Posts Tagged Esther Ku

COMEDY MATTERS HOLIDAY ROUNDUP WITH TUMUA, COLIN QUINN, ESTHER KU, VERMONT COMEDY FESTIVAL, COMEDY HOLIDAY PARTIES AND LOTS MORE!!!

TUMUA PACKS GOTHAM COMEDY CLUB

It’s not often that I get to see a performer I don’t know or haven’t seen before, especially one with so much heat behind them. Such is the case with Tumua who was one of the closing acts of this year’s New York Comedy Festival.

Tumua is from Oahu, Hawaii and I was surpised to see what a huge following he had in New York, attested to by the sold out show at Gotham I attended. There’s a lot of Hawaiian people in New York that I was not aware of! And they all came out for him.

His website describes him as an actor, stand-up comedian, former collegiate athlete, and social media personality, with a combined online social media presence of more than 400,000 followers.  His social media sketches and stand-up bits on Tik Tok are very well known in the Polynesian community throughout the world!  

He sells out stadiums, and in December 2021, Tumua sold out the Blaisdell Concert Hall three times in Honolulu, Hawaii (2,100 seater) within hours!  He also recently sold out the Blaisdell Arena (6,500 seater) this past November, 2022. His 2023 tour is called “Not Even Joking.”

​A lot of his humor is geared towards his particular audience but it struck me funny when he said he has trouble at Starbucks when he orders something and they ask him his name to put on the cup. He orders a latte and then says “Tumua” and the barista says, “So that’s three latte’s then? You want two more? That line stuck with me.

At the end of his act he asked the audience to join him in a song, and surprisingly enough they did, … and they all knew the words, plus waving i-phone flashlights and everything like it was a concert at MSG! See the video below.

UP LATE ON STATEN ISLAND

I don’t get to Staten Island too often. I performed at The Looney Bin a couple of times, and went out to do Chris Distefano’s podcast Chrissy Chaos, with my bud The Homeless Pimp, but it’s not a common occurrence for me. My pal Frank Morano has an awesome show on WABC Radio called The Other Side of Midnight and he’s a great guy, so when he suggested I do his friend’s show “Up Late With Johnny Potenza” out on Staten Island, I was like ” I’m there.”

It was a fun show and I got to be on Johnny’s Christmas Show with my old friend Tom Waites who performed several songs with his band. A good time was had by all!

JEWISH HUMOR REIGNS AT STAND UP NEW YORK

There was a time when almost all comedians were Jewish and even the ones who weren’t were after being in the biz for enough time. Stand Up New York’s Dani Zoldan had the Chosen Comedy Festival this past summer which I was privileged to attend, along with about 4,000 other members of the tribe, and last month he had a comedy show in support of Israel.

Periel Aschenbrand was the host, a job she does so well, and Michael Rapaport opened the show with a very strong message, followed by performers like Keren Margolis who blamed her parents for not knowing how to spell “Karen”, Jewish rapper Kosha Dillz who’s been going viral on TikTok for his amazing videos. and Aaron Berg who came up wearing an amazing jacket that an Eskimo might wear to keep warm in the tundra!

COLIN QUINN AT THE VERMONT COMEDY FESTIVAL

I had always heard great things about Vermont, but I’m not a skier and for whatever reason never wound up going. Then I got contacted by two young comics named Collen Doyle and Matt Vita who produce the Vermont Comedy Festival. I’m always impressed by people who undertake such ambitious projects. I know how much effort it takes to produce a single comedy show. To produce an entire festival is a huge endeavor and takes a tremendous amount of work. It also deserves a tremendous amount of praise for pulling it off.

I was brought up to perform but also to be the official interviewer for the festival, with almost 60 comics attending from all over the country, having done that after covering JFL for 30 years, the NY Comedy Festival, the Las Vegas Comedy Festival and so many major comedy events. Last year they had Joe List as the headliner. I called Joe and got a good recommendation regarding his experience with the festival.

Then they asked me if I could help get a big star as the headliner. Top of their list was Colin Quinn a friend of mine for more than 30 years. So Colin agreed to be the headliner with an hour plus show at the Woodstock Town Hall Theater, a beautiful theater that holds 400 people. Needless to say it was sold out.

WITH COLIN QUINN CIRCA 2005

The highlight of the weekend for me was taking a little road trip with Colin to a place we both wanted to visit and then spending a couple of days together sharing meals and reminiscing about fun times over the years. We both had lots of stories to share, like when I attended his very first one man show called “An Irish Wake.” Besides Jackie Mason comics weren’t really doing one man shows in those days. I’ll never forget it!

We got to perform together at the Woolen Mill Comedy Club owned by Collen Doyle on the first official night of the festival, and then I got to open for him at his headline show at the Town Hall Theater. We went over in the afternoon to check out the space, and also to be able to see where it was because there are literally no lights in Vermont! (LOL)

I know they have electricity but the roads have no lights so if you don’t know exactly where you’re going once it gets dark, you can’t see the road signs, and you can wind up literally driving into the woods, which is what happened to me the night I got there. Thank G-d for GPS.

The festival connected me with a great videographer named Chris Gramuglia who was my interview partner for the entire time and also filmed the shows. He made it easy! All I had to bring was my Comedy Matters TV hand held mic and my custom mic flag and that was it. On the day of Colin’s headline show we shot this little video at an afternoon industry event featuring Abbey Robertson who books the headliners at New York Comedy Club. I made sure to shout out NYCC owner Emilio Savone for all that he does in the comedy world, and taught Collen Doyle that there’s more than one way to spell Colin! (LOL) And if you don’t believe me just ask Colin Quinn and Colin Jost!!!

We were put up in a beautiful hotel called 506 On The River, with great food, a super attentive staff, a beautiful restaurant, and great ambiance, and while we had some downtime the day of his headlining show I took the opportunity to do a little interview about what he was currently working on, to prep for his show on Dec. 18th at The Fat Black Pussycat, where he had a residency, and how he develops his material. This is what he said!

“Most of my material is still undeveloped. Like I write it, try and memorize it but then when you go on stage you realize it’s undeveloped and you only develop it by working it out in front of a crowd. So you always have to work to another level. Like in movies they stop developing which is why most movies are bad and stand up is funny, because movies, they develop it, then they shoot it, and put it out in front of an audience, maybe with two test audiences, and then it’s finished. They don’t redo it.”

“Like if you did a movie like where you ran it for 80 days, in front of like 80 audiences, then that would be like standup. That’s how stand-up works. Even if the producer comes in and re-edits the film they are re-editing it with THEIR taste. Our editing is with the help of 100 audiences.”

Then I asked him about his connection to The Comedy Cellar. He said it was “his favorite place on the planet. And it was always that way. The first time I saw it I was like this is what comedy is supposed to look like, and I still feel that way. I LOVE it!!!”

“Like with anything else, sometimes you have to take a break, but In general MacDougal Street is my favorite street ever, and to me The Cellar IS MacDougal Street. It’s my favorite place ever! Noam kept the tradition alive that his Dad Manny started.” He even had admiration for Ava, Manny’s wife who he said is a great artist and lives in the building next to The Cellar. “The Cellar is just a magical place, that’s how I feel about it!”

At the end of the weekend we drove back to NY together, over 5 hours through a terrific rainstorm to get home, and thank G-d we trusted Waze which took us around a terrible accident allowing me to get to a venue for VIP Talent as a keynote speaker! And all the VIP’ers were so excited to meet Colin Quinn!

HOLIDAY PARTIES ABOUND

One of the things that makes holiday time so special are the parties where people who often don’t see each other for a while get to hang out and celebrate the season. Such is the case for the comedy community. Below I will post photos from just some of the parties I attended.

New York Comedy Club’s party was packed as usual and I got to catch up with Adam Gilbert who won their 8th annual Fall Competition. It was also where Joe DeRosa, … who also supplied the sandwiches from his Joey Roses sandwich shop, … asked me to be the official mascot/’dancer for Salsa Windfall, his band with Paul Chell that recently headlined Arlene’s Grocery. At that show they played the music video I starred in called “Mouth On My Money” currently up on You Tube, with special effects thanks to The Homeless Pimp, and it was fun to see how many people reccognized me from that fun video. Part of it is below! I can’t wait to shoot more videos with those guys!

These are some photos from the party at The Stand.

And then there are these :

ESTHER KU IN NEW YORK

Esther Ku and I go back quite a ways. I remember helping her prepare for her appearance on Last Comic Stranding which was back in 2008, when she was just a little baby comic! (LOL) And then years later she was one of my special guests on Sirius XM with Ron and Fez!

WITH ESTHER KU UP AT SIRIUS XM’S RON AND FEZ SHOW-2014

Now she headlines all over the country so when I heard she’d be doing a show at Arthouse Hotel which is part of Stand Up NY, I knew I had to be there. Also she told me she wanted me to meet Mango her little rescue dog. She came dressed as Mrs Claus and she’ll be doing The Brokerage in Bellmore this coming Saturday December 30th!

Since it was the night of Christmas it was a small show and we talked about that after her set. Most people are home with their families on holidays while comedians are out trying to make strangers laugh. Such a crazy business!

THE LOVE FOR PATRICE O’NEAL GOES ON

Hard to believe it’s been 12 years since Patrice left us. It was Nov. 29th, 2011 and wherever I go guys still stop me who were fans of Patrice and what we did on The Black Phillip Show. At one of the parties just a couple of weeks ago a young guy came over to me and asked if we could take a photo. I do that anyway with anyone who mentions Black Phillip, and I keep them in a folder. He posted it on IG as people tend to do these days! (LOL)

When I was performing in Japan back in 2019, I left the stage and a guy named Devin came over to me all excited that he had been a fan of the show. At Skankfest one year two guys from Ireland came over to me, and one night near the Comedy Cellar two brothers from Africa came over to tell me they were fans of Patrice and the show. Not “brothers” due to their ethnicity but they were really biological brothers! (LOL)

The love for Patrice is still so strong because of the person he was. To me he was not just a comedian, he was a comedy philosopher, and it was truly one of my greatest honors when he named me a co-host of the show. This is a phone call I treasure which I received at 4:05 A.M. the first night we did the show together. I keep it on my phone, and I added stills going back through my history with Patrice.

So today as I’m writing this I was so moved to receive text messages from Patrice’s Mom Georgia who was kind enough to remember me on the holidays. I’m sure she wouidn’t mind me sharing what she wrote, because it meant the world to me as did my friendship with Patrice:

What a great Christmas present! And on that note I want to wish you all HAPPY, HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND ALL GOOD THINGS FOR THE COMING YEAR! 2024, LET’S GO!!!

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Comedians Rule Boy Band

With comedian/actor/writer Seth Herzog

When you hear the words “Boy Band” maybe you think of The Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, or New Kids on the Block. Well change that image cause from now on you’re gonna be thinking of Seth Herzog, Dave Hill, Jordan Carlos and Steve Agee, who played part of a gay couple with Brian Posehn on the Sarah Silverman Program.

(L-R) Stephen Levinson, Dave Hill, Jordan Carlos, Joel Levinson and Seth Herzog

All four of the above are comedians who thanks to first time feature screenwriters Joel and Stephen Levinson play members of a boy band called “The Heartthrob Boyz” who were wildly successful in the 90’s,  and went into the studio 15 years ago to record an album and are still there working on the same album. They’ve aged, gained weight and lost hair but didn’t lose their childish sense of humor.

Joel and Steven wrote the script together and Joel directed it. They screened it last night at the Chelsea Music Hall on West 15th Street in Manhattan and preceded the screening with a VIP cocktail party at 7 P.M. I who am never late for anything was literally the first one there which is how I got to talk with Joel and Steve, and Seth who was there early too making sure that everything went smoothly, which it did.

Stephen Levinson holding the film poster with his brother Joel Levinson

I brought the lovely, talented and amazing Jessica Robinson with me, who is kind of my muse, and we had the best time!

The Levinson boys wrote the script over a six month period and shot it in 10 days in Yellow Springs, Ohio, the home of independent film! (JK) They shot it there because it’s near Dayton where they live and because that’s where they had connections for locations and also they said that the rates of everything else were much lower. ( Lower than New York? Who would have believed it? LOL)

I always like to know how things come about so I asked them how they met Seth Herzog. They met through comedy writer Rob Kutner who wrote for The Daily Show and Conan through a project called Purim Shpiel, a sketch comedy show in honor of the Jewish holiday of Purim, and Seth always played a wicked character named Haman, who to this day is responsible for Jewish people eating what’s called Hamantashen on the holiday of Purim, actually coming up later this month. (Google it!)

They said that Seth played the perfect asshole so he was the first one cast in Boy Band to play the bad boy of the group. He’s also a producer on the film. Last May at a John McEnroe charity event at Carolines on Broadway where I covered the red carpet I got to interview my buddy Seth and he told me all about Boy Band before it was shot.

The film was loaded with recognizable faces, like David Gruber Allen and Julie Goldman, and I was pleasantly surprised to see my pal Jerry O’Connell in a pretty big role as a newscaster, opposite Seth’s wife, on-air journalist/actress Hitha Herzog, who he somehow coerced to be in the film.  (LOL) Jerry will soon have his own talk show called Jerry O.  on FOX owned stations, and it’s set to begin on August 12th. It will feature celebs and comedy for sure because Jerry is a funny guy, who appreciates the importance of comedy.

Hitha Herzog and Jerry O’Connell

They even had Questlove from The Roots in the film playing an alien, hence the horns, also appearing in the newscast with Hitha and Jerry.

Seth as you should know is the warm up comic for The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and so works with Questlove on a day to day basis. Stephen Levinson is also a writer on that show. And Gilbert Gottfried’s voice made an appearance speaking as a puppet named Morty who played an accountant.

The film also featured comedian Esther Ku playing the character of Tina, Steve Agee’s character’s girlfriend. Esther recently co-hosted the AVN ( porno) awards in Las Vegas, and she had a big part in this film.

Esther looked absolutely gorgeous as she did hosting the AVN awards, and it’s so nice seeing her owning that power and not playing down her looks like many female comedians of the past felt they had to do in order to be taken seriously as a funny person. (Having to be taken seriously as a funny person is a funny concept!) And Esther had the foresight to be Asian before it was even popular!

The screening had a great turnout, and was packed with lots of industry people. I ran into comedy exec. Maureen Taran, and Ali Farahnakian founder and owner of The P.I.T. who many people may not recall was also one of the founding members of USB. He was there with wife TV producer Beth Saunders, and he showed her the photo he took of me in the street many years before that wound up, unbeknownst to me, on the wall of the Men’s Room in The P.I.T.

Funny story, … I was walking in the street at a street fair when this nice guy who I had never met before asked if he could take my photo. He said he thought I had an interesting look and because he was so nice I agreed. At the time I didn’t know who he was. So one night I’m at The P.I.T. and I had to use the Men’s Room and while I’m standing there doing my business, I happen to look to my right and see my photo staring me in the face. It was hilarious and we’ve been friends ever since. He’s just a great guy.

And when Bravo TV wanted to shoot scenes with me for RHONY, with Countess LuAnn de Lesseps and Princess Carole Radziwill for a sketch I created and co-wrote for them, Ali was kind enough to give us The P.I.T. for the shoot and after-party.

Boy Band was a fun 90 minutes with a sci-fi element and even a touch of zombie stuff, and it’s available to be seen on all platforms that show movies! Make sure to check it out.

And with that, … I’m OUT!!!

Oh yeah, … and please make sure to like this post, comment and “Subscribe” to Comedy Matters TV by clicking on the “Follow” button at the bottom of the post. Also follow Jeffrey on Twitter and IG at @jeffreygurian.

 

 

 

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Esther Ku To Co-Host AVN Porn Awards

Funny and sexy is a great mix and not everyone can pull it off.  Esther Ku’s got it down pat! To a science! In this day and age it may no longer be appropriate to tell a girl she looks sexy but I know Esther long enough that I feel comfortable doing that. She’s funny and sexy and she has so much foresight that she was Asian before it was even popular!

When she lived in New York we hung out a lot and hit a bunch of shows and I watched her grow as a performer.  I even sat with her and went over material when she was preparing for Last Comic Standing.

 

She was one of my special guests on Ron and Fez’s Sirius XM show, now The Bennington Show, when I was a regular for a couple of years.

 

 

 

 

So to say that I know her would not be an overstatement!  And I can honestly say that co-hosting the AVN (Adult Video News) awards show at the Hard Rock Hotel in Vegas, which she’ll be doing next Saturday January 26th, is a perfect gig for her. She has that rare duality of a naive yet intensely sensual creature, who’s totally unaware of her sensuality and doesn’t do it on purpose. She can’t help it! She could be one of the guys, wearing a baseball cap and hoodie, until you put her in lingerie! With the baseball cap on backwards!

Esther’s been on tons of TV shows like MTV’s Girl Code, and MTV2’s “Wild ‘n Out” with Nick Cannon, and she will be joining an all female cast for this show presented by MyFreeCams. She would actually be a great cam girl, and I could almost see her doing it for a laugh.

AVN CEO Tony Rios said that Esther ” brings a fresh, new approach to the show and we are looking forward to her contribution.” Howard Stern once selected Ku as a finalist in the Hottest Funniest Chick competition. AVN hosts in the past have been Dave Attell, Lisa Lampanelli, Jim Norton, Aries Spears, Rebekah Kochan, Thea Vidale and the late Robert Schimmel and I think I can honestly say that Ku is the sexiest of the bunch! (LOL)

She’ll be co-hosting with two adult superstars Romi Rain and Bailey Rayne, pronounced exactly the same so you know that most people will think they’re related, .. the Rain Sisters! And the musical guest will be none other than Cardi B who knows a little something about being sexy herself. She often talks openly about her former life as a stripper.

 

Ku said, “Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve always dreamed of hosting the AVN Awards!  I feel so lucky!” When I heard that I had to call her and ask her about her sexy past. This is what she told me:

“Well I grew up super duper christian and in the midwest. My mom would block the TV when there was a kissing scene. I even got mad at my first boyfriend for watching porn because I thought that’s how you were supposed to react. I look back at that now and think that was so silly.  But he watched so much porn they called him Porno John.”

How she might have looked in high school!

I asked her how she was in high school.  She said,  “I went to one dance in high school. I got my hair done and the captain of the football team kept telling everybody I looked like a porn star. I was so flattered! Because up till then I had glasses and was a band kid.”

Well things certainly have changed for Esther.  I wonder what she’s going to wear.  I just might have to fly out there to check it out! The event is part of the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo that runs from January 23-26. Hey Esther can you hook me up?

Tickets are now available by clicking here https://avnawards19.eventbrite.com

For hotel reservations and accommodations, click here https://book.passkey.com/go/avnshow2019

Esther owning her power! Very rare!!!

 

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