Kidney Komedy post show mentions

I had lunch with my friend Cris Nannarone yesterday at Kings Restaurant. Those of you who are from Calgary know this is THE place for Wor Won Ton soup. They have the best I have ever found....anywhere!!

While we were finishing our meal, a lady came over to say hi and thank us for such a wonderful show on Saturday. She and some friends had attended the Kidney Komedy Night fundraiser and said it was the best show they had been to.
I gave her a bit of background on the event, the history etc. She is now on our mailing list for next year. It felt nice to be appreciated for the work on stage and that they all enjoyed all the comics so much. "My cheeks still hurt from laughing!" she told us.
Big thanks go to Diana Hannah (what a nice rhyming name for such a nice lady) for supporting the event and for making Cris and I feel so good about the work we did. You made our day.

After Ms. Hannah had left us, I told Cris of an amazing occurrence after the New Westminster show. (I had been meaning to mention it here but with all the running around and fatigue it slipped my weary mind) The organizing committee had gone out for a few celebratory drinks after the New West show. On our way back in the taxi, we told the driver we were staying next to Lafflines Comedy Club. He asked if we had gone to the kidney fund raiser show at Lafflines that night. We were excited to know the word had gotten out even though this was after the event.

We chuckled and told him we were the event organizers. This started a fun conversation about..what else...COMEDY.
Our driver, was originally from Winnipeg which is where I got my comedy start and where Kerry Talmage was born. He told us about a funny comic he used to love to watch. He couldn't remember his name right off the bat (fairly typical of this industry and something I wish to help change) but he remembered him as short with bushy eyebrows. In unison we yelled out "Kerry Talmage?"
"Yes! That's him!!" he replied. We informed him that Kidney Komedy Night was started by Kerry and was now in his honor and that the money was to go to the Kerry Talmage Memorial Endowment. Our driver was shocked and saddened to hear of Kerry's passing as we filled him in on Kerry's last tour and the amazing shows he did.
"But I just saw him on Comedy at Club 54" he told us and we explained how old that episode was and that it is rerun many times.

Of all the cabs we could have taken we got a Kerry Talmage fan and ex Winnipeger. It just seemed so right. Our driver, Grant Kennedy, exchanged cards with us and informed us of his online radio show "What's up with men". Now that the tour is over I plan on checking it out. You can too with this link
What's up with men?
Next year Kidney Komedy Night will be even bigger!! We have lots in store...just wait.

That's it for now. I am still in recovery mode and had a long day on a movie set that had me up at 6am which is torture for a comic!! Off to relax in front of the idiot box.
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Comments via email:

Here’s another post-Kidney Komedy Night occurrence: today when I was at the Association for Fundraising Professionals meeting at Hotel Arts (I’m a Fund Development Manager for Calgary Association of Self Help – I’ve been raising $$ for non-profits for about 12 years in Calgary…today’s workshop was on Gifts of Securities) anyhow…. a woman recognized me, and approached me to tell me she works for the Kidney Foundation (Andrea was her name) and she was so happy to tell me that she and her husband loved my show…they thought the whole night was fantastic – they like that there were less comics and that each comic had more time on stage – I said it’s too much of a good thing!

Great story about the taxicab driver – I love “small-world” stories like that…it’s all meant to be. All meant to be.

Cheers,

Cory Mack