On the way to the gym at 7:00 this morning I came out of the subway at 23rd and 7th to what at first seemed like a group of homeless people protesting something. There were tents set up on 7th Avenue, sleeping bags with people bundled in them on top of ventilation grates on 23rd Street. What was it? Auditions for The Last Comic Standing, due to start any minute now at Gotham Comedy Club. My old friend Steven Sashen, who when he lived in NYC, and was trying to make it as a stand-up comic, could have hit this line with a rock from his old apartment. But now he's living in Boulder and being funny in more cosmic ways.
Scott Ryan, who tends bar at the Duplex and sings there on Saturday nights, has performed at Gotham a number of times as an openly queer and quite funny comic, so I looked for him on the line. Probably way too early in the morning for him.
But I did meet April, bundled up, with her sidekick, who had been bundled up in a suitcase a moment before I caught this shot. Good luck kids.
[Stopped by on my way back to the office after a haircut at 2:30PM and there was still a line of hopefuls in the cold. How can anyone be funny after waiting in 30 degree weather for hours on end?]
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