Archive for Happiness Information

Breaking Down The Breakdown

The Red Room is a very cool space in the KGB Bar on East 4th Street, coincidentally right next door to the new New York Comedy Club. And once a month comic/actor Boris Khaykin puts on a really unique variety-type show called The Breakdown with Boris Khaykin, with the help of producer Jeremy Moses.

I got invited to be a guest and went down the month before to check it out and needless to say, but I’ll say it anyway, I was duly impressed. Boris and his co-host Jawnee Conroy also a talented comedian and actor have created a very unique format, along with Boris’ co-writer and co-producer of the show Alex Estrada!

The audience warm up was not a stand-up comedian but a musical improviser named Rebecca Vigil. A great song came out of absolutely nowhere. Amazing. Then Boris and Jawnee took the stage and worked off each other for about 10 minutes or so, and then Exacto an amazing beatboxer did a solo performance that blew everyone away. It sounded like he swallowed a drum kit!

Then the first guest was called which happened to be me! I made a point of thanking Ethan “Exacto” Scott for his incredible performance and remarked that his teachers must have hated him because I’m sure he disrupted every class he was ever in.

I got to talk about my Amazon Best Seller book on Happiness, “Healing Your Heart, By Changing Your Mind – A Spiritual and Humorous Approach To Achieving Happiness”, a subject I felt the audience could relate to, and they did. We spoke about changing negative thoughts we were holding onto that were not working for us, and in doing so raising our self-esteem, and self-confidence and conquering the fear that tells us we can’t do something we’d like to accomplish. Fear is a bully and we have to stand up to it.

Speaking of fear, I even got to talk about how I cured myself of stuttering, and how people can overcome obstacles in their lives. I feel like it went well and the audience feedback was very positive.

We also discussed my hair and decided it was the exact opposite of Boris’ beard. If I turned my head upside down, I’d have something close to Boris’ beard, which is real by the way, and is what to aim for if you want to grow a beard.

Not everyone has the genetics for it, so don’t feel compelled to grow a beard if you can’t because believe me, no one is interested in your INTERPRETATION of a beard! You either have one or you don’t. There’s a big difference between having a beard, and just having hair on your face! None of that patchy shit! (LOL)

I talked about hair establishing your identity which is why in the Army they shave off your hair right away to make everyone the same and take away your own personal identity. I also said that “Most men wear their hair like they’re embarrassed for having any” and someone in the audience created an immediate meme for Instagram which I thought was very cool!

Then after my interview segment some talented improv artists, Nick Carillo, Katie Hartman, got up and did a sketch using the facts from my interview as inspiration, and that’s always fascinating to me that someone can remember so much of what somebody else said. I have a hard time remembering someone’s name immediately after being introduced to them! (LOL) And then there was a sketch in which Lauren Kahn played Jawnee’s ex-girlfriend.

Next up as a guest was Jamilah Lemieux named in 2015 to The Root’s (the magazine, not Jimmy Fallon’s band) Root 100 list of the nation’s most influential African-American citizens.

She’s a journalist, columnist, cultural critic and editor and afterwards told me she’ll be moving to L.A. to try and get into writing for TV. She’s already got an idea for a script and she wants to do stand-up comedy.

Speaking of stand-up comedy, Emmy Blotnick was the purely stand-up comedy segment of the show and I was glad to finally meet her. Of all things she did some “dental humor” and joked about having to wear a nightguard to protect against the damage caused by grinding and clenching the teeth. How could she have known that was my specialty? Anyway it gave us something to bond over! ( Bonding, … get it? LOL)

And then there was the big close with Boris and Jawnee back on stage, and lots of people hung out to just party because it’s that kind of a hang. Next month’s show will feature Richard Kind, and I’m sure it will be hilarious so make sure to go check it out. I had a BLAST!!!

So until next time we meet please remember that COMEDY MATTERS!!!

Please like, comment and SUBSCRIBE to my Comedy Matters TV YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/guriannewsnetwork and follow me on Twitter and IG at @jeffreygurian

See you all soon!

 

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Ashley Madison – Not What You Think

Ashley Madison – Not What You Think

Most of the time when you hear the names Ashley and Madison together the website for people who cheat on their spouses pops into mind. Now there’s a whole new affiliation since two talented comedians Ashley Austin Morris and Madison Malloy got together to create the Ashley and Madison Podcast.

And I got the honor of being their first guest! At least that’s what they told me! (LOL) Besides being a stand-up comic Ashley, originally from Texas, is also an accomplished actress who you may know from her role as Francine Carruthers in the  revival of the PBS Kids children’s series The Electric Company, or from her appearances on The Big Bang Theory and Desperate Housewives.

Madison Malloy has been a staple of the stand-up comedy scene for a while, and has performed all over the country, in clubs, at festivals, and on radio and TV as well. The two of them together are a dynamite combination, and prove that you can be funny and still be beautiful! Many legendary women in comedy’s past like Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, and Phyllis Diller have had to downplay their looks to make themselves palatable for the public to laugh at, because as a society despite what some may think, we’re trained to treat women respectfully which makes it harder to laugh “at them.”

These days women own their power and come out on stage looking any way they choose. Our podcast day started with them offering to travel on the subway with me to Brooklyn so I could find the studio more easily. I had a better idea and offered to drive, which they liked, so the day started with them meeting me at my home, which is like a comedy museum, with photos going back decades.  In many of the photos I actually let someone else be in there with me! (LOL) Some people say I have more on my walls than some comedy clubs! (LOL)

                                         Such a fun day!

They asked for the tour and what impressed Ashley the most was that I had a phone mounted in one bathroom right next to the commode. I had seen this at The Four Seasons hotel and decided that “hotel chic” was for me. She asked if she could try it out and was so excited she forgot to pull down her pants! Ooops!!!

I got so excited with this phone, I can’t believe I forgot to pull down my pants! Good thing I’m wearing black!

And then just like that, we were on our way to their studio, The Brooklyn Podcasting Studio, in Park Slope, Brooklyn. When we got there our parking karma was right on the money and we got a great spot.  Then they led me to a garage. And I thought, is this gonna be like a Marc Maron thing where he does WTF from his garage?

But no it was more like a hidden speakeasy kind of thing where you had to walk through a garage and go up a couple of flights of stairs to get to this really cool studio. I thought we were gonna have to give some guy a password.

The studio had a big beautiful wooden round table/console set  up with a bunch of mics, in a very cool room with lots of snacks, and it was run by a great guy named Josh Wilcox, the manager and lead engineer who was very helpful and made sure that the sound was perfect and that everything went smoothly.

He also was kind enough to take some photos while everything was going on.

                           Jeffrey making a point!

They wanted to talk about my new book on Happiness called “Healing Your Heart, By Changing Your Mind – A Spiritual and Humorous Approach To Achieving Happiness” which hit Best Seller status on Amazon, and how I used the concept of changing your thoughts to cure myself of a severe stutter that plagued me well into my 20’s and beyond.

In reality it’s more about overcoming obstacles in our lives, which we all face. The concept is that we’re all holding thoughts that are not valid for us. Most of the time they are negative thoughts about ourselves, given to us by people who did not have our best interests at heart.

Sometimes it was our parents.  Other times bullies, school “friends”, people we dated, worked with or were married to. Those negative thoughts hold us back. They affect our self-esteem, our self-confidence and every decision we make in our lives. Every time you have to decide what to do you use your thoughts to decide but if your thoughts are faulty your decisions won’t work out for you.

 

                  You understand, … don’t you? 

In order to be Happy, you literally have to “change your mind.” Anyway even though this stuff sounds kind of serious we had a lot of laughs along the way, and the three of us had a great connection. The girls are so funny, and we were all on the same wavelength. It just flowed.

                Jeffrey making another point!

Then we had a fun ride back to the city trading stories, and we all made plans to do something cool together. More on that to come!

In the meantime the podcast officially launches this Monday Feb. 4th wherever you can listen to a podcast. My episode probably won’t air till March, but that’s ok.  Good things are worth waiting for!

                              See how Happy we look?

Until then remember, … COMEDY MATTERS!!!

Please subscribe to Comedy Matters TV on You Tube at https://www.youtube.com/guriannewsnetwork and follow Jeffrey on Twitter and IG at @jeffreygurian

 

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Tom Shillue Is A Killer … Host

Tom Shillue Is A Killer … Host

Tom Shillue is a multi-talented performer.  He’s a stand-up comic who often tours with Jim Gaffigan, he’s a TV and radio personality, an author and he sings in a barbershop quartet, and if you don’t believe me just go to You Tube and watch him singing as one of the Rag Time Gals with Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon to Justin’s Sexy Back.  It’s hilarious! And it’s got over 15 MILLION views!!! Just like MY columns! (LOL)

I’m proud to say that Tom and I go way back.  Back to when he was doing small shows with an ensemble group. I always knew he’d do big things.  Now he’s got his own show three hours a day on Fox News Radio.  I was thrilled to be asked to appear.

I went on with fellow comic and friend Jimmy Failla in the third hour and we had a blast!

WITH JIMMY FAILLA AND TOM SHILLUE

Tom had just finished taking calls on “The Wall.”  My point if I had been asked to make it, was that you could be the greatest humanitarian in the world, and care with all your heart for everyone, but would you ever leave the front door to your home wide open for just anyone to enter? Our border is the door to America which is our home.  You always have to be careful who you let in.

We had to discuss stories from the news like:

  1.  People going crazy while waiting on extremely long lines for salads, because people’s New Year’s resolutions were to lose weight, so salad bars were overrun. People are INSANE! Plus there is an undercurrent of anger in our society today and it’s palpable.  Everyone is angry at something!
  2. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez’s dance video – we all agreed that she was an energetic and spirited dancer which is basically everything you’d want in a representative.

https://t.co/ZfYVw8yEpK

       3.  Ellen Degeneres facing backlash after defending Kevin Hart – she put him in an awkward situation where he                    could do nothing else but agree that he’d “evaluate” reprising his role as host of The Oscars.  Basically no one                  wants to host the show and risk their career by possibly offending the group of people sitting at home waiting                   to be offended by something.

     4. The Bachelor contestant who pretended to be Australian by using an Aussie accent- and when asked where she                was from replied, ” The accent, it’s Australian” never saying that SHE was Australian, just the accent.  I thought              she did quite a good job. It’s not that easy to imitate an accent!

      5. And one story we didn’t get to was that bathrooms which have been getting lots of press lately, in particular                    Men’s Rooms, will soon be equipped with changing tables so that Dad’s taking care of their infants won’t have to            crouch down and change them on the floor anymore. They will have the same facilities as Ladies’ Rooms, which              actually makes sense!

Tom is performing in a series of live shows around the country with Greg Gutfeld former host of “Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld” on the Fox News Channel who Tom replaced back in 2015, and who is one of five co-hosts on the Fox News political talk show The Five.

It’s the Gutfeld Monologues Tour and they will be in Tampa on March 2nd and W. Palm Beach on March 3rd.Tom will be doing some stand-up and then introducing  and interviewing Greg,  and in some way it kind of reminds me of the kind of shows that Dave Chappelle who does with John Mayer, combining both of their talents.

Tom has a hit book called “Mean Dads For A Better America” and we even got to plug MY two new books, the audio version of my Amazon Best Seller on Happiness “Healing Your Heart, By Changing Your Mind  – A Spiritual and Humorous Approach To Achieving Happiness” with great reviews from M.D.’s, psychiatrists, psychologists, and people who run recovery centers,

Order on Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/y86edojd

and my newest book with the comedy lowdown on 13 of our biggest holidays called “Holiday Hilarity- A Humorous History of Celebration” which also recently hit Best Seller status on Amazon, and has fun reviews from international comedy star Gad Elmaleh, Bert Kreischer, Andrew “Dice” Clay, The Lucas Brothers, and even Countess LuAnn from the Real Housewives of New York!

 

Order on Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/yaqamcgy

 

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