I boarded my flight in San Francisco after a couple great shows and winged my way east to hit up NYC and CT for The Ronnie Mund Block Party Tour. Nothing is funnier to me than the stewardess announcing with a straight face, "Welcome to Detroit". After a quick layover I was crammed into a window seat with a huge in seat B who was the size of High Pitch Eric and the personality of Double A.
Top two things witnessed on my flight were these dudes. The first one is Captain America and the second is an Asian version of Moe from the 3 Stooges.
After landing I went to Astoria where I did the Slam Pig Podcast hosted by the hilarious Josh Accardo and then we rolled down to the Village Lantern to rock their 10pm show, you might know the Lantern from the episode of Louie where he and Doug Stanhope find an awful open mic to do.
After that I pulled an all nighter because I had to be at Sirius at 7am for Jay Thomas. In the pouring rain I got there way too early at 5:30 and was greeted by Scott The Engineer. We went upstairs and talked over coffee in the breakroom before he went back to his studio and I went and chilled inside of the Howard 100 newsroom and got to meet the electric Jon Lieberman. Before I went down to Studio 1 to sit in on the Jay Thomas Show I snapped this pic of the Howard 100 newsroom.
I love sitting in with Jay Thomas, I love his show and the ensemble cast is hysterical. Of course my personal favorite is Ira the Weatherman who is always good for an "asleep at the mic" pic.
After the show we went downstairs to load up the cars to head off to Hartford CT. We had Howard TV along with us so our car had Bruno from Cleanbox driving, JD Harmeyer riding shot gun, Shuli, new block party regular Maddog Mattern and me crammed into the backseat and Rob from Howard TV shooting from the back of the truck. 6 guys, 2 cameras and Scott The Engineer providing the awful weather made the trip up to Hartford lag like a boob pic downloading in 95.
We got to the hotel and were greeted by the owner who was such a huge Stern Fan this is what is on the cereal dispenser to greet guests or breakfast.
We got into our rooms and settled in and then headed down to JD's suite for a Poker game where the stakes were high but not as high as half of us and Brian Phelan was holding court and sharing the chilled Vodka straight up. The Poker game was fast and loose and after an hour, Shuli, Maddog, Brian Phelan and me had all dropped our dough to the big winner JD.
It was show time and we went down to The Brew Ha Ha Comedy Club inside of City Steam Brewery in Hartford. The crowds were electric. I've done Block Parties before as well as Killers of Comedy Gigs and I've never seen crowds like this. Scott busted out his dance opener, JD killed hard reading LL Cool J's Whitney Houston prayer and asked the crowd "How is Whitney dead and Scott Salem still alive?" That line brought the House Down. JD brought up CT regular Claudia Stavola who opened up the room which gave way to tour newcomer Maddog Mattern.
Maddog is a destroyer I've seen him kill on The Miserable Men Comedy Tour Shows and this was no different and 15 minutes later he received his first of two standing ovations. I followed Maddog bringing the heat and then Shuli came out, the audience was ready and Shuli killed. Fans were delighted by a joke by Sha Sha Seanie Aka High Register Sean who came down from Boston.
Both shows were extremely high energy, fun packed, great fans, and the meet and greets were a blast.
We woke Saturday morning and headed on down to Stamford CT for our show at Fiddler's Pub. Our Hotel was palatial and just a warning about how awesome this show was about to be.
At 6 pm we were told our Limo was out front and not only was it a dope ass limo it was THE "PETCOCK" Limo where Ronnie spent two days on air getting yelled at because Howard couldn't believe they couldn't adjust the temp on the fly. So not only is it Howard's Old Limo!!! It's the Petcock limo. As a Stern fan my surreal life continues as we (Bruno, Shuli, Maddog, Doug Goodstein and me) headed over to the show.
Our limo driver Dean is a huge Stern Fan and a great guy!
Go check out Maddog's live tweeting at 4am on Sunday 2/27 for proof.
The show was again sold out, the fans were excited and the meet and greet was a lot of fun. Bruno had lost his voice so the bar owner made the announcements. JD did well again and brought up Maddog who killed again.
The sound system was crazy and the feedback was horrendous. Every two seconds high pitch squeals that sounded like dog's rape whistle screamed through the bar. Maddog and myself were way too loud and animated and instead of dealing with feedback we just dropped the mic and ripped the crowd at the top of our lungs projecting across the bar packed with 250 rabid Stern Fans. Shuli closed out the show by bringing up Wack Pack Legend High Pitch Eric and the folks were delighted to a wild show.
After the show the limo driver took Bruno, Maddog and me out to eat and then off to the Mecca of sports entertainment the WWE building!
Wooooooooooooooooooooo
The weekend was capped off by Maddog and I doing spots Sunday night at Stand Up NY and then back to Hoboken.
Monday morning I woke up and walked to the train. The shows were behind me, we had delivered, the fans were happy. JD is awesome, Scott continues to be Scott. The sun was shining and an old man sang with a guitar on Washington street.
He belted out "Cmon Hoboken lemme hear ya" and the dropped the Chorus to Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline". Even though Ronnie was with Howard for AGT I still got my fix in that moment.
We are heading to Chicago on March 30 at The Cubbybear in Wrigleyville and then off to Tempe AZ at The Horse and Hound on March 31. Ronnie will be back with us and God willing JD as well!
Check out www.cleanboxentertainment.com for tickets and details for upcoming shows.
To follow me on twitter for jokes, Stern Stuff and Behind the Scenes access follow me
@johntole
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