Going home...

I have to go to Sweden for a couple of days to do some work. It's time to finish the last leg of my tour with 11 gigs in Sweden. The last two is gonna be filmed for a special, so it's gonna be busy days.

I've had a great couple of weeks and met a lot of great people. Big thanks to Yannis and Amy who have been taking such good care of us. I really wouldn't want to leave yet if it wasn't for my daughter Lina. I miss her like crazy.

I'm soon back again, and I will keep you posted if anything happens regarding my standup in english.

I bombed yesterday.

My last gig yesterday. It got pretty late before we took the stage and while we waited, we drank. I can't say i was on top of things when i took the stage, but I was having fun. All of a sudden i jumped at some guy who didn't even say something to me. (Sorry about that) You could say that turned the audience against me a little, but who am I to keep a clip of me bombing in english from you guys?

Guess you could say i dropped the ball and never really managed to pick it up. Was a great room and a great night though... Bar Four is a really nice place. Next time I'm gonna try to keep the crowd on my side too.

Eastville Comedy Club.

I warmed up with 10 minutes at Parkside Lounge that worked fine. There was an open mic before the show i was gonna be in, so we kind of kidnapped their audience and got us a good one. After that I was in a really good mood and went to meet up with the others.

It was really nice to be back at Eastville Comedy Club. It's a really nice room and I like the midnightshows a lot. I tried some stuff that i did in Sweden a while back and I also improvised a little and tried some new stuff. I'm slowly getting there. Long, long way to go untill I'm as comfortable doing it in english as I am doing it in Swedish, but I'm getting there. Slowly.

Here is a part of the set i did at Eastville:

Birds...

Somehow the dates got mixed up yesterday, so the Raving Lunatics show is actually tonight. Ended up doing another show at the same place instead. Sorry about the poor quality of this clip, but i really wanted to post it while it's topical. Can't do it today, since New York Post almost proved me right this morning.

Tonight I'm at Parkside Lounge at 9 pm. And then at Eastville Comedy Club at midnight.

Raving lunatics.

Is the name of the club where I'm working tonight. Show starts at 9 so i have plenty of time to write some new stuff before that. If i get it done in time I'm gonna go to one of the open mics at 6 to try it out.

Open mics are a horrible experience, but it's a fantastic opportunity for comics to just get up there and try some new stuff. Sure, you pay to get on. Sure, the only audience you usually get are other comics thinking only of their own act... But still. It's a great thing to be able to get on whenever you want. Wish we had those in Sweden too. Gonna talk to some clubowners when i get home...

Relaxing today.

I ended up not working yesterday, instead I went to a small room called Haiku and enjoyed a nice show with a couple of really good sets and a couple of not so good sets. Today I've been having a hard time getting anything at all done. Ended up watching Comedy Central's roast of Bog Saget. Some truly fantastic stuff on that. Gonna be hard to compete with when we do a series of roasts for Swedish TV in a little over a month.

I only have two more booked spots left before i have to go back to Sweden for some work (gotta do some paid work too from time to time) saturday I do another midnightshow at Eastville Comedy Club and Sunday I'm in Brooklyn. I might do something tomorrow and monday as well, but nothing booked, so it's gonna be open mics in that case. Tuesday it's time for Danko Jones who is in town and on wednesday we head for sweden and almost two weeks of work before we go back here on the 5th of february again.

Carolines.

I was nervous as hell yesterday. I really don't know why, but i was. Sweating and shaking. Normally don't get like that, even on the rare occasions i do get nervous, so it was tough. Carolines is a great club. Room wasn't packed, but it was a good crowd and a lot of good comedy as well. I wasn't feeling well, so I left after my set. Would have liked to stay for all of it, but my body wasn't up for it. I have another chance to catch the headliner, Colin Kane, when we work together at Village Lantern in a couple of weeks.

My set was mainly concentrated on God, and here is some of it:





I have a gig tonight as well. Don't know where and when yet, but i will keep you posted.

I messed up.

Not the gig, but the recording of it. Sorry guys I'm gonna try to get better at getting my stuff on tape. New try tonight when I'm at Carolines for a 15-minutespot.

The show yesterday was interesting. Lot of good comedians and some really hard and political stuff of the kind i like. Jena Friedman hosted in and she had some really, really good stuff. Tough. Check her out if you get a chance. Yannis did a great bit about how politics is finally racially integrated that i really enjoyed a lot.

Me? I tried a couple of new things that worked out fine. Did a pretty short set, so nothing to write home about.

Well, as i said, tonight I'm on stage @ Carolines. Address and ticket info in the calendar at the bottom of the page.

Sound Fix tonight!

Tonight at 8.30 me, Yannis and a bunch of other people have a gig at Sound Fix. It's a very nice little club in Brooklyn. Don't miss it.

Going out now to see if I can catch Soran and David for lunch before they head back for Sweden. After that i have some writing to do. If I get some new stuff down I think I will go to Eastville for their open mic at 6 pm. I should be able to do that and still make it to Brooklyn in time.

But either way, the gig at Sound Fix is one that i have been looking forward to. Don't miss it if you are in New York. Adress to the club in the calendar at the bottom of this page.

Fantastic open mic.

As I said i had some new stuff i wanted to try before the midnightgig at Eastville (wich was good gig) so I went down to Comedy Corner and paid my 5 bucks for 5 minutes of stagetime. The only audience at most open mics are other comics, who also pay to get stagetime and the crowds are usually tiny. Yesterday was no exception to this.

Soran and David came down too and we sat through the entire thing. Most of the comedy we saw was pretty horrible, but there was some good stuff too. I was on like 4th or 5th and really only wanted to try the new stuff.

After I was done the hostess went onstage and said something like this:

"I am a republican and America is a zionist country. Have you ever had rockets rain down on your house? You can't do that material here. Maybe in Sweden you can, but not here."

To that i replied:

"Thats why I'm doing it here. That's what comedy is all about."

She came back with:

"Well, it helps if it's funny"

Those of you who know me, know that i don't care too much about being funny.... But anyway, here is what i did. Enjoy:





After that, Soran took the stage and apparently had a very good time at my expense. Not that i agree about the Richard Pryor thing, but it sure was a gig to remember and I'm glad Soran and David was there to share it with me.





I did tape the gig at Eastville too, but somebody got in the way of the camera and the audio wasn't that good, so I won't post it. Gig at Sound Fix tomorrow night. I will post that.

Eastville Comedy Club tonight.

At 12. Before that, dinner and an open mic. Gonna go down to Comedy Corner close to here and try out some new stuff i wrote about Gaza today. It's probably gonna be horrible. Open mics usually are... Starts at 5.30.

Really looking forward to the gig tonight though. Midnightgig. Have no idea what to expect. Will the audience be drunk, tired, both or none? Will I be?

No gig tonight.

The gig at Eastville tonight got cancelled for some reason. Tomorrow is still on though, so don´t miss it. Yannis will be there aswell.

Spent the day hanging out with Soran and David. It's like being on vacation with Chip 'n Dale. They wanted to go to Harlem, so we did. But only after they emptied their pockets in their hotell. They didn't wanna get robbed... Those two are the cutest. It was a pretty booring fieldtrip to the northern parts of town and it's cold as shit today, so I couldn't make them walk back no matter how hard i tried.

Yesterday ended with a lot of beer, booze and good company. Tonight we are going to see Louis CK, if we can get tickets. Tomorrow is workday.

No internet.

I've spent like 10 hours trying to get internet in the appartment. Not that big of a deal since I can still use that friendly neighbours, but I'd rather have my own connection that I am paying for... Well, I still don't. Maybe tomorrow. That's what they said yesterday too.

After another 2 hours with a guy in the appartment trying to fix it to no avail I'm going out. I think I'm gonna get a tattoo today. I also might go to an open mic, but now I really don't feel the need to since I already have gigs like every other day.

Just got one at Soundfix on monday. Looking forward to going back there. My last gig there was filmed for swedish television. It's posted in the top left of this blog aswell. The guy introducing me in that clip is Yannis Pappas. Great guy. Check him out if you get a chance.

Gig #2

If the room on gig no 1 was small, the room yesterday was ultrasmall. And lovely. I did lots of gigs in tiny, tiny rooms when i went to london a few years back. The big difference here is that all the comics yesterday were good.

Sodomising a cockroach with a toothpick. That line made my entire night. Thanks Yannis.

My set went well actually. I'm slowly beginning to feel comfortable speeking english on stage. A few more spots and I think it's gonna feel fine. Not there yet though. I did 15 minutes (sorry for staying up there to long) with a good mix of translated and new stuff. Now I'm gonna go for a beer and do some more writing. Probably not working tonight, but i might go to an open mic just to keep the momentum. Updated the calendar with a few more gigs. Midnight gigs this friday and saturday. That should be fun.

Gig tonight.

I have a gig tonight aswell. 8 pm at Abigail Café in Brooklyn. After that i might have another spot aswell but i don't think I will be able to post that since my internet is down. On top of that my phone stopped working... Gonna try and get everything fixed tomorrow, but for now i have to concentrate on what to do tonight.

First gig done.

Just as my dinner arrived yesterday I got a message from Yannis to be at The Comedy Dungeon at 8.30 so thats what i did. It was a very small place in the basement of a hostel and not very many people at all. I just love those gigs.

Yannis did 10 minutes and tried some new stuff and after that i did 10 aswell. Tried some newly written and translated some on the spot. Worked out ok although my english is very rusty at the moment. A few more spots and i think i will be fine.

Now it's time to do the landry, and by do I mean go leave it somewhere where somebody else will do it for me. There are hundreds of those places around here. After that I gotta sort out our internetconnection. It's not working so I'm using a friendly neighbours. A friendly neighbour who doesn't know that, of course.

Probably gonna do an open mic tonight but that depends on how long this internetbusiness is gonna take.

To work or not to work.

Just got an e-mail from Yannis Pappas who has been helping me find some spots here. He had one tonight. Only problem is I was out when the e-mail came and now I can't get a hold of him. So either I'm gonna work. Don't know where, don't know when. Or i will just go watch some comedy and have a few beers.

Soran Ismail and David Druid from Sweden is in town so i think i will hook up with them and go the Comedy Cellar if I'm not working. Tomorrow I'm gonna go to some open mic just to get some stagetime. Been working on a 7-minute set today that i think is gonna work. If i even know how to do 7 minutes. Haven't done that in years. And I haven't done any comedy for weeks. It doesn't feel good right now, but i think it will once i get back in the saddle again.

Arrived in NYC

Yesterday we arrived in New York and moved in to the very small appartment on Morton street that will be our home for 3 months. I have to get to work now. That is not easy after a totally relaxing and very decadent week in Las Vegas. Honestly, I don't want to work right now. It feels like I'm never gonna want to work again. But... I said I was going to do this and that means i will.

My first 15 minutespot is a week away so I have some time to work on some material and try to get a few more spots in before that. There are lots of open mics in town so it shouldn't be a problem to get some stagetime... I think.

At the moment I have five 15-minutespots booked and I will try to get some more, on top of the open mics. I will post info about all my upcoming gigs here so that anyone interested can come watch me bomb in english.

I'm not really sure what material I'm gonna be doing, but i guess it will be a mix of translated old stuff that i tried in Sweden, maybe some of the stuff i have tried in London and newly written routines. Gonna start working tomorrow. This blogpost will do for now.