Now that my site is running reasonably smoothly again we can finally get the photos I took LAST Friday during the Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival. Yeah, we are behind, let’s get started.

Friday night’s show started with a reunion of my favorite comedy show in New York City. The show has appeared on this site before, most notably when I covered their last three shows. But when I shot their 5th year reunion was also important because it happened to be the first time I had shot nightlife photography with an on camera flash. It was sort of the starting point for me taking event work slightly seriously.

I had to see Invite Them Up get back together if only for a night. The show is hosted by Bobby Tisdale and Eugene Mirman and features a number of comics inter spliced with weird chants and bits from Bobby with Eugene taking his 10 minutes towards the end of the show. Often times there is music.

Friday Bobby was in full swing playing out his infamous mic checking bit for longer than anyone reasonably should. Bobby is not a reasonable man. Bobby lead the crowd in a number of rousing chants, although he unfortunately left out any mention of Connie Chung or Margaret Thatcher, two ladies who get a lot of play in Bobbys chanting.

Bobby brought on SNL writer John Mulaney to open the show. John sat next to me on the plane to South by Southwest this year and we had a very awkward conversation where I accidentally talked shit about several projects he worked on. I don’t mean to not like SNL I just think most of the cast is annoying, and yeah I like Dimitri Martin live more than I like his show, but John is a funny fucking guy and had me laughing his whole set.

Next up was Morgan Murphy who I saw opening for Patton Oswalt and Eugene nearly for years ago. When I moved up to NYC she was opening for Neil Hamburger at Piano’s and tried to sneak me in to the sold out show. I have sort of have had a crush on her since then from a far, but now she lives in NYC so now I am probably going to run into her on the street and not make eye contact. I have seen her a few times and she was hilarious as always. She also did a bit of prop comedy with some Jewish New Year 5770 shades which were pretty epic. She told me she had been wearing them all day.

After Morgan was John Hodgman who I have never actually seen do stand up, but I am a big fan of. Considering half his bit was about how everyone recognizes him from his TV commercial you probably know him as the PC guy from the Mac Vs PC commercials. I ran into the Mac (Justin Long) at McDonald’s the other day, so now I have my bases covered. I personally am a fan of John from his work on This American Life and Boing Boing, two of the more nerdy things I have been obsessed with in my life. His roast of Obama was also pretty outstanding. It was good to get to see him do stand up.

Next was an Invite Them Up staple called 30 seconds of stand up where a comic does EXACTY 30 seconds of generally improvised stand up. The very funny Joe Mande stepped up and did his 30 seconds on Friday. He was then followed by Eugene who brought up Larry Murphy to help him do a bit involving Daniel Day-Lewis trying to figure out how to use a Blue Ray DVD player while staying in his There Will Be Blood character. This was all followed by John Westley Harding doing a few songs for a short musical break to the comedy.

Speaking of music, up next was Reggie Watts who makes the most insane music you have ever heard using only his voice and a Line 6. He was brilliant as always, but there is nothing really to say about it. You just need to see him for your self. Your mind will be blown. Even watching him on tape does not do him justice.

The headliner of the show was former Daily Show correspondent and American hating Red Coat John Oliver. I have seen him do stand up a half dozen times and while I am always near tears in laughter, I always leave with just a little more hatred towards the British. His humor is so elitist that he has figured a perfect way to make hipsters laugh by attacking Americans as a whole which hipsters feel a sense of superiority over. So when he makes fun of American’s for being ignorant gluttons the audience some how feels he isn’t actually making fun of them. I think it is brilliant and completely hilarious and had a real sense of pride when I explained that only Americans would create a hot dog eating contest, then get beaten in it and make it a statement of national honor to win it back. And as I hope you know by now, I am a HUGE Joey Chestnut fan. USA! USA!

It was a great show and I was glad to see Invite Them Up back if even only for a night. The room was too dark though and so the photos aren’t great.  They aren’t even as good as the pictures from the day before. That being said, stand up comedy photos aren’t exactly riveting, but I hope you guys check out all of these comedians and if you get another chance to see Invite Them Up you should get on that.

I also wanted to mention that there were four people in the show named John.  I had this idea for a long time to collect autographs of famous people named John as an art project.  I think once I moved to NYC and started being around celebrities a lot more the idea of asking anyone for an autograph seems super awkward even if it’s mostly for an art project. Still, when I saw John Hodgman and John Oliver talking outside, I probably should have added them to the collection/project. There is a pretty good explanation of the John autograph idea here if you want to know what the hell I am talking about.

Anyway, let’s move on.  I need to get some sleep. I have to cover an adult convention in NJ tomorrow which I am sure will be super weird.  I have this idea of turning my car into a photo booth and trying to convince porn stars to pose in it. Not sure if that will actually happen, but it sounds really funny to me right now.  So, please click here to see all the photos from the Invite Them Up reunion and I will talk to you guys when I get back.

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