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Long Island Comedy City
New Queens club showcases memorable stand-up performers
Pictured: Collin Moulton, Tom Simmons and Mike Trainor
By
Michael Shashoua / Jester editor-in-chief
A few of the stand-up comics who performed in a showcase organized
at the tiny, narrow and new Laughing Devil comedy club in Long
Island City, Queens, NY on February 9, by host Steve Hofstetter made
a distinct impression: Mike Trainor, Tom Simmons and Collin Moulton.
Trainor took the stage with a great deal of energy, and a Chris
Farley-like presence. He riffed on his own weight and appearance,
with memorable bits about aerobeds replacing futons or fold-out beds
– mocking their more flimsy nature as he simulated blowing one up
with the odd motor noise of the air pump. Trainor also took
self-deprecation a long way, especially in a piece about his being
the last guy women would have a one-night stand with before getting
their lives on track and getting married.
Simmons brings to the stage something of a Southern US tone and
influence. He revels in mocking consumerism, in this set with a take
on Black Friday shopping mayhem, imagining suburban housewives who
don’t normally drive at 2 a.m. on the road amid drunk drivers. Dark,
yes, but definitely funny. He’s also got a strain of black humor
throughout his material, at one point recalling that it’s hard to
teach an old dog new tricks, because his dog played dead for a whole
week.
Moulton, who resembles the actor Mark Ruffalo, brought to his act
some personal stories about his parents and growing up. He jokingly
wishes they had Alzheimer’s, because they are divorced and in two
separate assisted living facilities. “Then I could put them together
in one apartment again. They would hate each other but not remember
why.” Relating his
generation to current teenagers, Moulton observed that they won’t
understand why we had a post office, remarking on each step of
mailing a letter absurdly – “putting a piece of paper inside another
folded piece of paper, then licking it shut. … Then it gets
delivered … to the next door neighbor of where it was intended to
go, and maybe if they’re lucky, the neighbor will give it to them.”
Trainor, Simmons, Moulton and Hofstetter were not the only ones on
the bill on this night. The evening, produced by Next Round
Entertainment, featured five other stand-ups, each of whom had some
distinct and memorable bits in their act, although the ones
highlighted above had the most sustained and consistent material.
Laughing Devil, as a venue, does its best with a very odd shaped
room – Trainor at one point said it looks like a converted cell
phone store – with tables along one wall from back to front, making
for an unusual audience seating arrangement, where those in the back
are very far from the narrow stage up front. However, it’s still a
memorable, interesting and funky little place to see stand-up away
from pricier Manhattan showcases.
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© 2005-2018 Michael Shashoua