Scratch That...

Kerry White will not be coming to Illinois in December. I won't bore you with the reasons (and it ain't your business anyway), but we'll make those shows happen sometime after the New Year. I'll still be in Terre Haute December 10, and we still plan on a show in Charleston, IL December 12 - I just need to find a comic. I'll keep you posted.

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Had a good weekend with Larry Reeb and Chris Speyrer at Mason City Limits, Chris' club in Mason City, Illinois. Saturday night was light - a dozen for the early show and four for the late one. Seems most of the residents with a few bucks to spend preferred the costume/karaoke contest at the bar around the corner. Fair enough - Halloween comes once a year - but when a comedy legend comes to your hamlet for $10, couldn't you find a way to work that into your schedule?

Larry eats faster than I do, which is impressive. He went through a plate of sausage ravioli in alfredo sauce faster than Chris Farley through an eight-ball. He's a great guy and a class act, and he told one of the best heckler stories I've ever heard. About a dozen years ago, he was on stage in Omaha, NE doing a bit about a plane crash. A guy in the audience took issue with the joke, loudly announcing that his sister had died in a plane crash, to which Larry replied: "Great, let's dig her up and fuck her."

Which is not only a great smack-down but the most logical response. Your sister died in a plane crash - tragic, yes - but are you gonna carry that around your whole life, not to mention attempt to determine the course of a comedy show for everyone else in the room? If comics had to censor themselves based on what might offend a single audience member, there would be no comedy. In fact, that's a large part of what comedy is...finding a way to laugh at tragedy. One of my fat best friends died of a heart attack last year at 46, but guess what, I still laugh at funny fat guy jokes and heart attack jokes. In fact, I even wrote my own dead-best-friend bit.

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I'll be in Terre Haute this Saturday, November 7 at a bar in a bowling alley, Imperial Lanes. Scroll down one post and click on the Carnival of Comedy poster to add Matt Burris/COC on Facebook. Then the following week I'm stepping foot for the first time in Wisconsin and Minnesota, comedy gods willing.