Remembering Robin Williams

By now, you have probably heard the sad news. Robin Williams died. When I heard, I felt numb. In fact, I still do. My first response when I heard about Robin was, “We need to take better care of our comedians.” But my second response was, “Comedians are canaries (in the coal mine). We need to …

Tim Ferriss 4-Hour Workweek

Meeting Tim Ferriss circa 2006

One morning ten years ago I woke up at 4:30 am and couldn’t get back to sleep. I had the fire in me. The week before I had done a shamanic medicine journey and my life was changing. But I didn’t know exactly how. The sun wasn’t up yet. Somehow, searching the internet, I found a recording from the SXSW festival with this …

What’s in a Birthday? Notes on turning a thirty-something

Yes, I’ve spent a over decade performing comedy, but it was largely unpaid and for give minutes at a time. It was easy to sleep in until 10am every day. Working day jobs that I didn’t really feel passionate about. Since I was little, I had always felt like there was something different, something wrong with me, some way I didn’t fit in….

Laugh Factory Therapist

National Public Radio interview with Clinical Psychologist ILDIKO TABORI and comedian KEVIN NEALON.  In acknowledging that personal anguish is at the heart of many stand-up routines, Hollywood's legendary comedy club, The Laugh Factory, recently took on Dr. Ildiko Tabori as in-house clinical psychologist to treat the club's comics. Free therapy will be available to performers four nights per …

The Yoga Mafia

The Yoga Mafia Eighteen days ago I started taking a yoga course called the "40 Day Yoga Challenge: 40 Days to Personal Revolution." Basically, we're taking a yoga class every day for 40 days and slowly giving up our vices one by one through a series of torturous cranks of an external vice grip called "letting go" and …

Laughter + IVF = Babies

The study, published in Fertility and Sterility, found that 36 percent of women with Israeli clowns became pregnant, as compared with the 20 percent of clown-free embryo transfer procedure. Not surprisingly, women conceiving the conventional way were found to have a much lower success rate with Israeli clowns in their room at the time of conception.

Divulging the Material that Will Create Your Solo Show

Writing the story of your life (or any other made up story for that matter), and then performing it for others, can be a difficult task. A one man show or one woman show however depends on your ability to reveal the nitty gritty of your story in a way that is fascinating and entertaining, as well as perceptive and often humorous as well.