Hey gang-

Right now, I'm 3,000 miles from home, on a new coast. Been living in hotel rooms on and off since the 9th, won't be home for an extended period of time until Late November.

The bulk of the Fall run started October 9th. Since I had a solo bar gig the day after the college show, I drove up in my own car to meet Joe and Ryan in Ewing, New Jersey. The campus itself seemed pretty abandoned- we learned later that it was the last day of school before a Fall break, so most of the students had gone home. The event planners had hoped that if they had a stand-up show, a lot of the students would decide to stay on campus rather then leave. I did not agree 100% with their detective work. So, we performed for around 15 people in a closed food court. It gradually filled out a bit more, but wasn't exactly a high energy show.

From there, I drove to just outside of Pittsburgh to feature in a bar show. Pittsburgh, of course, meant another visit to Hogfathers, the best Bar-B-Q available. That food made up for how bad the show went...

So, the show itself was at a golf resort about thirty minutes outside of Pittsburgh, deep in the woods. The venue was upstairs. The room was circle shaped, with a large bar stuck right in the middle, eliminating the sight lines of half the audience. The closest tables to the stage were to the right and left of me, roughly fifteen feet away, with no one in front. A Pittsburgh hockey game was on the tv. I managed to get a few laughs, but overall I just felt like Spinal Tap.

Firmly punched in the mouth by my first two shows, I drove home for a little three day break, to attend a good friends baby shower. The way this run is, I was supposed to be completly gone from home for about a month and a half, but I've managed to game the schedule to get a few visits in, to alliviate homesickness and keep the marriage healthy.

After a three day pit stop at home, I jumped on a plane and met the guys in Kentucky, for a show at St. Katherine's College. We'd done the show the year before, with mixed memories. The crowd had been into it, but the venue hadn't been great- in lieu of a stage, we had performed the show standing on tables. Over the past year, however, they had massivly remolded the student unioun room- I wouldn't have recognized it as the same college. We had a great stage, good seating, a new sound system had been put in...the room and the crowd were great, so we came back into it with a solid show. The student activities people were also nice enough to give us the largest pizza I had ever seen in my life.

After that, we had a few days of downtime before we had to be in PA, so I campaigned and talked the guys into a pit stop back at my place. So, I manned the van for a seven hour drive, and we camped out at my apartment. My lovely wife wanted to visit a pumpkin patch, so we did some investigating, and ended up spending the day at Cox Farms- www.coxfarms.com.

It was delightfully eccentric. It had a giant slide shaped like a dinosaur, and a hayride which involved people dressed like aliens running up and dancing. And one of the more elaborate corn mazes I'd ever been in ("The Cornundrum!"). If you're still able to have unironic fun, it's definatly worth swinging by, we all enjoyed ourselves quite a bit.

Joe had never seen Terminator and Terminator 2, so I treated him to a blu-ray double feature while my wife made amazing Beef Burgandy. After enjoying the last home cooked meal we'd have for a while, we hit the road again, heading to Mt. Alto PA.

It was a Penn State show, and they had us in a cool, intimate little theater. This is around where our show started to fall into a better groove- for the first chunk of the year, we'd just been having 2 or 3 shows, then a few weeks off, so it was harder to fall into a good rythmm with each other, and we are also constantly experimenting with the show format. The Penn State show wasn't a complete home run across the board, but we could definatly feel momentum building.

From there, we drove into West Virginia- stopping at Hillbilly Hotdogs once more, of course. I had another scrambled egg dog- (A hot dog with salsa, cheese, and a scrambled egg on top) and I also tried a Pizza dog- (A FRIED hot dog with melted cheese and fist sized pepporoni). After apologizing to my heart, it was showtime.

The best show of our year so far was at Wesylanne College in Buckhannon, WV. We were in a packed 200 seat theater. It's a Christian school, so we had to be wary with some of our content, but the crowd was enthused and completly on board. Ryan was a highlight for me- he's started mixing his odd material with more personal jokes about his social anxiety, and it's incredibly funny and personal.

Our last show before leaving the East Coast was West Virginia State College in Dunbar, WV. Things started oddly right from stepping into the school- the Cafeteria didn't let us pass out flyers, which has never happened before. So, we found a few strategic places to put them and hoped for the best.

We were in a small confrence room, but it did manage to fill out. We had about fifty people in the crowd. Aside from me, Joe, and Ryan, we had three other white people in the crowd. We'd performed for all black crowds before without caring, but this paticular audience was openly hostile to us up front. My opening joke got booed, with near constant heckling from the start. So, I tossed awy my material and just went into agressive insult comic mode. A slew of bar performance spaces last year have given me a new fearlessness, so I've gotten to a comfort level onstage where I feel I can say anything. I had to fight them for it, but the set started with boos and I ended up getting several applause breaks. (Saying "White Power" onstage and getting an applause break from an all black crowd is not an experience I ever expected to have, but you'd have to be there.) It was a tug of war throughout the entire show, but I ended up really enjoying the experience.

And then, we abandonded the East Coast entirely, flying to California! Will be here til Tuesday, I'll blog about it sometime next week.

Thanks for the support gang!
-Jimmy

Upcoming Shows:

October 26th: Sonoma State Otero University, Sonoma State California
November 1st-3rd: APCA Showcase, New York City
November 6th-8th: APCA Showcase, Iowa
November 13th: College Show, Houston
November 14th: APCA Showcase, Texas
November 16th: College Show, Waco Texas
November 20th: Feature Act: Cozzys Comedy Club
November 21st: Feature Act: Cozzys Comedy Club