September 19, 2013
I’ve officially become really bad at updating this section… partly because I’ve been more focused on writing lately than web updates… and partly because I’ve just gone through my annual summer comedy hiatus. The other reality is that I spend a lot more time updating my Facebook page.

For some reason, much of the material I’ve been writing lately focuses on getting older. I think it’s a combination of feeling older than I used to… and being self conscious of being a lot older than most of my city’s young up and coming comedy superstars.

This spring, I had the chance to feel really old when I spent three days in a field under a 100 degree sun at the Coachella Festival in California, just outside of Palm Springs. The good part: I got to see an incredible amount of bands all in one weekend: New Order, Blur, Orchestral Maneouvres In The Dark, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Franz Ferdinand, Violent Femmes, Sparks, Vampire Weekend, The Lumineers, Of Monsters And Men, Hot Chip, Rodriguez, and more.

The bad part: it was three days crammed against stages with 80,000 twenty year-olds and me. The weirdest part was that if a guy smashed into me, he’d be like “oh, sorry man”… whereas the girls kept running into on purpose me like they thought they could take me.

I had the pleasure of meeting one of my favorite rock stars of all time – Adam Ant – in Minneapolis earlier this month. He’s looking a little Johnny Depp these days… especially on stage… though he’s calling back his pirate roots from the Adam & The Ants days. If you get a chance to check out his North American tour… it’s a classic hit-filled show.

The 2013 fall/winter tour starts tonight in glamorous Morden, Manitoba! Forget California… that’s where the action is! See you this fall in a small town near you… .

Cheers,

Jason

November 1, 2012
If you haven’t already noticed, at long last, the new Jasonbeck.com website is finally live!  The new site has eliminated some of the less viewed areas of the old site and added testimonials, newer video clips and an overall fresher look.

This month, I’m starting my annual holiday run of small town shows and corporate events well-rested and armed with some new material I’m pretty excited about.

I’d like to thank Sharilyn Johnson for all of her hard work and great ideas in making this new site a reality. Check out her awesome and informative comedy blog at www.third-beat.com.

I’d also like to thank comedian and artist extraordinaire Jon Ljungberg for drawing the smirky caricature of me on the new home page!

Cheers,

Jason

July 10, 2012
Last night was a truly special night at Rumor’s Comedy Club in Winnipeg, as I was part of a benefit fund raiser for legendary Canadian comedian Mike MacDonald, who has been diagnosed with Hepatitis C and is unable to work.

The show was a definitive “old guard of the Winnipeg comedy scene” evening, as the show featured emcee Al Rae, Dean Jenkinson, Big Daddy Tazz, Bruce Clark and myself.

 

 

 

 

Current Rumor’s headliner Ryan Dalton also appeared and closed the show. While the event was packed and raised a lot of much needed funds, the show itself was a blast. I’ll never get tired of watching comics play off of the room and take shots at each other on nights like these.

 

 

 

Other than that, I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time writing. Looking forward to working out a ton of new material this fall!

Cheers, Jason

February 22, 2012
I haven’t updated this part of the site in quite a while… partly because I took a summer hiatus from performing after the last update… and partly because life has been getting in the way.

Had a great bonfire-packed summer in which I spent many mornings drinking coffee and writing jokes on my ipad 2 on the deck at the cottage. This was followed by an enjoyable run of corporate shows in the fall and over the holiday season. Even got to perform in the one and only McCreary, Manitoba!

2012… unfortunately… has not been good from a personal or comedy perspective.  In January, my beloved dog Lola got sick and passed away at only seven years old. It’s difficult to be in a comedy mood when you lose a dog. I’ve always been one of those weird dog people… I’m closer to them than most humans. Losing a dog is like Jason Beck kryptonite. Well, that, and pretty much any physical force of any kind… .

Heading into the next week, I’m back on the road and tyring to get back to some kind of comedy normalcy. As normal as that gets… .

Between my dog Lola and Whitney Houston… I’m starting to think the Mayans were onto something… . Jason

July 1, 2011
Lately, I seem to be swimming in major life changes.

Last year, I put an end to a lifetime of resisting marriage and tied the knot. This year, I’m making a major change in my comedy career that is long overdue. After a decade of performances and over a thousand shows as a regular host and emcee at Rumor’s Restaurant & Comedy Club, I have decided to put an end to my regular hosting gig and move in a new direction with my comedy career. My last show “hosting” at the club was on June 11th.

My good friend Rob Bruneau (below) also retired from hosting at the club after many years on the same night. We split the night, in that I hosted the early show and he hosted the late one. I have a long list of plans for the year ahead, but the simplest way to sum them up is: more touring the country… more writing… more stepping outside of my comedy comfort zone.

 

The Winnipeg comedy scene has exploded over the last five years… and it’s about time that some of the many deserving up and coming local comics in the city had a chance to benefit from all of the stage time and development that a Rumor’s house comic enjoys. I plan to take a hiatus from performing this summer in favor of writing, relaxing and sitting around bonfires.

I’d like to thank the late Ross Rumberg for all of the years of stage time and support… and Tyler Schultz for carrying on that support. And, for putting me on the wall of the club next to the late, great Irwin Barker.

 

 

 

Cheers, Jason

May 29, 2011
Last night, I had the pleasure of working with Canadian comedian Tom Green.

Despite his fame, his famously unpredictable persona, and his bizarre reputation, the Canadian funnyman was extremely mellow and down to earth offstage. Often, when performers known more for sketch comedy or acting perform in a professional comedy club, you never know what you’re gonna get.

 

 

In Tom’s case, he had been focused on stand-up comedy and honing his craft so seriously all over the world the past few years, that his headliner set was rock solid and seemed like it had been twenty years in the making. What made it even more impressive was that his trademark, unique Tom Green style of comedy found its way into the set. Here’s hoping he makes Winnipeg a regular stop on the tour.

Cheers, Jason

April 4, 2011
It’s been an insanely busy, overwhelming last few weeks.

The weekend of March 24-26, I had the pleasure of doing five shows at Yuk Yuk’s in Calgary with Trevor Boris and emcee Mario Lopez (a funny young guy who’s prone to ripping his shirt off and dancing around at any given moment – kind of like a drunken oompa loompa).

 

 

It was a well-run nice room with great site lines and a professional yet easy going staff. I look forward to playing the club again somewhere down the road. (left to right: Jason Beck, Trevor Boris and Mario Lopez)

 

 

 

I also had the pleasure of doing four shows as part of a mini-tour with Pauly Shore and Rob Bruneau. We did two shows in Brandon, Manitoba followed by two in Winnipeg. Pauly Shore Manitoba Tour Shot: (left to right) Rob Bruneau, Pauly Shore and Jason Beck

 

 

 

The weird thing about Pauly – having spent six hours in a car with him – is that he’s pretty much the same guy he is in his movies. In fact, during a 15-minute stopover at a Tim Horton’s in Brandon with Pauly, I’m pretty sure I was in a Pauly Shore movie for awhile.

 

 

 

Normal people get in line at Tim Horton’s. Pauly leans against the front counter next to the cash register and riffs off of the customers. “Weaaaaaaseeeeeel !!!!!”

The week ahead is looking just as busy… with the CBC Winnipeg Comedy Festival just around the corner. Lots of good shows to see and good friends in town to have a beer with. Be sure to check out the many great shows at the Fest!

Cheers, Jason 

March 10, 2011
It’s been a fun couple of months. I spent part of last month finally having a honeymoon – something we didn’t get around to last summer.

We got on a giant boat and journeyed to the Bahamas, St. Thomas and St. Martin in the Caribbean. It was a good time as we met lots of fun Canadian partiers all the way from Victoria to Halifax.

 

 

 

 

In the midst of it all, I won an 80s Name That Tune contest, met the guy who designed the actual Yoda puppet used in The Empire Strikes Back in St. Martin (Nick Malloy) and drank so many fruity Caribbean, rum-packed drinks I became a girl drink drunk!

 

 

 

The first week of March was Ross Rumberg Tribute Week at Rumor’s Comedy Club in Winnipeg and the event was a comedy explosion as past headliners from across North American returned to the club to pay tribute to the man who built the club into what it is over the past three decades.

A good time was had by all and I have the good fortune to perform in three shows with the likes of Trevor Boris, Big Daddy Tazz, Darryl Lenox, Kelly Taylor, Glen Foster, DJ Hazzard, Lawrence Morgenstern, Daniel Kinno, Rich Ceisler, Jimmy Mac, and Matt Falk. I miss you Ross. Can’t believe it’s been a year already.

On the horizon, I’m looking forward to a lot of exciting and unique shows coming up… including performing with Pauly Shore at Rumor’s on April 2nd… and my first ever venture to perform at Yuk Yuk’s in Calgary from March 24-26. See you in Calgary in two weeks!

Cheers, Jason 

January 10, 2011
Nothing says Merry Christmas like a new Winter Classic Penguin jersey and a DEVO yellow suit!

And, YES, that is a Yoda with a light sabre on top of the Christmas Tree… .

 

 

 

 

 

2011 is finally here and, as usual, it’s all about goals and New Year’s resolutions. In my case, it’s about completing my new 80s material, continuing to work out as much new stuff at open mic rooms as possible and playing the cities in Canada I haven’t yet played.

To start things off on the right foot, I’ll be the feature act (middle) at Yuk Yuk’s in Calgary, Alberta from March 24-26. For some reason, Calgary is one of those cities in Western Canada that I’ve never gotten around to playing. I’ve performed in Vancouver, Edmonton, all over Saskatchewan and all over Manitoba, but Calgary has somehow never worked out until now. I don’t have a cowboy hat, but I will be arriving armed with two things that should help me connect to the Calgarians: hockey material and beer drinking expertise.

Apart from the “Live Dates” section which is updated weekly, I’ve been a little behind in updating this site. I think it’s partly because of the busy holiday season and partly because I’ve gotten into the habit of updating things on Facebook on a regular basis. Please friend me on Facebook for more daily updates.

Happy New Year!

Jason

October 25, 2010
The last few weeks have been exciting, as I got the opportunity to perform with one of my favorite comedians of all-time, Gilbert Gottfried, at Rumor’s Comedy Club. 

 

 

 

 

 

I had first met Gilbert 20 years ago back when I was a journalist (see black and white pic below). The old Gilbert never turned his persona off, couldn’t stop talking and was constantly throwing one-liners. The 2010 Gilbert was a lot more mellow and extremely friendly. After the show, we took an updated photo. In the two decades between photos, he lost some hair and I gained glasses…

 

The same weekend, I also had the opportunity to see Saturday Night Live alumnus Norm MacDonald perform at the Burton Cummings Theatre in Winnipeg. I was fortunate enough to meet up with Norm two nights in a row, as he ended up dropping by Rumor’s to see Gilbert the night before his show.

 

 

In between Gilbert’s two Friday night sets, I had a chance to stand around talking comedy with Gilbert and Norm together for around 20 minutes or so. I can pretty much die now!

Lots of private corporate shows in Winnipeg and on the road are on the horizon between now and New Year’s Eve. I’m looking forward to getting really busy over the next two months!

Cheers, Jason 

September 15, 2010
After taking somewhat of a break from stand-up over the summer, I’m back into it head first with more than 15 shows in September alone.

The highlight of the past month was Saturday, September 11th, when I had the opportunity to open for the soon-to-be-a-superstar headliner Jo Koy at the Pantages Playhouse Theatre in Winnipeg. It was a great night and Jo’s two-hour set blew me away. With a sitcom in development from the makers of Roseanne, his career is exploding right now.

 

 

On September 24th and 25th, I’ll be on the road in Brandon, Manitoba perfoming at Clancy’s Pub with Toronto comic Roy Daye. Both nights, the shows start at 10:00 p.m. So far, the biggest thing that’s different about being married is the daily guilt about the need to write as much marriage material as possible!

Cheers, Jason 

July 18, 2010
The big day has finally passed and I am now officially married!

My bride Chantal and I set out to have the ultimate comedy wedding. Our dogs (left to right above) Lola, Chewy and Tazzy came down the aisle as part of the church ceremony, while Rob Bruneau delivered a reading I wrote entitled “True Love Is Like A Rubber Chicken”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the reception at Breezy Bend Country Club in Winnipeg, there were highlights galore, including me being thoroughly roasted in the tradition of the old Dean Martin Roasts by emcee Kenton Larsen, Big Daddy Tazz, Trevor Boris and Yoda the Jedi Master (as played by Dan Licoppe). Thanks so much to the roasters for being there!

 

Also, thanks to Lindor Reynolds of The Winnipeg Free Press for running a great story on our silly comedy wedding on page 2 of the Friday, July 17 issue. To read the article, go here. There will likely be pics galore of the wedding on this site in the weeks ahead, but in the meantime, I will be off on my honeymoon until my next show at Rumor’s Comedy Club on Wednesday, July 28!

Cheers, Jason

July 7, 2010
Ten days till the big wedding and still a million things to do.

Following a ton of shows in May and June in Winnipeg, Toronto, Medicine Hat, Regina and Saskatoon (above), I’ve decided to pretty much keep off the stage for most of July until the wedding is behind me. When I do actually get back on stage at Rumor’s Comedy Club in the last week of July with the lovely and talented Jimmy Mac, I’ll be performing for the first time ever as a married guy. That will truly be weird.

 

I had the pleasure of seeing and chatting with DEVO, one of my favorite bands of all time, last weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

If you ever liked DEVO, their first CD in 20 years “Something For Everybody” is a killer comeback album worth checking out.

 

 

 

 

 

When the wedding’s over… I’m hoping to significantly update my set with a multitude of marriage material. Looking forward to spending less time on caterers and wedding cakes… and focusing more on stand-up again!

Cheers, Jason

May 18, 2010
Had a fantastic time doing shows in Toronto last week.

On Saturday, May 8th, I had the pleasure of co-middling two pro spots at Yuk Yuk’s in downtown Toronto along with Trevor Boris, emcee Dylan Mandlsohn and headliner Mike Wilmot. The shows went great and I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed myself so much on that stage. The most interesting thing for me was seeing how well my Pittsburgh Penguin jokes went over in the extremely hockey-obsessed Toronto market.

While in town, I also did a spot at Eton House, run by the lovely and talented Joanna Downey. It was a special night as also on the bill was Dave Hemstead, Boyd Banks, Sandra Shamas, Daryl Purvis and – once again – Mike Wilmot (“so, kid, I see you’re playing all the haunts… “).

 

Another highlight of the trip was seeing a-ha at Massey Hall as well as Public Image Limited (featuring John Lydon aka Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols). Thanks to some well-established stalking skills, I managed to get a shot with Johnny, the icon, himself! A few days ago, I hammered out the most new material in one set in years at the Marlborough Comedy Night.

With my wedding just two months away, I’m hard at work on refreshing the set for the post-wedding shows on the horizon. Just in time for that, I’ll be doing a whirlwind tour of Medicine Hat, Saskatoon and Regina from June 10-12.

Cheers, Jason

April 17, 2010
It’s been a psycho-busy past month.

There’s been lots of shows, lots of writing and lots of time spent on my Manitoba old-school wedding social. In the end, the social went great. It was sold out, my good friend Trevor Boris brought a posse of dancers who turned the whole thing into a massive party, and good times were had by all.

When it came time to do the traditional engaged couple slow dance, I chose to wear a Yoda mask to take a break from tradition. We also auctioned off a real Domo hat! Thanks to all the friends, comedians and relatives to made the event a success! Next month, I’ll be doing some shows down East for the first time in a while! In the meantime, I’ve stated work on a mountain of new material about such topics as the ’80s and – of course – getting married. It’s pretty much going to ruin my “guy who won’t get married” jokes… but at least it’s a whole new world to attack on stage.

 

 

Cheers, Jason

March 10, 2010
Last week, my longtime friend Ross Rumberg, owner of Rumor’s Comedy Club, passed away after a long series of health problems. In the end, his heart gave out, after a long struggle with diabetes and failing kidneys.

I was fortunate enough to be with him at the end, along with a number of his close friends. Ross Rumberg (front left) with Rob Bruneau and myself (standing) and Dan Licoppe (front right) partying in my basement last year. I’ll never forget all that Ross did for me over the past decade.

 

 

When we met, I was an amateur comic that wasn’t very good… and he was the comedy club owner whose job it was to tell me all of the things that I was doing wrong. One of the reasons that Ross was good at developing comics is that he was brutally honest in telling you what he thought of your performance. He didn’t pull any punches. In the first few years I knew him, when I was trying to get him to hire me to work at the club, he threw a lot of those punches and I just kept coming back for more. When I started out, I was at a level where I’d get on stage at the club and hear things like… “Get off the stage!” and “You suck!!”

And that was just from Ross.

But after a while, I actually started listening to what he had to say, taking his advice, and, as a result, he kept giving me stage time and more chances to get better. In the years that followed, he ultimately put me up on his stage roughly 1000 times. A few years ago, when I headlined the club for the first time, I showed up and Ross had the entire staff wearing t-shirts with my Crabs At Fisherman’s Wharf joke written on them. Most recently, he added the Jason Beck Beef Melt sandwich to the Rumor’s menu, along with menu items named after some of his other close friends in comedy, like the Rob Bruneau Chicky Pita and the Jimmy Mac And Cheese Balls. This was a man who had a real warmth to him underneath the business side.

Over the last 27 years, Ross turned Rumor’s into one of the best comedy clubs in North America. I say that because not only because many of the greatest comedians of all time played the club, but because he had a consistent product, he knew his customers and he was the king of filling the room.

 

 

He had a vision for his club that never wavered. Many of the headliners that play the club for the first time are dazzled by the size of the crowds Ross would bring in on Tuesdays and Wednesdays – nights when many comedy clubs are not even open because of the challenges of bringing in customers earlier in the week. Ross was also a stand-up comedian. He was an old-school, high energy comic who liked to riff with the audience and throw insults around. He used to love telling this one corny joke he wrote over and over again… “I just did a fundraiser for a place called Tempura House. It’s a home for battered shrimp… .”

When it came to his health, he battled courageously. Despite being on dialysis for nine hours every night for the past few years, and often being physically weak, he dragged himself into Rumor’s day-in and day-out to the point that by the final months, you could always hear someone in the office saying: “Go home Ross!” Even in the Emergency ward on the Saturday night before he passed, he was still sending texts and working out problems at the club.

In the end, he cared a lot about the people he chose to share his Rumor’s universe with – and we cared about him. From the managers to the hosts to the headliners to the wait staff to the kitchen staff to his business partners – Rumor’s was his life.

I’ll never forget the faith he had in me. He changed my life.

Cheers, Jason

February 17, 2010
Apart from posting live dates, I haven’t updated the site in a while because I’ve been obsessively busy planning for my upcoming wedding and Manitoba-style accompanying wedding social.

Normally, the bride and/or wedding party handles a lot of this stuff. Somehow, as a comedy producer and professional organizer, most of the duties have fallen on me. As my act is entirely based on my real life, this major life change has also meant that I’ve been busily writing marriage material with the intent of having it polished and ready to go by the time the wedding hits.

Speaking of major life changes, I’ve also made a commitment to being a little less out of shape in the year ahead, which means for the past month I’ve been working out three times a week trying to build up what my fiancé calls my “Kermit The Frog” arms… . I’ve actually found a gym that will serve you a beer in the hot tub, so I have a feeling I will be there a lot. Hopefully, all of these events will lead to lots of new material and an entirely new phase of comedy in the years ahead.

Cheers, Jason

 

December 23, 2009
Another decade is behind us…. and I’ll be closing out the year by doing two shows with the incomparable Big Daddy Tazz on New Year’s Eve. at Rumor’s Comedy Club. The shows are at 6:00 pm and 10:00 pm and tickets are available by calling (204) 488-4520.

Have a happy holiday season and a great 2010!

December 1, 2009
It’s been an incredibly busy last month or so.

First and foremost, Rumor’s Comedy Club re-opened on Tuesday, November 3rd. It’s been great being back in my home club. What made it even more special is that the club launched a new menu that features the “Jason Beck Beef Melt”. You know you’ve reached a special point in your comedy career when a comedy club names a beef melt after you!

Winnipeg just enjoyed what I believe was the busiest week for stand-up comedy in the city’s history. During a six-day period in November, the city was treated to headliner shows by Russell Peters, Debra DiGiovanni, Louis CK, Ron James (with Big Daddy Tazz and Dan Licoppe), Daniel Kinno and Gerry Dee!

I had the pleasure of being a part of three of them, and taking in two of the others.

The past month has been about dreams coming true… as I performed for the first time in such Manitoba towns as Rivers, Hamiota and Boissevain… and glorious Lampman, Saskatchewan.

For the shows in Rivers and Hamiota, I was joined by a trio of Winnipeg female comics… Heather Witherden, Cara Lytwyn and Rachel Sommer (seen here from left to right after me with a fan from the show in Rivers – I think I’ve found my target market… ).

Last night, the Press Club Comedy Night celebrated its 11-Year Anniversary with a special show that featured myself, Big Daddy Tazz, Mel Silverback, Rob Bruneau, Dan Verville, Kevin Dobbie, Ben Beauchemin and Dan Huen. Back in November 1998, Open Mic Nights did not exist in Winnipeg. For the sake of stage time, I started up a monthly show that featured myself along with Trevor Boris, Kenton Larsen, Charlie Onyske, host Pat Riordan and year-by-year a growing number of up-and-coming comics. After nearly four years, the show was relocated due to the club’s membership restrictions and ultimately spent two years at the West End Cultural Centre before moving to the Pyramid Cabaret, the Charleswood Hotel and, finally, back to the Press Club. Going into 2010, the show continues with a new name and some new challenges. The room has recently been leased by a new company that has renamed the venue: “The Cavern At The Marlborough”. That’s right. There is now a second “Cavern” venue hosting open-mic comedy in Winnipeg. As a result, for the sake of simplicity, the Press Club Comedy Night will for now on be called The Marlborough Comedy Night (located in The Cavern At The Marlborough). Thanks to everyone who supported the show. It’s the end of the year and we’re hitting the home stretch.

On December 20th, I’ll be performing in a special fundraiser for the Christmas Cheer Board at the Gas Station Theatre along with Bob Smith, Rob Bruneau, Keener and J. Williamez. For tickets, go HERE. Cheers, Jason 

October 5, 2009
Summer of 2009 was a strange one for me. As a result of flooding, Rumor’s Comedy Club ended up being shut down for four months (the club officially re-opens on Tuesday, November 3rd).

This meant I actually had some time for a real summer vacation. In a strange turn of events, I ended up buying a kayak and cruising around Lake Winnipeg for much of the summer months – which totally goes against my usual “absolutely no physical exercise whatsoever” policy. The best part about spending the summer kayaking and sitting around bonfires was that it cleared my mind and generated a lot of new material ideas. In the past month, I’ve started working out some of the new stuff and I’m hoping to have it ready to roll out when the club re-opens.

In the month ahead, there are a lot of interesting shows on the horizon. This Thursday, I’ll be headlining a rare North End show at the Green Brier on Main Street. Next week, I’ll be doing half hour sets on Thursday and Saturday. On Thursday, October 15th, I’ll be performing in a fundraiser for Crime Victims at the Marlborough Hotel, along with Darryl Purvis and Video On Trial’s Debra DiGiovanni (tickets are available at the door at from 7:00 pm on that night).

On Saturday, October 17th, I’ll be opening for Gerry Dee at the Burton Cummings Theatre. Tickets are available at Ticketmaster by clicking here.

Last week I took part in a studio taping of a set for Shaw Cable in Winnipeg – which means a short set and an interview will be running on the Shaw television station repeatedly over the next month. The show also features performances from Rob Bruneau, Keener and Jamaal Simms.

August 1, 2009
It has been a very unusual summer so far…

And not just because I got to meet one of my heroes last Sunday – singer Jesse Hughes of The Eagles of Death Metal (pictured with me in an alley).

On Tuesday, July 14th – just moments before comedian Leland Klassen and I were walking into Rumor’s Comedy Club in Winnipeg to perform – the club was flooded after a massive afternoon downpour! As we walked in, people were running out and the club was inches deep in water. I’ve had tough shows before… but I can’t remember the last time God sent a flood… .

In the end, the damage was so extensive the club has been shut down until October. Given that Rumor’s is my home club and I’ve been performing there on a weekly basis for the past eight years or so, this has given me an unexpected summer vacation. So far, I’ve been using the time to recharge my batteries and develop some new material before the psycho-busy holiday season begins. Even though the break has been a refreshing one, I’m really looking forward to getting back on stage at the club and working out some new jokes. Hopefully that will be sooner than later.

June 20, 2009
Pittsburgh Penguins Win Stanley Cup!!!!!!

I’ve been extremely distracted over the past two months by the National Hockey League playoffs. For the second straight year, I flew to Pittsburgh for the Stanley Cup final. It was a much better result this year as the Penguins won the Stanley Cup for the first time since their two straight championships in 1991-1992! 

This time, I went hardcore and opted for the full facepaint. This seemed to open doors for me in Pittsburgh, as I ended meeting a number of hockey celebrities including Pierre McGuire, Kelly Hrudey and the legendary Don Cherry!

At the end of the night, while waiting for a cab after celebrating the Penguins’ win at the SuperBowl pub in Pittsburgh, I heard a voice say “nice facepaint” and it turned out to be Penguins head coach Dan Bylsma! I had a chance to tell him that I had journied from Winnipeg and about my history as a lifelong Pens fan.

He was a really nice guy and I’m still stunned that he actually stopped me to say hello. Talk about a coach who wants to communicate with the fans!

The craziest thing about this whole playoff run has been trying to squeeze my pre-booked comedy gigs into the middle of it all. As it turned out, the deciding Stanley Cup game 7 in Detroit came on Friday, June 12th – a night in which I was scheduled to perform the first of two nights in Regina.

Luckily, the show didn’t start until a half hour or so after the Cup was presented and I was able to take in the moment and enjoy the dozens of phone calls to my cell phone. By the end of the night, I was onstage in full Penguin gear and being heckled by a drunken, disgruntled Red Wings fan!

I’m really looking forward to celebrating this all summer long!

May 1, 2009
“So this guy with poofy hair in a Winner’s shirt goes on stage at the Gas Station Theatre…”

Had a fantastic time at this year’s CBC Winnipeg Comedy Festival, performing in The Winnipeg Show at the Gas Station Theatre and the Kings Of Komedy show with Steve Patterson at Rumor’s Comedy Club. The host of CBC’s “The Debaters” is also one of the country’s best headliners, and it was great to work with him again for the first time in three years or so.

Also had a chance to chat with Kids In The Hall member Kevin McDonald

… … and party it up with comedic genius/CBC Winnipeg Comedy Festival Artistic Director Al Rae and the hilarious Tim Steeves (below). It was a great year for the Fest and the shows I attended drew big crowds and even bigger laughs.

I got a particular kick out of the Dark & Stormy Show, which was packed wall to wall at the Park Theatre. Despite my tendency to strive for corporate clean comedy, seeing normally ultra-clean buddy Brad Muise up there exploring his dark, sicker side had me urging to get on stage and go to the jokes I usually save for dive bars on the road or heckler-infested late shows on Friday night.

Perhaps every clean comic has a little repressed Mel Silverback lurking within? It was dark, it was stormy and the crowd ate it up. Looking forward to the summer and the chance to turn my engagement – and the deadspin.com craziness (see last post) – into some refreshing new material.

April 22, 2009
It’s been a really strange last few days. Last week, some guy living in Pittsburgh placed an ad on Craigslist offering to give a free ticket to the Pittsburgh Penguins playoff game against Philadelphia on Friday night to any woman who would agree to be his date. He also provided a list of criteria that the woman had to fit within with regards to her age and appearance, etc., and insisted that she provide a picture.

So, on Friday afternoon, Deadspin.com runs a story making fun of this guy. Because they didn’t have a photo of the guy to run with the story, the writer does a Google search on the words “die hard penguin fan” and somehow comes up with MY PICTURE (either from this web site or Facebook).

As a result, the picture of me at the Stanley Cup final last year (below) ends up at the top of the article next to the headline: Penguins Fans Are Not All Desperate, Hard Up For Dates

It gets better. Because we live in the age of the Internet in which everyone is free to blog, comment, slam, and attack anyone and anything at will… more than 10,000 people view the article and a number of people assume I’m the desperate guy and start ripping me apart.

So, one minute I’m sitting at home minding my own business, the next, people are going online saying that I look like an “old lesbian” and making inappropriate comments about the physical relationship I may or may not be having with the stuffed penguin. The Winnipeg Sun ran a story on the whole thing today. Click HERE to see the Deadspin.com story. Click HERE to read the Winnipeg Sun article.

The weirdest thing about the whole incident is that I find it all hilarious. I’ve spoken to a lot of people who’ve said they would have freaked out and been really upset with Deadspin.com for using the picture in the story, but in all honesty when I read the comments ripping apart my appearance I couldn’t stop laughing.

Maybe as a comic, I’ve become so self-depracating and oblivious to heckling in any form that I’m immune to abuse when it comes to my appearance. Or maybe I’ve just come to appreciate a really good burn.

April 10, 2009
It’s been one of the busiest stretches of my life and so much has happened, I haven’t even thought about posting an update in months.

Most notably, as noted in last weekend’s Winnipeg Free Press, I finally gave in to my marriage issues and got engaged. After 13 years of living with my significant other, Chantal, I finally made the move. I’m still as cynical about marriage as I ever was… but now I’ll be able to criticize it with a front row seat. The plan is to get married in July 2010. Given that every joke in my act is true and entirely based on my real life, this will hopefully lead to a creative explosion of new material.

I also turned 40, as horrifying as that sounds, and was presented with an amazing rubber chicken cake!

Next week, I’m looking forward to performing in The Winnipeg Show in the CBC Winnipeg Comedy Festival. The show takes place at the Gas Station Theatre at 10:30 p.m. on Friday, April 17th, and features myself along with Winnipeg comics Big Daddy Tazz, Bruce Clark, Dan Licoppe, Dean Jenkinson, Trevor Boris, Irwin Barker and Aaron Merke. Tickets are available by clicking here.

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of performing two shows at Rumor’s Comedy Club with the legendary Bobcat Goldthwait! Now a film director, he still rips apart the room on stage. it was a pleasure to see an 80s stand-up icon blowing away Winnipeg audiences.

January 15, 2009
It’s 2009 and in celebration of the New Year, I’ve finally put some new video clips up on the site! Go to the Audio/Video section to check them out.

November 20, 2008
My good friend and early comedy mentor Pat Riordan passed away last week. Today was his funeral.

Pat was an old-school comic. He was a classy performer who was quick-witted and treated both his audiences and his fellow performers with respect.

While he is perhaps best remembered in Winnipeg for the two plus decades he spent headlining at the Viscount Gort Hotel and the Champs Motor Hotel (now the Osborne Village Inn), and for his charity work with the Variety Club of Manitoba and Big Brothers, I’ll always remember him best for how much he helped me as a comedian.

Ten years ago, Pat volunteered to host the monthly Press Club Comedy Night at the Winnipeg Press Club for free, in an effort to help raise money for the non-profit club and help the amateur comics develop. For the next three and a half years, myself, Trevor Boris, Kenton Larsen, and Charlie Onyske had the pleasure of working with Pat and learning from one of the best. Regardless of how bad a set went for one of us, Pat was always there to get the crowd back before the next comic got on stage. Pat even took us on the road from time to time, most notably a crazy weekend doing two nights in a condemned hotel in Carman, Manitoba. The four of us learned a lot about doing stand-up on the road, staying in a hotel with bullet holes in the walls, a German Sheppard roaming the hallway and fights breaking out during the show. I’ll never forget being on stage as a guy broke a bottle over another guy’s head, with the manager just motioning me and saying “keep going… keep going… .”

I’ll also never forget my favorite Pat Riordan line: “last night I picked up some Visine and some Viagra. I just wanted to take a good, long hard look at myself.”

Rest in peace, Pat. You will be missed.

November 4, 2008

Had a fantastic time performing at Yuk Yuk’s Comedy Club in Vancouver last weekend.

The place was packed and I had the pleasure of performing with comics Sean Proudlove, Michael Gelbart and Tyler Hawkins.

The club easily lived up to its reputation as one of the best in the country! I look forward to performing in British Columbia more often in the years ahead.

October 29, 2008
It’s been an interesting month.

Winnipeg’s Charleswood Hotel,  which I grew up down the street from and have run the Charleswood Comedy Night at for the past three years, is being torn down to build a Co-Op Gas Station. Considering the long history of the building and its significance to the neighborhood… it’s a sad day. Unfortunately, the news of the venue’s closing has come on such short notice that there won’t be a final show at “The Charley”. The hotel’s last day open for business will be this Sunday, November 2nd.

Next month is, ironically, the 10-year anniversary of the open mic show itself. The show began as The Press Club Comedy Night back in November 1998 (with an original monthly line-up of myself, Trevor Boris, Kenton Larsen, Charlie Onyske and host Pat Riordan), and spent three and a half years at that venue before being moved to the West End Cultural Centre, the Pyramid Cabaret and, eventually, the Charleswood Hotel. In the spirit of “the show must go on”… next month the show will be moving back to its original home!

On Monday, November 24, The Press Club Comedy Night will resume back in the room where it all started, The Winnipeg Press Club in the Marlborough Hotel in downtown Winnipeg. Of course, The Press Club is no longer in business, but the empty room will be opened up and transformed back into a comedy venue for one Monday every month. The first show will be the 10-Year Anniversary Show and feature a special line-up.

Had a great time performing at the Burton Cummings Theatre on the weekend with headliner Gerry Dee. Gerry absolutely destroyed and the night was laugh-filled for all.

This weekend, I’m performing in Vancouver for the first time in history. The fall is off to a great start.

September 18, 2008
I’ve been gearing up for the busy Christmas party season. With 10 shows in the last three weeks, I’m back in the zone and looking forward to hitting the road in the months ahead.

On Saturday, October 25th, I’ll be opening for national headliner Gerry Dee at the Burton Cummings Theatre in Winnipeg. Gerry’s pretty much done it all. He’s had a Just For Laughs gala, he made it to the final three in NBC’s Last Comic Standing last year and he’s headlined across Canada many times over. He also had a major role as Ricky and Julien’s nemesis in Trailer Park Boys: The Movie. Tickets for the show are available at Ticketmaster.

August 22, 2008
After taking much of the summer off from performing for the first time in a decade, I feel somewhat refreshed and am looking forward to getting back to performing on a regular basis again starting next week. I’ve actually started writing again over the past few weeks… and am looking forward to going in some new directions on stage in the months ahead.

July 4, 2008
Due to an injured left knee and some throat issues… I’ve taken a brief hiatus from stand-up for the past few weeks. The knee injury was caused by a pack of savage dogs. That’s right. My three dogs were barking late at night and I injured my knee running up the stairs to stop them. In light of this, I anticipate taking a bit of a break from stand-up in July. Happy 4th of July to all you Americans… who end up on this site when you google the words “Mel Silverback”… .

June 14, 2008
It’s been a month or so since my last update because I’ve been extremely distracted by the NHL hockey playoffs.

As I’ve been a die-hard Pittsburgh Penguins fan since I was little (I actually drove to Pittsburgh and was in the victory parade when the team first won the Stanley Cup in 1991), a few weeks back I flew to Pittsburgh for Game 4 of the Stanley Cup final against the Detroit Red Wings.

Had a fantastic time sitting right behind Detroit Red Wing goalie Chris Osgood for two of the three periods.

For me, there is nothing like spending three days in a city in which everyone is wearing Penguin jerseys and talking about nothing but the Penguins.

At the game, I ran into a lot of crazy Penguin fans and even TSN Analyst Bob McKenzie!

We ended up losing the game 2-1, which – of course – led me to end up on a mechanical bull later in the evening. Not exactly the best way for an out-of-shape guy to wrap up an evening!

We ended up losing the series in six and three-quarter games… but it was an amazing season for a team that was the worst in the league exactly two years ago. They are going to win Cups in the next decade. It’s just a matter of how many.

See the facepaint? Did I mention I was a die-hard?

Back on a comedy note, I got a chance to work with legendary Canadian headliner Ron James in May. Great guy and still puts on a clinic on stage.

With my first break from the Winnipeg Fringe Festival in nine years coming this summer, I am really looking forward to spending some time writing and lying on the beach for once!

April 24, 2008
For years, I’ve had people telling me I reminded them of comedian Greg Proops from “Who’s Line Is It Anyway?” and in the last month I finally got the chance to do a couple of shows with him. While I don’t think we look as much alike as we used to (a few years back when we had the exact same glasses), you’ll notice in the picture below that we wouldn’t look out of place singing a version of The Proclaimers’ “500 Miles” together in a karaoke bar.

Greg was a really down-to-earth, extremely intelligent guy whose stand-up is both clever and original. On top of all that, considering that Greg played one of the two-headed alien play-by-play announcers in the pod race scene in “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace”… there was much Yoda conversation to be had!

April was also a great month in that I had the opportunity to do two shows in The Winnipeg Comedy Festival: one at the Gas Station Theatre with Big Daddy Tazzand a handful of local comics and one on the road in Clearwater, Manitoba with Tazz and one-man improv machine Steven McIntyre. Clearwater was one of my favorite road shows of the last few years and I really look forward to performing there again. Gotta go… the polygamist ladies are on CNN again…

March 14, 2008
It’s been a fantastic couple of weeks. On Tuesday… I headlined Rumor’s Comedy Club for the first time and had a blast. I did just under an hour of what was essentially a ten year “best of” set.

The show also raised over $1200 for the Shealon Kuly fundraiser, as nearly 200 tickets were sold. The funniest thing was that the club actually had t-shirts printed up to commemorate the event that quoted my “crabs at fisherman’s wharf” joke. The entire staff was wearing them… which set the stage for a crazy night.

 

 

I’d like to thank club owner Ross Rumberg for giving me the opportunity, my good friend Rob Bruneau for opening the show and all those who came out for the big event.

I also got to be a part of a dream show at Rumor’s a few weeks back… as I performed with two of my favorite comics: Emo Philips and Brent Butt. It was truly a killer night. Brent may be best known these days for the TV show “Corner Gas”, but I’ve always considered him and Derek Edwards to be the two best comics in the country. It was truly an honor to share the stage with a couple of greats.

February 4, 2008
There’s big news on the horizon! On Tuesday, March 11th, I’ll be celebrating 10 years of stand-up by headlining at Rumor’s Comedy Club for the first time! I’ll be doing 45 minutes to an hour and the event will be also be a fundraiser for Shealon Kuly, a Winnipeg teenager who is recovering from a serious accident. Half of the proceeds from every $10 ticket sold through this site will go to the fundraiser. The night also happens to be my birthday… so I anticipate much revelry afterwards! To support the fundraiser, tickets may be ordered through my site by e-mailing jbeck105@hotmail.com.

Had a strange experience performing a “nooner” gig at the University of Manitoba last month. Three quarters into my set in the middle of University Centre… in which I was performing to a few people in seats and another few hundred walking by… music started blasting through the same speakers I was using.

I danced around for a few seconds and was about to leave the stage when the music finally stopped. I thought I was being played off! It turns out that Jack Hanna – the guy from the Columbus Zoo who is always on the Tonight Show and Letterman with his animals – was up next… and that he was testing his sound system! His team can handle savage aardvarks from the wild but apparently can’t work a p.a. system! Now that’s a brush with fame.

February will be a bit of a rest month. For the first time in my life, I’ll be taking a hot spot vacation and spending a week on a cruise in the Mexican Riviera. This is truly exciting… because the rubber chicken has never been to Mexico!

January 18, 2008
2007 was a great year for a lot of reasons.

I changed my look on stage, hammered out some of my favorite new material, successfully stalked and met Sidney Crosby, showcased for Comedy Now! on CTV/The Comedy Network, spent New Year’s Eve on stage in a tux at Rumor’s Comedy Club and performed 166 shows… the most I’ve ever done in a year (breaking my previous record of 160… and shattering my five-year average of 150). 

In the year ahead, I’m hoping to focus more time on touring new areas of the country, and generally hitting the road more. The biggest change going into the year ahead is that 5 Winnipeg Comics will not be in the Winnipeg Fringe Festival this summer.

After eight straight summers and nearly 100 performances as a mainstay in the Fringe, 5 Winnipeg Comics is no more. The trio of Trevor Boris, Kenton Larsen and myself first appeared at the Fringe as 3 Winnipeg Comics in the summers of 2000 and 2001 before expanding to 5 Winnipeg Comics in 2002 with the additions of Warren Persowich and the late Jack Berkowski. While Warren and myself appeared in every show from that year on, over the years the line-up evolved to include Rob Bruneau, Charlie Onyske, Mel Silverback and – for the final year – Big Daddy Tazz and “The Big Bear” Gerry Barrett.

It’s been a great run. The show was created as a place for us all to develop and in that regard I think it’s served its purpose. And ending the run with Big Daddy Tazz hosting the show was truly a fitting way to wrap it up.

For me personally, I’m hoping to return to the Fringe a few years down the road with a one-man show or something a little different. In the meantime, I’m going to focus my attention on playing new cities and, hopefully, taking some of my summers back!

Happy New Year!

December 12, 2007

It’s been an insanely busy holiday season… working a lot… even hammering out new material on John A. MacDonald. That’s right… I’m trying to produce the definitive bit on the first Prime Minister of Canada: the guy on the ten dollar bill. Turns out he’s a treasure trove of material… even though most people don’t even know who he is.

 

Had a fantastic time during the Rumor’s 25th Anniversary Weekend performing with Derek Edwards, Mike Wilmot, Trevor Boris, Lawrence Morgenstern, Dave Hemstad, Dan Licoppe and more. It was a great weekend highlighted by a heartfelt hour-long speech on Saturday afternoon by owner Ross Rumberg. A great time was had by all!

I also had a great time playing two nights in The Pas, Manitoba last month with Big Daddy Tazz and Heather Witherden. The people in The Pas are a great comedy crowd and know how to set up the perfect corporate show. The Pas continues to be my favorite town to perform in!

 

November 1, 2007
It’s been an exciting fall so far. Most notably, I met the greatest hockey player in the game today, Sidney Crosby, in Minneapolis a few days ago.

As a lifelong Pittsburgh Penguin die-hard fan (so much so that I drove to Pittsburgh and was in the victory parade when the team won the Stanley Cup in 1991), it was incredible to speak with the already legendary 20-year-old.

For a young superstar, in person he was a really nice guy.

 

On the comedy front, Rumor’s Comedy Club in Winnipeg is celebrating its 25-year anniversary with some big shows on November 16th and 17th that will feature some of the country’s best headliners including Derek Edwards, Mike Wilmot, Billy Bob Joe Taylor, my friend Trevor Boris and more special guests including yours truly. There are shows at 7:45 and 10:30 both nights and tickets are available at (204) 488-4520. I recently had the pleasure of working with Jimmy Schubert… an old school super talented Philly comic whose Comedy Central special has been slapped all over Youtube. The guy was insanely funny… I would recommend seeing him if the chance ever comes up. Lots of road shows coming up between now and Christmas… including two nights in The Pas, Manitoba (one of my favorite towns to perform in!) and four… that’s right four… shows in Virden, Manitoba! Something tells me there won’t be anyone left in the town that hasn’t seen my act by the end of 2007!

October 3, 2007
It’s October… and I’m recharged after resting my brain for a good part of August. I just had the pleasure of headlining in Morris, Manitoba for the first time. That’s just the kind of bristling, seat-of-your-pants, red hot comedy excitement that would bring any comic back to life. There’s nothing like a good Plum Coulee joke to liven up everyone’s evening. After a brief hiatus, The Charleswood Comedy Night show at the Charleswood Hotel in Winnipeg is resuming on Monday, October 22nd. Along with yours truly, the show will feature such local yuksters as Kenton Larsen, Ryan McMahon, Darcy Taves and Jason Niziol.

As we approach Christmas party season, I’ve been focused once again on new material and even a new look on stage. My good friend Trevor Boris recently talked me into buying a new comedy outfit that was a little “hipper” so to speak (apparently wearing black pleaded dockers with a t-shirt made me look like an aged, outdated freak). I’ve now switched to extremely tight, crotch-hugging Trevor Boris-approved jeans and a long shirt. So far, the dozen or so shows I’ve done with the new look have gone fantastic. I always knew my career would really take off the day I got into Trevor’s pants… . I’m here all night…

 

August 1, 2007
Another year of 5 Winnipeg Comics at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival is behind us!

It was a great year… with Big Daddy Tazz, Gerry Barrett, Rob Bruneau, Warren Persowich and myself all writing to a specific childhood theme. The reviews were good… the crowds were supportive… and I feel like I’ve finally explored my inner child on stage.

 

 

As I ended up doing a total of 23 shows in the month of July… I’m planning to spend most of the next month sleeping! Wake me up next month.

July 20, 2007
At long last… tonight is the start of “5 Winnipeg Comics in… The BIG BIG Show: I Don’t Wanna Grow Up!” at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival!

Ten straight nights of comedy bliss with my co-horts Big Daddy Tazz, Gerry Barrett, Warren Persowich and Rob Bruneau. We’re performing 8:00 p.m. nightly at the Winnipeg Press Club, in the Marlborough Hotel, 331 Smith Street. Tickets are available at the door or by calling 9-4-FRINGE. Lots of laughs and drinks in an air-conditioned, fully-licensed venue! For more on the show… click here.

Last Friday, July 13th, I was featured in a Globe & Mail story about how collecting Star Wars stuff is more “in” now. The response to the story has been great. The highlight of which being friend and fellow comedian Trevor Boris e-mailing me to say: “you’re more famous for being a nerd than a comic now!” Hey… there’s no such thing as bad… ah… whatever.   See you at the Fringe!

Cheers, Jason

June 22, 2007
Things have been pretty exciting lately. Last week, two past members of 5 Winnipeg Comics – Trevor Boris and Jewish mountain gorilla Mel Silverback – appeared on Last Comic Standing on NBC!

Mel has made it to the next round in Hollywood! It was great seeing good friends on the show along with a number of other comics I’ve enjoyed working with over the years such as Ryan Belleville, Debra DiGiovani, J.R. Brow and, of course, judge and former winner Alonzo Boden.

I’m still frantically working on figuring out my inner child in time for the Winnipeg Fringe Festival a month from now. “The BIG BIG Show: I Don’t Wanna Grow Up!” will be the first childhood themed Fringe show ever for 5 Winnipeg Comics. My Mom has reacted prety much as expected… she has boycotted the show and actually booked plane tickets out of town for the entire 10-night Fringe run! Real nice. If she was worried I was going to be too hard on her before… .

The weekend of July 6th to 8th, I’ll be headining three shows at the Gimli Theatre Festival… doing 45-50 minutes every show. The exciting Gimli weekend will be a good primer for the Fringe… as I will be putting a lot of new material to the test. I’ve been spending my summers out in Sandy Hook, Manitoba since I was two… so it’s always great getting a chance to perform at my old stomping grounds. This will be my first shows in Gimli in six years!

The last time I appeared there… I made a deal with a British pub to perform in exchange for all the beer I could drink. Not surprisingly… the place went under. This time… the shows will be in a church! Looks like I may have to “Be Undrunk” this time around.

May 26, 2007
Check out the Detour section of today’s Winnipeg Free Press for an in-depth story on my unhealthy obsession with Yoda the Jedi Master!  You can see new photos of my world famous Yoda Room by clicking on the Photos link above!

May 16, 2007
Check out the new 5 Winnipeg Comics poster for this year’s Winnipeg Fringe Festival below!

Poster’s done…. now I just gotta write some new jokes!

April 4, 2007
It was an incredibly busy month of March! It was a 15-show month that featured one of the most satisfying sets of my life at the Just For Laughs Manitoba Homegrown… my inexplicable third corporate booking in a year and a half in the tiny town of Gainsborough, Saskatchewan… and one of my favorite nights of all time at Rumor’s Comedy Club… as I had the opportunity to perform in a killer show during the CBC Winnipeg Comedy Festival that included myself, Sean Majumder, Lawrence Morgenstern, Rick Currieand Tracey MacDonald all on the same bill!

I also got to meet another one of my SCTV idols at the Festival… the legendary Andrea Martin! Witnesses will tell you I almost crumbled in her presence. To meet up with the woman who created such amazing characters as Edith Prickley, Pirini Scleroso and Libby Wolfson was a career highlight.

 

Next week… I’ll be on the road as part of the CBC Winnipeg Comedy Festival Rural Tour… performing in Portage La Prairie and Inglis, Manitoba. Preparations for the 8th straight year of 5 Winnipeg Comics at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival are well underway. The new show – featuring myself, Warren Persowich, Rob Bruneau, Big Daddy Tazz and Gerry Barrett - will be called 5 Winnipeg Comics in… “The BIG BIG Show: I Don’t Wanna Grow Up”. It will be an exploration of the path from childhood angst to our current messed-up adult states. That means I get to write new material and dig up repressed memories at the same time!

February 8, 2007
Had a great time last night performing in a showcase for Comedy Now! on CTV/The Comedy Network at Rumor’s Comedy Club. It was a packed house and it was a pleasure to be part of a showcase that included many of Winnipeg’s most-established headliners including Dean Jenkinson, Jimmy Mac, Jon Ljungberg, Ross Rumberg, Warren Persowich, and Gerry Barrett. With Glen Foster headlining the show… it was a killer night of comedy. I’m also pleased to announce that next summer’s “5 Winnipeg Comics” show at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival will feature the addition of two fantastic headliner comics – Big Daddy Tazz and “The Big Bear” Gerry Barrett. As a guy who started doing amateur nights in the late ’90s when these guys were already emceeing and headlining… it’s a real honor to have them in the show. It’s only five months away!

January 18, 2007
Still recovering from a psychotically busy December. This included having my annual January cold and spending a week passed out. To quote the famous Rob Bruneau: “good times”.

Had a great finish to 2006… highlighted by a really enjoyable four show run in Regina with Dan Licoppe. Played a Yuk Yuk’s room called Fibber Magees and had a blast. The set-up was so great, I felt like I was on “Evening At The Improv”.

 

Except, of course, the place was filled with Saskatchewan types who are just a little different from a Los Angeles Sunset Strip crowd. Fibber Magees is probably one of my favorite rooms to play in the country… who knew Regina had so many hidden treasures!

5 Winnipeg Comics will be returning to the Winnipeg Fringe Festival for our 8th straight year this summer… and we are excited that a couple of national headliners have been added to this year’s line-up. It’s going to be a BIG BIG show. More info will be coming soon!

December 12, 2006
I’ve been a little lazy with the updates lately… primarily because I’ve been living in a different small town every weekend for past month or so! Christmas party season – which brings with it a host of drunken Christmas party hecklers – is a fun and glorious time. As of today… I’ve got seven shows coming up in the next seven nights… so things won’t be slowing down any time soon! More updates will be forthcoming in the new year. Have a happy holiday and a great 2007!

October 20, 2006
Just got back from a fantastic week in Toronto, performing at Yuk Yuk’s Toronto, Eton House, Spirits Bar & Grill and at The Rivoli in a showcase for the HBO Aspen Comedy Festival. Over the course of the week, I performed with some of the best comics in Canada, including Sean Cullen, Pete Zedlacher, Jon Dore,legendary Winnipeg headliner Kenny Robinson, Laurie Elliott, Alex Nussbaum, Ron Sparks, Fraser Young, Dan Quinn, Boyd Banks, Gavin Stephens, Mark Forward, Perry Perlmutar, Winston Spear, JJ Whitehead, Joanna Downey, and good friend and former “5 Winnipeg Comic” Trevor Boris.

Speaking of Trevor, I attended his Comedy Now! taping at Trinity Studios for CTV/The Comedy Network. He had a great set, and when he did a few of his classic old bits, like his Speed Reader joke, I had flashbacks of our first Fringe Festival show back in 2000. It was great to see some of that old classic material being recorded for national television! I also saw part or all of the Comedy Now! tapings for Kenny Robinson, Toby Hargrave and Mark Forward in the same night. With the big T.O. week behind me… now I can concentrate on the big mission… playing every inch of Saskatchewan one town at a time!

September 28, 2006
It’s that time of year again when I seem to be spending all of my time either writing or booking corporate shows. The Christmas season is insanely busy every year. Speaking of corporate shows… I’ve vowed never to use a cordless microphone to do stand-up at a corporate show again! Ijust did a corporate show in Portage La Prairie, Manitoba in which the mic died repeatedly… including during my closer! Never again!

Last weekend, I spent 48 hours alone at my cottage in Sandy Hook, Manitoba with one of my three dogs (Tazzy) and a laptop. I did nothing but write jokes. I’ve been hammering away on my obsessive compulsive and nerd material… and came away with roughly 30 premises I’m zooming in on. I think I’m more anxious than ever to start breaking in a new dimension to my act.

On Thanksgiving Day, Monday, October 9th, I’ll be heading back to Toronto for a week to do shows and see my good friend Trevor Boris tape his Comedy Now special for CTV/The Comedy Network. Considering that we started doing shows together more than eight years ago… it will be great to be in the room for the taping. The week will be good times all around, as I’ll be staying with another good friend, Winnipeg comic Rob Bruneau, who’s spending a few months in Toronto doing shows. I’ll have a full slate of shows over the week, performing at Yuk Yuk’s in downtown Toronto, Spirits Bar & Grill, Eton House and The Rivoli - where I’ll be performing in a special comedy showcase for the Aspen Comedy Festival! The weekend after I get back, my first ever show in Moosejaw, Saskatchewan awaits! The dream continues.

August 23, 2006
Tomorrow on CBC Radio, the Winnipeg edition of “So, You Think You’re Funny?” will be airing at 11:30 a.m. Winnipeg time! It will also be broadcast at 7:30 p.m. on Friday night.

The show will feature material and interviews with Rob Bruneau, Kelly Loewen, Warren Persowich, Heather Witherden and myself. Cheers, Jason  August 1, 2006 I’m excited! On Monday, August 14th, I’ll be producing a special All-Star Winnipeg Comedy Spotlight at Rumor’s Comedy Club in which comics will be taped for a possible inclusion in CBC Radio’s “So, You Think You’re Funny? ” comedy radio show! The show will be hosted by Big Daddy Tazz and feature myself, Warren Persowich, Rob Bruneau, Charlie Onyske, Kelly Loewen, Bob Smith, Ron Moore, Darcy Taves and more! Tickets are only $5 and are available at (204) 488-4520. It’s a special night for the Winnipeg comedy scene. Come check it out!

July 31, 2006
The seventh straight summer of 5 Winnipeg Comics at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival is finally behind us… and I’m pretty much coasting on fumes at this point.

Overall, this year’s show had a number of highs and lows. Our reviews were not as glowing as in past years (3 stars in the Winnipeg Free Press, for example)… as we had the misfortune of having critics show up so early in the run that the crowd was ridiculously tiny for a stand-up show.

On the many, many nights in which our killer emcee Mel Silverback and my comedy cohorts had great sets to packed rooms… not one critic was present. We also took some flack for having so many jokes about Winnipeg in our show… when all critics over the years have universally  praised that aspect of the show. Reviews are a coin toss… they depend on whether you get a fair critic or not and on what night they show up… and this year we lost the toss.

Someone also stole the giant wooden sandwich board that we have used to promote our show near in the main festival grounds near the beer tent for the past seven years! We think it may have been one of Silverback’s female ex-companions who couldn’t get enough of “the Melster” and wanted to fill her den with as many Mel photos as possible. On the  positive side… our attendance was even higher than last year… and the show itself was our most Fringe-like to date. Mel Silverback got funnier and funnier every night… improvising new lines as he went along… and ultimately doing a ventriloquist act with a little ape puppet on our closing night! A big “thank you” to everyone who came out to support the show!

July 15, 2006
This summer’s Winnipeg Fringe Festival is finally upon us … and I’m really excited about this year’s show. Whereas the 5 Winnipeg Comics shows for the previous six years were pure stand-up with the odd song parody thrown in… this year is our most Fringe-like show ever because of our new member, Mel Silverback. The idea of having a foul-mouthed Jewish mountain gorilla comic in a suit and bow tie emcee the show every night makes me laugh just thinking about it. 5 Winnipeg Comics in… “The Evolution Of Comedy” starts this Wednesday, July 19th and runs at 8:30 p.m. nightly for 12 straight nights until Sunday, July 30th. The show is at the Winnipeg Press Club (Venue 19) and tickets are available at the door or by calling 9-4-FRINGE. Click HERE for more info.

By the way… I finally got around to building a MYSPACE page. By the time I looked into it, someone in the states with the same name had already taken my name… so I had to settle for the address www.myspace.com/comicjasonbeck. I had tried a different name earlier, but realized I wasn’t in the comedy section and had to delete the whole MYSPACE page and start over! I haven’t done much with it yet but I’m hoping to add some new video soon. My only beef with MYSPACE: now I’ve got two sites to update! Aaaaagh!!!!!

June 14, 2006
Things are insanely busy once again… as this year’s 5 Winnipeg Comics show at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival draws near… and I continue on my quest to play every small town on the planet! This Friday… the dream continues in Thompson, Manitoba… . Our extremely wacky new Fringe poster for this year’s show “The Evolution Of Comedy” is now posted in the 5 Winnipeg Comics section. Our actual real naked bodies were used in the making of the poster… especially Rob Bruneau‘s. I think it’s one of my favorite posters of the last seven years… right up there with the peanut can one for “What Has 5 Heads And 9 Nuts?” and the circus poster for “THE FUNNIEST SHOW ON EARTH! (Results May Vary)”. All seven posters are now posted in the section.

Got a chance to meet legendary baseball superstar Pete Rose at an event in Winnipeg recently. Really cool guy with a pretty funny perspective on his ban from the baseball hall of fame and the whole gambling fiasco. Listening to him speak… you gotta think he’s going to make it in to the hall of fame someday!

 

More updates coming soon as Fringe 2006 draws near!

 

May 19, 2006

Had a great time performing at Zanies Comedy Club in Chicago on Sunday night!

Performing on the bill with comics Bill Bunker, Brian Aldridge and headliner Skip Griparis, I had a blast doing a set of my favorite generic material… including a U.S. version of my “Be Undrunk” joke that worked. Zanies is a classic intimate comedy room that was a thrill to perform in!

 

 

May 9, 2006
This summer’s 5 Winnipeg Comics show at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival is only two months away… and it’s officially going to be the weirdest, most Fringe-like show we’ve ever put on. 

5 Winnipeg Comics in… “The Evolution of Comedy” will feature the Winnipeg Fringe debut of Jewish mountain gorilla Mel Silverback… who will be emceeing the show for 12-straight nights alongside myself, Warren Persowich, Charlie Onyske and Rob Bruneau. The 80-minute stand-up show – which can be best described as “a humorous exploration of the comedic differences between man and ape” – will in fact be the 7th straight 5 Winnipeg Comics show at the Fringe! That makes me feel about ninety…

The love child of a mountain gorilla and a Catskill’s comedian… Mel Silverback has taken his career all the way from the wilds of Africa to the jungles of the comedy stage, enduring cougars, hecklers and other nightclub predators during his climb to the top of the nasty show stand-up circuit. Over his lengthy career, Mel’s extensive credits have ranged from performing in the Alternative Stand-up Stage Festival in Vancouver,  the Real Madness Comedy Festival in Toronto, to entertaining intoxicated swingers in small town dives. Mel recently opened for Randy and Lahey of the Trailer Park Boys and  was a runaway hit  at the CBC Winnipeg Comedy Festival.

I can’t wait to see  Mel flinging his comedic stylings toward Winnipeg Fringe Festival audiences! Watch for our wacky poster… coming to this site later this month!

Things continue to be insanely busy. I’ll be out of town for the next week as I’ll be doing a guest spot at Zanies Comedy Club in Chicago on Sunday night along with headliner and frequent Tonight Show guest Skip Griparis. Megastar comedian Dave Chappelle is performing on the same stage five days earlier! Time to find out just how universal my material is!

Cheers, – Jason 

April 12, 2006

Had a great time both performing and attending parties and galas at the CBC Winnipeg Comedy Festival.

There were a lot of great highlights. I got to see some well-deserving good friends of mine – such as Big Daddy Tazz, Trevor Boris and Warren Persowich – have successful gala performances. I got to spend some time partying with some of my favorite people in the industry who I usually only get to speak to by phone. I got to perform in Festival shows at Rumor’s and the King’s Head Pub.

And I got to spend some time getting to know Bubbles from Showtime’s Trailer Park Boys! A big congratulations to Al Rae and his team for a well-run, truly enjoyable event!

 

 

March 30, 2006
Things have been insanely busy lately… as March has been a 16-show month and April is shaping up to be just as busy!

The highlight of the last month – without question – was last Saturday night when I had the opportunity to perform a 20-minute spot opening for Stewart Francis and my good friend Big Daddy Tazz at The Burton Cummings Theatre in Winnipeg.

 

 

I love doing theatre shows… and it was a well-run top notch night with a great crowd. Tazzy was hilarious as always and Stewart’s killer one-liners blew me away.

 

 

 

If only every gig could be like that one… . I’m looking forward to April already, though, as I’ll be performing in the CBC Winnipeg Comedy Festival next week! I’ll be hosting a show at Rumor’s Comedy Club on Tuesday, April 4th with American comic Louis Ramey and performing in The Winnipeg Show at the King’s Head Pub on Friday, April 7th with Big Daddy Tazz, Dan Licoppe, Irwin Barker, Bruce Clark and host Dean Jenkinson! It’ll be great to share the stage with some of Winnipeg’s best comics of the past two decades! Tickets are available at Ticketmaster.

March 1, 2006
The last month was a lot of fun. I had the pleasure of doing a show with Paul Provenza, director of the dirty joke movie The Aristocrats, a few weeks back at Rumor’s Comedy Club.

Paul is one of those special Bill Hicks/Richard Pryor types of comics who wears his heart on his sleeve on stage and says what he feels. He was an extremely friendly guy and an inspiration to work with.

 

 

 

Paul is also known for playing the doctor who replaced Fleischman (Rob Morrow) on the final season of Northern Exposure and for playing Blair’s boyfriend Casey on The Facts Of LIfe (sorry, I wasn’t able to pry any Tootie gossip out of him… ).

If you’re a comedy fan and aren’t easily offended… pick up The Aristocrats on DVD. If you’ve already seen it… the extras on the DVD are amazing and make it worth seeing again. But be warned… as Paul says on stage… “if you let your Grandma watch it… it will probably kill her… .” The new material explosion has taken a great leap forward in the past month. I’m looking forward to debuting my new material on divorce, ring tones, Linens -n-Things, and, oddly enough, Sigmund Freud, at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival this summer.

Congratulations to my good friend and original member of 5 Winnipeg Comics Trevor Boris on what has been an amazing last few weeks. First, he lost by a hair at the Yuk Yuk’s $25,000 Great Canadian Laugh Off, coming in second in the country… then he was selected to tape a half hour Comedy Now special for CTV/The Comedy Network in October. Considering that he’s already taping galas for the Winnipeg and Halifax Comedy Festivals and can be seen regularly on Much Music’s “Video On Trail”, I think 2006 is going to be the year of the gay farmer. It’s awesome that an original Winnipegger from the old Press Club Comedy Nights is ripping it up to such an extent down East! For more… go to Trevor’s web site at www.TrevorBoris.com.

Now back to my comedy career… I get to play Carievale, Saskatchewan on St. Patrick’s Day! The dream continues… .

February 1, 2006
I’m finally back to performing after lots of shoulder physio and rehab!

The one positive thing about lying in bed all day for weeks is that it gave me some time to conceive a considerable amount of new material. Monday night at Rumor’s Comedy Club, I did a 10 minute spot in which eight or so minutes was brand new… and I was satisfied with how a lot of it was received. Now it goes through the tweaking process!

The next few months I’m hoping to hammer out an all new set for next summer’s 5 Winnipeg Comics show at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival. It’s a whole new year and I’ve already started booking shows into April. Looks like the rest period has officially ended.

January 9, 2006
My New Year has gotten off to a slow start as I’ve injured my rotator cuff and have been sidelined for a few weeks. At least I’m getting that break from performing that I wanted! I’ll post another update when I’m back in the land of the living. Happy New Year!

 

 

December 11, 2005
Today… The Winnipeg Free Press ran a full-page story on the cover of the Entertainment section on my evolution from amateur comic to busy comic on the road. It was a pretty good story… though I look like a crazed psycho in the main photograph! Click HERE to read the story.

Cheers, Jason 

December 6, 2005
It’s been a busy but interesting last few weeks. When I performed with Emo Phillips last month, he suggested that I try wearing a ’50s suite on stage. He thought it would be a perfect fit with what he described as my “old style” fast-talking delivery. As a result, I’ve spent half dozen or so shows experimenting with the new look. So far, the shows in which I’ve worn the outfit have gone really well… especially with the older audience members. At one of the shows… an old lady came up afterwards and said: “I really enjoyed your act.” I just kept thinking: “That’s cause I’m dressed like your grad date!”

Following an exhaustive run of small town corporate shows that included headlining a fun night in Alida, Saskatchewan on Saturday night, there was some fun to be had on the local front as Rumor’s Comedy Club in Winnipeg hosted a special taping for the new satellite radio comedy station (XM) on December 1st. The lengthy 13 comedian showcase delighted the full house… and I walked away with the knowledge that my marriage material was soon going to be broadcast across the country.

My anti-marriage stance has gone national! I guess I’m comedy’s answer to Stephen Harper… except it’s heterosexual marriage I have a problem with! Lots to look forward to in the weeks ahead… including a return visit to Portage La Prairie and a four-night stint in Brandon, Manitoba! If you’re new to the site… please… SIGN MY GUESTBOOK!

November 2, 2005
A lot of exciting things have happened since my last post, involving exploring strange new Western lands, working with one of my all time favorite comics and dressing up my dogs for Halloween. A few weeks back, I had a great time doing a half hour show in Gainsborough, Saskatchewan … playing to an all female audience and bringing my Ricky Martin parody out of mothballs just for the occasion. One of these days I’m going to go into cardiac arrest performing the bit (see the clip in the video clips section)… but it’s still fun to do none the less.

 

By the way, if anyone is wondering what ever happened to Ed Asner… apparently he’s in the witness protection program posing as the major of Gainsborough.

In the past week, I had the honor of hosting a show headlined by one of my favorite comedians, Emo Philips. As a teenager in the ’80s, my three favorite comics were always Gary Shandling, Rodney Dangerfield and Emo. Considering that Gary never tours any more… and the odds of doing a show with Rodney decreased somewhat in the past year… this was a pretty big deal to me. Emo is as funny as ever and one of the true masters of joke writing.

I didn’t dress up for Halloween, but my dogChewy went as Chewbacca (no outfit needed), my dog Lola went as Princess Lola and my dog Tazzy wore a cool Yodacostume. Call the dog abuse prevention line nearest you. I’m looking forward to the Christmas comedy season and all of the small town adventures it usually brings.

 

This weekend… it starts already as I’m in The Pas for two nights… and just before Christmas I’m booked in Brandon for a three-night stint opening for funnyman, monkey-lover and good friend Dan Licoppe.

September 18, 2005
It’s back to work as the Christmas season draws nearer. I took a much needed rest to write and re-charge my batteries since my last post… still performing but not as insanely often as in July. I did two shows last night and I feel like the burnout period is over and I’m ready to start working out material again.

As you may have noticed on the main page… after a long period of waiting and perserverance, I finally obtained the rights to jasonbeck.com ! Now the site can be accessed via jasonbeck.com OR jasonbeck.ca. It took a while because apparently there are a number of Jason Becks in the states and someone had owned the name for years. What’s even more exciting is that I’m performing in Saskatchewan for the first time ever next month… I’ve never even driven through the province known for Dick Assman and The Northern Pikes. It just proves that in comedy… all dreams can come true.

August 1, 2005
It’s finally August… a month in which I can get some rest and maybe sit on a beach for a while! After performing 11 straight nights in the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, I am looking forward to taking some time off this month to recharge my batteries. That’s practically all I can think about. I’m like a zombie staggering around with my arms out going: “MUST GET SLEEP… .”

The Fringe went pretty well this year… . Our show, 5 Winnipeg Comics in… “Live From The Press Club!” drew good crowds and got great reviews… including 4 stars from The CBC and 3 1/2 stars from The Winnipeg Free Press! Our nightly line-up of Kenton Larsen, Warren Persowich, Charlie Onyske, Rob Bruneau and myself worked hard every night. I also had a great time producing my good friend Big Daddy Tazz’s show “Bi-Polar Buddha”. Now it’s time to start writing next year’s show. But first… MUST GET SLEEP!!!!!

July 12, 2005
It’s the busiest time of year… the Winnipeg Fringe Festival is upon us and that means 11-straight nights of shows! It’s our sixth straight year in the Fringe… which as a comic has been a great motivator to keep writing new material.. This year… our Winnipeg Press Club venue is going to be a hotbed for great comedy… as the line-up will be:

6:30 – 7:30  …Big Daddy Tazz in “Bi-Polar Buddha” 
8:00 – 9:15 …5 Winnipeg Comics in… “Live From The Press Club!”  
10:00 – 11:00 …”Late Night At The Fringe With Trevor Boris” 

5 Winnipeg Comics… and our line-up of (above left to right) Rob Bruneau, myself, Charlie Onsyke, Kenton Larsen and Warren Persowich… are revved up and ready to go with tons of fresh new material. Big Daddy Tazz’s one man show – produced by yours truly – is 50 minutes of pure laughs. 

Late Night At The Fringe With Trevor Boris – staring my good friend and former member of “5 Winnipeg Comics” Trevor Boris – was a huge hit last year and will be picking up right where it left off… it’s a late night talk show in which Fringe stars are the guests. 5 Winnipeg Comics will be a guest on the show on Tuesday, July 26th. Tickets for any of these shows are available in advance by calling 9-4-FRINGE.

If you’re visiting this site from the Fringe Festival web site and saw the show… please sign my guestbook and let us know your thoughts on the show. In the meantime… see you in the beer tent!

June 18, 2005 
As a result of my recent shows in Toronto, it looks like I’ll be hitting the road a little more often in the years ahead. The opportunity has come up to start middling at Yuk Yuk’s comedy clubs across the country on a more frequent basis… and I’m hoping to find the time to do a Western Canadian tour (Saskatchewan, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver) in the near future. I can now be found on the Yuk Yuk’s web site.

This summer’s Winnipeg Fringe Festival is a month away… which means things are insanely busy right now. Between all of the advance marketing and production work that goes into the show each year… and the fact that I’m still trying to work out as much new material as possible in the next month… there won’t be much time to breath until the August long weekend! This summer, 5 Winnipeg Comics are back at the Fringe for a sixth year in a row… with “5 Winnipeg Comics in… Live From The Press Club!” This summer’s show features the return of original member Kenton Larsen, along with Warren Persowich, Charlie Onyske, Rob Bruneau and myself.

This show is dedicated to the memory of Jack Berkowski… a member of the show for the past three years who passed away in May. The show takes place at 8:00 p.m. nightly from July 20th to 30th at the Winnipeg Press Club, in the lower level of the Ramada Marlborough Hotel. Tickets are available at the door or by calling 9-4-FRINGE starting the first day of the show.

As a warm-up to the new Fringe show… 5 Winnipeg Comics will be doing a special “Best Of” show featuring some of the funniest material from the past 5 years at Rumor’s Restaurant & Comedy Club on Thursday, June 30th! Tickets are available by calling 488-4520. Hope to see you there! By the way… please take a second to SIGN MY GUESTBOOK! 

May 23, 2005
It has been an extremely sad week in the Winnipeg comedy scene, as good friend and beloved comedian Jack Berkowski passed away last week at the age of 40. Jack died of smoke inhalation following an accidental fire that broke out in his St. Vital apartment. Jack was a valuable member of 5 Winnipeg Comics, having performed with us in the Winnipeg Fringe Festival for the past three years. He was a solid perfomer on the local scene, having started in stand-up roughly 15 years ago. Apart from hosting at Rumor’s Comedy Club for a number of years, he was also chosen to represent Winnipeg in a Yuk Yuk’s national comedy competition in the early 90s. When reviewers were around, Jack won over the critics on a regular basis.

Having gone on the road with Jack many times, I will always remember him as a great comic to have the pleasure of performing with: he was polite and positive, extremely supportive of other comics and – most notably – capable of adjusting his act to give the audiences what they wanted… whether we were playing a smalltown dive or a banquet room in Dauphin packed with 400 Ukrainian Babas. He was one of those rare comics with the ability to blow the crowd away by improvising material off the top of his head. When he was on… no one could follow him.

A celebration of Jack’s life will be held at 1:00 p.m., this Wednesday, May 25th, at the Weston Gospel Church in Winnipeg, 1787 Logan Avenue. Jack will be sadly missed both as a performer and a friend.

April 20, 2005
Had a great week on the road in Toronto… playing The Rivoli, Spirits and two shows at Yuk Yuk’s in downtown Toronto! The Rivoli was a cool little room with a high theatrical stage and a variety of more edgy comics.

 

 

The Spirits show (hosted by the enchantingly funny and cynical Joanna Downey) had the same kind of fun atmosphere as the old Press Club Comedy Nights, though the line-up was packed with killer headliner comics.

 

 

I felt at home at the downtown Yuk Yuk’s club right away… as the room has a real slick yet friendly feel to it…

…and – more importantly – the door handles of the club are rubber chickens!

 

 

Apart from my good friend Trevor Boris – who I stayed with and had an awesome time with all week – I had the privilege of performing with the likes of Jason & Ryan Belleville, Rob Ross, Chuck Byrn, Terry Clement, Gilson Lubin, Martha Chavez, Peter Anthony, Ian Sirota, Roy Daye, and The Williamson Playboys.

It was also a strange star-studded week… as I ended up meeting a pile of celebs… including Billy Idol, Lisa Marie-Presley, Bubbles, Ricky & Julian of The Trailer Park Boys and one of my favorite British bands… The Wonderstuff.

 

All engines are now focused on hammering out more new material for this summer’s Fringe Festival show… . Our poster and materials are well underway and the site should be updated with all of that stuff next month. By the way… if you’re one of those people who checks out this site from time-to-time and hasn’t yet signed my guestbook… NOW’S THE TIME!

March 22, 2005
It’s been an extremely busy month… with shows galore and preparations for this summer’s July 20th to 30th Winnipeg Fringe Festival show underway. This summer, 5 Winnipeg Comics returns for a sixth straight year with a familiar balding head as founding member Kenton Larsen returns to the line-up.

The returning line-up of myself, Kenton, Warren Persowich, Charlie Onyske and Rob Bruneau have all been working hard hammering out new material for the show… and this summer promises to be a good one. On top of all that… our usual Winnipeg Press Club venue will be a hotbed for comedy this year… as Big Daddy Tazz will be performing his one-man stand-up show “Bi-Polar Buddha” before us every night… and Trevor Boris will be following us with the return of “Late Night At The Fringe With Trevor Boris”.

The original Press Club Comedy Night – which I founded as a local open mic night back in 1998 – has changed venues once again. After three and a half years at the Press Club, the show spent a few years at the West End Cultural Centre before relocating to the Pyramid Cabaret for the past year. In the hopes of finding a venue that represents the one thing all of the comics are missing in their lives – intimacy – we have relocated to The Charleswood Hotel. Our first show on March 7th – which featured myself and such comedy luminaries as Rob Bruneau, Charlie Onyske, Kelly Loewen, Darcy Taves and Ross Rumberg – was a packed house and a great time. Our next Charleswood Comedy Night is on Monday, April 4th. 

Rumor’s Comedy Club in Winnipeg has been overflowing with some stellar comics lately, and I’ve had the opportunity to perform with such brilliant talents as Orny Adams (pictured with me here, from the Seinfeld film Comedian) and my favorite Canadian comic, Mr. Derek Edwards. Sharing the stage with these guys fills me with both a sense of admiration and a whole new dislike for my own material.

In the midst of all of this madness, I am gearing up for four shows in Toronto in the second week of April. I’ll be doing spots at Spirits, The Rivoli and a few nights at Yuk Yuk’s in downtown Toronto. Please see the Live Dates section for more information.

February 15, 2005
It’s that time of year again… the time of year when a comic gets tired of his own act and decides it’s necessary to risk life and limb on stage hammering out new material. Over the past month and a half… I’ve churned out more than 20 typed pages of new stuff… which I’m hoping will translate into a completely new solid 15-minute set when I’m done working it out. Anyone who’s either tried stand-up or seen the Jerry Seinfeld documentary film “Comedian”… knows just how harrowing the testing phase can be. I did an “all new material” 10 minute set at Rumor’s Alternative Night on Monday, February 7th… and the jokes with the most potential turned out to be about hot dogs and going to a relationship counsellor (though I was clearly upstaged by an appearance by the legendary half Jewish/half mountain gorilla comic Mel Silverback).

Every set I do for the next two to three months is going to be an ongoing testing and editing process… so much of the old material may finally be getting a rest. Speaking of “Comedian”… Jerry Seinfeld’s co-star in the film… Orny Adams… will be at Rumor’s on March 3rd to 5th!

January 1, 2005 
Happy New Year!

2004 was the best year of my life comedy-wise… highlighted by a busy 160 shows… working as a host and emcee all year at Rumor’s Restaurant & Comedy Club… performing on the road with Yuk Yuk’s in Edmonton, Alberta and Brandon, Manitoba… the most successful and best-reviewed 5 Winnipeg Comics run at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival in the last five years… the launch of the JasonBeck.ca Web site… and my first theatre show performance to over 900 people at thePantages Playhouse Theatre!

I would like to thank everyone who helped push me further along in the comedy world over the past year… including Ross Rumberg, Big Daddy Tazz, Nancy Beaven, Chrysi Rubin, Pete Zedlacher and the late-great Kerry Talmage… along with the four comics I’ve spent the most time in the comedy trenches with over the years.. Trevor Boris, Kenton Larsen, Charlie Onyske and Rob Bruneau.

In the New Year, I’m hoping to do shows in Toronto, Calgary and if all goes well maybe even Vancouver. My other New Year’s goal is to write some new material that doesn’t involve the phrase: “huh-huh-huh… .”

Here’s to a great 2005!

December 1, 2004
It’s been a great last few weeks… Last week, I had the pleasure of going out on the road with the one and only Mike MacDonald, doing a 30-minute opening spot for him in front of an audience of 500 at the Westman Dreams For Kids fundraiser in Brandon, Manitoba.

 

 

Mike, who now resides in California, is one of Canada’s all-time most successful stand-up comics, having spent the last few decades performing across North America and everywhere from Just For Laughs in Montreal (many, many, many times) to shows like Letterman and A&E’s Evening At The Improv. I had a great time and felt kinda like Luke Skywalker on tour with Yoda…

Christmas show season is upon us… and December is going to be even busier. Apart from a large number of traditional stand-up shows… on Friday, December 17th, I’ll be appearing in “A Ronnie Moore Christmas” with my good friend Ron Moore, those wacky improv guys fromCrumbs and sketch group Boiling Brain Pot. The show is 9:00 p.m. at the Forest Nickerson Theatre in Winnipeg. Apparently, the show is a dream sequence and I’m the ghost of Stand-up Comedy’s Past or something like that…

I guess that means it’s about time that I wrote some new material.

On a personal note… I just hit a comedy milestone having performed my 150th show of 2004! This has been the busiest comedy year of my life… so much so that I no longer have one. Have a great holiday season.

October 25, 2004
Today was the funeral of one of the funniest and most spirited guys I’ve ever met… Doug Bennett, lead singer of the legendary Canadian band Doug & The Slugs… who passed away suddenly earlier this month while on the road in Alberta.

 

 

The band had four gold albums and international success with such hits as “Making It Work”, “Too Bad”, and “Day By Day”, and had just finished recording a pile of new songs that Doug had been working on since the mid-90s.

Over the past decade or so, myself and fellow comic Kenton Larsen have had the pleasure of getting to know Doug pretty well. Apart from hanging out with him two or three times a year when he’s been in town (Doug was on tour for most of his 27 years fronting the band)… we’ve both had the pleasure of singing with him on stage, drinking with him and most importantly, watching him blow away one crowd after another.

Every time we heard he was in town, we dropped everything and made it to the show… whether it was at midnight on a weeknight or in one of the biggest dive bars in town.

 

The last time we saw him was back in March at the Palamino Club in Winnipeg. He played a new song: “Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue”. It was a classic Slugs song.

We always told Doug he should have tried his hand at stand-up, cause he was by far the most hilarious frontman of any band in the country. The audience banter he came up with off the top of his head night after night was gold. I’m not sure if we went to see him over and over more for the music or to hear him bust up the crowd.

My favorite memories of Doug are the nights when he really stirred it up: the many times he ripped apart a drunk guy on stage so bad I thought a brawl was going to break out; the time he played the McPhillips Street Station and almost got pulled off stage for spending his entire set calling the hundreds of watching gamblers “losers” for throwing their money away; and most notably, the time he dared me to sing the song “She’s Looking At Me” with him on stage… which is a duet between a skinny guy (a former member of the Slugs) and a fat guy (him). I spent the whole day trying to memorize the skinny guy lyrics… and the second I got on stage and the song started, he just handed me the mic and went: “you’re the fat guy… go!” Here’s to Doug… . I hope they’ve got Jack Daniels up there…

October 3, 2004
Last night, I had one of the most enjoyable shows of my comedy career, performing at the Mood Disorders of Manitoba fundraiser for more than 900 people at Winnipeg’s historic Pantages Playhouse Theatre, an incredible room where legends like Charlie Chaplin, Johnny Cash and Crowded House have actually performed! Never thought you’d hear those three in the same sentence, eh?

 

The show was rock solid from begining to end… with host Brad Oswald and comics Big Daddy Tazz, Dan Licoppe,Dean Jenkinson, Ross Rumberg and Warren Persowich all having great sets. For me, it was my first actual “theatre” show… and I was quite lucky to be surrounded by such a positive, encouraging line-up of performers.

 

Congratulations to show organizer Big Daddy Tazz on a phenomenal achievement that was a big hit with the audience while raising a lot of money for a good cause!

September 24, 2004
Just had a great weekend playing 5 shows at the Edmonton Yuk Yuk’s to an average of over 300 people a show… with good friends Pete Zedlacher and Trevor Boris (who shot some exciting Paris Hilton-esque hotel video footage into the wee hours of Saturday morning…).

 

The shows were a blast and we also had some funny guest comics drop by to do spots including the one and only Howie Miller, Kerry Unger and Sean Lacomber.

We also got to spend time with funnyman and unbelievably nice guy Toby Hargrave… who showed us such sizzling Edmonton hotspots as West Edmonton Mall (where I got some great rubber chicken shots), his cool house (where we watched Pete’s hilarious short film “Zombie Girlfriend”) and an artsy restaurant (where Toby told tales so insanely funny he had Trevor literally flipping over couches with fits of laughter… . “Cheque please!”).

A good time was had by all and I can honestly say it was one of the most enjoyable weekends of my comedy career. I’d like to thank Chrysi, Steve, Tom and the staff at the club for their hospitality and for being so positive and fun to get to know all weekend. I really hope I can play the club again somewhere down the road.

(Comics in Yuk Yuk’s photo from left to right: Howie Miller, Jason Beck, Pete Zedlacher, Trevor Boris, and Toby Hargrave (kneeling)).

Next week, I’m excited to be playing a fundraiser for the Mood Disorders Association of Manitoba with Big Daddy Tazz, Dean Jenkinson, Dan Licoppe, Ross Rumberg, Brad Oswald and fellow “5 Winnipeg Comics…” member Warren Persowich. It’s at the Pantages Playhouse Theatre on Friday, October 2nd and tickets are available at all Winnipeg Safeways. For more info, CLICK HERE. I’m one of the guys referred to on the poster as “And Friends”. I can’t wait to play that room! 

September 9, 2004
This year’s 5 Winnipeg Comics show at the Winnnipeg Fringe Festival was one of our best ever… with great attendance over the 12-night run and a 4-star review from the CBC! 

Rob Bruneau and Charlie Onyske were solid additions to the show… and Warren Persowich’s monologue about his experience battling testicular cancer blew us all away night after night. He really kept the ball rolling… huh huh huh.

This year we also did a special encore performance of the show at Rumor’s Restaurant & Comedy Club on Wednesday, August 4th… which was a lot of fun.

As you may have noticed, the web site is finally complete… well as complete as a web site can ever be… with lots of audio and video, celebrity schmooze shots and photos of me and my rubber chicken travelling the world.

Okay… I realize I look 15 in some of the photos… but you can’t amass that large a collection of silly pictures without aging a bit… . I’m looking forward to taking it on the road this fall… as I’ll be middling at Yuk Yuk’s in Edmonton for 5 shows from September 16 -18. Pete Zedlacher (one of my three favorite Canadian comics) is headlining and the host will be Winnipeg’s very own Trevor Boris, my good friend who has just been nominated for Best New Canadian Comic at the Canadian Comedy Awards. To vote for him, click here.

Once Edmonton is behind me… I’ll be back at the Pyramid Comedy Night at the Pyramid Cabaret on Monday, September 20th.

I’d like to thank Don Woligroski (who designed our last two awesome Fringe posters) for designing this truly creative web site. If you’re visiting for the first time… please sign my guestbook!

July 1, 2004
The summer of 2004 is going to be insanely busy… 12 nights in the Fringe… lots of Rumor’s shows… and that’s just July…

5 Winnipeg Comics returns to the Winnipeg Fringe Festival this summer with a new show: “5 Winnipeg Comics in… What has 5 heads and 9 nuts…?” that loosely refers to Warren Persowich’s unfortunate loss of a testicle since last summer’s show (this will all be elaborated on at the Fringe). This year, original show members Kenton Larsen and Trevor Boris are sitting it out. Kenton is undergoing his last few operations to look exactly like Sam Katz… and Trevor is going solo with his own late night Fringe talk show “Late Night At The Fringe With Trevor Boris” (see www.trevorboris.com for more details).

The additions of new members Charlie Onyske and Rob Bruneau should make for a new 5 Winnipeg Comics experience. Charlie is a good friend that I started doing comedy with – along with Kenton and Trevor – six years ago. Rob… who will be hosting the show… has made quite an impression on the local comedy scene in just two short years. Apparently, he’s wanted to be in this show since he was in the womb… huh huh huh. I’m really looking forward to be performing on the Winnipeg Press Club stage once again.

In case anyone’s out of town during the Fringe and still wants to check out the show, 5 Winnipeg Comics will also be headlining at Rumor’s Comedy Club on Wednesday, August 4th!

June was a sad month in the comedy world with the passing of Kerry Talmage, a good friend and a hilarious comic. Kerry not only gave me great comedy advice and support… he actually called me from California to offer me shows from time-to-time.

I had the privilege of performing with Kerry the last night he headlined at Rumor’s and… even though an audience member threw up all over both of us right before the show… we had a fun time performing (see photos of our last show together – having to share the same shirt ).

Every time I say one of the taglines on stage that Kerry suggested… like “taste great… less filling”… I will think of him.

A large number of local Winnipeg comics who knew Kerry – including myself – will be performing in a special Kerry Talmage Tribute Show to raise money for the Juvenile Diabetes Association at Rumor’s Comedy Club on Tuesday, August 3rd. The show will be hosted by Ross Rumberg and also feature Big Daddy Tazz, Al Rae, Dean Jenkinson, Bruce Clark, Dan Licoppe, Billy Jaye, Trevor Boris, Warren Persowich, Charlie Onyske and other special guests. Tickets are available at (204) 488-4520. - Jason