Broken Lizard

Last night, the gang behind Beerfest, Club Dread, Puddle Cruiser, Slammin' Salmon and Super Troopers were performing at the Improv in Brea. Jay Chandrasekhar, Paul Soter, Steve Lemme, Erik Stolhanske and Kevin Heffernan make up the comedy troupe Broken Lizard. My friend Jocelyn purchased me and Stevi tickets for our upcoming birthday and we had a blast!

The show was pretty great. It started off with some audience participation in which the guys, dressed as their Vermont State Trooper counterparts. There was some standup comedy from Lemme, Soter and Jay. I think of all of the standup acts, Jay's was my favorite. He went into a long rant about how he was currently changing into a woman. It was so hilarious that i could not do it justice by trying to retell it. I guess you are just going to have to go to the show.

In between the standup performances, there was some great storytelling moments. The one that stands out is the time that Lemme and Heffernan met their idol Patrick Swayze. It was a fantastic story full of ups and downs.

The most interesting story of the whole night came at the end of the show. At the end of the night all five members came up on stage and started to tell stories about how they all came to meet each other. Heffernan told a story about how Lemme stole his jacket at one party, only to discover the same jacket in the coat room at a party months later with Lemme's student ID in the pocket.

Jay then told the story about how he met Erik Stolhanske. They were both in college, working in the set dressing class for theater. They were both hammering sets. They got to talking when they started to discuss a rivalry that they had between both of their home towns. Stolhanske started talking shit on Jay's home town of Chicago and then it started to get physical. To prove that he was tougher than Jay, Erik took the hammer he was using and whacked himself in the ankle. Trying to hold back the pain, Stolhanske told Jay that his home town was full of pussies. Jay decided that he was not a pussy, so he whacked his own ankle with a hammer. Both of them wincing in pain, Stolhanske decided that he still wants to one-up Jay, so he runs full speed toward a brick wall and kicks the shit out of it. He screams in pain. Jay follows suit. Then, in a brilliant move, Erik grabs a pneumatic staple gun and holds it up against his calf. Jay says that he cannot believe how fucking nuts this dude is, but knows if he pulls the trigger he won't be able to pussy out now. Erik pulls the trigger sending a staple into his calf. Erik yells and Jay grabs the gun. Jay mentions that he is going to shoot the staple into his thigh, because he hopes that the extra meat on the bones would soften the blow. At this point in the show, Jay pulls out a hammer and says "That is when Erik stopped me from shooting the staple into my leg and shows me this". Jay starts whacking Erik's leg with the hammer repeatedly on stage. Paul Soter gets up, grabs a mic stand and also starts wailing on Erik's leg. Then it is revealed to the audience that Erik Stolhanske has a prosthetic leg and has been pulling this prank for years!!

The show ended with Team USA doing rowboats against "The Germans" (three audience members), with the Broken Lizard guys blowing away the competition. It was a terrific night and wish it could have lasted three hours longer. I would love to hang out with these guys for one night, they are absolutely hilarious!!