Listen in to the Podcast: http://goo.gl/NMS6q
Wharf Room Comedy presents Smile & Die Comedy tour. Come check us out tonight at 8pm. Tickets are $15 at the door.
Tuesday, February 8 – Layover Bar Oakland California – 8:oo pm (often followed by music)
Wednesday, February 9, – Meekers Comedy at D’vine Jazz & Wine Bar, Morgan Hill 8pm
Thursday – Saturday – Wharf Room Comedy at Castagnola’s, 8PM
Other shows for your calendar
February 28th – Marga’s Funny Monday’s, The Cabaret at The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way near Shattuck. Tickets, www.themarsh.org
March 21 – A Grape in the Fog Storytelling and Spoken Word Event, 400 Old County road, in Pacifica, 650 735 5854 www.agitf.com
]]>Tuesday – Friday I’ll be at Wharf Room Comedy at 8PM. Please go to www.wharfroomcomedy.com for tickets.
Saturday January 22, I’ll be at Bunjo’s Comedy Lounge in Dublin, CA. 6513 Regional Street. The show starts at 7:30 PM. There’s chinese food people. CHINESE FOOD!
]]>I’ve noticed something about myself. I don’t like telling the stories that tell. I don’t like shedding my skin and letting you peek in unless I lend your experience a humorous caveat. Or maybe I don’t like to admit I have emotions and I can be hurt. This time more or less, I hurt myself.
I met J while I was working one of my three jobs; this job just happened to be cooking in a bowling alley. If you’ve ever seen the movie “Arthur”he asks his butler what he thinks of Liza Minnelli, the butler answers “she looks like the kind of woman you would meet in a bowling alley”. That was me at the time. A year after my divorce from O and I shack up with the first guy who pays any attention to me.
I swore that I would find someone different from O; someone without a drug problem, someone with some hobbies and someone who sought more out of life than their next bong hit. I think back; I think a bong hit would have done J some good. The relationship started fast and soon we were moving in together. There wasn’t any fan faire, no romantic gestures; just a settling. J had found the hood ornament he had always wanted in me and two children to adore him while he was at it.
J loved my children. He was wonderful to them. He lived for them; he hated me. J was an alcoholic. Not the type of alcoholic I was used to being around; he just drank beer from sun up to sun down. He would get aggressive verbally but not too much that another beer couldn’t calm down. Oh I forgot the best part; he cheated on me constantly.
J was stuck in his youth. He never dreamed for anything outside of the little town that he grew up in, he still imagined he had long David Cassidy hair, he listened to the same music (we went to see AC/DC 4 times) and he still owned a 1972 Chevrolet Camaro SS. 20 years later; he had very little hair, a yellow ranch style house with white shudders and a rose garden and realized that 35K a year wasn’t really that much money. But he still was basically happy; as long as he had my children and I kept my mouth shut.
A month after we bought the house I got into a car accident. I found the first reason to postpone the wedding we were planning. All J talked about was the money that “we” were going to get. He rarely acknowledged my injuries or my constant pain. He bought me a dishwasher so I didn’t have to spend so much time in the kitchen washing dishes after cooking him dinner. According to J, I was a very lucky woman to have someone like him who would take me in and love my children as much as he did. He told everyone how lucky I was. Soon after my doctor decided I was depressed and prescribed prozac to help. J decided I was now crazy; all of his girlfriends were crazy.
I put off the wedding again. I learned I cared about little except for what was on television and making sure J had enough beer in the fridge. I kept taking the prozac. One night or one that wasn’t different from any other, J drank too much beer. He called me a stupid bitch; I knocked him out. I don’t actually remember hitting him but I do remember a flood of red and then standing over him as he rolled around on the ground. I told him it wasn’t for calling me a bitch; it was for calling me stupid. I took a prozac.
A month later I was in the kitchen J was putting the kids to bed. I lit a candle, he started screaming and backed me into a corner. I don’t remember what happened next. J was on the floor again. My son told me last year that he saw what actually happened; he swears J smacked me. I truly don’t remember, it was the second time. J would always forget that I was a competetive bowler that threw a 16 pound bowling ball three times a week for 4 hours at at time. Knocking him out was as easy as blowing out a candle. I took more prozac.
On New years eve 1995 I came home from work planning to make snacks for a party and make sure there was plenty of beer for J. I found J in the bedroom hugging the shower curtain and the towel rack from the bathroom. I found him by following the vomit stains through the house. He rallied and attended the party in full swinging J fashion. The party ended with him screaming at me. The last thing J ever said to me in that house; “you don’t even know your children, you’re just the incubator – I take care of them better than you ever will”. I flushed the prozac.
J left the next morning for golf. I rented a moving truck. I took only my children’s furniture and my pots and pans for cooking. J didn’t cook for himself or do his own dishes; I knew his sister would come do it for him. I moved away that day – it only took me two hours. I left my second hand engagement ring on the counter in the kitchen right next to the dishwasher. He didn’t know I knew that he had bought that ring from a guy at the bar – but I did.
After my divorce I decided to never tear another person apart with my words again. I kept my word and J ran over me like a train. My children hated me because they didn’t understand why I took them away from the man they considered their father. They are older now and I knew if I let them stay he would do the same to them that he did to me. They were fun for J because they weren’t thinking for themselves yet. I couldn’t imagine anyone treating my children the way he treated me.
Everyone thinks I’m afraid of J but, I’m not. I was more afraid of what I allowed someone to turn me into. I can’t add up the amount of money I lost the day I left. I lost my house, my investment, my furniture, my friends and my financial security. I’ve never been so broke and I’ve never been happier in my life.
I don’t bowl any more.
Drink count:
3 Vodka Soda’s
½ bottle Pinot Grigio
Tonight’s Show at Pissed Off Pete’s has been cancelled — I’ll let you know of another show as soon as its booked.
Sorry Perverts!
I know you thought it read “new SHOES”; alas, maybe next month eh?
This month is a big month for me and the club. We have great shows planned all month, I have actual shows booked all month. I’m super excited to be performing so much and even more excited that summer is here and comedy is looking good.
This Friday we do not have a Wharf Room Comedy Show. I’ll be at Pissed off Pete’s for the MILF Comedy Showcase. If you haven’t heard my story about talking to my kids about blowjobs then this is the show for you.
Tuesday, Thursday, Friday & Saturday – WHARF ROOM COMEDY. 8 PM — just do it!!
June 11, Pissed Off Pete’s
MILF Comedy
June 29 Wharf Room Comedy
Ladies Night, Wharf Room Comedy
My favorite night of comedy at Wharf Room Comedy. All female line-up!
July 7, Rooster T. Feathers, Sunnyvale
My return to the new talent showcase. I had the best time the first time I performed in Sunnyvale. Please come and mention my name at the door. The more of you that come see me the more time I get on stage. Thank you in advance.
July 21st, Bazaar Café, San Francisco
A new room hosted by Danny Dechi. I’m hoping for a banging crowd for my first appearance.
My first San Francisco Storytelling Event
Ten Fingers
Cafe Royale, June 24
8:00 PM
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Yay Mr. BUG!!
Just a note about this week. There will be no Thursday or Saturday show at Castagnola’s, Wharf Room Comedy.
Tuesday -May 25 – Wharf Room Comedy 8 PM. $5
Thursday – May 27th – Comedy Off Broadway 7:30 PM, $10
Friday – May 28th – Underground Celebrities Comedy, 8:00 PM, $15
]]>Comics In Love
Photo by SF Ordinary Girl, 2008
Relationships aren’t usually hilarious as a rule. Sure, your significant other hopefully has a sense of humor, but if their jokes annoy you, things can get contentious rather quickly. Humor can either enhance the relationship and make it fun or send both parties for the door.
But, what happens when two comics hook up, or maybe even get married? I have personal experience, because last year I married a former standup comic who is now a chef. Some of our friends have said, “Wow, it must be a laugh riot at your house all the time?” But in reality, we’re surprisingly unfunny and hyper-critical of each other’s jokes.
So, that’s why I was fascinated when I met Chantel Williams and Dr. Brian King, two San Francisco comics who’ve been dating for a while and book a comedy room at Castagnola’s on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. I asked them a series of questions and their responses were both entertaining and informational.
Q: How did you meet and what were your situations relationship-wise before you hooked up? What were your relationships like prior to getting together?
King: I like to tell people we met at a truck stop near Pendleton, Oregon. I was passing through and she was serving up grits. The reality is much less romantic, we met online. The Internet is what’s for dinner. People sit around all the time bitching that they can’t fine “the one”, but I’ve always enjoyed being single. I love it. In fact, I’d rather be single than in a relationship, it just suits me better. I don’t believe that any one person holds the key to my happiness, and I know for a fact that I could never be that for someone else. I think that’s one reason Chantel and I work so well together, because she’d probably prefer to be single too. We are fiercely independent and very comfortable with each other’s independence. I also try not to acknowledge just how long I’ve known her, because I’m sure that if we were to ever recognize our tenure or celebrate an anniversary, it would be over almost immediately after.
Williams: We’re the only people who will admit that we met online except for those people on the eHarmony commercials. The truth of the matter is that eHarmony almost rejected me and if they almost rejected me I’m sure they rejected Brian. I’m a single mom and at the time my children and I were preparing for them to go to college and leave the nest. I might be the youngest empty-nester on the face of the planet. I’m a serial dater. I was not interested in a traditional marriage, children, suburbs, minivans, etc. I love the city and wanted to stay in the city forever. Brian thinks Portland Oregon wasn’t a proper city so he was generally hard to hang around. I dated a lot of really nice guys who often moved out of the country to escape being madly in love with me. For the most part my relationships ended because a.) I didn’t want more children or b.) I had children. It’s a Catch 22 in my life at all times.
Q: Do you write jokes with each other?
King: We try, but we have very different writing styles. For example, I’m funny. Chantel will come to me with a typical chick premise “guys and girls are different!” without a punch line and say I should put it in my act. Also, she likes puns and knock-knock jokes, and she thinks Dane Cook is hilarious. She usually thinks everything I write sucks, which is only mostly true. However, we do use each other to write. Her first stand-up set was trashing me at my roast, and a lot of her material centers around her idiot boyfriend (I swear if I ever meet the guy, I’d love to buy him a drink). As a reaction, I came up with a few sweet come-backs to her act that has worked their way into my sets as well. For a recent Valentine’s Day show, we did back-to-back sets ripping into each other. It was very cathartic. We rarely fight at home, so the stage is a good outlet.
Williams: Brian has decided that every time he opens his mouth he’s trying to write a joke. We no longer have normal conversations; it’s him saying something stupid and me being disgusted and walking out of the room in a huff. We have different work styles. I’m focused on the task at hand and he is all over the map. We do work out material together but I have a writing partner Tom Smith, another local comic and Brian has to write jokes in a room by himself. He generally drives me crazy.
Q: What are some funny experiences while you’ve been together?
King: We’ve had a lot of good times, but none that really stand out in memory as funny. We travel a lot, I love a road trip and she is generally up for anything. We were recently stuck in Donner Pass during a snow storm and had to contemplate the pros and cons of cannibalism. Thankfully I had a big breakfast in Reno that morning.
Williams: Brian is the funniest most uninhibited person I’ve ever known. When he travels he takes in every tourist opportunity, when he’s at home he’s generally doing something fun. He has no motivation for anything if it isn’t going to be fun. He has a severe case of ADD and I truly never know what he’s going to come up with next. Our fun usually happens around road trips. Our most recent road trip was Christmas. He found out I had never been to Joshua Tree and within 10 hours we were packed in the car with the dog on a four-day road trip that took us through Joshua Tree, the Mojave Desert, Las Vegas and Death Valley. While in Joshua Tree, Brian dressed in his Santa suit and we took photos as he walked the dog. My life is less predictable since I met Brian and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Q: Is it difficult running a comedy room with each other?
King: Not at all, it actually works really well. We balance each other out. I’m the nutty creative and she’s the serious manager. I’m also the fearless promoter and loud-mouth attention whore whereas she’s organized and calculated. This balance has been one of the keys to our success so far; we complement each other well. For those psych geeks out there, I’m the Id and she’s the Super Ego of our comedy club. Without her, I’d have topless Tuesdays, go-go dancers between sets, and a midget in a crab suit dancing in a bowl of steamy chowder… I know sounds awesome right? But I bet it’d be a disaster to carry out and the chowder would probably scald the midget, so there’d be a lawsuit in there for sure. Sorry, I understand they don’t like being called that, I think the politically correct term is “Crustacean-American”. Also, I’d be banging a lot more of the female comedians than I am currently. And I’d never wear pants.
Williams: I think it’s difficult for any couple to work together. We have some interesting problems because Brian has severe ADD and I’m extremely linear and disciplined when I’m working. However Brian does all of our booking because he has amazing skills building spreadsheets and diligently keeps track of everyone. We are a good fit creatively because when I feel I’m limited Brian see’s no limits. Two weeks ago I told Brian I would like to have a week of gay comedy at Castagnola’s to celebrate Pride. This week we have a Gay Comedy Festival with a movie screening and a Drag Queen host. That’s a good example of our work styles – it’s complementary. We do often bicker over details but the results are generally extraordinary.
Q: Have you ever considered being a comedy duo?
King: We get asked this a lot. I think we are actually starting to succumb to the pressure. A few months ago we started collaborating on a podcast we call “You’re An Effin’ Moron”, which is basically a discussion of the stupid things I say and do and her calling me a moron. Comic gold, I tell ya. Gold. For example, out of our first episode you got to hear such gems as the time I accidentally motor boated the dog and that “Maya Angelou is a sweet piece of tang”. We also get booked to do a lot of radio gigs together; people seem to love our banter. I mentioned earlier that we are writing jokes about each other and have performed sets back-to-back. We are actually working on a duo stage act based on this and our usual dynamic. We were all set to debut as a duo recently, but we did get stuck in Donner Pass. I think that both of us are great as individual performers, but put us together and you really get something that is much more than a sum of the parts. We’ll be working on our duo act this year, but I also don’t want us to lose our individual stage identities in the process.
Williams: I think Brian and I are naturally graduating into a comedy duo at times. We started a podcast together called “You’re an E’ffing Moron”. Again another moment where I had an idea because we were driving in the car and I realized how often I tell Brian he’s a moron. Our interactions are unlike any other. He says something stupid and I call him an idiot. We’ve been working to bring it to the stage but as everything else we don’t want to rush it because we need to grow as performers and let the rest happen organically.
Q: Are your arguments funny?
King: I think they are. She just gets pissed.
Williams: Yes. Brian has a PhD in Human Sexuality and he’s an extremely liberal person. He thinks that if he thinks the world works the way he wants it to that it actually does. We argue over feminism, his ideas that the entire population should be in an open relationship and who walks the dog the most. I usually throw something and call him a jerk. And then he tells me he loves me and it’s all over. That’s how our podcast was started. He told the dog that “he wished I was more like her”. A fight started and we have a podcast.
Q: Are you tough critics of each other?
King: Like a lot of artists, I think we are tougher critics of ourselves. We are also pretty realistic and we know when something wasn’t working or needs to improve. We are also comfortable enough to enjoy it when things go well. Because I’ve been doing comedy longer, I’ll give her notes on her performances and material. I learned a lot of lessons by just being on stage that I have been able to share with her now that she’s performing as well. And of course, we are both so new that we are constantly learning and developing.
Williams: I’m a tough critic in general. Brian is critical but less judgmental. I hold myself and others to a high standard; Brian fails to reach those standards every day. (LOLOLOL) But, we are endless supporters of one another and that’s the reason we work so well. I’ve never had an idea that Brian didn’t support. The guy does not know what it means to want something and not have it. I do push him and he pushes me. Our job is to bring out the best in each other.
To find out more about Chantel Williams and Dr. Brian King, check out these links: www.wharfroomcomedy.com
www.lifeandtimesofchantel.com (my blog which has moved into a more promotional instead of writing focused blog)
http://drbriankingandchantelwilliams.podbean.com/ (our podcast, which is also posted on my blog when new episodes come out.)
By Ed Attanasio Best of Bay Area.com
All Rights Reserved 2010
This weeks adventures includes a trip to a SPA. A spa where I do not experience buyers remorse mid-massage. A trip to Reno Nevada that included; running into random fishermen from Fisherman’s Wharf, A Snow Storm, 6 hours at a Black Jack table with all of Wisconsin and, a blizzard in Donner Pass and,,,,,,,a visit from none other than Ms Puddin.
Yes Dr. B and I took a little weekend trip to Reno so I could do all the things that make my heart go pitter patter. I drank cheap whisky, ate an expensive steak, took some time for myself in the spa and then I sat at a Black Jack table with an old dude from Wisconsin for 6 straight hours. After reading that sentence I might want to explain that yes I am a girl. A girl with dude-like tendencies.
On our way home we ran into a little trouble in the Donner Pass. It seems that Donner Pass is the snowiest point in California and it seems that sudden blizzards are of no cause for worry to your random traveler from San Francisco who only packed her silver loafers and a cute shrug to stave off the cold. See there we are, I’m sounding like a girl again. Dr. Brian and I were worried but I wasn’t too worried because we ate at a lunch buffet before we left town so I knew he wasn’t going to eat me. After seeing what he ate at the buffet there was no chance I was ever considering cannibalizing him.
This teeny blip in weather history made us extremely late for our One Year Anniversary show for Wharf Room Comedy. Thank goodness we have fantastic comedy friends that are there for us and opened our show without hesitation. Unfortunately we planned to debut our new act as a comedy duo that night. We were able at one point to go on stage and thank all of our fans and comedians for all of your support for the last year. I was able to chug a Corona, do some yoga stretches and make stupid faces, while Dr. B rambled on and on and on and on, blah, blah, blah – thank you blah, blah, blah; because he just can’t seem to shut up.
The very next day I picked up Ms. Puddin from the airport. She was my treat for the week and what a lovely treat she is.
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