Comedian Ari Shaffir

I know Canada and America are supposed to be allies, but I think what their Canadian poutine is doing should be considered an act of war against my American asshole. The problem is the poutine is acting in much the same way as alcohol works through an excited to drink, freshman college student’s insides. If he takes 1 shot every 8 minutes for 48 minutes, and it takes 12 minutes for a shot to work through his system enough for the alcohol to affect his level of inebriation and he first feels drunk, that means he feels drunk when the 4th shot hits goes through his system. Which means he’s by the time he’s realized he’s had enough, he’s still got 3 shots coming down the pipes about to send him to a place where he’ll realize an amount of barfing he previously never imagined possible. Well, if I ate poutine six out of my first eight days there, and it didn’t start to give me the super shits until 5 days after I started eating it, how many more days would the poutine be turning my asshole into dirty drippy faucet? The answer is six. For six days I took more loose mini dumps than I had taken during the whole year so far. I probably went to the bathroom 19 times in the first 4 days. And each one pushed my hemorrhoid further outward towards the heavens. Gross.

So two of the things to which I was looking forward, happened. Andy Kindler’s “State of the Industry” address and Louis CK was doing a full concert at one of the theaters. Kindler’s speech was awesome. I sat between Rich Vos and the owner of Philadelphia’s, Helium Comedy Club. I’ve always had a great time there and I’ll be back with Rogan for two shows in August before the UFC. Anyway, Kindler’s speech was awesome. He writes a new hour of comedy about only the industry every year. And every year it’s different. That’s really amazing. Plus, it’s not like he can even work out that material on the road. Half the jokes are only understood by the people in that room. It’s amazing that he can get that done. It’s even more amazing that the speech is funny. I loved it. One thing I noticed is that way more producer type people were there than I had previously been around. By producer types, I mean non-creative types. And there were a lot of networking douchebags who kept needing to look around to see who else “big” was in the audience with them. It was distracting to see people’s necks turn nearly 180 degrees away from the performer on stage. A true artist was performing very unique material to an extremely specific audience and these uninteresting mosquitos were turning away and tuning out in order to pre-network. I get nauseous at shit like that. The large majority of them sat in rapt attention. But the scene between me and Andy looked like a sky full of fireflies, only instead of lights I saw Hollywood cliches straining their gullets.

Louis CK performed at midnight at this beautiful theater across the street from Club Soda. It was the same place Broken Lizard performed, but this time was even more packed. The only real non-standup draw this man has is a failed sitcom on HBO 2 years ago. Since then, he’s built his draw by recording two hour long specials. He absolutely destroyed to a crowd full of people who were excited to see him. I bet there were around 2000 people there, And he was killing. Later he told me that of the first hour he did, there wasn’t one joke that was ready for filming yet. He was doing that well with material that wasn’t ready. The new special he’s doing this for is going to be just sick. He was really excited that it went so well, too. I really like that. That he seemed truly happy that he performed well and that so many people showed made me feel happier for him and happier to have gotten to see it.

And then I went to one last show and saw something which made me laugh harder than anything else at the festival had in 12 days. Reggie Watts was hosting this 1 am show that I was on. First of all, I had never seen Reggie Watts live before. It’s actually an amazing thing to watch. The man makes beautiful, interesting music while he weaves in intermittent laughs and wild performance. And he hosted the show like how I feel a real host should. He did time before and after every single act. If you’re hosting a show with 7 or 8 acts like that or more, you’re not just warming up the crowd and bringing people on. It’s your show, and to a degree you’re allowing the other performers to be a part of it. I feel like not enough comics understand that. Anyway, it was a late, light crowd and a lot of the comics were just telling stories, trying to connect with the audience on what seemed like their energy level. And then Reggie Watts explained that since the show was running behind, there wasn’t enough time for all the performers, so two of the comics decided to do standup together. So Rory Scoville and Jon Dore came out together. These are usually interesting things, when comics that don’t perform together decide to be a duo. When I do things like that, it’s usually a sketch where I get into a staged argument with my new parther. Something weird like that. So that’s what I figured these guys were going to do. But they didn’t. They took the stage and made their way to their mics. Then they paused for a moment and each of them started doing their own acts at the same time. It was a really funny concept that they kept going for, like, 30 seconds before I started wondering how long they could sustain that joke. 10 minutes. 10 God damn minutes this went on for and it never stopped being hilarious. One of them would pause for where there would normally be laughter and then you could make out just a few random words by the other guy. Things like, “Not on my watch, buddy.” and “So that’s how you dispose of a body in Tucson.” Those weren’t what they said, but they were things like that. So that was funny for a few solid minutes and then it went into this other stage where you could sort of concentrate on what one was saying over the other if you only looked at one guy. So then you’d actually here their really funny material for a while and you’d laugh at that. And then after you laughed, the comic would pause and you’d hear the other guy say something like, “Three faggots don’t make an army,” and you’d shift your attention to the other. They used impressions and at one point Jon Dore started getting real preachery on stage like a late Bill Hicks. The whole thing was absolutely amazing and I was so glad that I had stayed for that rather than go to the JFL wrap up party a little earlier. Granted, I had gotten high before the show with Reggie and Rory, but I stand behind my statement that it was the most awesome thing I had seen.

Then we all headed over to that party. We got in right as it was ending. I saw this girl that I was super into who reminded me of Allison Dynamite. God, this girl intrigued me sexually. But she does this thing where she spreads her attention around to all the guys in a bar and I’m just so against playing any sort of cockfighting game, that I just stop working to try and make out with a hot girl that was seemingly into the idea. I just didn’t want to bother. There was some after party that everyone was going to, but it was 3:30 and though I wasn’t tired, I just didn’t know if I wanted to commit to another scene and kind of ruin the good taste of my trip by trying in vain to catch the eye of a girl I want to fuck only to have her ignore me while she makes her rounds. Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s perfectly justifiable for her to want attention from a bunch of guys, I just don’t feel like getting involved with it. Also, it helps that I had already cum that day. It’s amazing how much less I’m willing to put up with after a good nut. It’s like my friend Joe Rogan says on stage, “Jerk off first, then think about it.” And I’m always amazed at how much a decent blast can clear your head and allow you to think straight.

So I’ll skip a bunch of story and just say that I woke up somewhere in the city far from my hotel. Apparently, I was not going to receive a ride back. It was a 40 minute walk back. I probably should’ve cabbed it, but I didn’t have enough Canadian money left to pay for the ride and I’m to Jewey to break an American hundred dollar bill. So I walked. I decided to take a detour and take the hike to the top of Mount Royal. There’s this trail, guess, that’s supposed to go up to the top of the mountain at the edge of Montreal. I heard it was 40 minutes to the top, but I kept thinking of quitting for the last 15 minutes. It probably took me an hour. It was so worth it, though. At the top of this place there’s a ledge where you can see the entire city of Montreal with the water separating it from the mainland. It’s such an awesome view and it’s so rewarding after you made that long hike. I totally recommend anybody doing that if you’re there on a nice morning. The hike wasn’t even that difficult. It was just long. Plus, I didn’t ever know how much longer it was going to be because you could never see the summit until you were 10 yards away and all the signs going up there were in French only and I’m too scared of French speakers to initiate conversation in English unless it’s absolutely necessary. Then I walked down the short way (there’s a short way I didn’t know about) and then through the city.

I bought a Cuban cigar right after I got off the mountain and smoked that as I walked through one of the most beautiful cities I’ve been to on a beautiful 78 degree day. I probably walked for about an hour, found myself getting a silk screened poutine shirt made and running over to Schwartz’s for a smoked meat sandwich to go while the t-shirt was being printed. I packed my shit, took a shower, handed out all my left over weed to locals, ate my sandwich, said goodbye to as much of the JFL staff as I could, split 1 and a half breath strips with Nick Thune, and made my way to the airport.

It was a really fun trip. It made it way more fun that I was having really great sets for 12 days. The Cuban told me not to try anything that only sort of works. Just throw them all closers from the moment you get up there, till the day you leave. And that’s what I tried to do. No fucking around. Just showcasing what I can do at a festival dedicated to comedy. I held my own with everybody there and people who had never heard of me took at least a modicum of notice. I saw a lot of great comedians that I look up to, and for about a week and a half, I didn’t feel out or my element talking to them, drinking with them or performing on shows with them. And I performed for probably near 10,000 people in that time. The whole experience was great. Now back to getting bumped to the end of lineups because I don’t have enough credits.