The Major clubs seem like a dream to work at. Gotham (Zumock's home club), The Comedy Cellar, Caroline's, and maybe a few others seem like they genuinely care about comedy on some level. I really must put the Cellar above the rest because they put up amazing comedians and do no bringer shows and have audiences that speak and understand English (also I met Dave Chappelle there and he liked my Norton's Furniture t-shirt).

The problem with New York City Comedy is the desperation. There are so many comedians willing to do anything but actually be funny. They will bark for hours or bring ten friends then get up on stage and have 1 min of good material and six of gays live in Chelsea, Blacks live in Harlem non-sense that is devoid of thought or passion.

There are of course plenty of great comedians and it seems like thousands of horrendous ones. Not just the bringers and barkers either. I am talking about guys that have some decent credits that have eaten so many comedians and club managers assholes that they are now living the good life with out an ounce talent.

So the city pretty much sucks so far. I guess I will have to brush up on my ass eating techniques at The Improv later this month, so Lee please do some grooming.

P.S. I am at Go Bananas in Cincinnati this weekend and I must say it is a terrific club. The management and staff are great. You guys should plan a road trip and do their Open Mic and I am sure several of you can get feature and mc work here no problem.

Portland is great! The people here are in to live entertainment, and comedy is still a bit of a novelty, so they get into it. Portland is no place to get famous, and every audience seems to be a niche audience. Which is nice way of saying it’s filled with Hippies and men who wear mascara.

Do you guys remember Edison’s? For those who don’t it was a room in Tremont that douche bag Michael Ivy ran, and filled it with his douche bag friends that all thought that they were the coolest person in the room…. I bombed there all the time. And the whole city of Portland is just like Edison’s Bar and Grill.. Irritatingly Liberal

It posed a problem when I first got here, I really only had one set of tricks but it worked consistently in Cleveland. Hit the stage loudly enough to drown out the Ukrainian woman yelling at the bar and build momentum from there. My initial struggle here is that approach frightened these hippies, and they reacted to me like I was passing out draft cards. But luckily, there is TONS AND TONS of Stage time here. I’m getting more stage time here than I would be in New York, and Portland’s relative obscurity leaves me the freedom to experiment and play.

Once I got over my initial hurdles, the audience started opening up to the level that the Experience demands…Portland is small, and I‘m even getting recognized from time to time which makes me feel like a big shot. Which never happened to me in Cleveland. But that being said, there is no A club (let alone 2), and it shows, aside from one or two stand-outs the local scene is really not all that funny, or original. They seem to lack the integrity that the Cleveland comics had. Which isn’t a criticism really, I think that’s everywhere, and that’s where Cleveland has it over Portland (and most local scenes, I suspect) is the quality of comedian, is way, way better.

So that’s it. that’s all I have to say about Portland. It was a good move for me, although I think the move itself had more importance than where I moved to, but Portland is a nice place to live, Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go recycle.

Love,

The Tim Cornett Experience