SAD FAREWELL TO MY COMEDY HOME or "LOOK ON MY WORKS YE MIGHTY..."

Two weeks ago I recorded what would turn out to be an accidental milestone: my last set ever at the newly closed-down Comedyworks on Bishop Street in Montreal. 

It was the club where I started, and it was Jimbo who kept me going, inviting me back, encouraging more writing, more chances, more bombing and coming back better for it. More than any club in the world, Comedyworks provided a stage that let me be the comic I wanted to be. Like the passing of a friend, this was too sudden, too confusing, and too hard to wrap my head around simple facts, like that I'm not going to try the new Special Needs Hip Hop bit on the Works stage, ever.

It's a crazy coincidence that I was taping this open mic in what would turn out to be a farewell performance. Obviously, I had no idea, so there's no great closure, no grand good-bye gesture, just working out some jokes. Although, my final joke was the Father's Day bit. Fitting because, besides the not-too-huge stretch that Jimbo was the comedy dad that helped raise me in this biz, Jimbo's Pub was also where I met the love of my life, Michelle, who would end up making me a bona fide father. So that's another reason to thank the Comedyworks. 

Jimbo, if you ever learn how to read the internet, I hope you read this heartfelt thank you for giving me the space to experience some of the proudest, most thrilling moments of my professional life in comedy, and a bunch of fun ones as a lowly civilian, as well. For Karaoke, On the Spot Improv, headline weekends, MC weekends, those incredible early opening weekends (including Mitch Hedberg on your 10th anniversary, holy crap, that was the greatest). Not to mention the odd tribute shows, Just for Laughs auditions, holiday parties, St. Patrick's Day festivities, and the best open mic in the galaxy where every joke I've ever told on TV was tried out first. 

Thanks for everything, Jimbo, including hanging in there with the club for as long as you did. 

Here's that last set, captured for posterity. It ends the way it began, on a Monday night above a humble little tavern on Bishop Street...