our last comic bug!

Heres some stuff from our last open mic at the comic bug. This thing just gets better and more fun each time. We had a great turnout of both comics and audience members.

Heres me at some point during the night. Which means I'm not sure what number beer that was. It must have been later because all of a sudden when we ran out of bottles some Budweiser cans appeared. Don't you love when that happens?

Heres Aisako about to bring up the next comic.

These two below are of Kjall (sorry I dont have his last name in front of me) and Chris Fairbanks. A couple professional comics that graced our humble carpeted imaginary stage.

More comics.

Me and the co-owner Mike. Come down for the next one and watch the both of us get progressively drunk throughout the night!

Two more of Aisako. As you can see we are DEFINITELY in the back of a comic book store.

We even got the stores intern to come up and do her very first impromptu stand-up session:)

All in all good times.

Good times.

And the World Keeps Spinning...

last night I got a call from my mom at midnight (January 16th) that my dad had passed away. I'm still not exactly sure whats happening now, or why I'm telling some imaginary people who i think could actually be reading this blog, i just felt like i had to write this out. weird. my dad was always old, meaning my parents had me WAY late in their lives so in a weird way I've been preparing for this moment my whole life. i mean, when i was born just two days later my dad turned 60! i guess all i can say about it now is that my dad made me the man i am today. not the lazy glutenous parts though. but its because of him that I'm an artist, because he was one as well. but i do think i got my sense of humor because of him. hell, the biggest reason i fell in love with stand-up comedy at such a young age (about 10 or so) was because when we would all drive to Vegas in the late 80's/early 90's my dad would always make it a point to being me to the Vegas Improv at the Flamingo. yeah, that's definitely when I was bit by that bug. its weird when someone passes away. in my dads case all that's really left behind is some pictures and a couple of cool lighters he had engraved with his initials "JF" (we have the same name by the way). so as cheesy as this might sound i now know fully something I've always known which is that its not WHAT we leave behind, its HOW we left it. meaning the impressions we leave, the marks we leave on life's pavement. the marks that say "goddamn it I was here. and don't you forget it". hopefully those marks are pleasant for those we leave them for, and my dad left some pretty nice ones. right now I'm feeling a lot of different things at once. I'm sad he didn't live to see me gain success or to see his grand kids, but i do think he was happy with the man i became. he better have anyway, I'm practically just like him. shit look at me, is it bad I'm making jokes? but honestly, i think he'd be laughing at that one.

Its now been a week since he passed away and I wrote the stuff above. Its been a weird week but all is well. I have lots more to say but for now I just want to put this out into a world that will probably never see it. Thank you.

John Faso Jr.

Weird Ass Hollywood

I spent all day yesterday walking around Hollywood and on Hollywood Blvd. taking pictures for a side project. 

And since I've written the sentence above I've had some pretty lame experiences and some pretty cool experiences. I've met and hung out with Rick Shapiro (if you don't know who he is you neeeeed to check him out. He's a fucking entity), recorded voices with some cool comedians which include Dov Davidoff, sat a stool away from Bill Burr and Joe Rogan at the bar at the Melrose Imrov and shook hands with Tommy Davidson. But, I'm just now moving into a new place which is cool but I might be losing my job soon so that sucks, along with other drama I wont go into. Thats the way my life has always been. There has to be some kind of intense drama to counteract anything good that happens to me.

 Anyway, these pictures I think really define what that part of Hollywood I was in is all about. Here, in front of that Chinese Theatre thing they have all kinds of people just dressing up in these costumes for no damn reason at all except to have middle-American tourists have their kids take pictures with them. These fuckers don't get paid or anything, I think they're all lonely psychos under all those costumes. Heres a Gene Simmons. 

Heres another dude that was sitting next to the Scientologist people giving other dumb people "stress tests" and I loved this because he's wearing a "V for Vendetta" mask and his sign said something like "Scientology is based on lies and steals your money".

 Fuckin love it. That night I also went to the open mic at the comedy store and I was totally reminded of Patton Oswalt's Dr. Pepper bit about how just as soon as you think you're becoming somewhat of an edgy comic you're completely blown out of the water by some nut job on the street who walked in. This old lady

 was on stage talking about her pots and pans (that she brought with her on stage) and she fucking KILLED. It was amazing. I tried to study from her about how she was getting such an amazing reaction but it really just came down to her being off her rocker. You cant copy crazy.

Speaking of crazy, I also go to this other open mic at the Sunset Grill on Sunset Blvd. next to the Guitar Center. There is this dude there whose name is Elmo 

(pictured far left) and one time he showed up in one of those bright orange vests you see road workers use, and when I was on the mic I asked him jokingly if he just got off cal-trans duty... and he said yeah. And heres the thing, I would have believed him if it wasn't a sunday. But he said it like it was the most serious normal thing you can say. 

I also took a picture of this little wall next to the Gardner Stages which is right next to the Sunset Grill. I think its pretty awesome looking.

Check out this dump

So a lot has happened since the last post. My show at the Belly Room 

went fine first of all, I started out kind of weak but I ended strong so thats always good. Since then I've done two other shows at this Place called the Aura Night Club

 in Studio City (and another this coming saturday). They were okay but what I'm really excited about is the show I have coming up January 25th at the Melrose Improv! Doing this place was one of my goals along this weird stand-up journey thing so I'm pretty happy about that. 

The reason I've been absent from this blog for a while is because I've been insanely busy moving out of my last apartment(these were taken from my balcony my last night there. Oh how I miss that view!)

 

which also happened to be during finals week, so that sucked BIG time. I have another place that I know I'm moving to at the beginning of the year (with 3 other roommates, crap-tastic) but until then I'm having to sleep on my parents floor, under a table, at a retirement home. Its horrible man I'm telling you. It's like, yeah technically I love my parents but that doesn't mean I want to be around them. At all. 

Anyway on to the cool stuff. A while back I met this other comedian Ian Edwards

 whose really well known in the L.A. comedy scene, and we're collaborating on a side project which I cant mention but rest assured if/when it happens its gonna be fuckin' awesome. I also try to pick his comedy brain whenever I can too so its all a pretty sweet deal. He also introduced me to Faizon Love (Big Perm from Friday!) when we were hanging out at the Comedy Store a couple days ago. Also, we were walking out of the Laugh Factory the night before and Paulie Shore pulled up and yelled out to Ian "why don't you go to a real comedy club?!". Obviously he was joking around with him cause they know each other (although I think there is some bad blood between the Comedy Store and the Laugh Factory since Paulie Shores mom owns the Store) but it was cool to see him cause I was a huge fan of his back in the day. 

Today was a cool day at work cause I got to play Santa.

I was actually really surprised at how many kids still believe in Santa, I thought they were all pretty jaded by now. Anyway, I'm probably going to meet Ian at the store again tonight so if anything particularly cool happens I'll keep you posted. Happy holidays everyone!

OH! I almost forgot, here are a couple pictures I took while walking on Sunset Blvd. a couple nights ago when I had some time to kill before one of Ian's gigs.  Here's the National Lampoon headquarters! I'm not really sure what they do anymore but I thought it was cool. 

Here's Abbots Habbit,

 

they had an open mic there that recently stopped existing. This was a good one to go to because you had A LOT of weirdos come in. This place is also a couple doors down from Meltdown Comics, a huge comic book store I wonder into when I have time to kill. But I only get my comics at the Comic Bug in Manhattan Beach where they graciously host our open mic.

No Hot Dogs

So last night was Sunday so I tried to do three open mics. I took a nap and slept too long for The Comedy Store so that was out. I did go up at the Sunset Grill which is bitter sweet (mostly bitter though) because although I tried out all new material there were only about six of us there and performing for five other comics is pretty damn lame. Eventually I make my way to IO West and it was canceled for the night. LAAAAME. So a bunch of us just walked to this place called The Piano Bar where we bitched about other comics we hate, so that was pretty fun. But wait! My real night started when we left and I get back to my car only to realize that I've lost my keys. I was freaking out and I went back to Piano Bar where a couple of the comedian stragglers were still packing up to leave and they helped me look for them. I swear I was about half an inch away from shitting my pants. So I call AAA and while I'm waiting for them at the corner of Hollywood Blvd. and Ivar I noticed something horrific. THIS!

This massive center for Scientology is so damn big I've never even seen it! I guess the thing is that like every other weird thing in Hollywood you know you've seen it out of the corner of your eye but you've learned not to pay attention anymore. Anyway, so the AAA guy comes and opens my car in about five seconds and we find my keys on the center console. 

So now I go to Pinks Hot Dogs on La Brea on my way home because I've found that the only/best time to go there without having to wait an hour in line is to go there Sunday at midnight.

But then I find out when I get to the counter that they only take cash, of which I had none on me. Lame again! Oh well, tonight is my show at the Comedy Store. Wish me luck all you people who don't read this blog:)