Pete Holmes

ArtsFestivalsFilmMusicOpinionStageVisual Arts

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

Big time journalists probably don’t get super excited and tell all their friends who they’re going to interview, but I sure do. Responses usually come in a mixed bag of people who are impressed, and people who have no idea who I’m talking about, but are happy I’m happy.

When I faux casually told everyone I know that I’d be speaking with Pete Holmes, I discovered how universally appreciated he is. Everyone cited a different project they liked, from College Humor’s Badman, to his most recent foray into network TV, How We Roll.

The more people I spoke to and research I did, the more I realized what an extensive catalogue Pete has; you can be a fan of some of his work, and never even realize all the other projects he’s got going on. Did you know he did a stint as a New Yorker cartoonist? I didn’t.

His 2017 semi-autobiographical HBO show Crashing (which he executive produced with Judd Apatow), put him on the map for a lot of people. It ran for three seasons, and still has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 90%.

His book, Comedy Sex God, came out the next year. Billed as “part autobiography, part philosophical inquiry, and part spiritual quest”, he can now add successful author to his ever growing repertoire.

I first saw him as a podcast guest, which led me to his stand-up, and his own popular pod You Made It Weird where he talks to a wide range of people from actor Ben Stiller to author and meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg, often co-hosted by his wife Val.

He seems to have some unassuming magick that allows him to meet people where they are in a really authentic way, and I ask him if that took practice:

“Well, I think that’s actually the whole thing, isn’t it? Not just for comedians, but just for human beings. The people in my life that I find the most frustrating are the people that don’t seem to be doing the work to, just for its own sake, become more authentic; for its own pleasure, get in touch with how they really feel, with what they’re actually afraid of, with what actually makes them happy — and to stop doing an impression of what they think their parents wanted them to be, or their city wants them to be, or their culture wants them to be, and do the work to figure out who they actually are, and then share of themselves with the people that support that and encourage that.”

While it’s all relative, it’s fair to say that growing and aging are very different things, and without intention, time has a nasty habit of just passing.

“A lot of times I get on the phone with like, old friends that I haven’t talked to in 20 years, and I’m like, oh right, not everybody’s doing this; not everyone’s putting in the effort, And I’m just talking to their dads right now…It sounds pessimistic. I just mean, I think the job of a comedian and the job of a happy person are pretty much the same thing, which is to dig deep, figure out who you are, figure out what actually does it for you, and then present that to people, and find like minded people.”

I tell him that he comes across as a well adjusted adult, especially for a comedian. I wonder if this creates a divide in his comedy life: does he find himself gravitating to those who are doing the work, sometimes quite publicly? Do the spirit nerds, therapy lovers, 12 steppers, et al find themselves on one side of the room?

“You know, it’s funny, I love them all. You know, in fact, when I do Montreal, and I get to hang out with — maybe they are adjusted, but let’s just say they’re more like what I call the pirate comedian, you know, traveling around, swashbuckling, swabbing the deck, killing crowds, destroying, murdering and drinking rum — I love them too…It’s not even ‘too’, like I love them just as much.

“…There’s different aspects to my personality as well. Meaning it’s not just the chipper guy, or the the spiritual guy, or the philosophical guy, or whatever. There’s also, you know, Montreal is home to Mean Pete; Mean Pete does the roasts, Mean Pete will jump on Jim Norton’s show. I love roasting, I love being an asshole for fun, and getting rough and tumble if that’s the game we’re playing. Because, yeah, I mean, it’s beautiful. It’s fun. I love comedians.”

Considering the pandemic forced hiatus that performing in general and the Just For Laughs Festival in particular is returning from, I ask if being back on the road with everyone is akin to a class reunion.

“I think of it more as like a summer camp reunion, because class reunions are tricky. It was always better for me. I was always more of a camp kid than a school kid. You know, I did a festival not that long ago…in Austin, it was the Moontower Fest — and there’s just something very special about…taking the elevator down to the lobby, thinking you’re gonna go eat alone, which is often what you’ll do when you’re traveling, and you run into one person in the lobby, and as you walk to lunch, you run into another person, and by the time you get there, there’s as a party of five, and that’s uniquely a comedy fest experience.”

A spirit nerd myself, one of my favorite definitions of God is a Pete Holmes quote where he said something to the effect of: God is the name we give to the blanket we throw over the mystery in the dark to give it form. His Wikipedia page is more concise, if perhaps less accurate about his spiritual leanings, saying “he now refers to himself as ‘Christ-leaning’ or jokingly a ‘Hooraytheist'”. He’s a bit too busy to be reading his own Wiki though, so he had no idea (when I asked him about it, I misquoted it as Christian-leaning).

“Yeah…interesting. I’m gonna have to edit that.”

But it was Hooraytheism that really piqued my interest.

“It’s like trying to talk about Christian or Jewish people. There’s no way to categorize all of them. But some atheists can be bitter, right? They’re a little upset that this is all a cosmic mistake, and it’s bullshit — this isn’t all of them, but a ton of them. And that’s why when I started to meet more delightful, optimistic, joyful atheists– to sort of have the perspective of like, more, I don’t know what’s going on; I don’t think there’s a God on the evidence, but I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t understand what’s going on, but it’s precious and it’s fleeting, so let’s watch a sunset, let’s have an ice cream, let’s fall in love. Penn Gillette is always my go to example of a truly beautiful atheist. I was like we need a new term, and we should call them Hooraytheists.”

“When you grow up thinking that you are going to be sentenced to conscious, eternal torment for believing the wrong things or not believing correctly enough or hard enough, or for whatever sin you think you’re guilty as you think you’re going to be going to hell, it’s actually quite a relief to think that when you die you go into a void or into nothingness. I mean, don’t get me started with the Buddhists. The reincarnation people, which are Hindus, and Buddhists, would say it’s wishful thinking to be a modern Western atheist that we’re gonna die and just go into the void. The Hindus are actually working really hard to clean up their game so they can earn the right to merge into the nothingness…We’re the new generation and we want the void now.”

Pete got his start as one of JFL’s New Faces in 2009, and now he’s back to host. I asked if he gets a sneak peek of the lineup.

“…It’s supposed to be super hush hush and this year, I don’t know who the people are. And it’s exciting to find out… I guess I could say the same reason fans are going to the new faces show is the same reason I’m going, it’s because I want to be introduced to the new talent…Honestly, the more successful you get, the more isolated you can become…you just aren’t out there as much. It doesn’t matter what profession you’re in, this is true.”

“But Montreal has always been a great opportunity to like, get back together. Like, that’s really the paradox is when you start comedy, it’s a group activity. It’s you and 15 other people that you’re starting with, and you all go to the same open mics together, so you’re like a platoon. But then when you get success, you become like a hitman that travels alone, and does the job alone, and comes back alone. And that’s not as lonely as it sounds, but it’s not as fun as what it feels like when you’re all together. Which is what Montreal feels like.”

Catch Pete Holmes & Friends this Friday. Also this Friday, he’s part of the Patton Oswalt Gala. He’s hosting New Faces 1&2, and New Faces Unrepped. He’s also doing a live You Made It Weird podcast on July 30

ArtsFestivalsStage

Michael Che is the first Just for Laughs Gala host, or at least the first host I’ve seen, to fully embrace all aspects of the job.

It’s not just having a solid standup set for the beginning, which he did. It’s also not just having the ability to riff on and with the audience, which he clearly did as well.

Introducing the other comics performing is something other hosts I’ve seen have treated as almost a throwaway emcee duty. Che, on the other hand, made his intros a solid part of the show.

Of course he did. Reading dry, witty one-liners off a teleprompter comfortably into the camera is pretty much his day job, or rather his close to midnight on Saturday job as a co-host of SNL’s Weekend Update.

My favorite joke of the night came during one of his intros:

“Our next comic comes from England, which is known for its alcoholism and Islamophobia. He should do great in Quebec.”

– Michael Che

There were other edgy gems in his intros and throughout his set There were also some solidly funny sets from the other comics performing last night.

Jessica Kirson was the standout for me. I’ve seen her perform before, but her inner monologue bits, seemingly a new edition to her act, narrating both what she and the audience were thinking of her set in real time, was some fourth-wall breaking hilarity.

Jay Pharoah, who closed out the evening, had the large audience laughing the whole time he was on stage. His bit about escaping unwanted advances in Greece was particularly good.

Fellow SNL alumn Fred Armisen was, um, interesting. A couple of short songs, a singalong, and that was it.

Fin Taylor, the aforementioned Brit, made some good points, and one really solid one, but, for the most part, I wasn’t really sure where he was coming from and where he would land and I’m still not sure.

Pete Holmes and Sam Jay delivered solid sets, as did fellow Canuncks Matt O’Brien and Phil Hanley. It was a night jam-packed with talent, as Che remarked at the beginning.

Also kudos to the warm up act/hype man whose name I don’t know. He started dancing in our row and decided to let his energy get everyone ready instead of jokes, as those would be forthcoming.