Monday, May 03, 2004  

Postmortem

So the Boston Comedy Festival has come and gone, and the Boston scene is remarkably quiet about it. In years past, people were yakking about it for at least a week afterwards. Of course, in years past, it was a much more Bacchanalian affair. Someone has a picture of Gallagher stepping on my head during last year's. For example. Chris Oake very sensibly pointed out that it took significant courage for a guy with a head that looks like a cantaloupe to even go near Gallagher.

This year, not so much revelry. Larry Lee Lewis's Blues Jam was blast, though it was retardedly underattended. In fact, I think I counted two non-Bostonian comics there the whole night. To be honest, I think the out-of-towners consider us all to be rubes...why have a blues jam where there's INDUSTRY around, man? Stupid Boston comics.

Tom Cotter won the contest, and by all accounts, that's how it should have gone. Today's Globe has an article about the show, which was apparently awesome. I tell you, I find it fascinating that Costaki Economopolis, Darryl Lenox, Danny Bevins, and Tom Simmons are all that good of friends AND all made it to the finals. There were 400 entries, and for 4 friends to make it that far together is pretty spectacular. They represented 1% of the entries and 40% of the finalists. I thought that the Someday Five group had a remarkable list of alumni.

Tom Simmons had an interesting wrap-up of the whole affair:

One quick note. I am convinced that the reason I did so well on my shows was because of my opening jokes. Each night I wrote a line that was about the venue, the show in front of me, or something to make the back of the room laugh. It made a huge difference. It won me the semi-final round and the line tonight made the difference between third and who knows. I think this was my competition to win and I didn't take it. I will beat myself up for a few days and then move on and learn from it.

I envy his confidence. In fact, all of these guys had their game faces on the whole time. Contests bring out the best in some people. Not me. I saw a lot of this at the Chicago Comedy Festival. Some comics...mostly the industry-focussed ones...really thrive in these circumstances. From what I could tell, Economopolous, Simmons, and Bevins fall into this category. I truly am jealous. When I look back at the long string of dropped balls and missed opportunities that comprises my comedy career to this point, I can see some moments when this kind of brashness would have helped me a lot. What can I say? High pressure makes me zen. These guys are going to go a long, long way in this business...and more power to 'em. [Note: edited for clarification]

If I have a problem with the BCF, it's that it's not a festival. It's a contest with some other shows that no one cares about. That's fine. I think they should drop everything BUT the contest, though. People are interested in that...comics and industry (god, I hate that name) alike. But Boston is an amazing comedy town, but that which makes it amazing was totally missing from the festival. We have mindblowing headliners (Knox, Gavin, Nardizzi, etc...) who were nowhere to be seen, and probably the most active alternative scene (Studio, Great and Secret, Milky Way) in the country, and that was absolutely underrepresented as well. If it's a contest, then it's every comic for themselves. If it's a festival, though, we have to start making it just that and showing off a little of what makes it so cool to be a Boston comic.