All-star line-up, new venue, new band!

The line-up: For this first show back we have three phenomenal stand-up comics including Harold Kremer (aka Dragon Boy Suede), who you may have seen in his own Comedy Central Special, or on Jimmy Kimmel Live. He currently writes on ABC’s The Goode Family. Eddie Pepitone is a comedy veteran and Be-Bop staple that you’ve seen on shows including The Sara Silverman Program, Flight of the Conchords, and perhaps in the Atom.com web series Snack and a Commercial. Jason Nash is another Be-Bop veteran, and co-host of the very popular podcast Guys with Feelings and star of Atom.com’s The Shaman.

About the venue: The M Bar is a really cool venue with a rich history in the comedy world. With a full bar and menu, and cabaret style booths and table service, it is the perfect place for this jazz-club inspired show. So come with an appetite, relax, eat, drink and enjoy some top notch jazz and comedy. The perfect night!

About the band: The Kevin Kanner Quartet is lead by… Kevin Kanner. Kevin is a very accomplished drummer who has played with a long list of top tier jazz talent. He’s put together a fantastic Be-bop quartet for this show which I am really excited about working with. You can also see Kevin at the critically acclaimed Monday night jazz show at The Mint. In addition to the band we’ll have the special vocal stylings of jazz songstress Chi Chi Lavie.

So come on out for our first show back and join us for some special memories FOR ONLY $10!!!

Firstly, please forgive the delayed post.  It was not my intent when writing the “Crazy Randy” python piece below to have it be the Pièce de résistance of the site for up to and including several weeks.  But it was, and now all we can do is let the dust settle.  Now, some news.

A couple of exciting upcoming shows to put on your calendar:

Mortified San Francisco
San Francisco, Friday, June 19 and Saturday, June 20th,
8:00 PM @ The Make-Out Room (3225 22nd St, 94110)
Tickets | More Info
I’ve done this show a couple times in LA, and it is without a doubt one of the most fun events I’ve ever been part of.  There’s something strangely exhilarating about reading my terrible high school journal entries to a crowd of strangers.  Come squirm!

Be-Bop Heroin Hour
Los Angeles, Friday July 10th
10:00pm @ The M Bar
More info to come, but I am super-pumped to bring the show back to LA!  We’re going to have a really sweet line-up, new band, new location, and if all goes well the plan is to bring it back regularly.

Other cool news:

It’s not “funny” per se, but I shot and edited a video for clothing company Revolve to promote their new Spring line.  The model is Rumi Neely of popular fashion blog FashionToast.com.  So if you like fashion, or are drawn to my vast Final Cut Pro editing skills, take a look!

A couple weeks ago I was a featured guest on popular podcast The Second Column.  It’s a weekly roundtable discussion with a bunch of funny fellows.  Per their website:

“Comedian Jamie Flam stopped by to talk about barcades, gangs of old people, men who sit when they pee and why Carlos would not only survive, but thrive, in prison.”

I like being described as a comedian by someone other than myself.  I had a great time doing it.  The other guys are hilarious and comfortable behind the mic.  But I don’t think I was very funny.  You be the judge!

Stand-up
I’ve been performing a lot of stand-up in recent weeks, with gigs in San Diego, the new Westside Comedy Theater, The Comedy Store, and The Improv.  Whereas the past few years I’ve gone up sporadically and generally unprepared, I’ve really been honing my act of late, and really enjoying the art of crafting jokes and seeing how they work.  It’s been a lot of fun, and I think it’s something I plan to do a lot more of the next few months.  I will be starting a stand-up log soon to start documenting my growth.  It’s part of my new, exciting life plan to “focus” and “take charge” and “not be dead broke when as an adult.”

Speaking of which, can anyone recommend good organization software for mac?  I am experimenting with Things and OmniFocus right now.  Thought you should know.

Finally, I am loving this live re-creation of the video game Paperboy.

JamieFlam.com Oregon readership rejoice!  I will be making my long awaited Portland debut this Sunday Night at The Hawthorne Theater as part of the Bridgetown Comedy Festival.  It’s quite a star-studded line-up, featuring people that get paid by others to perform their comedy.

The deets:

Hosted by Jamie Flam and Hugh Moore
with the musical stylings of Chi Chi Lavie
and of course LIVE JAZZ from Bossambop!

with:
David Koechner (The Anchorman, The Office)
Tig Notaro (The Sarah Silverman Program)
Matt Braunger (Letterman, MadTV)
Michelle Biloon (The Late, Late Show)
Kenny Stevenson (Fries on the Side)
Michael Busch (Human Giant, Miss March)

Check out the Bridgwtown festival site for more.

In other “news,” the Flam Front has been uncharacteristically busy the last several weeks.  Working on a handful of production gigs that have taken me to exciting places including: An orthodontist office (my first inner-mouth shoot!), the Port Hueneme Naval Base (with Judy Carter for an NPR piece — my first audio engineer gig!), and soon will be shooting a web series for small business owners.

My comedy appearances have been random most of this year, but I did have a blast doing the tax-themed Knuckle Sandwich show at The Mandrake last week.  I played Marshall Sprash, CPH (certified public humorist), and with a ChiPs and Beverly Hills Cop 3 reference in the script you know it was a crowd-pleaser.  Finally, in March I made my first appearance at The Hollywood Improv.  The house was packed, and it was nerve wrackingly fun.  I had a solid 5 minutes of material that I knew, as opposed to most of my stand-up gigs when I go up with a piece of paper and 15 half-written jokes.  The show has been a bit of a spark, and I am hoping that the show in Portland will be the first of many in the upcoming months.

Happy Earth Day!

Pictures of The Be-Bop Heroin Hour in San Francisco, taken by Travis LoDolce.

Pictures of shooting for the web series “Manscouts!”, taken by Brian O’Malley.

And a fabulous picture of my new nephew Jordan!

I could go into how life is hard and the economy and being 32 years old and what am I doing with my life and all that business, but it’s hard to do that when I look at these pictures. Pretty sweet when you got a cool new member of the family, you get to do jazzy comedy shows in San Francisco, and you can enjoy a day outdoors making fun of kids that enjoy days outdoors.  Ah, life.

Why the lack of posts lately?  Well, not that I ever established any type of regular posting pattern, and not that I’ve even let anyone even know that this site exists yet, but allow me to explain: The MacBook Pro I inherited from my last job went and had a faulty video card.  And the fine folks at Apple would not replace it because of a conveniently placed dent located near the place where the video card exists.  My bad.  So over  a month without a computer and I finally had to bite the bullet and go and get a new one.  But it’s pretty sweet!

Life is hard and the economy and 32 years old and what am I doing with my life?!?

WINKYFACE!

In the spirit of the season I thought it would be appropriate to embed a video I made several years ago. It may be the dumbest thing ever made, but the key word is “made” and anything “made” must be “shared.” Some fun facts about the below video you are undoubtedly about to click on and watch all the way through:
-It shows my range as an actor, as in classic Eddie Murphy style fashion, I play not one but three roles. See if you can figure which out which ones are me!
-It’s way too long!
-It also stars a young Chiara Triska in the role of “wife”
-Somehow the video, which is touted as a “2 Minute Christmas Classic” is actually well over 3 minutes in length
-Don’t judge me!

I am off for a one week vacation in Hawaii tomorrow, so to the thousands of you who frequent my site daily, you will be without your “fix” for a few days. But I will be back with stories to tell. They will most likely include my discomfort in removing my shirt at the beach. Also worth noting, after a few weeks of this “test-run” I will be officially launching the site (read: sending out a mass email and hoping for the best) the first week of the year, so stay tuned for a more steady flow of content, including active use of an application called spellcheck™.

Also when I get back, more information on the inclusion of my monthly stand-up/jazz show at this years SF Sketchfest! For now, here is a link to the full line-up and how to buy tickets for my show:

http://www.sfsketchfest.com/schedule/
http://www.ticketweb.com/t3/sale/SaleEventDetail?dispatch=loadSelectionData&eventId=735904

So have a happy holiday, and cheers to you getting the happiness you deserve (a votive candle set from Pier 1 Imports.)

It’s 1:45am, and I am getting home after another successful Be-Bop Heroin Hour Show. And I am just kvelling.  We’ve done 16 of these shows now, and there’s certainly been a couple clunkers in the mix, but there’s no greater feeling then when a show is over and you know it went well.  Tonight was one of the rare occasions in which I was without my co-host, the always hilarious Hugh Moore.  It’s always an uphill battle when I am without his signature charm and our care-free banter, but tonight I challenged myself to do some new material, a more personal set based on the recent writing I’ve been doing for my Uncabaret classes.  I told some stories, talked about my recent foray into unemployment, my angst with being 32 and still trying to find my place in the world, and my issues with the way my sandwiches are prepared at Subway.  I had a lot of friends in the audience tonight which can be a good or bad thing.  Good in that you have a built in support base of people that really want to laugh.  But bad in that there is an added pressure to show them how you’ve grown as a comedian since the last time you got them out.  But it worked in the good way tonight, so thanks friends, for coming to support, winkyface smile.

For those of you reading who have never been to a show before, the deal is this: Every month I book a jazz band (to date we’ve had three different bands, and on one occasion my cousin accompanied me with guitar), and try to book top notch stand-ups, and the idea is to have a comedy show that evokes the spirit and vibe of a 1950′s jazz club.  The Westside Eclectic is a great spot for it, with it’s in-the-alley feel, high ceilings and brick walls (just like NYC, 1952!), and to add to the vibe we encourage all of the performers to play with the band, be it by singing a jazz standard, having them play some walking bass behind the music, or anything else the comedian can dream up.  Only a handful of the shows we’ve done have really embodied everything I dream of for the show on all levels, but tonight was one of them.  The first comic was the very funny Ron Babcock, who eloquently used the drummer’s rim shots to supplement his scintillating array of struggling artist related jokes.  Paul Cibis, who is the genius behind one of my favorite parody commercials ever, followed with a great set including a great bit about the deeper regions of porn shops.  My good friend and wonderful comic Michelle Miracle told a great story about her porn star neighbor, accompanied by some impromptu background playing from the band.  Brent Forrester, who has written for holy quadfecta of comedy television (Mr. Show, The Simpsons, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and The Office), gave some absolutely intriguing insights into the world of comedy television writing, and the night was capped off by the always hilarious Jason Nash, who brought the house down with a great energetic set started in character as stand-up comedian/healer Raul Esteban.  Classic times a million, I tell you.

Perhaps the greatest feat of the night was that it was all over by 11:30pm, with a total running time under 90 minutes.  If there’s one issue with the show since it started two July’s ago, it’s that it has the tendency to run a little long.  So keeping it tight was a bonus, and people that had been to past shows noted that the compressed running time was appreciated.  Thanks, people that have been to past shows.

So there you have it.  I am a brilliant man, and surround myself with other brilliant people, and as an expected result we created a brilliant night for everyone who attended.  It’s always a good feeling to know that you have touched other lives positively, and that these people will forever owe you a debt of gratitude for the joy you’ve brought to their otherwise meek existences.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I must inquire into the whereabouts of my pending unemployment check.

Click here for pictures from last night’s show, courtesy of comedian/photographer Tom Becker.  More pictures to come soon!

It’s the Friday night after Thanksgiving and you know what that means, right?  FOOD HANGOVER!  [insert zippy cartoon noise]  You could just sit at home digesting leftovers while watching old episodes of M*A*S*H on DVD.  Or you could join me and several hilarious people for an evening of stand-up comedy and live jazz music!  The ultimate digestive!  The details:

It’s tonight, The Westside Eclectic Comedy Theater in Santa Monica, 10:00pm.  With me as your host (my usual co-host Hugh Moore is out of town) and:

Jason Nash (Guys with Feelings)
Brent Forrester (writer on The Office, Mr. Show, The Simpsons)
Paul Cibis (Team Atrox)
Michelle Miracle (Small Gravy)
Ron Babcock (Modest Proposal)

Check out the facebook show listing for more information.

Hope to see you all there, and stay tuned for more frequent jamieflam.com postings soon! (maybe)