BPloG

Have you ever noticed . . . ?

As some or all of you may know, my friend J.L. (from law school) is a budding stand-up comic; he work's in the Bronx DA's office during the day, an moonlights as a stand-up comic in the evenings, when he can book a gig. Last night he was booked for a 9:00 p.m. show at Stand Up NY, on 78th and Broadway. The way these things work is that when you are booked to perform, you are expected to bring a certain number of guests (i.e. 6, 8 or 10 people make a reservation, pay the cover, and buy two drinks on account of a particular performer). Given the need for audience members, Meaghan and I try and go support J.L. whenever we can. The cover charge last night was $12, with a two drink minimum (I had five, but who's counting).

An additional requirement at past shows has been that you arrive about 30 minutes early. This is to get everyone seated and served before the show starts. Feeling particularly punctual last night, I showed up right at 8:30, with Jimmy (another friend from law school), and Meg met us a few minutes later. We were, literally, the first people there and were therefore sat right at the front. Meg could sit her drink on the stage, and any one of us could have reached out and tapped any of the comics on the leg. This is important for the story just so you understand how close we were to the performers.

Shortly after 9:00p a guy came on stage to MC, and did about 5-10 minutes of average jokes. Nothing great. He brought up the first comic, some guy from NJ, and he was quite good. Lots of NYC jokes, Jersey jokes, and just overall a good time. He performed for about 10 minutes.
When NJ comic guy was done, the host came back up and did about 2 more minutes of lame audience-interaction type stuff, but nothing too extraordinary. He then starts to introduce the next comedian, and says, in a very deadpan, nonchalant manner, "you may have seen our next comedian on tv's Seinfeld, or perhaps in the movie Comedian," (pause) -- at this point, I am racking my brain for C-list guys that have been on Seinfeld before . . . maybe it's Mickey the midget, or maybe it's Jackie the lawyer, etc. . . . but then the host goes, still in this very nonchalant fashion, "Ladies and gentlemen please give a warm welcome to Mr. Jerry Seinfeld."

I turn around, and here comes Jerry Seinfeld walking up to the stage. The place went absolutely nuts. I went nuts. I think we were in shock. There couldn't have been more than 40 people there, max, but it sounded like 440. We were sitting within two or three feet of him, and he proceeded to do a 20-25 minute set, all new stuff (or at least nothing I had ever heard before). He absolutely killed (that's industry talk for "he was very funny").

He didn’t interact with the audience too much (other than to rip on one guy who tried to make a joke from the show about Del Boca Vista), but just did an array of Seinfeld-esque humor. It was literally like sitting in the audience from the opening of the show . . . absolutely amazing. I won't even try to recount any of his jokes in writing here . . . he did a bit about being a parent, what it's like to be a dad, a long thing about trash and how everything is, eventually, destined to be trash, etc. Like I say, I'm not going to try and re-tell the jokes, but they were very, very funny. The place went nuts again when he left . . . and the rest of the evening, while actually a pretty good lineup, of course paled in comparison to his performance.

In short, I had front row seats to a live Jerry Seinfeld show for $12. Sweet.

posted by Brian G. @ 1:47 PM