Comedian Sammy Obeid sets a milestone in consecutive nights of stand-up

Sammy Obeid is a workaholic of the highest order. While most people strive to have their weekends off after five long days in the office, this comedian plans to work the stage every single night for 1,000 nights in a row. After a few months of working and realizing that he hasn’t had a day off since Christmas 2010, Obeid asked himself, “Why not just keep it going?”

Submerge caught up with Sammy over the phone on day 804 and the 10th anniversary of his first time stepping up on stage as a comic.

“I reached 100 [days], and I said, ‘You know I can make a full year record out of this and go to 365.’ I did that,” Obeid said. “When I made the 365, I got a Facebook message from my friend who said, ‘Hey man, I heard a comedian once did two years in a row performing every night…’ I said, ‘If I do that, I’m going to do 1,000 days.’”

Obeid has been working so much in the past two years, he considers his afternoon gigs as a “day off” or as he joked on Facebook a day off is a night performing comedy in pajamas. Recently he has cut down the workday by performing one or two sets instead of three or four in one night.

“I’m on my eighth wind right now or something. There was a point earlier when I was getting really burnt out and I kind of just took it easy, rested and regenerated. The last 100 days or so I’ve been resting and trying to get my health back,” he said. “It’s been one heck of a ride that’s for sure. I’m definitely looking forward to the end, but I feel like I have a wind right now. I’m going strong. And I’m so used to this, it’s becoming normal.”

Obeid has not only broken the previous record of performing stand-up comedy for the most consecutive nights on day 731, but he has plans to take it to the next level of performing.

“I needed to set up the margin so nobody else ever beats it. That and 1,000 is a nice round number,” Obeid explained.

Since the comedy bar is set so high, he knows that his final day is going to be a special one and is hoping to catch more attention to the public. In order to document his crazy comedy life correctly, he matches his everyday show with an everyday blog update on his website, Sammyko.com. You can keep track of what city he will be in and the type of challenges he goes through on a daily basis. Aspiring comedians can find helpful tips from a traveling comic, or people interested in what life would be like for a performing comic can find hilarious tales from his everyday life. You can read how he conquered performing on Monday in San Francisco, dealt with a “horny heckler,” how he got called a “genius” by the legendary Louis C.K., and received a compliment from Howard Stern while performing on America’s Got Talent.

“‘Well Sammy, I think you made the right choice.’ The crowd cheers. ‘I really like what you’re doing, and you know me, I love racial comedy. I think you’ve tapped into really something special there,’” Sammy wrote in his blog after day 441, after receiving honest words from Howard Stern.

On top of keeping up his blog and working a show every night, Sammy is being followed by a cameraman throughout his shows to film the comedy marathon.

“The whole time I thought it would be really cool to get a guy to follow me around, and I wouldn’t have to pay anything because I don’t have any money. It turns out I met a guy who’s been waiting to find the perfect project to put himself into,” he said. “We are going to turn it into a full-on movie, and recently I’ve a lot of good financial success, so I can actually pay him now and we can get better equipment. It’s really coming along.”

Originally from Oakland and a UC Berkeley graduate, Obeid first started comedy after one of his college professors suggested he try it out. After bombing the first time on stage, he became discouraged and decided that maybe comedy wasn’t the right career for him. But a few years later he enrolled in a public speaking class and ended up winning one of the national tournaments. After realizing his speaking skill, he decided to brave the stage once more in San Jose for a comedy competition. Although he didn’t get the winning title, he performed very well on stage getting plenty of laughs.

“I found out what I was good at, which was public speaking, math and making people laugh,” he said. “I left college with knowing that’s what I’m good at, which didn’t tell me at all what I should be doing in life [but] that’s how I ended up becoming a comedian.”

He graduated with a 3.9 GPA double major in Business and Mathematics. But Obeid’s education is used every day on stage to come up with jokes that are creative and smart.

“I think about comedy mathematically, jokes are equations in a way. I have a very technical way of looking at things,” explained Obeid. “Everybody has a different comedy style, some people are off the whim, some people are very structured. I have a mathematical intuition when it comes to comedy.”

His natural intuition has paid off, on top of attempting to complete the most consecutive nights of comedy, he as appeared on NBC’s America’s Got Talent, the Food Network, and is a current member of the Coexist Comedy Tour and the Axis of Evil New Generation Tour. He also started his own comedy enterprise with a group of friends called KO Comedy, where they promote and perform shows. Throughout his success he has noticed how much stronger and funnier his set has been.

“The comedic growth that I’ve experienced is pretty immense and (this is a double negative) but you can’t not get good from doing comedy every night. It’s inevitable, it will just happen,” he said. “I’m just amazed of how much more power I feel like I have, how much more control I feel I have over a crowd, and having more material. I would have never thought this was conceivable two years ago.”

The last day of work for Sammy Obeid will be on Sept. 21, 2013, making it officially 1,001 consecutive days of stand-up comedy. Now working on this eighth wind, quitting is not even an option for him but he does look forward to his future day off.

“I don’t even know what I’m going to do yet. But it’s going to involve locking myself in my room or a few days,” joked Obeid.

Sammy Obeid will perform a free show with Mike E. Winfield at Sacramento State’s University Union Ballroom on April 4, 2013. On April 7, Obeid will headline a show at Punch Line in Sacramento. Tickets for the latter are $15.

Sacramento comedian Keith Lowell Jensen Releases New CD/DVD and Preps His First Solo Tour

A drawing of four naked human female torsos with rabbit heads is not the definition of marketing genius, but it could be. At the bottom of the DVD box it reads, “How great is this DVD? You haven’t even opened the box and you’ve seen a bunny rabbit with boobs.”

Keith Lowell Jensen’s comedy CD/DVD Cats Made of Rabbits was recorded at the Sacramento Comedy Spot two years ago, but its content remains timeless, save for a Jonas Brothers reference. I want to tell you the juvenile humor ends on the box and that Jensen is a thoughtful comedian, pushing the envelope of correctness (which he does) and subversively challenging our values with humor, but then I think about his duck vagina bit and think better of such grandiose statements.

He’s an atheist (and has a wife and child–guffaw), so he is often referred to as the Atheist Comedian, mostly on the Coexist? Comedy Tour, but Jensen’s compulsive interest in all things worthy of critique keeps the nasty “pigeonhole” effect off his back. In discussing his next album, Jensen said he had 45 minutes of material on things he’s been arrested for and jobs he’s been fired from, as well as over an hour of observational comedy. Once in San Francisco he threatened to do an entire set of racist jokes strictly based upon the characters in Lord of the Rings, which is possibly the finest testament to his multi-dimensional talent. “I didn’t intend to be the Atheist Comedian, but that’s what I am on the tour,” he said. “It just sort of happened. It feels very true and feels like I’m talking about very important shit, so that’s cool.”

Jensen knows there are gigs he won’t book due to his atheism, but he casually sidesteps the haters with a “fuck that bigot” attitude. “The gay comics or a black comic, they don’t have the choice of not being that,” he said. “It’s who they are. This is who I am. Even if I wasn’t doing my atheist material, those same people wouldn’t appreciate what a liberal I am or what a geek I am. Those things all kind of go together.”

Did having a daughter shake up your atheism at all?
Not even a little bit. In fact, having a daughter has not impacted my life as much as it has impacted every other parent I’ve ever known. I suspect that part of that is because I’m in my late 30s. My wife and I have been together for 14 years. We’ve settled into our lives a little more than most people who are having babies.

Some comedians have said that happiness is the worst thing that can happen to your career.
I think that’s bullshit. You know, when me and my wife met, my romantic first words to her were, “How can you say something so fucking stupid?” I still remember the debate we had. We argued for two hours straight and were best friends by the time we were done.

Any artist that can express their poverty and sorrow well can express their joy. [Yamantaka] Eye of the Boredoms talked about audiences being disappointed when they come to see him because he’s happy now and they want his old stuff when he was miserable. But he said that stuff was successful and that gave me this family. It gave me the Boredoms and I’m happy.

Political humor can be alienating and risky. Outside of comedy you’re a very opinionated person, particularly in your blog and Facebook posts. Have you come to any conclusions on whether it has a place in your material?
On Cats Made of Rabbits there is politics in there, but it’s hidden. On the actual joke “Cats Made of Rabbits” I tie “shock and awe” and the Trail of Tears to the Holocaust, and people who would be offended by it don’t even catch it, it’s said so matter of fact. I just give a list and those three are on it. It’s not making a big production out of the political statement that’s within that joke. And of course there’s a vegan joke within it, regarding how we base which animals are OK to kill based on cuteness.

Is your writing process thought out, in that you intentionally weave that many political statements into one bit?
It happens subconsciously out of me being insecure. A lot of writing happens on stage where I am surprised something came out of my mouth.

You strike me as an obsessive consumer whether it comes to comedy or music, but that collector side of your personality does not translate to the stage. Have you ever considered letting the nerd flag fly more in your material?
I have a lot of material about Lord of the Rings right now. I don’t know why now. I think maybe excitement about The Hobbit. I just re-read the books. I’m also telling my daughter the Lord of the Rings story, only in our version the Orc “scratched” instead of “stabbed”–she’s 2.

I geeked out on Elf Quest recently, and I’ve been geeking out on porn lately. The creators of Elf Quest contacted me recently and two progressive porn actresses have contacted me wanting to blog about my material, so maybe I should do more pop culture stuff.

Then again, I was talking to the audience about [Doug E. Fresh] at the Comedy Spot a few weeks ago and nobody knew what I was talking about. I said you have to be kidding me. That’s ridiculous you guys don’t know Doug E. Fresh.

It would seem that Sacramento’s comedy scene is stirring with talent right now; much like our music scene has had little pockets of glory. Given that Mike E. Winfield will be on the next season of The Office, does it feel like an opportune time to be a comedian in Sacramento?
Yeah. It could be. There were periods with music when the Deftones and Cake and Papa Roach and all these bands in a short span of time all took off out of Sacramento. It sort of put Sacramento on the map. I feel like that could be happening with comedy mostly from the perspective of, boy, we have an awful lot of really good comics here. We just have a phenomenal bank of talent in this little town.

It’s interesting that Mike E. is staying. He’s on The Office! I was thinking well, there he goes. Bye Mike. But, nope, he’s keeping his place in Sac. He’s in Los Angeles a lot, but he’s keeping his place here. I like that a lot. Ian MacKaye from Minor Threat is one of my heroes, and I like that sense of your own community, and you don’t have to betray it to be famous.

Will the next string of dates in the fall be your first time out on tour alone?
This is the first time I’ve gone out and every day it’s just me and I’m the headliner.

How are you internalizing that?
I have shingles. You don’t normally get that as young as me.

Yeah, my grandma has shingles.
I wonder if I’m more nervous than I realize. I feel all right, but then again I did get shingles.

Have you found the humor in that yet?
Just now [laughs]. I’ve broken my collarbone before and so I know it’s going to stop hurting eventually. It’s not like the first heartbreak you get when you’re a kid, and you don’t know if it’s ever going to end. Now it’s like, “Ah, I’ve got to wait this out. Didn’t want to do this right now, but…”

I don’t get nerves that bad anymore. I got stage fright for the first eight years and didn’t think it would ever go away. If there’s anything I think you should say to comedians before they go on stage that might help it’s, “You know there’s not really that much at risk.” You’re going to get up and do what you’re going to do and then later you’ll get up again.

Keith Lowell Jensen’s Cats Made of Rabbits CD is out now and available to own on Amazon.com. It can also be purchased digitally on iTunes. His DVD of the same name will be available Sept. 27. Jensen will perform a CD/DVD release show at the Sac Comedy Spot on Sept. 23 at 8 p.m. (tickets are $18). You can also catch Jensen do his thing the following Thursday, Sept. 29, as part of the Sacramento Comedy Festival, once again at the Sac Comedy Spot. More info and tickets for both these performances can be found at Saccomedyspot.com.

Why Lie? I Need a Drink

What if that grimy looking guy who just asked you for change really wasn’t homeless at all? What if, at the end of the day, he hops in his BMW and shoots straight out to his home in the burbs, or his vacation home in Tahoe? Is it possible to make more money panhandling than you can by, say, cooking fries at McDonald’s or some other thankless, albeit honest, gig? It’s questions like these that are explored in Sacramento-based comedian Keith Lowell Jensen’s documentary, Why Lie? I Need a Drink, which is due out on DVD next month.

Known locally for his work with the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Comedy sketch troupe and also as part of the Coexist? Comedy Tour, Jensen gets the documentary off to a goofy start as he tries to discover if one can really make a good living from begging. He takes to the streets to get a first-person look at the world of panhandling, and at first his approach flirts with the absurd. He dons a variety of costumes from a banana suit to mime makeup and arms himself with an arsenal of wacky signs–always punctuated with a “God bless”–to see what combination will earn him the most money. The absurdity reaches its peak when a man dressed in swimmies and goggles and wielding a pool noodle chases a banana-clad Jensen around a freeway off-ramp.

In addition to begging the old fashioned way, Jensen also takes panhandling into the cyber age. He sets up a website where people can send him spare change, cold calls people whose numbers he finds on the Internet and even culls Yahoo chat rooms for those who may be sympathetic enough to dig through their pockets.

The humor sweetens what can be a bitter pill. Jensen and company, for all their shenanigans, present a well-rounded view of panhandlers and how we treat our homeless. Interviews with both the beggars and the people they encounter run the gamut of emotions. One young man vents a lot of anger and resentment toward beggars, saying he’d like to spit on them; while another, perhaps of similar age, speaks from his past experiences with life on the street and says that he always tries to give money to those who ask. The film simply presents these arguments without showing its hand one way or the other, and for that, it’s to be commended.

Things seem to hit home for Jensen when he decides to ditch the costumes and go out panhandling in his regular clothes. One scene in which Jensen is begging in front of a post office in Roseville around Christmas time is especially effective. Shot with a hidden camera, a postmaster attempts to chase Jensen from the area while he pleads and protests that he’s got every right to stand there because it’s federal property. Though it’s obvious that Jensen is not destitute, it’s easy to imagine such a scene playing out in any town in America. As it turned out, the spot by the post office was Jensen’s most lucrative location, netting him upwards of $30. Most times out, however, he hardly earned enough to buy a cup of coffee.

Why Lie? I Need a Drink may not be the most hard-hitting examination of homelessness in the United States, but it’s certainly a humane one. It paints an elegant and entertaining portrait of life on the streets, how the homeless are perceived and the murky legality that surrounds panhandling.

The film was shown in theaters around California, including the Crest in Sacramento, and even as far east as Albany, N.Y. On Nov. 4, 2010 the filmmakers will return to their hometown Crest Theatre for the Why Lie? I Need a Drink DVD release party. Admission is $15 and will include a copy of the DVD. Extras on home video release include a neat interview with Jensen conducted by local personality and horror host, Mr. Lobo, as well as a handful of deleted scenes.

For more information or to pre-order the DVD, go to www.whylieineedadrink.com.

Keith Lowell Jensen takes off with a new stand-up CD

A comedian walks into a bar and says—well, he says lots of things, actually. The comedian is Keith Lowell Jensen and the bar is actually a juice bar: Luna’s Café, to be exact. Jensen’s new stand-up CD titled To the Moon was recorded live at Luna’s Café back in April of this year and features an hour of Jensen’s signature lowbrow, indie comedy. Jensen is typically known for his atheist, Christian-bashing humor that has grown in popularity due to the success of the Coexist? Comedy Tour that Jensen is a part of. The tour is a motley crew consisting of a Muslim, a Christian, a Hindu, a Jew, an atheist and a Buddhist. Jensen, along with fellow Coexist? comedian Tapan Trivedi, founded the tour after realizing their shared affinity for blasphemy.

To the Moon finds Jensen rocketing his material to new heights, touching upon anything from having a kid to the costumes in porn. Jensen gets introspective too, poking fun at his experience of attending continuation school as well as the constant confusion of whether or not he’s gay. But the most poignant moment on the CD is the closing track, a nine-minute story describing a childhood memory in which Jensen was duped by his older brother first into sitting in a pile of German Shepherd feces and then making his own deposit in a can, all to the dismay and laughter of his mother. What starts off sounding like a poop joke ends up being a window into the early developmental influences of a talented, comedic mind.

Standing at about 6 feet tall, with low maintenance attire and a unique voice that’s been described as “Muppet-like,” Keith Lowell Jensen is a true performer. He got his start in his early 20s when he was put on stage as an MC for the infamous Spike and Mike Festival of Animation, which reached the height of its popularity by showcasing shorts by such industry greats like Bill Plympton, John Kricfalusi, John Lasseter and Nick Park, just to name a handful.

“That to me is when I started doing stand-up.” says Jensen about his beginnings. “I could have said longer, because I was a ventriloquist in the fourth grade.”

From there his love of performing took him in the direction of sketch comedy, which would put his MC personality on the back burner. But for Jensen, being pulled away from stand-up to do sketch was all part of the process to becoming a better comedian. Biographies of other comedians that Jensen grew to love all had one thing in common: some kind of sketch comedy experience. Jensen wanted that experience too. So in 2001, Jensen formed the sketch comedy troupe I Can’t Believe It’s Not Comedy and focused his attention on writing, acting and directing.

“I just fell in love with it,” reminisces Jensen. “And not just performing it but when you write and direct something and someone else performs it; it’s a really satisfying feeling.”

ICBINC has performed all over Sacramento and also found its way up north to Seattle and down south to Los Angeles. The troupe, although currently on hiatus, is still in existence and all but one of the members is part of the original cast.

During the course of performing heavily with ICBINC, Jensen still found time for stand-up when he could.

“I did it once in a while to keep my chops up.” says Jensen.

Jensen made the jump back into stand-up when his friend and fellow comedian Brent Weinbach needed his help with booking a gig. One of the comedians on the bill, Tapan Trivedi, asked Jensen to share the bill with them and he agreed.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to talk about, it had been so long. So I did half the show on homophobia and half the show on religion.”

That night, his atheist comedy was born—and not long after, so was Coexist?. Trivedi and Jensen assembled four other comedians for the tour and what followed were gigs at some of the top comedy clubs on the West Coast including the Hollywood Improv and San Francisco’s Punchline. What also contributed to the success of Jensen’s atheist brand of humor was his use of YouTube as a means to broadcast his stand-up to a larger audience. Fan bases around the world have popped up, especially in Sweden, where his Swedish last name rings bells with the locals.

Since the conception of the Coexist? Comedy Tour, the past two and half years have been a learning process for Jensen, who has been extremely focused on his stand-up, always looking to improve upon his jokes and build upon the foundation that was formed from doing years of sketch.

“Sketch gave me a freedom in stand-up to play characters a little bit more, to change my voice when I’m giving the words of another person or in quotes within a joke. I think sketch certainly helped me with pacing,” he says.

For Jensen, the writing and performing process is ever changing and spontaneous. Some of the material on To the Moon was written the day it was recorded. Depending on how the crowd is that night, Jensen can add or subtract material at a whim.

“It’s just an interesting part of this art form; it’s so fluid and it’s such a back and forth with the audience. There are very few art forms where you put it in front of the audience and you go back and forth and you keep molding it and changing it according to how it sits with them,” says Jensen.
With a tour schedule that has brought him attention outside of Sacramento and the Internet at his disposal for promoting his stand-up, its seems that at this point in his career it would make sense for Keith Lowell Jensen to move to where there’s more work and a bigger market. But making the move to somewhere like Los Angeles just isn’t in the cards. In fact, being from Sacramento is part of his brand, says Jensen.

“It’s an unusual identity to be from somewhere like Sacramento, and to be proud of where you’re from and not feel the need to switch it up and go down to L.A. I don’t want to be an L.A. comic, I’m a Sacramento comic,” says Jensen.

Sacramento is lucky to have Jensen, who is more than qualified to be an ambassador for the River City. He’s practically a household name in the arts community, and for good reason. This past March saw the release of his documentary, Why Lie? I Need a Drink, a hilarious look at panhandling from a homeless and non-homeless perspective. The non-homeless perspective showcased Jensen in various costumes with a multitude of signs bearing clever phrases like, “Large bills OK, can make change.” It premiered at The Crest Theatre and had quite a successful run; look for a DVD release this September. And if a tour, a CD and a documentary weren’t enough, Jensen authored a book titled The Atheist Survival Guide: A Humorous Guide to Getting By in a God Fearing World that is slated for release in November.

Considering the breadth of his undertakings, it may seem like there’s no rest in sight for Jensen. However, he might have to take a break after all with the arrival of another important something—a baby girl due in October. With the success of all his other endeavors, fatherhood should be a walk in the park. Or should I say, a trip to the moon.

Can’t We All Just Get Along?

What do a Hindu, a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and an Atheist have in common?

Not a whole lot, except that they’re touring as part of the Coexist? comedy tour.

The term “politically correct” is left backstage at a Coexist? show, and each member of the tour is known by his or her respective religion. The members are Tapan Trivedi, the Hindu; John Ross, the Christian; Sammy Obeid, the Buddhist; Tissa Hami, the Muslim; and Keith Lowell Jensen, the Atheist. “I get three names because I don’t have a God,” Jensen says, as seriously as he can manage.

The goal is to take the taboo subject of religious differences and present it in a way that gets people talking about it, replacing fear with a room full of laughter. Says Trivedi, “Once you laugh at something, you acknowledge its existence and deal with it; you cannot deny it anymore. When you laugh at something, it’s like, how heinous can it be?”

The group came together a year ago while founding members Jensen and Trivedi were performing their solo comedy acts in the Sacramento area. Trivedi and Jensen met at Luna’s Café, and came together when they noticed just how much they were at “opposite ends of the religious spectrum,” Trivedi says.

They talked it over, and started looking for other comedians in the area who fit the “comedians of a certain religion” bill. In fact, they put out an ad looking for a Muslim comic.

“It was part organic and part seeking people out,” Jensen explains. From there, it was a matter of deciding whether they could get along with this comedian while crammed into a tiny vehicle on long trips between shows. This is not a high-budget tour, and a private jet is not yet a reality. “What are the chances that they’ll give us a flight plan with a Muslim in it?” Trivedi jokes.

They performed for the first time in August 2007 at the Geery Theater in Sacramento, and since then have taken their rare breed of interfaith humor all over California, as well as to Portland and Seattle. They crack up audiences in comedy clubs, theaters, churches, atheist conventions and once even at a “clothing optional” hot spring.
“All ages, all colors, all races of people that have come [to our shows] they all liked it,” Trivedi says.

Jensen adds, “I like for people to understand that with all our high pretensions about it, it’s a comedy show. It’s funny, and no matter who you are you’re gonna laugh.”
Alternating between clubs and theaters, from large cities to tiny towns, can be challenging. The comedians try to tailor their humor to each location, which is why every show begins with a sort of meet-and-greet with the audience. Jensen explains, “We come out together and we say hello”¦and we find out what the audience is made up of. Let me hear from the Atheists; let me hear from the Christians in the audience. Kind of find out what sort of diversity we have in the crowd.” It helps for the audience to see them all together on stage before they start taking jabs at each other’s religions, he says, to let everybody know that they are friends after all.

The show is then passed to host Sammy Obeid, and each comedian takes a turn onstage. The bits really depend on the audience and whether they are performing at a theater or a club.

“Dealing with a theater crowd is like dealing with an old German Shepherd dog,” Trivedi quips. “He sees the mistake that you’re making, but he is kind of OK with it. The comedy club is like a Rottweiler. The moment he sees fear, ahh!”

So, why take on such a difficult topic? Basically, they explain that this is a conversation that just needs to be started. “You’ve got people who have potentially never met a Hindu before, and now they’ve come and they’ve not only met one but they’ve laughed with this person,” Jensen says.

The members of Coexist? are more likely to fight over who is taking too long in the shower than how many gods there are, and are always willing to help each other out with new jokes. Imagine a car ride with five comedians. With notebooks open and laptops out, they’ll work on jokes together for hours.

“What they say is that you can write the novel on your own, but comedy is almost always a team sport,” Trivedi says.

This theme of coexistence is magnified by these five comedians who not only come from different religious backgrounds, but also have extremely diverse comedic styles.

“We don’t get along by ignoring our differences or pretending they’re not there. I see a lot of interfaith entities kind of water down their beliefs to believe that their beliefs are all compatible, and we don’t need that to get along,” Jensen says.

Their upcoming show at the Crest Theatre on Dec. 12 will likely be the apex of this tour, as they’ve been saving the best for last. Trivedi refers to this show as their “swan song.”

Jensen says, “We have jokes that we put aside, but we pull them out for the Crest. So joke thieves, come to The Crest; buy a ticket. If we see Dane Cook in there, we’ll know. This is for you, Dane!”