Keep It Clean Recap 2/14/2012 Monday 10pm Public House

by Comedy Recap

Keep it Clean runs every Monday at the Public House and is hosted By JC Coccoli. I attended The February 13th Valentine’s Lincoln’s Birthday Smash Edition of Keep It Clean, at 10pm that featured Ali Wong, Sean O’Connor, Eliza Skinner, Anyi Malik, Ahmed Bharoocha, and Brody Stevens.

The Public House is a rowdy sports bar where the comedians have to compete with the bar being in the same room as the performance space. JC does a wonderful job engaging with and pacifying the crowd. At the top of every show JC  will ask that everyone on the bar’s side of the room should move over to  stage’s side of the room, and in doing so will receive a free beer. She eventually gives a free beer to everyone on both sides of the room.

JC started her  set with a story about getting out of a DUI, by telling the arresting officer that she’s Vince Vaughn’s girlfriend. From there she transitioned into her brand new Whitney Houston material, impressed that  Houston slept with Ray J(Brandy’s brother.) JC is brash and likable and as a host isn’t above shushing her audience.

JC brought  up the first comic of the evening, Ali Wong. Ali began by talking about how Ugg boots are fois gras for your feet, and how bridesmaid duty as a financial burden. She vowed to allow no more skaters in her love life but more engineers and went on to talk about choosing between doing a spot on “The Tonight Show” or attending her boyfriends graduation from Harvard. Successful people’s problems. She covered race and weight next with some material on what Puerto Ricans and Koreans have in common and how she’s ready to look like Ms. Pacman. She closed by challenging anal virgins to grow up. Ali is often the dirtiest comic on the bill and tonight was no exception.

After Ali’s set JC spent a little bit of time complimenting the audience and talking about cute Trader Joe’s employee.  Then she brought out Sean O’Connor.

Connor began by asking the audience to bring it’s energy up so he can keep his energy extremely low. He seemed to hop effortlessly and quickly from one subject to the next. First, drinking on Adderall, then doing birds favors, and then taking a screenwriting class that was taught by the guy who wrote “Mannequin 2.” Sean is from New Jersey where the nursing staff at his mother’s hospital will disguise Bon Jovi as a doctor every time he visits the ER. O’Connor closed his set with a story about his girlfriend’s dead ex-boyfriend which combined  his down to earth storytelling with imaginative flights of fancy.

Without doing much time between comics JC brought on Eliza Skinner. Eliza began her set by asking the audience to be each other’s Valentine this holiday and went into talking about getting her haircut, and the futility of handjobs. She then transitioned into an extremely strong bit about  how everyone has negative opinions of cat-lady’s even though cat-lady’s could not give less of a fuck about what we think. This flowed smoothly into a little chunk about how  no-one every gives dog-guy’s shit even though dog-guy’s are just as weird as cat lady’s. Eliza closed talking about Ancient Egyptians being anglicized by today’s filmmakers and a thought about what would make being eaten by a polar-bear worth it.

After Eliza’s set JC came on stage and opened a V-day gift given to her by a loyal audience member Danny. Danny got JC a Star Wars Pez dispenser which lead into a story about her dad growing pot plants.

Then JC brought on Anyi Malik. Anyi opened by explaining how he had requested more empty chairs for his set. He moved on to talk about  how small his studio apartment is, and the childish games he plays with women; Red Rover, Red Light-Green Light. Probably the most animated performer of the night, Anyi closed with a long bit about what it would be like to accept an award for The-Most-Dangerous-City and dealing with Armenian gangsters in Glendale.

Again, without doing much time JC brought up the next performer, Ahmed Bharoocha. Ahmed started by talking about how, as humans, we’re overdoing it with the amount of cow product we use. Case-in-point, he explains we print pictures of our missing kids on cartons full of cow’s children’s food (aka, milk). He went on to talk about how Shawn from “Boy Meets World” was an interesting enough character to have his own show. The middle of Ahmed’s set was devoted to the idea that people who don’t believe in dinosaurs believe in the lamest devil ever, and an interesting interpretation of “Why We Fight.” He closed his set talking about his scepticism that there’s someone for everyone and the world’s worst pirates.

JC came  on and seemed excited to bring out the nights last comic, a drop-in,  Brody Stevens. Brody kicked it off by explaining that he was dropping in from House of Pies and he doesn’t do conventional humor, he does cameos in punk rock movies. Brody tells us that he has borderline aspergers, and adult-on-set-autism and today he crossed the 20,000 followers on Twitter marker. He closed his set by big-upping Reseda High School and shitting on a few other LA highschools. Brody in fine form, there’s really no-one else like him.

You can follow all these performers on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/#!/KeepitCleanShow
https://twitter.com/#!/JCcoccoli
https://twitter.com/#!/aliwong3000
https://twitter.com/#!/seanoconnz
https://twitter.com/#!/elizaskinner
https://twitter.com/#!/AhmedBharoocha
https://twitter.com/#!/BrodyismeFriend

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