Podcast episode 358ish: Tim Rykert

Tim Rykert joins the 5-timers' club with this appearance on What's So Funny? He joins the very special ranks of Ian Boothby, Steve Bays, Graham Clark, Dylan Rhymer, Will Davis, Harry Doupe, Richard Lett, Darcy Michael, and Kliph Nesteroff. Welcome, Tim. This podcast episode drops the week his web series, Who is Jimmy the Bag?, debuts. We spend the bulk of the hour talking about it. It's a good concept with endless story lines. Check it out.

And check out our talk. Right here or on iTunes, Stitcher, PodcastLand... You know the drill. Go subscribe somewhere.

Sept. 14: Tim Rykert

Tim Rykert's back for another kick at the can. Like Darcy Michael last week, tonight will mark Rykert's fifth time on the show (although he shared two previous visits, one with Jamie Hutchinson and one with Will Davis). Tonight he's here to talk about some dude named Jimmy the Bag. I have so many questions, like what kind of bag? Dirt? Scum? Douche? Paper? Plastic? Actually, I think it's of the douche variety. Check out the trailer below. This is a web series he's been working on for a while. In what capacity, we'll find out. But the series stars former What's So Funny? guests Sam Easton, Damonde Tschritter, and Toby Hargrave. Maybe more. Tune in and find out tonight at 11 pm on CFRO 100.5 FM or livestream us at coopradio.org.

Who is Jimmy the Bag? airs on your computer screens on Sept. 26 and runs for 26 episodes. In the meantime, check out all their teasers at jimmythebag.com.

Podcast episode 293ish: Tim Rykert

Tim Rykert came out of semi-retirement last week to join us in studio. The beach bum long-boarded his way to us and we talked about playing to drunks on cruise ships, and fainting in heart-throb Michael Bublé's arms. Never short on opinions, he also made a case for getting rid of government funding of the arts and opined on comedy competitions. There's lots more, too, so give it a listen.

Click below to stream the episode, or go download it at iTunes or wherever fine podcasts are dispensed. I just saw we got a new comment on iTunes. Glad to see it. Hope to see even more in the future.

Oct. 7: Tim Rykert

Tonight on What's So Funny? we're thankful for Tim Rykert, who either had no Thanksgiving dinner to go to or left one early to be with us. He lives on the island now and is here for work so maybe he's going turkey-less. Tim is a guy with strong opinions and I love hearing them, whether we agree or not. Tonight we'll talk about Canadian TV, cruise ship gigs, comedy competitions and, of course, find out about his gig writing for Michael Bublé's, uh, Canadian TV special.

When you wake up from your post-meal tryptophan nap, you can loosen your belt and tune in to 100.5 FM here in Vancouver at 11 pm, or livestream the show at coopradio.org.

June 27: Irwin Barker

The late, great stand-up comic/writer Irwin Barker passed away last Monday and the country is still in mourning. I have no idea why flags are at half-mast around the city the last little while but I choose to believe they're for Irwin.

Barker was a guest twice on our little program, once in 2005 when we were six months in, and again in 2008, when he was one year into his diagnosis of terminal cancer. Tonight on What's So Funny? we're going to play clips from those two interviews with the man as well as some clips of his comedy.

The photo, courtesy of Kevin Statham, shows Irwin second from the right, at a benefit for cancer at the River Rock Show Theatre. From left to right, there's Brent Butt, Mark Critch, Tim Steeves, Tim Rykert, Barker, and Graham Clark.

Tom Segura at Yuk Yuk's and a bit of Trevor Boris

Day two of the comedy fest. I caught the early show at Yuk Yuk's and it was a good one. The crowd was hot, as it usually is at Yuks, and Tim Rykert did a great job of hosting, coming out with energy, doing some solid material (even if I'd heard most of it for years) and keeping the show moving. The first guest was a newbie, who must be extremely thankful she got into the festival when others more experienced can't. Theresa Travatto was her name (at least phonetically). She did fine. Maybe even great if you factor in she's only been at it for three months.

Next up was Dave Shumka, who I featured in the Straight this week. Funny as always, but it's time to move on to some new jokes, methinks. He's perfected his 15 minutes, or however long he did tonight. I was talking to Rykert after the show, who admits he, himself, needs to write more. He quoted a Toronto comic (whose name escapes me) who said that if comics wrote one new minute per week, they'd have a new 60 minutes per year. When you put it like that, it doesn't seem so hard. Surely they all have fleeting funny thoughts in a given day, so the idea of shaping that into a funny minute in a week seems doable.

Kelly Dixon followed. He's one of my favourites. He's a real pro who appeals to all crowds, I'm guessing. Why I haven't seen him opening for big names at the River Rock or taking apart a topic on The Debaters, like virtually every other comic in the country, is beyond me. The guy is good.

Then it was time for the headliner, Tom Segura. I last saw Segura opening for Jay Mohr at the River Rock earlier this year so it was nice to see him in an expanded set. I'm not one who believes you have to agree with a comedian to find them funny, but it so happens I agreed with lots Tom said. His takes on judging people, tattoos, headware and cyclists were dead-on. I won't go so far as to agree with him on owning midgets, but that's just me.

After the show, he and I sat out on Burrard St. and recorded a 35-minute interview, which I'll air on Sunday's show. More on that on Sunday.

I booted it over to the Cultch to catch the last 15 minutes of Trevor Boris's set. Boris somehow scored his own show, a filming for a DVD. How long has he been at it? A couple years? And he already has his own show and DVD? I haven't been a fan of the gay farmer from what I saw on TV, but felt I owed him a fair chance because live is so often way better. Okay, sneaking in for the last 15 minutes of a show isn't exactly a fair chance. I can't say I came away a fan, but he was better than on TV, I'll give him that. Still, his act centres around one theme: he's gay. Got it.

I mentioned yesterday that Arj Barker said in an interview in the Province that he started out doing stereotypical material on his ancestry, but quickly changed. I hope Boris moves beyond the gay theme. It's not original or all that interesting. At least to me. But hey, it's working for him, so what do I know? He's got his own show at a semi-major comedy festival and a three-camera shoot for a DVD.

One of my pet peeves is comics who laugh at their own jokes, and he does it incessantly. Kelly Dixon laughs on stage, too, but he's not laughing at his own material so much as laughing at the absurd situation he's describing. At least, that's the way it comes across. With Boris, it's a kind of aren't-I-an-incorrigible-rapscallion? kind of thing, which is just off-putting. But the guy was better than I expected. And I could see liking him down the road once he settles into his craft and doesn't find everything he says so damned amusing.

Sept. 13: Will Davis & Tim Rykert

As we embark on our fifth season, we welcome back regular guest Will Davis, the something-or-other of the Global (or whatever it's called) Comedy Fest. He's the guy that puts it all together. In case you didn't realize, the fest(ival) is just around the corner, running from Sept. 17 - 27. There are some great (and not so great) names coming this year and Will will be telling us all about them. He's bringing along semi-regular guest Tim Rykert who not only helps out at fest HQ, but will be performing at said fest. Should be a fun night, made all the more newsworthy because we're debuting a new theme song. Our first two theme songs were rather lazy, and I loved them. This one, though, is way more peppy and way more show-bizzy. We'll see how it goes.

Still more podcasts

A bunch of new podcasts have been added to the library. Eight, to be exact. You can listen to them here, or over at ye olde Comedy Couch, or download them on iTunes, among other places. I haven't heard them in a while, but if memory serves these are all good ones. At least I had fun:

Dave Shumka from June 15, 2008:


Richard Lett from August 31, 2008:


Marcus Ryan from January 4, 2009:


Reza Peyk from January 18, 2009:


John Wing from March 8, 2009:


Toby Hargraves from March 22, 2009:


Jamie Hutchinson & Tim Rykert from March 29, 2009:


Darcy Michael from April 5, 2009:

Irwin update

Half the fun of this blog is watching my Site Meter to see how people arrive here. Here are some recent Google searches that directed unsuspecting readers our way:

• "funny job interview mistakes blogspot" (from Manila)
• "johnny carson luckiest person in the world love" (from an unknown American city)
• "brent butt not funny" (from some lost soul in Toronto)
• "jon dore homosexual" (from Brampton)

But one of the most common searches is for Irwin Barker, the former local comic who's been battling terminal cancer for a couple of years now. Someone from Winnipeg Googled "how is irwin barker" yesterday. When I corresponded with him last month, he said he was still hanging in there. Well, today I got a press release from the River Rock, which can only be good news for Barker fans. In an effort to pander to more potential readers, here it is:

RIVER ROCK CASINO RESORT

PRESENTS

IRWIN BARKER & FRIENDS:

FIGHTING CANCER WITH COMEDY

SATURDAY, JUNE 13

Richmond, BC – For the second year, River Rock Casino Resort will be presenting “Irwin Barker & Friends: Fighting Cancer With Comedy” … a hilarious evening of stand-up with all proceeds going to the Richmond Hospital Foundation. Irwin Barker is a Gemini nominated comedy writer and performer who is well known in the Vancouver comedy scene. He is currently a staff writer on CBC’s award-winning Rick Mercer Report. Prior to that, he spent several years as a writer for CBC’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

In June 2007, Irwin was diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma, a rare type of terminal cancer. Since then, he has been actively involved as an inspirational speaker on how he has used humour as a vital coping mechanism in his personal fight against cancer. He has been a headline performer at numerous cancer fundraisers as well as a keynote speaker for conferences dealing with cancer and palliative care. His first year of cancer treatment was the subject of a nationally televised CTV documentary, That’s My Time. The documentary debuted at the Halifax Film Festival in September 2008 where it was selected as Best Canadian Film. The reaction to Irwin’s presentations on comedy and cancer has been overwhelmingly positive seeing it as a “perfect combination of humour and reflection.” In Irwin’s own words, “Cancer has my body but not my spirit and I’ll continue to make jokes ... not so much about cancer but in spite of it.”

Proceeds from the event will go towards the Richmond Hospital Foundation’s $4 million MRI Campaign. “We are so close, over 90% raised,” says Lisa Westermark, Executive Director. “We just need a little more to reach our goal and provide MRI service in Richmond Hospital. Together we can reduce wait times, improve access and allow for consultation between radiologists and specialists. In short, we can transform care for our community.” The show will also feature comedians from across Canada including local comic Graham Clark who can currently be seen on Citytv’s The CityNews List, triple Gemini winner Tim Steeves and Toronto's own Tim Rykert who recently toured throughout North America as the opening act for Michael Bublé along with a few surprise guests.

TICKETS ON SALE THURSDAY, APRIL 16 @ 10:00 AM

DOORS: 7:00 PM SHOW: 8:00 PM

Tickets: $24.50 (+ Service Charge & Facility Fee) – Cabaret Seating

Tickets available at all Ticketmaster Outlets or charge-by-phone (604) 280-4444

or order on-line at www.ticketmaster.ca

Ages 19 years and over

Bee's Knees Comedy Arrangement video

Monday night is my basketball night. For another few weeks, anyway. So I missed most of the big opening night of the Bee's Knees Comedy Arrangement at the Cellar jazz club. I got there as headliner Jamie Hutchinson hit the stage. There was a decent-sized crowd and the room, as I keep telling you, is really great. And Jamie was en fuego. Made me wish I had been there all night.

But now, through the magic of video, it's like I was. Each week on their website, they're going to show excerpts from the previous week. I love this idea. Hopefully, though, it won't keep people away, figuring they can just watch on-line. I'm sure the idea is to whet their comedic appetites, if you will, so they'll make it down to Broadway and Alma one Monday night. To that end, maybe they need to give smaller tastes of the acts, and edit them all together for some one-stop viewing. But I'm glad I was able to catch most of what I missed. Here are the first two on their page, all really funny.

City-TV superstar Charlie Demers:


Kelly "In my day" Dixon:

To watch all the other acts (minus Hutchinson, for some reason, and Dave Shumka for another reason), check out their video page. You'll see A.J. McKenzie, Paul Breau, musical act Janet Panic, Barry Greenfeld, and host Tim Rykert.

March 29: Jamie Hutchinson & Tim Rykert

What a gorgeous day. I think, just maybe, it might be the time to hang the long-johns up for the year. That's always a special day. (If you're reading this from a far-off land, don't get the wrong idea. Vancouver is barely in Canada, temperature-wise. I just like to feel snug and warm all the time.)

Speaking of special days, since our show went on the air in 2004 I've been trying to get Jamie Hutchinson on as a guest. Persistence finally paid off. He'll be joining us, along with his good buddy, and former guest, Tim Rykert. The two of them have a new room opening up at the Cellar Jazz Restaurant every Monday night. I'm looking forward to it. Fans of Corner Gas may remember Jamie as Rocket Ronnie from season one. And if you've ever seen Brent Butt live, chances are you saw Jamie open for him.

Fans of The Newsroom might remember Tim as a recurring character. Or if you've ever seen Michael Bublé in concert, chances are you saw Tim opening for the young crooner.

There you have it. That's all you need to know.