Hey gang,

I’m going to be doing some shows as part of the Sacramento Comedy Festival. You can find their general site HERE.

And here are the shows I’ll be a part of.

Comedy Competition Prelims
Wednesday, October 7th 9pm
Sacramento Comedy Spot

Comedy Spot Standup Showcase
Friday, October 9th, 8pm
Sacramento Comedy Spot

The Ghoulish Plot: It’s the 90′s and everybody’s feelings have feelings. Three college students go into the rural woods of Maryland to film a documentary project entitled “The Blair Witch Project,” about the story of a witch in the woods who has killed kids, fisherman, random hillbillies and other people who wander into her field of vision. The trio is led by Heather, an ambitious girl who is determined to make her movie at all costs, until she begins to realize that there might be things in the woods that are out of her control, other than the unstoppable force that is the band Oasis. 

As the three work their way through the woods to see locations from the stories, they start to find that their map isn’t accurate, and strange forces begin to attack them at night that are much worse than secret tent farts. Finally one of them disappears in the middle of the night, and the two remaining try to find him, finally discovering a strange house in the middle of the woods. They enter inside and begin to find signs of the witch, but they might not get it on tape. For the kids, tape is what video used to go on, before everybody had a movie studio in their pocket they could also use to find strangers for sex. 

This is also the mother of all “Found Footage” scary movies, so the next time your friend takes a class in editing movies and wants you to come see the movie he helped make about the haunted closet in one of his classmate’s apartments, you have Blair Witch to thank for it. 

The Scariest Part Of The Movie: The woods. The woods are scary as hell. I grew up near the woods. The woods are where meth-soaked hillbilly monsters go to get away from the rest of the world and do meth-soaked hillbilly shit. If I had to pick between living in Compton in the 90′s or the woods, hand me a Raiders hat, dude. 

Our Hero’s Downfall: On one level, it is the hubris of man to believe that they can overcome any obstacle, whether it be fact or possible fictional monster, and that through sheer force of will and determination they might prove their mettle. But also a scary Murder-Witch. 

Could It Happen: I don’t think there are undead floating ghost-witches floating around in the spooky woods. But I do believe there are cannibalistic hillbilly creatures whose god is Bill O’Reilly out there. 

Spookiness Factor: 7 out of 10. The way this was made ensured that the actors were experiencing real terror out there in the woods and it translates onscreen. I also grew up near woods that look exactly like the ones in the movie and would occasionally find spooky-ass shit out there. Hello, City Life! 

The Ghoulish Plot: Somewhere in the future, when science has created a utopia in which people in pressurized spaceships are allowed to smoke like chimneys, the 7-person crew of the Nostromo ride through space in a suspended animation on their way back to Earth. Their ship begins getting a random distress call from an unknown source, kind of like a booty call from a rando in space. 

The crew heads to the signal to investigate and finds a large spaceship unlike anything they’ve seen before, and inside a large skeleton whose chest was blown up from the inside. Since that seems like a cool way to die, they keep looking around and sure enough, find some weird eggs with spider creatures inside and poke at them long enough for one of them to jump out and attach itself to John Hurt’s face. 

They take him back to their ship and after a few days, the spider creature climbs off of his face, just long enough for him to start eating some crappy noodles and he then gets to experience the joy of motherhood as a creature then makes a hasty retreat out of his chest. 

The crew begins hunting for the creature, but find it is growing astronomically fast and is a fan of killing everything it comes across. It also has acid for blood and a bit of a drooling issue, leading us to believe it really is running away from its own insecurities. Love yourself so others can love you, Alien! 

One-by-one the crew is killed off, until the Captain bites it and Ripley takes control of the ship, at which point she learns that picking up this deadly creature was the company’s plan all along and she and her coworkers are considered expendable. She and the remaining crew hatch a plan to escape and blow up the ship, but the Alien might just be too smart for that, but it also might wait long enough for Sigourney Weaver to strip down to her underwear. 

The Scariest Part Of The Movie: That this is basically a workplace horror movie. Think about being in the toughest and scariest situation in your life, then think about trying to get through it with Linda from Accounting. “Maybe send it 33 emails all marked ‘Urgent,’ Linda?” 

Our Hero’s Downfall: Trusting her company to do the right thing. Profit margins, bitches! 

Could It Happen: If vicious acid-bleeding death machines exist out there in space, some company will find a way to make a mess with it and then require you to spend two hours on hold with customer service to request assistance in getting rid of the acid-bleeding death machine. 

Spookiness Factor: 8 out of 10. This movie is dark, spooky and still looks shockingly great for being made in 1979, despite the old computer screens and insistence that the future would involve lots of blinking lights. It’s one of Ridley Scott’s masterpieces, which is why he won’t leave it alone and keeps making crappy Prometheus movies. 

Find the 2014 Cinema of Spookeries Archive HERE. 

Back in October 2014 I attempted to watch 31 horror movies in 31 days and write them all up as part of a silly “Cinema of Spookeries” series. I failed to watch 31, but I came pretty close. You can find those all HERE.

I already know I won’t get to 31 movies this year, but I’m sure a few will make it. For October 1st here’s #1 – Monster Squad.

Oh, hey, didn’t see you there. FYI, I’m hosting the Cobb’s Comedy Club showcase TONIGHT (September 24th) featuring a pretty sweet lineup of great comics. If you hit me up asap at drewmharmon@gmail.com I can get you on the guest list so you get in for free.

Keep on keepin’ on,
Me

So my preliminary week of the San Francisco Comedy Competition is over. I didn’t advance, and after four days of competing I am very grateful to have met and worked with all the comics from all over the world and am happy to no longer have to do comedy competitively against them. It was a lot of fun, the audiences were great and I was reminded of how unfun comedy can be if it’s in a competition. That said, come see me compete early next month in Sacramento! It’ll be fun!

There’s also a new episode of Chucklepedia up for listening featuring an interview with open mic mastermind Tony Sparks. Check it out here.

Hey! This is the shirt I bought at a cowboy store in Humboldt County during the very fun Savage Henry Comedy Fest. I love it, Josef Anolin hates it, so I am wearing it every time I see him. 

I will also probably wear it this week during my preliminary round of the San Francisco Comedy Competition. It starts on Thursday night, runs through Sunday and takes place all around the Bay Area. Here’s the spots:

Thursday 9/10 at 8:30pm in San Francisco: Second Act
Friday 9/11 at 8:30pm in San Rafael: Marin Showcase Theatre
Saturday 9/12 at 6:30pm in Redwood City: Angelica’s
Sunday 9/13 at 9pm in Santa Cruz: The Crow’s Nest

Come see me and this amazing shirt. 

Marc Maron, Patton Oswalt, Robin Williams, Louis CK, Dana Carvey…and now yours truly. It looks like I will be competing in this year’s 40th Annual San Francisco Comedy Competition. I only know a few of the other comics involved so far, but it’s always a strong list from all over the world and a competition that I’ve wanted to be a part of for a long time.

I believe I will be in the 1st preliminary round starting September 10th. Show info and tickets are available on the SFCC site HERE.

As summer comes to a close and Fall begins, you can either wistfully remember the bygone days of your youth and lost innocence, a la Richard Dreyfuss in “Stand By Me,” or you can take life by the balls and wave a pistol at it, a la Kiefer Sutherland in “Stand By Me” and come see more than 100 comics in 14 venues in Humboldt County. Comedy! Fun! Large men with beards drinking IPA’s! Probably marijuana!

Tickets HERE.