I’m really bad at this. REEEEALLY bad. “Would you like to cover comedy on the site,” asked Dakin. “Sure!” says I. Two months after SF Sketchfest, a big pile of nothing! Apologies for underserving and under-performing. I aim to rectify the dearth with a slew of silly pictures and impassioned descriptions.
The Underground.
This Saturday is going to be nuts! Guy Branum is scary talented, awe-inspiringly versatile and perfectly platformed in the bowels of Lost Weekend Video, San Francisco’s darling indie comedy venue. Guy is a beacon of the digital underground, fiery and loquacious, and promises to be a tour de force.
Honorable Mentions:
Standup at the Knockout with the surging David Gborie if you’re in the Outerish Mission.
Critical Hit the burgeoning, rough and tumble, nerd-housed showcase if you’re in Oakland.
Give Me Fiction with Ivan Hernandez, cochair of Boars, Swords and Gore and innumerable stand-up credits, offers a mostly-humorous take on the City’s literary collectives (e.g. Shipwrecked, Write Club). Every month features a different theme—this month’s being “Influence—and every piece shares a commonality of freshness (especially from the atypically prose-y comedians).
Kelly Anneken is tirelessly efficient, be it editing Hobopancakes, her literary magazine, or running the all-feminist sketch collective Femikaze, or blustering on the stand-up circuit. She’ll be doing the stage-talking on 4/12 and recording it for a 20-minute EP (very chic). Kelly is extremely funny, thought-provoking and no-nonsense funny, proving you can be a bleeding-heart modernist with an aged cynicism. FULL DISCLOSURE: I’m performing on the 8pm show.
I don’t get invited to many sketch comedy shows. Loyalty is a huge proponent of patronage and thus this token selection is entirely suspect BUT, I’m excited for the Leftovers. We’re chocked full of improv and overrun with stand-up, alas, the sketch community never gets it due and it’s entirely time for a big ole’ hug for the newish kids on the block.
Avengers of Comedy at San Francisco Punch Line on 4/22. Ugh! Another flock of nerds! I kid, I’m a big fan/friend of all involved. I specifically need to showcase this because LOOK AT THAT POSTER! I love comedy posters because they don’t have to explain anything it’s about! Caitlin Gill, big dawg cat-lady and perennial favorite, is headlining and she’s worth the price of admission. Ah! Design!
The Clubs
San Francisco Punch Line is one of the best comedy clubs in country and after dozens of album recordings, hundreds of legendary performances and thousands of laughs, it continues to be regarded as “the club” to perform regardless of where a comedian is in their career. My inside-baseball, card-carrying comedy nerd suggestion is for you to see either Will Durst (this weekend) or Jake Johannsen (4/16–4/19). Both are standouts from SF’s comedy gold rush in the 1980s. Both are comic’s comics. Will Durst is an expert political comedian who, technically speaking, argues for the middle, slanted to the left while miming the right. Jake Johannsen has a trademark a dry, rich cadence that’s great to soak in regardless of what he’s saying. They might not be the most daring or outrageous jokesters in the Bay Area, but each brings a masterdom to the craft that should be experience at least once.
Honorable Mention: Fortune Feimster (4/10-4/12). I’m still getting familiarized with Fortune but she was phenomenal in Conan.
Cobb’s Comedy Club: A colossal hanger of a venue. Sure, Brian Posehn is a consistently-funny agro, nerd icon, and Doug Benson’s 420 Countdown sounds as San Francisco as it gets, but you should check out Chelsea Peretti, a Bay native on the precipice of superstardom (to the surprise of no one, she’s been amazing for a while). I caught Chelsea last year at the Punch around this time, and it was exhilarating to see such a poised, personal, silly, and spry headliner. American Treasure tour, one night only, Thursday night (the new Friday), highly recommended.
That’s it! These are my reccomendations! If I missed anything, comment below and if I get enough people calling me on my shit, I will write a supplemental piece. Also, check out @ojpatterson and @courtingcomedy because you know, there’s stuff there.
