Our first comedy fix was at Wednesday night's Comedians You Should Know at the Gutter in Williamsburg. Originally I had read the lineup as including Judah Friedlander and Sam Morril so had booked tickets (just $5 each) excitedly. However as the day approached, the lineup appeared to be completely different. The headliner was Liza Treyger, who I do enjoy, but she's no Judah. It's an absolutely lovely room for comedy and the show went well so I've nothing to complain about.

In the meantime Judah had been added to Thursday's 8pm show at Stand NYC. The bill already included Ari Shaffir which frankly made it too good to miss. Monroe Martin was MCing which is an unusual role for him and right enough, he looked a bit nervous but got away with it by mainly relying on material. Ari was superb, covering school shootings and Judiasm (which is the show he's bringing to the Fringe).

It was going to be 3 nights of comedy in a row with our first ever visit to Bitches' Brew in the backroom of a pub called Halyards in Gowanus. I've wanted to try this night for a while but it's a fair trek from where we stay in Manhattan. However on this particular Friday we were attending a beer/wine/cheese event at the Bell House which is in the same block as Halyards, so it was a done deal that we would do both. We needed to get food between the 2 events (cheese wasn't enough) and this took longer than planned to the extent that we ended up arriving a few minutes after the show started and found the room absolutely rammed. Cursing our (my) lack of organisations skills, we opted to go back on another night.

I've seen Mike Albanese at Stand NYC before and very much enjoyed him so when I noticed that a free night called The Human Bird Comedy Show (on which he his listed as a compere) was happening on Monday, it seemed like the ideal opportunity to catch him and visit a new location for comedy (downstairs at an East Village bar called Drexler's).

Tushar Singh was the host and it was a reasonably successful night with Chris Scopo (new to me) generating the most laughs. The room is a little strange and the stairs precariously steep but I'd definitely go back.

We managed a brief visit to the Olive Tree Cafe for some food and to take a photo of where the comics wait before going on at The Cellar. Sam Morril was writing at a table and although I didn't speak to him, I did write "Joe Machi is the kid" in chalk on our table (Keeping Joe podcast reference).