Comedy Walk - "Comedy For Peace"

This marks my 8th month reigning as King of Comedy Walk. I am hosting the big show this month at the Los Angeles Theater in historic Downtown Los Angeles, CA

My good friend, the LA Cowboy, Brady Westwater wrote a blog about this event and here I shall re post it in it's entirety as it conveys all the information you need:

COMEDY WALK Solves Middle East Crisis On Thursday November 20th from 8 – 10 PM!

All of this month’s COMEDY WALK events will be held at the majestic 2,100-seat Los Angeles Theatre, 615 S. Broadway, Los Angeles Thursday, November 20th from 8pm to 10pm.

COMEDY WALK will present an evening of 15 comedians straight from major comedy clubs, television and radio plus an Oscar winning short film. All free!

FREE TICKETS at www.comedywalk.com, www.plays411.com or call 323-960-7773.

SHOW PROGRAMOne Stop COMEDY WALK November 20th, 2008

The evening starts at 8pm with a screening of the West Bank Story, a Oscar-winning and seriously FUNNY musical comedy short film about two warring falafel stands on the West Bank. A Q&A with actor Joey Naber who stars as Ahmed follows. This along is worth the price of admission which is – of course – FREE!

http://www.moviecitynews.com/arrays/media/2007/west_bank_story.html

Then there is the comedy show from 8:30pm to 10pm featuring American, Iranian and Israeli stand-up comedians who will collectively solve all the problems of the Middle East – in just one evening!. And you get your money back if you’re not satisfied!

Parking is only block away at Pershing Square - $6.60 after 5 PM – or at local garages for $5 or $6 but make certain your garage stays open past 10:30 PM! 5th and Hill Subway stop is also only one block away.

COMEDY WALK and IranDokht Present...

Host: Stevie Mack

8pm Stevie Mack - Intro

8:05 'West Bank Story' Screening

8:30 Q&A with actor Joey Naber

8:40 Nadine Rajabi

8:45 Noel Elgrably

8:50 Willis Turner

9pm Brian Farrell

9:05 Stogie Kenyatta

9:10 Michael Goldstrom

9:15 if.net winner Alec Sobel

9:20 Gayla Johnson

9:25 Max Amini

9:30 Stevie Mack

9:35 Jeff MacKinnon

9:40 Aurelio Miguel Bocanegra

9:45 Ara Basil

9:50 Elham Jazab

9:55 The Mooney Twins

10pm Good Night!

And Comedy Walk would like to thank the entire Delijani family, the Los Angeles Theatre, Councilman Joe Huizar of the 14th District, the City of Los Angeles, The Onion, the Los Angeles Conservancy, the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council and the Historic Downtown Los Angeles Business Improvement District for their assistance in making this event possible.
# posted by Brady Westwater @ 2:19 PM

Stevie Mack: A Working Actor/Comedian

If I am pursuing acting and comedy as a career, which I am, every day that goes by must be a day in which I have done something to advance my career. When I first got started back in 1991, I performed comedy as a hobby. When I found out I was good at it, I performed to be a part of show-business, but not really in show-business. I hung out with a select group of comedians, we partied and performed all over the place, then the strangest thing began to happen; most of my comedian friends began to rise to fame. Chris Tucker did the Tonight Show and went on to star in the Rush Hour movie franchise. Then Dave Chappell started getting all these parts in movies culminating with a very successful TV show. The list goes on, D.L. Hughly, Kat Williams, etc.

Once I decided to take this business serious, I had to take a sobering look at the similarities and the differences between me and them. First, the similarities; We are all Black, good looking, very funny plus have acting talent, we performed at mostly the same venues and we all knew, pretty much, the same people. So, what were they doing that I wasn't doing? They were doing the business part of show-business. Somewhere along the line they had gotten agents, managers and a publicist. They were doing their do-diligence on a daily basis, making calls, going on auditions, networking and promoting themselves. I was just performing and partying, thinking success came through osmosis and because I knew everybody. But it doesn't work like that. It takes hard work and a professional approach. I had to begin viewing myself as a valuable commodity.

This year I launched into doing my do-diligence in show business, I started working on the show and the business, and slowly I am seeing the transformation from obscure funny man to Working Actor/Comedian. Every day I have to keep up the work, because faith without work is dead. I check into my home-based office everyday and get to work on my career, just like I've done each morning for so many years while working for other people. I currently don't have an agent or manager. I use the web based agencies to book all of my auditions, Casting Networks $10. per month and Actors Access $68. year. I built my profile & resume there, added photos and they send me audition notices. I will join SAG and get a manager when opportunity presents itself.

Stevie Mack is featured on HBO in four episodes of "Little Britain", and stars on Discovery Health Channel's "Mystery ER".

REELS: http://www.steviemack.com/

BOOKING: steviemack@steviemack.com

New Day in America

November 4, 2008 I voted with my dollars and with my ballot. This historical moment is one that many thought they'd never see. I hoped it would come, but never imagined it would happen in 2008. All the cards were stacked against Barack Obama, his race, his name, he admitted he used drugs in the past, he was new to the Senate, he was not born to a wealthy family and the list goes on.

Leaders are born out of situations and the season was ripe for him to flourish. Many situations; the economy, the unpopular sitting President and the country's dissatisfaction with the the Republican party's agenda.

I've always joked about movies having a Black President when the world was either coming to an end or the country was in deep turmoil. And so it is; Art imitating life or life imitating art?

Grinderz

In 1998 I wrote this movie about punk Bladers (roller bladers) Vs. square Boarders (skate boarders). The result was a great bundle of footage that kept getting filmed while I completed other projects for Nike, Gladys Night, Shaqille O'Neil, Master P/No Limit Records, Hallmark Greeting Cards and the list goes on and on and I just let my movie go unedited until I saw a TV ad for a movie called Grind.

Grind had my character's names, my opening sequence and my first act, all with a bigger budget and a wide theatrical release. Damn! I set out to sue the makers of the film, but got side-tracked with other projects for a bunch of other celebrities (too many to mention).

I decided that I'd just finish my movie with my vision and release it to festivals and pick up a cult following, which I wanted in the first place. I'd rather have a movie that has a cult following and is talked about for centuries than an over nigh commercial success flash in the pan crap shoot, which Grind was.

It is now 2008, 10 years since I started on the movie, all the actors are old and obscure, as far as acting goes. They will surface once the movie released, because they will become stars with a cult following, people will quote their lines like Repo Man, and they will go on to live in infamy, or at least their characters will. I will see to that this comes to pass. I will log and blog all the action from last cut to first screening. We will begin to spread the word like a wild fire over the Internet, in chat rooms, through email campaigns, at skate parks and skate stores. School campuses will be a-buzz with the words of Grinderz on the lips of all who feels it speaks for them...the bully and the bullied alike.

Tonight Show w/ Jay Leno

I'm preparing my material for the Tonight Show w/Jay Leno. I'm 3/4 through reading his book, "Leading with my chin" gave me a wealth of insight as to what they expect a comedian to do on the show. I will only get four minutes to perform, so in preparation for the show I'll be performing 2 different four minute sets back to back on Thursday 6/26/08 7pm at Cafe' Audrey 6701-B Hollywood Blvd at Las Palmas, Hollywood, CA 90028. Come out and get your laugh on with a quality comedian...me. You,will help decide which set I do on the Tonight Show w/Jay Leno!

http://www.steviemack.com/

Little Britain

Little Britain USA was a very fun show to work on. I'm in five episodes of "Fat Fighters"! I look forward to taping more episodes. Be sure to watch the show this fall (September 2008) so we can get more episodes ordered by HBO.
Rosie O'Donnel is in one of our episodes, she was a great person to work with, she even used a punchline I gave her and the skit came off hilarious. Stars Matt Lukas and David Walliams are super talented and masters of subtle humor. They taught me a lot about the art of playing it down for TV.
Vivica Fox and Harry Lennix play the U.S. President and the First Lady. Sting and Katherine Heigl are in separate episodes and David Schwimmer was fun to have as a Director, he really knows his craft and it shows.
http://www.steviemack.com

How To Create An Internet Presence

This blog is about how I'm creating a diversified internet presence. As a talent, I want as much exposure as I can get, and since media is headed (actually already there) to the internet, I need to focus on creating a presence in cyberspace (the virtual world of internet activity). Now, in creating my presence, I want it to be a consistant presence accross the board. So, I created four sites; (1) http://www.steviemack.com/ (2) a myspace.com page (3) a youtube.com page and (4) a web blog at blogger.com...all under the same name; Comedian Stevie Mack. I owned the domain name steviemack.com before I embarked upon my diversification, but then after a few web searches and misdirections, I started putting Comedian before my name to distinguish me from the other Stevie Macks out there (there are a few..a DJ, a Realtor,an Artist and a few others) The way I am branding myself is to make my name and what I do uniquely synonomous. When someone is looking for either of these words, COMEDIAN...STEVIE...or MACK, they will get me. Because I am working hard to drive traffic to my sites, my name gets thrown around in cyberspace a lot, thus creating greater chances that I drive traffic to my sites. Once I get tarffic built up at these sites through networking in the real world and in cyberspace, a person can go to any search engine like Google or Yahoo and type in either of these words, COMEDIAN...STEVIE...or MACK and all the links containing my name will come up on the first page of that search engine. What do I post at my sites? What do I blog about? These two things are very important.
#1) At my websites I post information that makes the visitor want to do business with me..nothing tricky or gimmicky, simply good old fashioned quality customer service, product and information. My site should be easy to use and navigate. My site should point the visitor in the direction of my objective, whether it is to sell them a product, gain their sympathy, invite them to a function or develop a fan base. In my case it's all of the above, so I have to have a creative approach that doesn't confuse them. That's why I have to have more that one web site. Each site serves a certain purpose, has a main theme and a main selling point/product, yet each one will refer the visitor to the others, this is called cross promotion.
#2) My web blogs should be helpful information that people can learn from and something they would refer others to. Sure, I can write blogs filled with my wild adventures hunting sharks, but who cares about that? Even if they did enjoy it, will they tell their friends to go read it? That's why my web blogs should be informative and useful. One of my blogs at http://comediansteviemack.blogspot.com/ talks about How To Deal With Hecklers, another there talks about How To Deal With Stage Fright. These are both informative and helpful for entertainers on all levels; Michael Richards should have read my blog before he performed at the Laugh Factory and he would have avoided a lot of pain...or not. Information is only good if the person who recieves it uses it wisely. So, until later, Peace!
-Comedian Stevie Mack
Comedian Stevie Mack of Los Angeles, California can be seen on BET, Comedy Central, UPN, Sci Fi Channel, PPV and a host of music videos, comedy clubs and colleges in natural-space, outter-space and cyber-space!
Website:http://www.steviemack.com/
Youtube:http://www.youtube.com/user/ComedianStevieMack
Myspace:http://www.myspace.com/ComedianStevieMack
Blogspot:http://comediansteviemack.blogspot.com/
Email:steviemack@steviemack.com

R.I.P. Ronal Muldrow.

I love Ronald Muldrow as a person and as an artist. In 1998 Peggy (my wife) and I hired his quartet to play at our wedding reception and I was completely honored to have the bragging rights that such a legend was grooving at our reception! I've been bragging about it ever since.
When I worked at 5th Street Dicks in 1997 Ronald Muldrow would keep the place filled with his wonderful guitar playing and packed with his fans. I never understood how Richard (the owner) could afford such an established artist...but that's another article all together (the efforts of Richard Fulton A.K.A. 5th Street Dick).
Ronald would always joke with me about why Richard would not book him more often, "Yeah man, I know Richard is more fond of them horns..." he would say. Which wasn't far from the truth, Richard liked saxaphones and trumpets a lot. I love all instruments and can play most of them, but the guitar is the hardest because the strings are so close together, but Ronald Muldrow makes it seem effortless, as if those strings are piano keys or something even wider. Ronald Muldrow will be truely missed but his music lives on forever...R.I.P. Ronal Muldrow.

On Barak Obama

Barak Obama won my vote from the first time I heard him utter a word. I liked what I heard...and he's Black to the bone. You can't be Black in America and not be Black in America...you know what I mean? O.J. found that out, as did Michael Jackson. Serena and Venus Williams found that you can't be Black in the world and not get treated Black in the world. It's a cold game...racism, and Black's are the last to play it but the first to feel it's sting all over the planet. I don't play the Race Card...I AM the Race Card, and I'll be damned if I get played!

Black History

It is February 2008 and February is Black History month. Feb. 14th was Valentines day and Feb. 18th is President's day. As far as I know, St. Valentine wasn't Black and we've never had a Black President.

Black, African American, Negro...or American Negro...by whatever name you call this mighty race of people you must look at our history to understand our present and get a glimpse of our future. Brought to America by way of tortuous slave ships and put to work as slaves under the harshest living conditions, the African male was systemically separated from family and manhood; tortured, hanged and imprisoned for the last 400 years and psychologically brainwashed even unto this day to hate his own skin, given a Caucasian image of god and told he (the Black man) was the cursed race of Canaan in the bible.

Some Black men survived and triumphed in spite of all the obstacles placed in his path (alpha male) and some Black men succumbed, and believed the lies that were told them (brainwashed) .

This is Black history month but we now have a chance to make it a Black history year by voting for Barak Obama to be the first Black President of the United States of America....and then on February 18, 2009 we will have our first Black President on Presidents day in Black History month...now that's a real change.
-Stevie Mack