Natty Bumpercar: all right i'm gonna get to it right now i'm gonna get to the point we're not gonna doddle i have fun exciting news and i want to tell you about it before anyone even comes in the studio and bothers me or interrupts me or tries to tell me something silly hi this is natty bumper car with a bumper podcast and the cool news is that i'm helping co-produce the montclair comedy festival in montclair new jersey november 13th 14th and 15th and i am like so beyond excited i have wanted to do a festival type thing for a long time i've done benefits i produce shows uh we you know all kinds of stuff but finally like i don't know what happened but something in me just uh oh wait that's right i got laid off from my job and then i had an anxiety attack and i didn't sleep for like three days and that's not good but the good thing that came out of that was a festival which is strange but that's what happened i uh i got laid off on a thursday and i uh immediately just went into a shell inside myself in the corner and um i was kind of rocking back and forth in the corner and then i rocked too hard i and i bumped and i the shell cracked open and i was and there i was And I thought, I got to do something. I can't just sit here and be sad. Let's go. We got to figure this out. And so I started thinking, Montclair Comedy Festival. Montclair has Montclair Pride. They have the Jazz Fest. They have a literary festival. They have Montclair Film. The Walnut Street Fair. I don't know. That's different. But you get the point. There's a lot of stuff going on in Montclair. And there used to be a comedy club there, right there on Bloomfield Avenue. It was called Rascals, and it's not there anymore. And so I said, well, that's strange. Let me research this to see if it exists. And I looked up Montclair Comedy Festival, and there was nothing. So I got super excited, and I went and I got the URL, montclaircomedyfestival.com. And then I went and I got all the socials. And then what did I do? I went and trademarked the name. And I don't know if you know this, but I actually helped produce a show there for like 15 years. On every Sunday night for 15 years. Rain or sleet or snow, but not ice. And not big time sports games. Sports games? Yeah, sports games. And it was great. It was at a place called Tierney's Pub, and it's on Valley Road. And it was upstairs, and when the pandemic hit, it kind of went away. And I think everything went away. And I was kind of like, oh, okay, there goes Tierney's. And the main person whose show it was, her name was Pat Grillon. And she went away. She just said, no more for me. And she passed away, which is horrible and depressing and sad. But, you know, I kind of didn't know what to do because it was her show. And for people who don't know, it's her fault that I started doing comedy again, really. When we moved up here from Georgia, I started doing it a little bit back there when we were in Georgia. But I had no intention. I was kind of… I was like, it's done with me. Okay. And then I passed this place, and it had a big banner outside. And it's like, comedy, Sundays, blah, blah, blah, beer thing, whatever, special. And I was like, huh, all right. And finally, I got up the gumption. I don't know. It wasn't like I didn't get up the gumption of the courage. I just finally remembered to pull in. And so I did that on a Sunday, and I went up. There was up these stairs, very steep stairs, very creaky stairs. And I got to the attic where it was and walked in. And there was just this woman there. And I was like, hey, this is who I am. This is my story. I want to… And she was like, okay. Like, immediately. That's what she did. And so then she gave me a date, and off we went. And really just… So great. So wonderful. And then over the years, I just kind of ended up trying to be as big of a help as I could, just because I could learn, and I could get more stage time, and I could host a lot, and I could figure stuff out. And it was a great learning experience. But then again, when the pandemic happened, and when she passed away, I was kind of like, all right, well, comedy was fun. Comedy was great. And I don't want to do it anymore. But then it came back. We started doing outdoor shows. Some people did a lot of Zoom shows. I only did a few because I found it very confusing to be sitting on my couch, staring at people in their little squares. And then they're like, all right, it's your turn. And having to turn on your microphone and be like, ah, here's my jokes. Ah. Anyway. So what happened? What happened? What happened? Oh, yeah, outdoor shows. And then my pal Suzanne, she found a place called LaSara Gardens, which is next town over. And I guess they have a stage in the back. And she was walking around one day, and she just went to the owner, like just went to her and said, hey, could we have a show here, comedy show? And like, I don't. I have no concept on how you do that. But she did. And good for her. Because we've been doing shows there for like three years. Sweet and sour comedy, right? And so we've been doing shows there. We've been doing private shows. We've been doing benefits. Kind of all sorts of stuff. And that's been wonderful. And then last year, I don't know if you remember, but I was talking about Jaws the musical. And we were producing that as sweet and sour comedy. We were in it. And we applied and got into the. New York Fringe Festival, which was super cool and super weird and different and scary for me because I had not I don't I had to learn songs at a learn lines. I had to sing songs, you know, and I had to they did blocking. What does that mean? That's what you're supposed to be. What do you mean? When we had the specific time that you say that you're supposed to look over there and be over there and then do that. And it's just like, oh, I have to. OK, I have to put all of that into my brain. And it's like. It's like an hour long thing. Perfect. Great. This is going to work out well. Well, it did. It was fun. And the festival happened and it went great. And, you know, it was a big experience and another big learning thing. And then we kept doing shows back to the stand up stuff, the normal stuff. And then, you know, I'd kind of talked about festival stuff every so often, but it just seemed like a big impossible thing. And then when I got laid off. On a Thursday and then I had the panic attack, I just I did all that stuff. I found a URL and then I built the Web site and I all this stuff was just like I figured out the structure of how I wanted to get people into the festival as far as like them applying. And I got a committee of people from around the country and so that they could watch the videos and fill out a rubric and they would take the rankings from that. And we put it into spreadsheets. So we had all the rankings and we were able to look at different aspects of their rankings and, you know, just like kind of do it from a more fair perspective than just, hey, we're having a festival. Hey, we're going to have all of our friends on it. You know, that's that's that's something that's fine if that's what you want to do. But I was trying to make it just a more inclusive thing. Right. I didn't even watch the videos because I wanted to be hands off from that. And we had over 100. People apply, which is bananas to me and kind of in the same time as that. Oh, wait. So so I went to Suzanne on like Monday or Tuesday and I was like, hey, we're having a festival. She's like, what? And I was like, Montclair Comedy Festival. And she's like, when next year? And I was like, November. And this was in like May or June or something. And she was like, no, too much, too fast. No. And I was like. It's all done because in my head it was. And, you know, we got we got all of the people applying and then we started talking to venues and everybody was super receptive. And we're like three weeks away. It's it's I don't know what date it is today, but it's sometime in October, mid-October. And then that's in mid-November. And it's going so great. It's so weird. Like I had to build and develop. An app for the website to pull in all the ticketing stuff from Eventbrite, which is like our ticketing platform. And they reached out to us to be our official ticketing platform. They reached out to us. It's weird. Who are we? Sweet and sour. And, you know, how to learn how to do press releases. And then I built this cool app for the website also, where when the people got into accepted to the festival, they were like, oh, we're going to do this. And then I built this cool app for the website also, where when the people got into accepted to the festival, they were like, oh, we're going to do this. And then I built this cool app for the website also, where when the people got into accepted to the festival, they were like, oh, we're going to do this. They have a page where they could go and they can actually just they can pick three skins and then they upload their picture and they're able to move their photo around in the pictures. And then it's like Montclair Comedy Festival and then in the date. And it's kind of like an announcement like, look at me. I'm in this thing. And people used it. And it was great. And then once we got all the shows named and we got them all organized and all the lineups done, then we were able to. And seriously, I could not have done this stuff without Suzanne. I tell her this all the time. She was able to, you know, I have big, dumb ideas, but then she can use spreadsheets, and then she makes it make sense. And so she was able, she was like, all right, I got all these people from this show doing this and this and ba-ba-doo-ba-da. So we could contact the people and send them out, like, show-specific information. Hey, you're on this show. It's at this time. It's at this place. And when we did that, we gave them a link to another little thing that I built where they could build their own show flyer or poster with their, you know, put their picture in, type their name in, and move the name around wherever they wanted it to be. And that was, it was, it's fun. You know, it's fun to think up these things and then figure out how to make them happen. And then it's terrifying when you go to send the main emails out and the website just dies, crashes. And you're like, why did this happen? I don't know. Just to keep me on my toes. So that's kind of where we are at this point. And it's exciting. And I'm excited. And my therapist was like, hey, this is kind of a lot. And I was like, yes, yes, this is a lot. This might be too much. But my whole theory, my logic is at least I'm not still. I'm still in my shell, crying and rocking in the corner. Like, I took all of that terror and scary and whatever, and I was able to do this giant thing. And every so often, like, I do kind of blink my eyes and go, what have I done? What are we, how are we doing this? And I've been just making lists and lists and lists and going down the list and crossing things out. And we have volunteers. And I don't know. Overall, people seem to be excited about it. Which makes me beyond happy. And hopefully, you know, the next three, four weeks are just going to go by without a hitch.
