Comedy – Fancy Boys Club

Riki’s Righteous Xmas Playlist

December 16, 2024January 6, 2025by rikimjadamsLeave a Comment

Look, if you’re trapped in the capitalist hellscape that is the US, you’re a conscript in the war against Christmas, whichever side you fall on. I mean, Christmas won, it’s fucking everywhere. It’s inescapable. Our borders are contained within Santa’s vast panopticon whether we like it or not. Because this is THE capitalist holiday. This is the grand devotional, our wallets made sacrifice to prove our love to each other.

Even if you just celebrate “the holidays”, the holiday party you’re at is gonna play Christmas music. Because, well, there’s just a fucking lot of it. And more every year. And worst- a lot of it fucking sucks.

But not all of it. So if you find yourself in control of the tunes and you want to make the most of the theme, I offer you this fine tuned playlist to keep things interesting

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Comedy

A (different) open letter to comedy…

August 27, 2024by Matt DrufkeLeave a Comment

Seventeen years ago today, I stepped on a comedy stage for the first time. It did not go well.

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Comedy

My all-time most bizarre comedy experience…

July 9, 2024July 9, 2024by Matt DrufkeLeave a Comment

In general, I have a rule when I am performing comedy: Do not blame the audience if things are not going well. Too often, I have found comedians who have not done well get mad at a crowd and believe it is the fault of the audience when, in reality, they should be shouldering a lot of that responsibility themselves. If a crowd doesn’t laugh at a joke, I’m usually not one to blame the crowd. Maybe it’s not a great joke. Maybe I delivered it poorly that night. Maybe something happened earlier in my set that I failed to pick up on and now I’m seeing the repercussions of that. I find having this mindset (hopefully) makes me a better comedian and performer because it is always making me look at ways to improve my comedy.

There are, of course, notable and obvious exceptions to this rule. Sometimes an audience member has decided they are going to help the show by heckling. Sometimes an audience member is blind drunk. And sometimes a former co-worker tries to get your show cancelled before it even begins.

This story is about that last kind of example.

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Comedy

A decade of Seeing You Next Tuesday…

April 16, 2024by Matt DrufkeLeave a Comment

Open mics are weird things. As I mentioned in a piece I wrote earlier this year, you are given the chance to get onstage and talk into a microphone and the only thing you have to be able to do is show up and write your name down. On that night, a person going up for the first time is on even playing field with an experienced veteran. All that matters are the jokes.

There are some open mics that are basically booking auditions. Usually held by comedy clubs, these mics are not about working on new material, but they’re about trying to get paid work. Those mics serve a purpose (comedians should learn how to professionally try out for spots) and they are important, and because of that, they’re usually very well attended.

But See You Next Tuesday, a mic celebrating its tenth anniversary of being in the bottom level of Plainfield bar MoeJoes, is not an audition mic. It’s something much, much more special than that.

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Comedy

An open letter to comedy…

February 4, 2024by Matt Drufke4 Comments

My name is Matt Drufke and I have been doing standup comedy while based in the Chicago suburbs for almost eighteen years. I love being a suburban comedian. I have always found the scene out here so supportive and caring and filled with people who care as much about how you’re doing as they care about how much you make them laugh. And perhaps this is why I find myself needing to write this. Because something happened this week and it bothered me enough where I wanted to write this.

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Comedy, Pop Culture

Not All Who Yondr Are Lost: Chappelle, comedy and camera phones…

December 31, 2023December 31, 2023by Matt DrufkeLeave a Comment

When something happens with Dave Chappelle, it’s a near guarantee that my Facebook feed will be littered with my comedian friends all wanting to give their thoughts. An event that happened last week got some traction, so last night, I started seeing all kind of thoughts and comments about what happened to the comedian this week. You, dear reader, are now stuck hearing my thoughts.

This is the vicious circle.

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Comedy

Fancy Boys Club sits down with: Jack Baker

February 16, 2023February 14, 2023by The Fancy BoysLeave a Comment

A staple of the Chicagoan suburban comedy scene for over a decade, there are few comics working more than Jack Baker. Clubs and shows love him. Audiences love him. Other comedians love him. It’s really kind of gross.

This Sunday, Jack is preparing to record his first special at The Comedy Vault in Batavia. He agreed to sit down with us and let us ask him some questions…

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Comedy

One among many…

January 10, 2023by Matt DrufkeLeave a Comment

Last night, I attended a stand-up comedy open mic. If you’re unfamiliar, that is where you are guaranteed four minutes of stage time so long as you’re able to write you name down on a sheet of paper. It doesn’t matter if you’re a seasoned pro with jokes on jokes to spare, or someone who has always wanted to go up and nervously has a few things jotted down. Just want to get up and yell horrible things about people you don’t like? As long as you can write your name, an open mic will not only have you but tell you that you’re just the same as everyone else.

So, at best, they are something of a mixed bag.

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Comedy

Fare Thee Well, Penny Road Pub

January 30, 2022by Matt DrufkeLeave a Comment

Located in what felt like the middle of nowhere in Barrington, Illinois, the Penny Road Pub was a bar and multi-staged venue that made its living by hosting shows. More often than not there were bands, but myself and a few other different comedian/producers tried to get comedy started there as well. Unfortunately, we all learned one thing: because this venue is in the middle of nowhere, Penny Road Pub had, literally, zero foot traffic. The only way to have a crowd is to bring the audience yourself, which is not a skill suburban comedians are super-great at.

The venue closed down last night and that made me wistful. In the fifteen years or so I’ve been doing comedy, that venue provided me some of my happiest/angriest/weirdest moments. I got to hang out with some amazing people, meet lifelong friends, and watch amazing comedians work their craft in front of small audiences. When I say small, it was usually just my wife, Jon- the brother of co-producer Lewis Rhine, and Jon’s friend Charlie. Later, Lewis and I would add Joe Motisi to our production team, mostly because we just liked spending time with him and we all thought each other were hilarious.

What the show lacked in numbers, though, it more than made up for in memories.

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Comedy, Misc.

Fancy Boys Club Sits Down With Mike Maxwell

July 5, 2021July 4, 2021by The Fancy BoysLeave a Comment

Both blink-182 guitarist Tom DeLonge and Chicago comedian Mike Maxwell understands something very clearly: Work sucks. They know.

Where DeLonge expressed that sentiment in one song, Maxwell has done something on a much larger scale: he has created The Anti-Boss, a one-man show which takes a look into the world of the workplace. The show, which will happen next on July 7th at The Comedy Shrine in Aurora, has been showcased at clubs and festivals. Mike answered a few questions for us over e-mail, and because of his knowledge of workplace frustrations, we CC’d his answers to all of the wrong people.

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