m home and I try to be as good an environmentalist as I can, but I also gotta make a living somehow, so I do end up flying quite a bit and driving quite a bit.
RT: Speaking of travel, how was your recent trip to Iraq?
JL: It was awesome. I was there the first two weeks of March with one my friends Nate Bargatze. It was great. We just toured all over Kuwait and Iraq. We went to Baghdad and stayed in Saddam’s palace, which was exciting. They were real appreciative of us being there and obviously we were appreciative of them being there. We flew around in Blackhawk helicopters. It was one of the best experiences of my life.
Posted: May 10th, 2011 under Cool stuff from Rooftop Comedy, Interview, rooftop comedy productions.
Comments: 21
Rooftop Comedy is thrilled to be co-presenting the Lucille Ball Festival of Comedy with the Lucy Ball-Desi Arnaz Center in Jamesville, NY. From August 3-7th, 2011, the festival will present huge names in comedy like Joan Rivers and Whitney Cummings, along with many, new rising stars. While this year marks the very special 100th Birthday of Lucille Ball, the festival will continue annually to honor Lucy’s wishes in celebrating in laughter.
To submit, please visit www.rooftopcomedy.com/events/lucyfest and fill out the submissions form including video links of your set posted on RooftopComedy.com. If you do not yet have videos on our site, please submit them here first. We will not review video sets on external sites. A $15 fee will also be required to cover submission processing. If you have any questions about the submission process, please email jenniferc(at)rooftopcomedy.com. Good luck!
Posted: May 10th, 2011 under Cool stuff from Rooftop Comedy, Lucille Ball Festival of Comedy.
Comments: 24
Congrats to our 2011 Funniest Comedy Team: Penn State University. All around Penn State had great performers and an awesome roast video. The four left standing will win VIP trips to the Lopez Tonight show in LA – and one teammate may even get the chance to perform! Crazy.
Also, congrats to our four MVPs! They will also get a rad trip, to Chicago to perform in the prestigious TBS Just for Laughs Festival.
What a great competition this year! Thanks to all who participated. Can’t wait to see your names popping up in comedy clubs in the future!
Posted: May 9th, 2011 under National College Comedy Competition, NCCC tournament updates.
Comments: 17
Collin Moulton is just as comfortable explaining why nobody likes testicles as he is teaching about our world’s dwindling natural resources. This very funny and vegan(!) comedian just dropped his first album, Chicken Stupid, now available from Rooftop Comedy Productions. Rooftop caught up with Collin, hot off his CD release party at The Punchline in SF, to discuss why stoners need to tweet more creatively, why co-eds make a good audience, and what we can learn from monkeys.
Rooftop: You’ve described Chicken, Stupid as a “greatest hits” collection.
Collin Moulton: Twelve years of comedy, first CD. This is my first solo CD and it’s just me. I already started working on the next one. It’s all the different categories. There’s observational. There’s personal. There’s sexual. There’s drinking. There’s everything—everything is in it.
RT: Over those twelve years, have you adapted your writing style?
CM: I feel like now, it’s so much more interesting and fun to write than it used to be. Every night I go onstage, I bring one thing that has no punchlines and is unwritten. Maybe it’s just a scrap of hypocrisy in the news, something that popped up, something I felt interacting with people, something that happened to me. And the crowds generally take you in a direction that you need to go.
RT: Do you feel any pressure to constantly develop new material?
CM: I feel like any great comedian has always felt a great pressure to create constantly. If you don’t, you cease to be a creative entertainer. You’re just a regional noisemaker. You’re not growing either. I may grow in the way you just naturally have to, like surviving a bar, but I’m not going to grow creatively and start coming up with new ideas, new feelings, and new intensities.
RT: You seem to be very up on your trending hash tags on Twitter.
CM: Yeah I think if anybody’s gonna follow you on Twitter, it’s kind of pointless to just give them the “Hey, I’m in San Francisco” thing. What I enjoy about Twitter is I’m using it as an exercise to come up with funny stuff, to challenge myself to think outside the regular flow. So, if I’m watching a hash tag thing flow and everyone’s like, “Oh, 4/20! You’re so high #youknowyourehighwhen” and all that stuff. It’s always same old, same old. I want mine to be somewhere outside of that, where people go, “Aw, man, I didn’t think of that!” I feel that’s my responsibility to having Twitter. If you’re going to have a Twitter, don’t just go, “I’m eating”.
RT: You recently performed in a sorority house. What was that like?
CM: I called her with the itinerary and I was like, “Hey, I just wanted to let you know I’m going to be there”. She goes, “OK, do you need a microphone or something?” and I was like, “What? Really?” For some reason I thought I was going to be on campus and she’s like, “We’re gonna be in the living room!” And I’m like, “Oh my god. No!” So I imagined 9 girls and their boyfriends and me standing in front of the fireplace, but it turned out to be really cool.
RT: I heard you’re a vegan.
CM: Yeah!
RT: I hope you’re finding yourself at home here in San Francisco.
CM: I’m feeling very at home. Actually, I’m all organic. For me, it’s all about resource consumption. I’m really ashamed of the level of consumption that I’ve accepted for so many years, because I know that it’s wrong and I see that only 4% of the world lives like I do. For me to assume that everyone is destitute and I’m the norm is pretty pompous and I feel ashamed. I can’t pretend anymore, so I’m doing it. I’m challenging myself to living inconveniently and starting to make changes. There are things we do that are inconvenient because we know they’re right. If I’m in traffic and the guy is merging in at 25 [mph], it’s inconvenient for me not to physically assault that dude—because that is really stupid. But I don’t do it, because it’s wrong—socially inappropriate. If you extend that out to the level we’re talking about now which is American consumption, which is destroying the planet, causing wars, people are dying.
There’s a story about an experiment they did in Japan. They called it “100 Monkeys” where they dropped sweet potatoes on the beach and the snow monkeys on these islands ate these sweet potatoes—some of them. They didn’t like them because there was sand on them. Well they were monkeys so they didn’t wipe the sand off. A few of them did—maybe four or five, then six or seven, and eventually it reached a point where a lot of them did. Then, when the 100th monkey started cleaning off the sand, all of them did it–all 10,000. So I’m trying to be monkey 99. I want you to be the 100th.
RT: Has scaling back consumption affected your comedic career?
CM: Right now, it’s mostly about food and consumption in my home life. As I put those in place, I’ll attack travel. Part of the stipulation in my contract is gonna be veggie-diesel travel only. So we’re operating on waste vegetable oil with diesel and that’s it. I don’t want anybody using gas. That’s what I’m working toward, because I have to travel to do comedy, but I can’t justify consuming the amount of fuel I use to do that.
Posted: May 9th, 2011 under Cool stuff from Rooftop Comedy, Interview, rooftop comedy productions.
Comments: 25
