John Mulaney

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It’s been a year, y’all. We shook off the collective nightmare of lockdown, put on our dancing shoes, and partied. Bars, theatre, concerts, comedy, art, all the stuff that keeps the lights on in our city and our souls returned from the forced hiatus.

It didn’t take long for us to get used to it, and every now and again I stop myself while doing some mundane thing like walking through the Eaton Centre and remember how much I craved the basics.

As some of you may know, I have a lot of well thought out complaints about the ways of the world (catch me on FTB Weekends with Jason C. McLean), but provincial elections and healthcare crisis aside, the gratitude was especially delicious this 2022.

January

It’s a mind bender to recall that we came into 2022 under curfew, and in lockdown, but at the time it was hard to think of much else. Instead of show announcements, we kept our ears to the ground for cancellations, wondering how far ahead they were planning.

It was miserable. Igloofest was canceled. Online shows offered some reprieve, but meh. If we were in a tumbleweed climate, they would be rolling through this month.

The whole thing was gloomy.

February

February is often called the most depressing month, and in the COVID time it was at least doubly so. We were still under partial lockdown, but hope was on the horizon!

Nuit Blanche was finally coming back and Osheaga announced its lineup, signaling that normalcy was within reach. Some performers would change before the show, but all we heard is that there would be shows.

In fact, some local shows started to pop up and bars were scheduled to reopen February 28. Is dancing allowed? Is singing allowed? No one’s sure, but we’re stoked to get out there and find out.

March

The show is finally going on, which is really saying something considering the curtain on CATS was originally supposed to go up in March of 2020.. Just For Laughs announced its lineup and things to look forward to were starting to pop up everywhere.

This is when Montreal Museum of Fine Arts was doing what it could with limited capacity: starting at the end of February, you could get in if you booked your time slot (in 15 minute increments) online, masking and distancing are mandatory, giving the security staff the new task of keeping people from moving through the rooms too quickly or getting too close to one another. Only the major exhibit was open, and I learned that I don’t like Riopelle, but being back feels momentous.

Concerts have begun, but safety measures are in place there too, making the whole thing seem weird. My bf goes to see Sepultura at a fully masked metal show, and it sounds dystopian to me.

April

The MMFA is actually factually all the way open, though you still need to book a time slot. I beeline for The Decorative Arts & Design Pavilion, which is open for the first time in ages, having been “closed due to reorganization” or some such even before the pandy. I am in my happy place.

The MMFA’s Decorative Arts and Design Pavilion (photo by Dawn McSweeney)

As part of an experiment on our party rules, the SAT serves up drinks and tunes for 24 hours straight which gives me some hope that maybe the “new normal” will allow for some reconfiguration of things we’ve taken for granted as status quo for too long (writing this at the end of December, that hope has long since crashed and burned, but it was lovely while it lasted).

I’m comforted knowing that while everything feels like it’s on the brink, Montrealers can unite against some showy corporate silliness as we all discuss the city’s new giant ring.

May

Spring is springing, and the good times are indeed rolling. I finally get out to my first post-COVID show. I’ve seen Symphony X before, and they put on a good show despite not being on my regular rotation. This is about getting out, and bring with people and not wearing a mask in a crowd.

We meet up with friends for drinks and food. No vax passes. No masks. We come and go from the show so much, it’s about the band the same way high school dances are about dancing. I’m jazzed.

I also leave town for the first time in years, and head to Halifax for the first time ever. We hit some familiar territory, and hug people we’ve missed.

Back in Montreal, masks were still in place at Mainline Theater where performers wore them throughout Carrie: The Musical rehearsals. As someone who’s still masked at work, let me say that phone calls are hard enough, kudos for pulling off a musical.

There were no masks on stage for Contact Theatre’s Next to Normal at Monument Nationale and Cirque du Soleil came back strong with Kooza.

June

At this point our regularly scheduled Montreal programming seems to be rolling right along, and Fringe is next! James Gartler checks out Tango to the Pointe along with Al Lafrance’s Is This Yours? and Josephine, a burlesque cabaret dream play, saying of Josephine that “it stands easily as one of the best shows to ever play at the Montreal Fringe Festival”.

I peep What About Albert? and enjoy the heck out of it.

Photo by Joseph Ste-Marie, courtesy of The Malicious Basement Theatre Company

July

I smiled through this whole month. There are events at every turn, and Montreal summer is thriving. At the beginning of the month, our Editor Extraordinaire says to me “hey, someone approached us with a creative thing that made me think of you”, which is how I met my creative soulmate, and that will come up later.

ComicCon is back, and the fits are fierce. Flipping through the cosplay pics, I get a little sentimental thinking about how long it’s been since we’ve all been able to let our freak flags fly in all their carefully crafted glory. Man, we’re beautiful.

James Gartler went to Malcolm McDowell’s talk and he learned that the only time in his 60 year career he was ever stiffed on gig was by a producer in Montreal, so we have that dubious distinction.

JFL is back for its 40th edition, and I’m desperate to laugh with strangers. From late July into early August, all my friends have to listen to me fangirling about who I’m interviewing. I loudly tell everyone I know that I can’t make their things ‘cuz I have media passes to comedy shows, and article deadlines. Everyone calmly assures me that I wasn’t invited to their things, and pats me on my head for being so cute and excitable.

Seriously though, when you look at it all in one place our FTB Team had JFL on lock. Samantha Gold spoke to Canadian comedy royalty Rick Mercer, comic, Hollywood and Bollywood actor Vir Das and even Randy Feltface, an actual puppet. Jason C. McLean spoke with Letterkenny star Mark Forward and caught Irish comic Tommy Tiernan’s new show. James Gartler took in Trixie Mattel’s free outdoor drag show and SNL and stand-up star John Mulaney’s latest one-man show.

I spoke to a bunch of folks I never thought I would such as Alonzo Bodden and Pete Holmes. Despite Big Jay Oakerson closing out our phone interview by saying I should come up and say hi at the show, I freeze and never say hi. I see him outside with Brendan Sagalow on another day, after a different show, and I stare like a weirdo, but keep my distance.

July/August

As Montrealers we’re confident in our summers, but painfully aware of their fleeting nature. By the end of July squeezing in all the summer activities becomes a full time job, and this year it’s coming to a head as Osheaga & JFL share a weekend.

Osheaga 2022 photo by Chris Zacchia

As one FTB team was all over JFL, another team covers Osheaga with Joe McLean and Jerry Gabriel‘s previews and coverage from Jerry Gabriel of the rock-oriented Day One and the mix of everything Days Two and Three, plus Chris Zacchia’s festival photos.

Meanwhile, my Maritimers BIL & SIL come to town for their first Osheaga, and they haven’t been here in years. We live it up, and I fall in love with MTL yet again as I experience it through tourist eyes. They had a blast at the show.

August

Oh, I remember August because before we’d even sent the Scotians home, my bf tested positive for COVID. Damn it. We lock ourselves in, and I catch it in short order.

Considering I’ve been working at an office this whole time and taking public transit throughout, it seems fair. We both feel like bags of poop, but we’re super glad it wasn’t worse.

Meanwhile, Samantha Gold was checking out Repercussion Theatre’s All Shall Be Well and the POP Montreal lineup is released giving us more to look forward to.

September

In September I interviewed a fictional character when I sat down with Andrew Jamieson as Conor Blaine, (the aforementioned creative thing and the aforementioned creative soulmate). It was like playing with someone else’s imaginary friend, and it tickled me.

Drinks with fictional character Conor Blaine (photo by Dawn McSweeney)

Montreal Stop Motion Film Festival returns for it’s 14th edition, and I didn’t know this existed until it was over, so as I write this I’m marking my calendar for next year.

At MMFA, Nicolas Party’s pastels surprised me as the colours spilled off the pages and onto the walls. The Decorative Arts & Design Pavilion is closed again as pieces from there are used as part of another exhibit.

POP Montreal started at the very end of the month which takes up right into…

October

POP Montreal taught me a lot about how to better cover a multimedia, multi location arts festival. There was so much to do and see, but for me the highlight was catching Sophia Bel, who I’d never heard of, and now I tell other people about.

Samantha Gold interviewed Rocky Horror Show director Amy Blackmore and the time warp was live for the first time in years. Me First & The Gimmie Gimmies come to town, and it’s a fun time.

November

In art news, MMFA puts on a fantastic Jean Michel Basquiat exhibit called Seeing Loud: Basquiat & Music. It features works by the artist, but is specifically designed to showcase the importance of music in both his career and life. The music plays throughout.

Big famous pieces aside, there are framed journal pages, concert posters, and a super cool map where you can track his path via concerts in NYC. This bad boy runs through February 19, 2023.

In other museum news, the Decorative Arts & Design Pavilion is back to being closed for reorganization or whatever. I sigh dramatically.

Anti-Flag brought old school punk to town, and image+nation celebrates 35 years.

December

The beginning of December already feels like a year ago. The Candyass Cabaret brought sexy back, the Stygian Caravan brought creatives together, and speaking of together, Glass Tiger still is.

Andrew Jamieson’s Sleazy Christmas introduced me to comedian Morgan O’Shea who I thought was just some friend of a friend, and next thing you know, he’s going up on stage, and I’m laughing till it hurts. Turns out he’s profesh. I’ll be intentionally seeking out his comedy in the future.

As is always the case, this year isn’t over yet, and we’re already looking to the next.

Osheaga 2023 headliners have been announced, and I already have Lizzo tickets for May.

Entertainment this week? Personally? So much chilling.

All the best to you, yours, and the dreams you’re chasing. Blessed be & haribol.

Featured Image of Sophia Bel @ POP Montreal by Dawn McSweeney

ArtsFestivalsStage

They say that tragedy plus time equals comedy. This Thursday, SNL alum and beloved funnyman John Mulaney put that theory to the test with his one-man show, From Scratch, which detailed his recent recovery from drug addiction. The question some JFL attendees were left asking, however, was…too soon?

“Hi – it’s me. The comedian from a couple of years ago…” he cautiously began, addressing the enthusiastic audience at Salle Wilfred-Pelletier, which was packed to the rafters. Clad in one of his trademark dapper suits, the likable comedian touched briefly on the news cycle in America – “CNN does breaking news the way a breathless kid runs up to tell you a pointless story,” he quipped – before getting straight to the meat and potatoes of the evening: the addictions that nearly ruined his life.

“I’m here to be vulnerable for money,” he admitted as he launched into the details, date by date, of how he lost his way. The seemingly-straightlaced 39-year-old admitted frankly to having used cocaine, Adderall, Xanax, Percocet, Seroquel and other drugs in the lead-up to December 2020, when his celebrity friends staged a 12 person-strong intervention under the guise of a dinner party.

“It was a star-studded intervention,” he remarked. “A ‘We Are The World’ of alternative comedians over the age of 40. The funniest people in the world…and they promised each other that they wouldn’t do bits,” he added. “Fred Armisen was serious. Do you know how off-putting that is?”

Mulaney recounted how Nick Kroll and Seth Meyers each expressed their concerns, though it was ultimately actress Natasha Lyonne who got through to him, prompting him to immediately enter a rehab facility where – to his disappointment – no one seemed aware of his celebrity status.

Seeking to connect with the audience during the show, Mulaney engaged in an impromptu interview with a former addict seated up in the balcony, asking her to detail her history of substance abuse for the crowd. While probably a genuine attempt on his part to discuss the subject of recovery candidly, it also came across as exploitative.

Once the woman finished answering his questions – no doubt excited to have connected with him – he rebuffed her request for better seats, leaving the crowd to laugh at her for expecting a celeb to value her honesty or participation. Apparently, the rest of us must content ourselves with being vulnerable for free.

Even with his flawless comedic timing and witty observations, the evening sometimes had the uncomfortable tone of a confessional. An amusing one, mind you, but at the same time, a troubling one as well.

Mulaney’s talents as a writer/performer helped him rise up in the world of entertainment, but it’s his complex personal struggles that have been the subject of headlines for years now, particularly his sudden divorce from first wife Anna Marie Tendler in the spring of 2021 and subsequent involvement with Olivia Munn, who bore his first child soon after. The comedian briefly mentioned his girlfriend and the birth of his son during From Scratch, but sidestepped the subject of his marriage altogether.

If some matters were still too personal to share with the world, others were described in full, such as his relationship with “Dr. Michael” – no last name – who worked from home and provided Mulaney with whatever prescriptions he wanted. The comedian even gave the JFL audience a verbal “how to” guide for finding sketchy doctors online, just in case anyone wanted to get their hands on some drugs. Not that he was endorsing the idea, he clarified. It was, for all these reasons, a bit of an odd evening of comedy.

One can only applaud a newly sober person who is willing to come clean about their mistakes. Mulaney would hardly be the first comedian to know these kinds of struggles, and turning his painful experiences into punchlines must feel both cathartic and like something of a professional reset. How else to move beyond the story of his relapse if not to address it head-on?

Yet, beyond the witticisms, a rather bleak picture is painted here of someone still in recovery who is returning to the same industry whose excesses fueled his addictions. A man who, judging by the name-dropping scattered throughout his show and his frustration over not being recognized while in rehab, seems a tad too focused on finding success of a very particular sort instead of sorting himself out.

Make no mistake: Mulaney successfully mined tragedy for laughter with his one-man show. Was that the best way to go about reintroducing himself to his fans? That may be up for debate.

Perhaps less addiction-related humor would have lightened the evening up. Or, alternatively, embracing the confessional nature of the piece and bravely examining the factors that lead to his addictions and divorce, which could have made for a more intimate and impactful set.

Looking at his current situation, one can’t help but think back to other entertainment legends who feared losing their moment in the limelight more than losing their lives. It might be wise for Mulaney to take a little more time to restabilize and find his footing without the pressures of showbiz complicating matters. His comedic chops, as evidenced on Thursday night, are obviously in no danger of disappearing and neither are his fans, who root passionately for his future to be a brighter one.

For more details about Mulaney’s From Scratch tour, visit his website

ArtsFestivalsStage

There’s something about a perfectly-delivered one-liner that just makes life worth living, don’t you find? Lucky for us, the world-class comedians performing at this year’s edition of Just For Laughs have provided plenty. And lucky for you, we just so happened to write down a few of our favorites.

So, in honor of the final weekend of JFL, here’s a smattering of some of the Best of the Fest thus far.

“There’s a new trend of coming up on stage and physically attacking comics. I’ll beat yo ass. I just get bigger as you get closer. Don’t try that shit.”
– Alonzo Boden @ Just For The Culture

“You’ve turned on me. I make a joke and now you’re looking at me like I own a business and the French isn’t in big enough letters.”
– John Mulaney @ From Scratch

“Men will watch a superhero movie and identify with the hero. Every single man thinks he’s Batman. Crazy! No, you’re not Batman – you’re the mother f***er over there, asking for help!”
– Yamaneika Saunders @ The Nasty Show

“I went to fat camp as a kid. It was fun. We all went on our own bus.”
– Jessica Kirson @ Just For The Culture

“Invisalign? You’re ‘vis’. We all see it. When you talk, it sounds like you’ve had a stroke.”
– Dan Levy @ From Scratch

“’Morbidly obese’ is the ‘n word’ for fat people.”
– Robert Kelly @ The Nasty Show

“Doesn’t matter what country I’m in – EVERY SINGLE AUDIENCE joins in for the ‘ba ba ba’!”
– Randy Feltface on Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline”

“We have two dogs. The first is like a cross between a mop and a panic attack.”
– Tommy Tiernan @ Tomfoolery

“Learning to masturbate with a vibrator is like learning to butter toast with a chainsaw. It’s overkill. It’s not necessary.”
– Sophie Buddle @ The Nasty Show

“How many more times are we going to have to read an article about how they found a new cure for cancer that only works on rats? Can we all agree that does not belong in the human newspaper? Naw man – that’s rat news. That’s great for the rat community. Let them know. You can leave us out of that conversation.”
– Sheng Wang @ Just For The Culture

“Hockey is the only sport where it’s completely legal to assault a guy. You could break a guy’s jaw and they’re like ‘alright, go sit in that box and think about what you did for a few minutes.’ I know what I did. It was premeditated assault. I should be in prison for 5 to 7 years. Maybe 12 if I don’t speak French.”
– Yannis Pappas @ Just For The Culture

Just for Laughs runs until Sunday, July 31. For tickets and showtimes, please visit hahaha.com

ArtsFestivalsStage

The Montreal festival that launched the careers of comedy legends like Amy Schumer, Chelsea Handler, Dave Chapelle, and Jimmy Fallon is back, and it is back with a vengeance. That’s right comedy lovers, the Montreal Just for Laughs Festival has announced its 2022 lineup and it looks awesome.

This year’s festival features galas hosted by comedy legends including Hannah Gadsby, Jo Koy, Chelsea Handler, and Russell Peters. Concert events include live performances by Hassan Minhaj, Vir Das, and John Mulaney, whose work includes writing for Saturday Night Live and his standup specials like two thousand fifteen’s The Comeback Kid and Kid Gorgeous in 2018, the latter winning him an Emmy award.

As per Just for Laughs’ continued commitment to introducing the world to rising stars in comedy, the second season of New Wave of Standup is premiering on CBC Gem Tuesday, March 29, 2022. This show was filmed during Vancouver’s 2022 Just for Laughs Festival and aims to showcase the best Canadian comedians about to hit the big time.

The lineup includes Janelle Niles, a Black and Mi-kmaq comedian who raised awareness of indigenous causes with her show, Got Land?, the Montreal-based actor and comedian Nick Nemeroff, as well as Allie Pearse, who is known for her work writing for the award-winning show Letterkenny. Other performers include Hisham Kelati, whose debut album, Tigre King, was nominated for a Juno in 2022, Maddy Kelly, Hoodo Hersi.

These are just the acts that Just for Laughs has lined up so far, which means there’s more excitement to come. If this lineup is any indication, this is going to be one of the best Just for Laughs seasons yet!

The 40th Anniversary of the Montreal Just for Laughs Festival runs July 13-31. For info and tickets, please visit hahaha.com

The second season of The New Wave of Standup premiers Tuesday, March 29 on CBC Gem