Culture Fiend

Auggie Smith Wins Seattle Int’l Comedy Competition

Seattle’s next top comic is from Portland.

Posted by: Laura Dannen on Nov 29, 2010 at 12:00PM 1 Comments

Auggie Smith, movin’ on up.

I guess it makes sense. Portland’s Auggie Smith did win the San Francisco Comedy Competition last month, and he had a permanent spot in the top five of SICC 2010. But he always seemed under the radar…a sleeper pick behind locals Drew Barth and Billy Wayne Davis, who seduced audiences in the early rounds.

Then along came Bremerton—the second-to-last show in the month-long contest. It blew people’s minds.

Quote the SICC blog: I don’t know what it is, but something about our shows at the Admiral Theater in Bremerton… the results that we get from this show so often jumble up the narrative of that year’s competition. This year is no different, as the judges took the expectations and shook them all up…

Auggie came firing right from the start of the show—earning multiple applause breaks in his set and setting the bar impossibly high for those who might follow him. Eddie Pence DID follow him and won the crowd over with his fearlessness and physicality. Billy Wayne Davis, so calm and in control on stage as he talks about a life that seems uncontrollable, delivered another solid performance. Drew Barth had another great set and the night closed with Dax Jordan having, possibly, the best set he’s had this entire competition.

By the time the comics left Bremerton, only a quarter point separated first and third place. It came down to last night’s finale at the Moore Theatre…

Final results:
1st Auggie Smith, Portland (wins $5,000 cash and a headlining spot at Seattle’s Comedy Underground).
2nd Billy Wayne Davis, Seattle.
3rd Dax Jordan, Portland.
4th Drew Barth, Seattle.
5th Eddie Pence, Los Angeles.

Smith is the first person to win both Seattle and San Fran’s comedy competitions in the same year. Get the man his own Comedy Central special.

We don’t have video from last night, but here’s a little slice of Smith:

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Tags: Comedy, Comedy, SICC 2010

Who Will Be Seattle’s Next Top Comic?

Drew Barth? Billy Wayne Davis? A guy from…Portland?!

Posted by: Lindsey Hall on Nov 23, 2010 at 10:30AM 0 Comments

SICC producer Ron Reid (far left) celebrates with this year’s top five finalists (from left): Auggie Smith, Billy Wayne Davis, Drew Barth, Dax Jordan, Eddie Pence. Photo courtesy SICC.

Set against the shellacked wood of the Hard Rock Cafe, Seattle’s Drew Barth continued his winning streak Sunday in the 31st Seattle International Comedy Competition, taking first place in the semifinals despite a hard-fought challenge by “thinking man’s hillbilly” Billy Wayne Davis, a Nashville-born Seattle transplant.

Coincidentally, Drew told us recently that one of his favorite jokes has a little something to do with a Hard Rock. It goes like this:

“I had a garage sale recently, because things are going well. And while I was kind of prepared for the haggling that people were going to do, I was blown away by their bizarre questions. I had a guy ask, “Hey, do you have any antique guitars or musical instruments?” “Uh, yeah, this place actually used to be an old Hard Rock Cafe. Let me just dig around in the back here… Now, do you want all of Eric Clapton’s guitars or just the ones he used when he was in Cream? Tell you what, while I look for Elton John’s gold piano, why don’t you give that bread maker another look.”

Barth and Davis will compete against Dax Jordan of Portland, Eddie Pence of Los Angeles, and Auggie Smith, also of Portland, in the finals, which are set to begin tonight with a private comedy show at the Washington Athletic Club (weather permitting. Where are those snow plows?!). Each comic has 15–20 minutes to wow the judges, and hope to be the last comic standing at the Moore Theatre on November 28. Keep an eye on Culture Fiend for the competition’s final results.

The winner of the 31st Seattle International Comedy Competition, chosen at the Moore on Nov 28, takes home $5,000 cash and a one-year contract with comedy label Uproar Records. For ticket info, click here.

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Tags: Comedy, SICC 2010, SICC 2010

Round 2 of the Seattle Int’l Comedy Competition Goes to…a Seattleite!

Phew. Locals represent and head to semis, which start tonight.

Posted by: Lindsey Hall on Nov 16, 2010 at 11:00AM 0 Comments

Drew Barth – Standup Comedy from Breathing Media on Vimeo.

Billy Wayne Davis had us at “y’all.” The Nashville native-turned-Seattle transplant killed with his “thinking man’s hillbilly” shtick and riffs on his Southern upbringing last Tuesday night at Comedy Underground. It was enough to snag him a top five spot in Round 2 of the 31st Seattle International Comedy Competition —a week of stand-up that included spot-on Jack Nicholson impressions and the saga of the life of a 5’10”, 120-pound tough guy. We’re also happy to report that Seattle’s Drew Barth—whose material we previewed in our November issue —- moved on to the semifinals with a routine about the perils of going streaking with the opposite sex. won Round 2 outright.

Matt Davis of Birmingham, Ala., Brad Brake of Seattle and AJ Finney of Kansas City round out the top five from this second stage of preliminaries. (Find the winners of Round 1 here.) They’ll compete this week in the semis, and then the top five comics move on to the finals over Thanksgiving weekend. Check back on Culture Fiend for updates on your favorite comedian’s rankings.

The winner of the 31st Seattle International Comedy Competition, chosen at the Moore on Nov 28, takes home $5,000 cash and a one-year contract with comedy label Uproar Records. For ticket info, click here.

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Tags: Comedy, SICC 2010

Round 1 of Seattle Int’l Comedy Competition Goes to…a New Yorker

Sigh. No Seattle love, but the contest is far from over.

Posted by: Lindsey Hall on Nov 10, 2010 at 11:00AM 0 Comments

2010 Seattle International Comedy Competition, Round 1 winners (l-r): Kortney Shane Williams (5th), Jan Barrett (host), Dax Jordan (4th), Eddie Pence (3rd), Auggie Smith (2nd), Joe List (1st). Photo courtesy SICC.

Sixteen comedians unleashed their best routines at the Vera Project on November 3, hoping to keep their comedy crown dreams alive in the 31st Seattle International Comedy Competition. The competitors earned laughs from the judges and twentysomething audience with riffs on their personal lives—delusional parents, trouble with kids, and nonexistent love lives were hot topics. Yet the night’s winner, Auggie Smith of Portland, stole the show with his hilarious examinations of trick-or-treating and small-city politics.

And after a week of traveling to comedy clubs around the Puget Sound, the field narrowed to five on November 8, as judges compiled each night’s scores to determine the semifinalists. Joe List of New York took round one’s top spot, while Smith (who won the San Francisco Comedy Competition earlier this year), Dax Jordan of Portland, Eddie Pence of Los Angeles, and Tampa’s Kortney Shane Williams rounded out the top five.

The second preliminary round continues this week with 16 new comedians (including locals Drew Barth and Nancy Reed) competing for the remaining five spots in the semifinals, which begin November 16 at Comedy Underground. Stay tuned for more updates from the comedy club trenches.

The winner of the 31st Seattle International Comedy Competition, chosen at the Moore on Nov 28, takes home $5,000 cash and a one-year contract with comedy label Uproar Records.

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Tags: Comedy, SICC 2010

On Sale Friday: Tickets to See Rainn Wilson

Dwight Schrute comes home for a special comedy show with surprises guests from The Office.

Posted by: Laura Dannen on Sep 15, 2010 at 01:00PM 1 Comments

Why so coy, Rainn?

Last time Rainn Wilson—star of NBC’s The Office—was in town, he told students at the University of Washington how…special Seattle was to him. “I was born and raised here in Seattle, and I went to Shorecrest High School. It’s a sucky high school. Trust me, it sucks. But while there, I did some very serious research for the character of Dwight Schrute…” Very serious research (which he elaborates on in Nerd for Life). Our city’s favorite cube dweller returns on October 23 for a special one-time, hometown-only comedy show to benefit the Mona Foundation —an event that includes surprise guests from the Office. (Please be Steve Carell, please be Steve Carell. Okay if it’s Jim or Kevin, okay if it’s Jim or Kevin.) UPDATE 9/27/10. Special guests announced: Craig Robinson (Darryl), Andy Grammer, Sean Nelson, and the Presidents of the United States of America are set to play an acoustic set. The show has also been moved to the larger Paramount Theatre.

Tickets ($28) for the benefit show at the Moore Paramount Theatre go on sale this Friday, September 17, at stgpresents.org or by calling 877-784-4849.

Wilson will also make a public appearance at the opening of the newest Kiehl’s Since 1851 store in Bellevue Square on October 23, from 10:30-noon, which, admittedly, sounds a bit random. But that means you might get to shake his hand, and it might be all silky smooth and freshly scented. The skincare stalwart will donate $15,000 to the Mona Foundation in conjunction with this event.

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Tags: Ticket Alerts, Comedy

Women Are Funny

Talking to Lizz Winstead, cocreator of The Daily Show

Posted by: Laura Dannen on Sep 14, 2010 at 11:00AM 0 Comments

Photo: Courtesy Mindy Tucker.

When fake news darling The Daily Show caught flack from Jezebel.com this summer for being ‘a boys’ club where women’s contributions are often ignored and dismissed,’ one of the first people to speak out in defense of DS was show cocreator Lizz Winstead. Who’s quite clearly a woman. Jon Stewart has since adopted her baby (“he raised it and it went to Harvard,” she’s said in earlier interviews), but Winstead helped pioneer the next generation of political satire—taking it to Comedy Central, Air America, Off-Broadway (Wake Up World), and on the road as a stand-up act. She’s in Seattle this Friday with her one-woman show My State of the Union, but she shared her love of information, hypocrisy, politics and the media for a Culture Fiend edition of Quote Unquote.

LW: My roots are in stand-up, that’s where I started.

I just feel like there need to be more voices in the world that combat all the insanity—like the crazy racism as we approached 9/11, with the mosque and the Quran burner—and just general media dropping-the-ballery that seems to happen on a daily basis.

It’d be nice if someone invented a fact-checking zap collar—like you put on your dog to make it stop barking—so every time [Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin] said something that was factually inaccurate, they would get jarred. I’m all for it.

The right has jumped on me for saying that—they said I’ve advocated the electrocution of Glenn Beck. If you Google “alleged comedian Lizz Winstead” you’ll find it.

I don’t think there are topics that are off-limits. It’s all about how you choose to frame your comedy. For example, if you were to tackle 9/11, you wouldn’t take on the victims, you might take on, say—like when the Onion launched their 9/11 page and it just said “Holy Fucking Shit!” I think that really summed it up.

You mean, what news sources do I read to make me smarter, versus the ones I read that make Americans dumber? I have to get through both.

I’ve gotten myself a little up-to-date on the Dino Rossi/Patty Murray crazy train. It’s awesome to come to a state where your governor and two senators are women—although there’s not a lot of excitement coming out of those three. It’s very stable.

First of all, I think Jezebel is completely dishonest. They send out all these reporters who know nothing about how television is made, and then write about a show that has done nothing but champion all people—40 percent of the staffers at The Daily Show are women.

Being somebody who hired the first batch of writers, I can tell you I got 150 writing submissions and only three from women. Since then, all names are stripped off the writing submissions, and you don’t know the gender of the person. It’s based purely on submission.

The fact of the matter is, it’s not a boys’ club or a girls’ club—it’s a nerd club. To be able to write in the voice of that show, you have to be equal parts historian and news junkie, and then be as funny of a writer as you are a complete news nerd. There just aren’t a lot of people who can do that. If there were, there would be more shows on television like those shows.

My State of the Union: An Evening with Daily Show Cocreator Lizz Winstead is Friday, September 17 at 8 and 10 at Theatre Off Jackson. Tickets are $15 on brownpapertickets.com. Winstead will also hold a political satire writing workshop on September 18 from 11 to 2 at Theatre Off Jackson; registration is $40 at brownpapertickets.com.

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Tags: Comedy, Celebrity Interview, Quote Unquote

Bald Man Cometh: Louis CK at the Moore

Tickets to see the comedian in November are on sale now.

Posted by: Laura Dannen on Aug 24, 2010 at 10:00AM 0 Comments

Didn’t want to make too big a deal about this but…um…Louis CK is coming to Seattle. You know: the funniest gruff, balding, middle-aged man alive. The only reason you watch FX, other than Always Sunny and the occasional rerun of X-Men movies. That guy. He’s coming to the Moore Theatre on November 12 to do a little stand-up, just for us. Tickets are $33, and they’re going fast. Find out more here.

Louis CK’s new FX show Louie airs Tuesdays at 11pm on FX.

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Tags: Ticket Alerts, Comedy

Seattle’s Nate Jackson Wins Bay Area Comedy Competition

Jackson joins the ranks of Jamie Foxx, DL Hughley, and Chris Tucker as champ of black comedy contest.

Posted by: Laura Dannen on Apr 23, 2010 at 10:00AM 0 Comments

I won?!

Nate Jackson had a lot of “almosts” on his resume until last weekend. Semi-finalist at the 2007 Bay Area Black Comedy Competition and Festival (BABCCF). First runner-up in the 2008 Seattle International Comedy Competition. Finalist in the 2008 California Comedy Festival.

But now the 26-year-old gets to add winner of the BABCCF to his Wiki page, after impressing the crowd at Oakland’s Paramount Theatre on April 17. He joins a list of pretty impressive alumni—Jamie Foxx, DL Hughley, Don “DC” Curry, Mark Curry (Mr. Cooper!), Katt Williams, Chris Tucker, and Nick Cannon—and enjoys the additional honor of being the first winner from the Pacific Northwest. Olympia native Jackson started out doing stand-up at Spokane comedy clubs (on a dare) as a student at Eastern Washington University; his first joke was about Michael Jordan’s divorce. Find out how it went over in the interview below, and check out some of his stand-up clips at natejacksoncomedy.com. Congrats, Nate.

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Tags: Comedy, Contest

Billy Connolly, Master of Profanity

After 40 years of doing stand-up, some things come naturally for the actor-comedian.

Posted by: Laura Dannen on Mar 10, 2010 at 09:00AM 1 Comments

When you’ve been doing stand-up for 40 years, certain things come naturally. Like swearing. “I’ve sworn all my life. I relax into the profane,” comedian Billy Connolly once said during a routine. “People say a limited vocabulary makes you swear. I don’t think so. I know at least 127 words.”

And shows like the ones scheduled for Seattle Repertory Theatre (March 12 and 13) don’t come scripted—they just happen. To craft his gregarious, bawdy sets, Connolly pulls from a lifetime of material: his childhood in Scotland; working in Glasgow’s shipyards; playing an “ultra-violent guy” in The Boondock Saints and a loveable teacher in Head of the Class; even the many manifestations of his beard.

So when he comes to Seattle, don’t ask him what he has planned. I already did. Let him wing it instead—with a wink, smile, and a curse.

It’s your first time here. What have you heard about Seattle?

When I lived in LA, lots of people were moving to Seattle because it was less insane and just as beautiful. They always talk about the rain—but then again, they always talk about the rain in Vancouver as well, and I’ve never actually noticed. I mean, I’ve been there in the rain but…I’m Scottish! Rain schmain. Give me a break. I’ve been on a campaign for years to stop weathermen from calling rain bad weather.

[But] I can’t wait to see the place. I want to see Frank Gehry. I think these are the designs of a drunk man. And [Seattle’s] the home of the coffee revolution. And you invented grunge. And Kenny G lives there! Or maybe he was just performing there.

What kind of show are you doing at Seattle Rep? What can we expect?

I don’t know. I’ll see when I get there. I have lots of stuff—old stuff and new stuff—and I like to make stuff up. I’ll try and get my instant feelings of Seattle, and … well, I don’t know! I haven’t a clue. That’s what I’ve done all my life.

Is there anything that’s been bothering you lately that you might vent about onstage?

Ermm, the smoking ban. Yeah. I smoke cigars and I would like a place to do it. I’m doing something completely legal and people are stopping me from doing it and I’m pissed off with the politically correct. I’m tired of people who have my best interests at heart. I could kick their bony asses. You know, leave me the fuck alone and stop trying to make me eat brown bread. … And cigar smokers are lovely people; they should be welcome in places! Unlike those awful cigarette smokers who poison the air.

Ha, how are cigar smokers different?

I don’t know what it is but I feel very at home with them. I’ve met very few cigar smokers I didn’t like, but I’ve met plenty of cigarette smokers I didn’t like. [Laughs.] Cigarette smokers differ from cigar smokers in as much as you’ll never see a circle of guys in a room talking about great cigarettes they’ve smoked. Nobody’ll be telling you about a 1956 Lucky Strike: It was amazing! I have it saved in a box.

What’s your best cigar story?

I’ve had a few great cigars. You know what I’ve got? I have a box of cigars called Cohiba Lancero signed by Fidel Castro. My friend’s a politician in Britain and he was meeting Fidel Castro, and I asked him to do it.

You’re coming to town right before St Patrick’s Day. Any plans for the holiday?

I’ve never done anything for St Patrick’s Day in my life. That’s when amateur drinkers go out. Real drinkers stay home. It’s like New Year’s—real drinkers stay home on New Year’s because the amateurs are out making an ass of it [laughs]. People going “woooo!” when they’re drinking.

Go “woooo” when Billy Connolly does stand-up at Seattle Repertory Theatre on March 12 & 13. Tickets are $45, available here.

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Tags: Seattle Repertory Theatre, Theater, Comedy, Billy Connolly