I am pleased to announce that I have been booked as the headline entertainer at the inaugural Delmarva Crab Festival, to be held August 10-11 near Lewes,DE. The Delmarva (DELaware, MARyland, VirginiA) peninsula is renowned for their signature blue crabs but there is no official, major festival to honor them (if by honoring you mean boiling alive, dismembering and devouring). To be fair, Crisfield, MD has a Hard Crab Derby, but they aren't hiring comedians.

I will be performing in the Pickin' & Grinnin' Venue (I prefer "venue", they call it a "tent"). The organizers must get fair credit for coming up with the name Pickin' & Grinnin'. As a matter of fact, I think that it is possible they chose comedy as the entertainment JUST so they could use their clever name.

If you don't know (and as recently as 1992, I didn't) to "pick" a crab is to bodily rip it limb from limb to aid in procuring the delicious crab meat. This is not to be confuse with the more benign act of "choosing" a crab. I'll never mix those two up...again.

Baltimore's Funniest Person, Erin Jackson will be on the show and we may add another act as the event draws near. There are two shows: one Friday, one Saturday. It's going to be a lot of fun. Here's a link if you want to know more.

Come on...what's funnier than a vegetarian at a Crab Festival?

I had a wonderful February (PennDOT not withstanding): Some highlights:

• I performed at 30 East Main, one of Maggie Hardy-Magerko's incredible Nemocolin Woodlands Resort properties in the Pennsylvania highlands
• I gave the post luncheon keynote for the Maryland Asphalt Association's Annual Conference at Martin's West in Baltimore
• Sold out the Diamond Room, Christina's Comedy Club, at Dover Downs Casino & Resort in Dover, DE

Looking ahead:

I'll be performing for the troops this week at Walter Reed Army Hospital, and yes, there is an actual list of things I am not allowed to talk about. Wanna' guess what's first on that list?

I've played bars, restaurants and even a campground, but I've never played a coffeehouse (a coffeehouse in a Unitarian Church no less). We'll remedy that with a guest appearance at the 333 Coffeehouse on Friday, March 16.

I'll be at the Baltimore Comedy Factory with Orney Adams (from Seinfeld's Comedian) March 21-24.
I'll wrap up March with The Baltimore Comedy Festival and then I'll start off April in Florida.

It IS warm in Florida, right?

Last month, I asked you to submit some questions and I would choose one and answer one here. Let me say, I truly did not expect such a tidal wave of interest. Wow! I had to call in a temp to sift through the tens of questions that I received. When the dust had settled, I found this, from Joe in Baltimore.

• "Ever been totally out of your element? Story about the toughest crowd you ever had? Were you able to win them over?"

In August 1997, I had been performing for about 3 months. I had my first paid gig (MC -3 shows $25/show) in May at Winchester's, a now defunct legacy club in Baltimore . Well, I guess I did all right, because Nick asked me back in August. The deal was for one show Friday, two shows Saturday and a SPECIAL event on Sunday. It seems that a group of parents had rented out the club for their 14 year old son to celebrate his birthday with friends. There were going to be about eighty of them and I would pick up an extra (wait for it...) 75 bucks for providing a clean 30 minute show for these young men.
"Would that be a problem?" asked Nick, the club manager.
"Of course not", I lied, eager to double my money for the weekend.

I worked for the next two weeks on clean material that I thought 14 year old boys would dig, That was the start of my NASCAR material (yeah, blame them), plus I had NFL stuff, Cal Ripken lines, monster truck riffs, Mike Tyson jokes and a solid 3 minutes on the Space Shuttle.
I was ready, I was confident. I was loaded for bear.

I show up at the club and it is, in fact, full of 14 year olds...but they're not boys.
Nick had erred slightly and had hired me to perform for dozens upon dozens of fourteen year old girls.

To say that they hated me would be to imply that they cared if I lived or died. They didn't. It was a brutal 30 minutes, I tried to find a sympathetic face in the crowd and play to that face. No luck. The absolute topper, and what gives you the most honest glimpse of a comedian's psyche, is that even after I knew that this show was going to be a full-on train wreck ...I STILL VIDEOTAPED IT! ...and no you can't see it.

Thanks Joe. You'll get a LOST Sticker. just as soon as I can figure out how to email it.
Want to get your question answered? Email a question that has something to do with standup comedy. Include your (somebody's) first name and the city you call home. Best question gets answered in the newsletter and the person who asked it gets a free LOST Sticker.

I enjoy putting this newsletter together every month. I think it looks professional and snappy (you just don't hear "snappy" used much anymore) and in truth, I get a fair number of compliments about it every time it comes out. I'd love to tell you that I slave over the programming and spend hours wrestling the HTML into something that is manageable (and if I have told you that, then I apologize).

Truth is, I use Constant Contact, an online app that makes it easy to look good. If you can check your email, then you can put together a newsletter. I have recommended this outfit to several of you who asked, but NOW Constant Contact has started a referral program (Of course, they start the program after I've sent a half dozen new clients their way!)

The bottom line: you check it out free for 60 days, if you like it, you pay for it (it's about $15/month). When you pay for it, I get a $30 credit and YOU get a $30 credit. Win win. But you've got to use this link for us to get the credit. Drop me a line if you have questions.
The infomercial is now over.

Best I can tell you, this is a picture of a 24 hour fitness center in Point Loma near San Diego. I'm not sure if the story it tells is about America as a whole or California in particular.

Either way, enjoy.

See you next time!