NICK'S BLOG

BACKSTAGE AT FERGUSON AUGUST 29, 2012 Posted Oct 18 2012

click a pic and watch it swell

Rehursal

Pre-show chat with management

Notes and stuff

Dressing Room

The Set

Congrats from Craig

posted by Nick

BACKSTAGE AT LETTERMAN FEBRUARY 24, 2012 Posted Oct 18 2012

click a pic and watch it swell

I brought my grown up clothes

listening to my set beforehand

with the band We are Augustines

with friend and fellow Late Show comic Jim McDonald

the guest before me, Matthew Broderick

posted by Nick

Krokus Rocks! MAR 16 2012

Krokus Rocks!

The first record I ever bought was by The Cars. I was twelve. And actually it was a cassette tape. I played it on one of those tape players everyone had in their grade school classroom. It had 1 watt of power. One. A pencil has three watts of power.

But I played the shit out of that tape, usually at night under the covers when everyone had gone to bed. My Best Friends Girl, Just What I Needed, You’re All I’ve Got Tonight, Moving in Stereo. Every song was good. Plus, the lead singer looked like a giant praying mantis in a suit.

Anyway, The Cars were my favorite band, right up until my brother brought home a heavy metal record. Actually he brought home a bunch. KISS, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Deep Purple. Now this was music. And just in time, because that Christmas I was given a record player.

My parents used to ask me, “Why do you have to play that stuff so loud?” And I’d say, ‘I don’t know, dad. Probably because the band is called Judas Priest and the song is called Ripper. What do you want me to do, hum along pleasantly?” These guys are jumping around in skintight leather pants and boots with four-inch heels. The least I can do is crank it up!

Heavy metal music quickly became the biggest thing in my life. Truth be told, there wasn’t much competition. I sucked at school. (3+y = 4, Huh?) And I was afraid of girls. (“What’s a clitoris?”)

I bought tons of metal albums. I went to a lot of concerts. I wore a lot of black t-shirts. And I drank an enormous amount of beer. How did I get it? My older brother got it for me.

Of course, having never bought beer before, I had no idea how much it cost. I supposed I could have walked down the liquor aisle in the grocery store and checked. But I was a dummy, a horny dummy, who spent his free time in the bathroom ruining his mother’s nice towels.

I asked my brother how much a case of beer cost. He said, “Around twenty five bucks.” I gave him the money. A half hour later he pulled up and handed me a case of the cheapest beer available.

He made his car payment with the rest of the money. Oh well. My friends and I were happy. We were going to get drunk Midwest style, which meant standing down by the creek under a bridge freezing our asses off. The only time we drank inside was at the metal concerts. We’d get eight ounce bottles and sneak them inside in our pants, plinking like a wind chime as we passed by the security guards.

I still wonder why they never stopped us. Maybe they just pitied us. Dopy messed up kids, giddy from booze, pot and raging hormones about to have their ears blown out by one of the gods of metal – what was the point? We were suffering enough already.

I can’t remember which concert was my first. I want to say Judas Priest, because they were my favorite. But it may have been the Scorpions.

They were a German band with two guitarists that stood at the front of the stage and moved their guitars back and forth in tandem. It’s one of those things that you think is really cool at fourteen but in retrospect looks stupid.

The lead singer Klaus Meine was 5 foot nothing and balding. And yet the women were going crazy for him. Klaus had them in the palm of his hand, singing lyrics like,

“Tease me. Please me. No one needs to know. Tease me. Please me. Before I have to go.”

Or

” Shoot my heat into your body. Give you all my size. I’m going to beat the beat tonight. It’s time to break the ice.”

Take that, Shakespeare!

The Scorpions had a lot of songs about sex. Almost all of the metal bands did. I guess write what you know. Right? Good for them. If I wasn’t going to get any, at least I could hear about them getting some (a ton).

The idea that these guys were so confident with women had to be part of their appeal. Because, like I said earlier, I was afraid of girls. My legs would shake when I was around them. Literally. I never knew what to say. Freshman year of high school was the first time I even kissed a girl.

It was behind a pizza parlor next to a dumpster. Of course, I would’ve felt more comfortable by the creek under a bridge, but you’ be surprised how unappealing that idea is to a young girl.

No one is a good kisser their first time. I was no exception. All I knew was that you were supposed to use your tongue. And I wanted to blow this chick’s mind. So I used a lot of tongue.

In. Out. Up. Down. Around and around. I didn’t so much kiss her as mop her mouth, lips and teeth with my tongue. The kissing went on forever, because I was afraid to do anything else. I didn’t know how to take off a bra, or “finger” someone.

You heard what I did to her mouth. Imagine me with a vagina and its nine million working parts. And I’m sure she would’ve let me. I mean for fucks sake, we were standing next to a dumpster in the middle of the night. It was clear she was game for anything.

That girl put up with my nonsense for three weekends in a row, but disappeared on the fourth. Maybe she was bedridden with chapped lips. All I know is I never saw her again.

It’s okay. I was all about the music. And it seemed like every week a new band came to town. Iron Maiden. Saxon. Van Halen. Ozzy. Krokus. Nazareth. Quiet Riot. Motorhead.

The creepiest show I saw was Black Sabbath, the one fronted by Ronnie James Dio. It was 98% guys. Say what you want about women but their presence does lighten the atmosphere, gives it a little color, a little beauty.

With so few females the Black Sabbath concert actually looked like a giant devil worshipping convention with a bunch of red-eyed, longhaired, black-shirted dudes skulking around.

The stage didn’t help. There was a giant upside down cross on each side and smoke everywhere. And Ronnie James Dio was pacing back and forth flashing that hand signal with the pinkie and index finger that you often seen people do at metal concerts.

If anyone else had done that sign it would’ve been easy to ignore. But Ronnie James Dio was this tiny guy with beady eyes and long front teeth with a big gap between them. He was half Hobbit, half ferret. It was unsettling. You got the feeling if Satan did exist; this guy had his number.

I threw up at that concert. And I was far from the only one. I remember running to the bathroom to vomit. When I got there, every toilet already had vomit in it and around it, as did the floor and some of the walls, which just made me vomit more.

I was big into vomiting back then. It usually happened when I smoked pot. I know it sounds crazy, considering I was just a kid, but more times than not I was fine drinking a shit ton of beer and a few shots of rum or gin. But once I smoked pot. Forget it. I was spewing chunks.

I barfed at Foreigner. I know what you're thinking. Of course you did. It was foreigner. Anyway, I barfed most of the Motley Crue show, too all of it from the comfort of my seat. I barfed so much I created a moat around myself.
Beware! Jackass Inside!

The funny part of all that is I threw up so early in the night that I was stone cold sober by the time my friends dropped me off at home. “Hi, mom and dad! The concert was swell. See you in the morning.”

I went to any metal concert that came to town, but I had my favorites. Krokus was one of them. They were from Switzerland and my friends and I actually met them after a show.

This was early in the band’s career. They were opening up for Cheap Trick. But we weren’t interested in Cheap Trick. So we left after Krokus. And there they were, hanging outside their tour bus. Fucking Krokus,!

We went right up to them, told them how great they were. They seemed shocked by our comments, but thankful. They were nice, wished us luck. We did the same. A year or so later they hit it super big with the song Midnight Maniac, which was enough for me and my friends to hate them.

Like I said earlier, though, Judas Priest was my favorite. You might wonder why these guys. How were they different from the other bands? I’m not exactly sure. I just got the feeling Judas Priest wasn’t kidding, that they were taking this music thing seriously.

For example when other bands hit the stage there was usually this stilted phony banter between the lead singer and the audience. “Are you guys ready to rock? I said, are you guys ready to rock?!”

I always wanted to scream, “Of course we’re ready to rock, you dipshit. What do you think we’re here for, the nachos? Now hurry up and play something. I got school in the morning.”

Judas Priest had little of that stuff. They basically walked out on stage and kicked the audience in the collective dick with very loud, very tight rock n roll. They were veterans. They had several albums under their belt and plenty of good songs. Not just songs, anthems.

Living After Midnight

Breaking the Law

Heading Out to the Highway

You Got Another Thing Coming

Some Heads Are Gonna Roll

Let me tell you something. When you’re a fifteen-year-old virgin and a guy comes onstage riding a motorcycle, bellowing, “Some Heads Are Gonna Roll”, you lose your fucking mind. That’s just how it is.

And isn't that the point with any piece of art? (And that music is art. )You want it to take you away. Get you to forget if only for a couple hours that you are sixteen and completely dependent on adults. That you are awkward and skinny and weak and scared and a little dumb. Heavy metal did that. Judas Priest did it better than anybody.

I used to get so annoyed when a car would pull up next to me at a light with the stereo blasting. It didn't matter if it was country or dance or rap. It just seemed so rude. And it is. But it doesn't bother me as much anymore. Because I know now it's probably just someone trying to get out of their own head.

Their boss was a dick that day or their husband

posted by Nick

Kurt Vonnegut Required Reading AUG 10 2011

At Millennium's End
new essays on the work of Kurt Vonnegut edited by Kevin A Boon

Forward by Kurt Vonnegut

    I sometimes say in lectures that I suffer from "survivor's syndrome," but not because of the Battle of the Bulge or the firebombing of Dresden in World War II, man-made calamities during or after which I saw more corpses than you can shake a stick at. A young woman complained to me after my lecture about that war, evidently feeling incomplete, that she had never seen a dead person. I made a joke. I said to her, "Be patient."
    I do feel lousy, however, about the many passionate and gifted artists I know or knew, writers, painters and composers, dancers and comedians, actors and actresses, singers and cartoonists, who died or are dying in obscurity, more often than not in poverty. To quote the humorist Kim Hubbard: "Its no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be." Audiences failed these friends and acquaintances of mine. Audiences were to barbarous and inattentive to realize how good they were and reward them with sustained applause and a living wage.
    I am reminded of a cartoon of long ago which depicted war as a rouged, warty old whore. She says to a youth about seventeen years old, "Hello sonny. I knew your Dad." She could represent the arts instead of war, and the cartoon would make just as much sense to a lot of people. The creation of works of art that a sizeable audience may appreciate and even pay for isn't all that different from an attack by either side in World War I, in which thousands of brave, good-hearted young people left their trenches at dawn, and practically everybody wound up draped over barbwire, or drowning face down in water at the bottom of a shellhole.
    Again: I suffer from "survivor's syndrome."
    Anyone who survives a human wave attack against such daunting odds, whether in war or the arts, does so because of dumb luck. Agility and courage and character, or whatever, have nothing to do with how it all turns out. Gifted artists have to be what they are, have to do what they do the way they do it. Whether they earn a living and fame thereby is a matter of happening by chance upon breaks in the barbwire, unswept by machinegun fire.
    So to speak.
    Mark Twain, a better writer and human being than I am, marveled, when an old man like me, at the durability of his works' popularity. He thought this might be due to his willingness to moralize. It was lucky for him that moralizing paid off so handsomely. In any case, Mark Twain was simply born to moralize.

    I think I was too. When I look back at my incredibly lucky career as a writer, it seems that there was never time to think. It was a though I was skiing down a steep and hazardous mountain slope. When I look back at the marks my skis made in the snow on the way down, I only now realize that I wrote again and again about people who behaved decently in an indecent society.
    I recieved a letter from a sappy woman a while back. She knew I was sappy, too, which is to say a New Deal Democrat. She was pregnant. She wanted to know if it was a bad thing to bring an innocent little baby into a world as awful as this one is. I replied that what made living almost worthwhile for me were the saints I met. They could be anywhere. They were people who behaved decently in an indecent society.
   Perhaps, you, dear reader, are or will become a saint for her child to meet.
   I thank you for your attention.

Kurt Vonnegut (Jr.) November 11, 1998

posted by Nick

Over And Over And Over And Over Nov 2 2010

I've been in a lot of hotel rooms the last few months.
No I'm not hooking again.
Just lots of stand up, which is like whoring without the shame and regret.
Oh wait. It's exactly like whoring.
Ha Ha.
See I can be funny in print too.
Sometimes I think I want to work less, then I take a week off and I remember have no other skills, hobbies or friends.
That's not totally true.
I have a few skills.
I can recommend a good book and/or horror movie.
Thumbs Up.

I can name a lot of boxers from the eighties and nineties.
Matthew Saad Muhammad, Donald "The Cobra" Curry, Renaldo Snipes,
Salvador Sanchez, Freddie and Pepper Roach.
This is one of my all-time favorites, Marvelous Marvin Hagler.

I've been listening to the Ramones a lot.
Over and over and over and over.
I watched the documentary on them called End of the Century five times last month.
Their music is so simple and yet so wholly unique and so fucking American.
"Hey, Ho. Let's go!"

I want to be as good as the Ramones, and as relentless as Marvin Hagler and as thrilling as Jeepers Creepers.
Now that would be something.
I don't know how Jeepers Creepers was made.
But I know Mr. Hagler trained his ass off for months at a time and the Ramones toured non stop for years and years and Stephen King wrote and wrote.
Guess I better go sit in some more hotel rooms.
See you on the road.
Nick

A Long Time Coming!
August 18 2010

I know it's been a while since I wrote anything.
And no one feels worse about it than me.
The last few months have been super slow though.
Mostly just running around NYC doing sets.
Which is good because I get to sleep in my own bed,
but bad because I make very little money.
And I need money to buy my pills and coffee.
I take a lot of both.

But I had a "special" gig Tuesday night.
The Comedy Cellar snagged about twenty comics, tossed them on a boat with a couple hundred people and we told jokes while circling Manhattan.
Besides almost yacking it was a blast.
You want proof.
Here is me with some of the other performers.
I think I almost smile in one of the pics.

with William Stephenson and Mike Vecchione

with Mike DeStefano

with John Joseph

with Pat Dixon on my right, James Smith on my left

How have things been going ...You ask?
April 26 2010

How have things been going? Check the above photo.

Like a horse dropped a world class load on my bed every day for two months straight.

Work has suddenly slowed to a crawl.
I am doing lots of sets here in NYC, but not on the road
which means I have very little money.

I sometimes confuse money with hope.

So I have been a little down in the dumps.

The good news is that I am scheduled to do
The Late Show with David Letterman on May 7th.

You should watch.
Knowing that people like my work makes getting out of bed bearable.

Don't get me wrong.
It still takes hours for me to do it.
But once I am out, I am a firecracker.

Your son,
Nick

Lake Tahoe October 2009
Oct 15 2009

I was in Lake Tahoe last week working at the Improv.
It was nice.
Here is a picture of me with good friend and fellow comic Howie Nave, along with Tom Simmons, another funny guy.

New Craig Ferguson Taping.
Oct 14 2009

I taped the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson last week.
I think it went well.
No one yelled at me afterwards or kicked me in the wiener.
So that's a good sign.

It will air in the coming weeks.

I appeared with Viola Davis, Oscar nominated actress from the movie Doubt and Michael Sheen another actor.
He was in Frost/Nixon and The Queen.
He seemed very cool, meaning he didn't tell me to shove it when I asked him to take a picture with me.

Here are some pictures....Backstage Pics

Gotham, Virginia, Carrotcake.
Aug 17 2009

Things have been okay lately, which is huge for me, because i always expect the worst.
I've been working a lot.
My week at Gotham Comedy Club in nyc (GothamComedyClub.com)
was a blast!

After that i went to the Funny Bone in Virginia Beach.
The last night there i treated myself to some carrot cake at the cheesecake factory.

i must've looked like a retarded grown up sitting there at the bar at midnight between whiskey drinkers, with my cake and coffee.
All that was missing was my placemat and crayons.

Here is what i've been reading now:

Replay by Ken Grimwood. l The Fog by James Herbert.

For those of you who came out to see me perform, i thank you.
For those of you who came out to see me perform and bought my cd, i thank you even more.
For those of you who did not, i understand. life is exhausting.
But they were good shows.
You would've enjoyed yourself. i swear.

best,
Nick

Better!
July 25 2009

i don't know what i do with things.
i lose shit all the time.
probably five ipods by now.
another one last week.

maybe i should try to go without one.
maybe i should just pay attention to the moment that i am in.

its hard though, because no one else is.
people are either listening to music or talking on their phone or reading some text message they just received.
no one wants to be in the present.

i understand.
we are all under the illusion that the next moment is going to be better than the last.
no matter how great this moment is, it has to get better.

better.

i appeared on the late show with David Letterman this week.
that was fun.

i had a water in the green room.
i shared an elevator with Paul Schaefer.
i laughed with the hair and makeup people.
i had my picture taken with the folk singer Judy Collins.

photo by Jeff Fasano

i heard the band laughing during my set.
Biff Henderson shook my hand.
i went out to dinner with friends after.

better.

Literacy and Vindication!
July 1 2009

The way i talk you would think the only things i do are write, perform,
sit with my face in my hands and masturbate.

That is not completely accurate.

Sometimes i read books.

Here is proof:

That is my my hand pointing at my bookshelf.

And, yes, that is the buffy the vampire slayer boxed set.

And the answer to your other question is, no, i am not.

Here are the two books i'm reading now:

So shove it!

nick

Sleep Well
Feb 24 2009

In the last forty eight hours I slept on a couch, in a cab, in the airport, on a plane, in a hotel room, in a dressing room and in my bed.

I never sleep well in my apartment. I think it has something to do with my pillows. They are filled with anxiety and regret. Of course I found them in a trash can at the Port Authority. So lesson learned.

Lots of people in New York City have a hard time sleeping. Oddly enough these guys are not among them:

This man dozes peacefully even though he is being attacked by his own coat.

This man tipped over while sleeping, because his brain is full of stuff that shouldn't be there. The same goes for his underpants.

This man is exhausted from shopping. Eat your heart out, Carrie Bradshaw.

Big Plans
Jan 18 2009

Hello, people of the United States and a couple less silly countries,

A new year has begun.
You can smell it in the air.
Kind of fresh, kind of shitty.

I have some big plans this year.
First and foremost I am committed to spending less time in the fetal position.
A half hour a day, tops... not counting after sex.

Also, after reviewing my past blog posts, it has come to my attention that I can be a tad negative.
Is this hindering my success? Who's to say.

Sure. There are loads of optimistic people who have found great material wealth and an abundance of erotic pleasantries.
But let's not forget the pessimistic people who have prospered too.

Satan. Satan. Satan.
I know, God kicked Satan's ass in the very first WrestleMania many many years ago.
However it says a lot about Damien's dadda that he was able to move on from that humiliation.

He has his own place now, his own "business", which is jamming a pitchfork up people's asses. By the way, if you screw up in hell what's your punishment? That's right. you become a producer on The View.

Plus, the Dark Lord is a bachelor.
Which means he is getting tons of tail.
Imagine how liberated the women in hell are.
It's like Girls Gone Wild but dirtier.

Somebody told me that the ultra-famous Dane Cook gives encouraging words and advice to his fans via his website.
Good idea.

Here goes:

To all my fans out there,
I advise you to ignore any advice Dane Cook might give you, unless it has to do with hair product or situps.

Below is Kurt Vonnegut.
He offers no advice but some interesting insights.

Nothing
Oct 22 2008

For those of you interested in what is going on with me, I have this to say:
Nothing.
I can send you a video to prove it.

You know what would be on the video?
Nothing.
No big ideas.

No socializing.

No sex.

I don't own a television.

So when I am doing nothing, it really is nothing.

Oh, occasionally I look at stuff on youtube, but what I watch is essentially nothing, totally void of real content.
It's like my brain except fancier.

I know there is a big political campaign going on, but politics are gay.
I don't really care.
You know what a new president will do for this world?
Nothing.

Holy shit.
That means I could be President.

If I were president I would make press conferences interesting so they would get posted on youtube and tons of people would watch them and all the posts would get five stars.

"Mr. President, what is your first order of business?" To masturbate in the oval office, then I am going to dry hump the oval desk. Next question.
"Thank you, Mr. President. I don't really have a question. I just want you to know that the desk in the oval office is actually more rectangle in shape." So is your mom's vagina. Next question."
"Mr. President, what will be your biggest challenge over the next four years?" I would say not going number two in my pants. Oops, too late.

By the way, I will be in Erie Pennsylvania on Friday and Huntington, West Virginia on Saturday for the Bob and Tom Tour.

Bob and Tom Tour
Sept 27 2008 i did the bob and tom tour this weekend.
who was on the tour with me?

paul mecurio, dwayne perkins, greg warren and drew hastings. bob zany was there too. He was hawking product in the lobby when the above pic was taken.

George Carlin, 4th Lateshow, Gotham Comedy Club
July 31 2008
What has been going on? Plenty. Why didn’t I blog sooner? Tired, apathetic, distracted. (I found out they have pictures of naked women on the internet.)

George Carlin died. It sucks, because he was so goddamn good at stand up. I got to work with him a couple of times.
He was nice and honest and funny and still working his ass off to get better. It was inspiring to watch him.

I did the Late Show with David Letterman for the fourth time. It went very well. I’m with the makeup and hair people on the show, who are incredibly cool.

Michelle Nick and John

You heard me right. I am wearing makeup.

I did The Great American Comedy Festival in Norfolk, Nebraska. Got to see some great comics. Jim McDonald. Joe DeRosa. James Smith. Deacon Gray. Jeff Caldwell.

I got to meet Dick Cavett and Robert Klein.

What else? Same old stuff.
Drinking coffee.
Writing jokes.
Doing stand up.
Feeling uncomfortable.
Sneaking cigs.

I have nothing to complain about. I do anyway though.

I’ll be at The Gotham Comedy Club this week, then Zanies in Chicago, then other places where they serve beer and serve jalapeno poppers. Hope you are well. If not, there are beers and various drugs, prescription and otherwise, to give you some other options.

Much Luck, Nick

NICK'S CAM

New CD "Bring Out The Monkey"

News Flash

Somewhere in America

Driving

1100 Bad Cups of Coffee

Working the New Material

The Splendor of Backstage

Tahoe

Grand Rapids