It sounds so cool. And it is. Until you ask us WHERE we travel. Unless you are a superstar, its to towns with populations less than 10,000 or "fly-over" cities. As a midwest comedian, I can say 50% of my shows are in cities located in next door states like Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan. I like to drive whenever possible - I have always loved driving - so most of my time is spend driving to and from these shows. But honestly, those are usually the best shows. You are the only thing in town to do. As opposed to cities like Chicago, where someone can go to theater, ballet, a concert or a baseball game, the comedy show in Slinger Wisconsin is THE event to be at. And that means, they are happy to be there and look forward to the show.
When I travel outside the Midwest, most of my time is in airports and airplanes. In the past 3 months, I have been traveling by plane a lot. And out of the country. Remembering gates, airports and then hotel rooms becomes tedious. After last weeks ordeal with my "first" cruise show in the carribean, I was anxious about my shows this week in Halifax for the Halifix Comedy Festival. I triple checked to make sure I brought the right passport this time (see last week's entry) and even arrived early to my flight anticipating any other possible pitfall involved with international travel. I was able to prepare for my sets this week in Chicago , which will be broadcast on Canadian television. When I get back to Chicago, I am off again to Atlanta and North Carolina. By plane. Please keep spreading the word about my shows (it helps) and check out my special "Middlewester, Middle Eastern" if you have not already. Its almost at 10k views. Also, if you have apple music, amazon music or spotify, please considering downloading the album (for free). Thank you for reading #standup #comedian #special #livecomedy #formerlawyer
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So the last 2 days have been a disaster. But then also a blessing. I flew to Florida to perform on my first cruise in the Caribbean but when I landed in Florida, I realized I brought my expired passport. I immediately had to catch the very next flight right back to Chicago, 40 minutes later. Thank God for my Southwest miles! Once I landed in Chicago, I flew to Atlanta 4 hours later (red eye) to providence turk and then to Grand Turk where I was to wait for the Cruise ship to pick me up to perform on the last 2 days of the cruise. I was able to sleep for the first time in 2 days, which was nice as I was on zero sleep, but for the hour here and there I got on the planes. When I woke up 9 hours later, I got a message that the cruise could not dock at Grand Turk where I was staying, so I would be headed back home (still paid obviously). Now I return to the same four airports tomorrow AM. Because of this, it will be four days without doing a set, which is the longest I have gone without performing stand up since Covid times. I guess I needed a rest and there would be worse places to be stranded than in Grand Turk, but still, it is a lot of traveling and not a lot of sleep. Plus, I really need to prepare for the Halifax Comedy fest I was accepted into next week, so I hope to grab some stage time this weekend at some clubs in Florida. On the bright side, I learned that my album was just released on Amazon and Spotify and will be available for download on iTunes/Apple later today. My special has reached over 8,000 views on Youtube, which is also cool. Thank you to all who have listened or will download the album. Links in comments! Please continue to share it with friends, if you like it and hope to see you soon. hashtag#roadlife hashtag#standup hashtag#comedian hashtag#travel hashtag#formerlawyer Special: https://bit.ly/MiddlewesternMiddleEastern People always ask what my favorite city to perform in is and that is a very hard question to answer. The shows vary from city to city and come shows in some cities are okay while others are amazing. The city is not as important as the room where the comedy happens. And often the small cities where there is nothing to do socially, end up being the best comedy shows. For example, a big city like Miami is considered a super fun city for tourists. I loved going they when I was younger for spring break and to visit my brother who lived there briefly. But its not known as a place for comedy (even though comedians there are great) but you go to a smaller city in Florida like Winter Park or Winter Haven, the comedy shows I have done in those spots were amazing.
In fact, if the room is set properly or the club is solid, the smaller cities are often the most fun cities to perform in. I was in Slinger, Wisconsin last month and it was the most fun, even though during the day, there was nothing to do but hang out at the McDonalds. I like educated crowds who are not sensitive. My jokes tend to be "smarter" I am told and sometimes darker so anywhere I can have "my people" in the audience, I am going to have fun! Should I come to you? #standup #laughs #comedy #formerlawyer #comedian No. I do not have a Netflix special. I do have a Dry Bar Special. I just dropped a Zanies Comedy Club micro set special (free link below) and I have a new HELIUM® Comedy Special dropping on April 26th. If enough interest in garnered with my new special, it could be bought by bigger names like Amazon or Netflix but without watches, unlikely.
The future of stand up comedy seems to be self-releasing specials on YouTube, started by my good friend Bret Ernst and perfected and made famous by Andrew Shultz. Unlike those established comedians with significantly more fans than me, I teamed up with Helium in hopes of getting new eyes on. Its called Middle Easter, Middle Western, a name my best friend Colby Payne came up with! So go watch it when it comes out and in the meantime, enjoy the microset. Its only 10 minutes! #standup #special #comedy #formerlawyer I heard that recently after a show. I don't really have a response to that. Like everyone, I have a personal life that can affect my work and sometimes its hard to make people laugh when you are worried about the health of loved ones on stage. The show must go on.
Because I am not a high energy comedian, I can usually get away with not showing my emotions on stage. After a show where I did really well, the other comedian in the green room said "how did it go" and when I said it went really well he told me it didn't look like it did. The truth is, I really did have so much fun on that show but I must have been thinking about something else when I got off stage, like a tag I didn't use or how much time I had to get to my next show, so I looked preoccupied. I don't have huge highs or low lows anymore. I am even keeled all the time. But yeah, sometimes I am very sad on stage. I remember as a kid when one of my favorite baseball players was struggling at the plate and we could not understand it. My friend's dad told us he was going through a messy divorce and that probably affected his work since that is hard for adults to cope with. I hope my personal life issues, when they arise, don't affect my output or performance on stage. But I guess all comedians are sad clowns after all. Thank you to all the people who made it to my show at Zanies on Tuesday and thank you all for spreading the word about my shows in Milwaukee, DC and Atlanta. Hope to see you at the shows and as always, please check out my other platforms like youtube and instagram! #standup #comedy #road #careerchange #formerlawyer #creative |
AuthorPaul Farahvar is a comedian hailing from Chicago, Ill. Archives
May 2024
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