See Ya L.A.Tour Flyer

The last couple of months have been extremely busy with getting rid of or selling a lot of my stuff, and planning a cross-country move. And so it wasn't until today that I was able to finally put together a flyer for my now completed See Ya L.A.Tour! Please pretend I have been using this all along.

Also, MANY thanks to everyone who helped me along the way of this monumental single-city tour of my former home, Los Angeles! Thank you to Ron Lynch, Zach Broussard, Rachel Mac, Samantha Ross, Theresa Bateman, Margo Buzz Ness, Anna Hossnieh (even though that show was cancelled), Jay Weingarten, Eli Olsberg, Sam Varela, Megan Koester, Chris Garcia, Sean Keane, Mark Alexzandr, Albert Huber, Steve Hernandez, Scott Luhrs, Ellie McElvain, Erin Lampart, Brodie Reed, Barbara Gray, and Jeff Wattenhofer!!! A special thank you to Andy Kindler for saying he really liked my set, and then basically taking it back when he found out I wasn't being sarcastic about loving Mindy Kaling. You are all the best!

The last thing I would like to say is that on the plane ride to New York, I watched the film Collateral Beauty, and I really liked it. Weird movie!

Car

For the last 13 years (almost exactly), I have driven a great car. A 2001 filthy white Suzuki Swift, nicknamed “your face” because I like those words. I have joked that it goes 0 to 60 in 60 seconds, which might actually be true. I have also said that the engine light has been on for a year and a half, which is true. Multiple mechanics have read the thing (I know a lot about cars), and said “It says it’s this, but… I don’t know.” It has not had working air conditioning for any extended period of time for as long as I’ve had it. It does not have power steering. For the last year, the engine has been shaking violently whenever it gets stuck in traffic (which, not to understate it, occasionally happens in Los Angeles). If I drive it for a bit, then turn it off, it won’t start again for at least 20 minutes, which make errands a little complicated. The battery seems to drain when it’s not in use, so every time I start it, it sounds pathetic and sickly.

I will not be taking it with me to New York. I will not even be driving it for the next two weeks, because it’s too unreliable for simple moving tasks like dropping shit off at Goodwill, or possibly, getting me anywhere at all (it’s broken down a couple times, and recently was unable to start.)

In 2008, on the night of Erin and I’s 4-year anniversary, we took the Swift to a drive-in in San Jose, where we saw the original The Fast & The Furious, on a random double feature with Selena. The next year, the 4th film, Fast & Furious, came out and we saw it at the same drive-in. Appropriately, your face’s final task was getting Erin and me to the theater last Thursday night to see the latest film in the phenomenal franchise, The Fate of the Furious. After the movie, I street-raced it so hard it caught on fire and I had to drive it backwards across the finish line and into the ocean. Goodbye, filthy white Suzuki Swift, you have been perfect.

I will be driving a rental car to my remaining shows on my See Ya L.A.Tour. Starting on Saturday (two night ago), I did Tomorrow! Show again, but didn’t get a chance to write this post beforehand! It went great!

Tonight! I’m on The Business at Little Joy!

Thursday night! I’m on Sleeping with Mark & Albert at Holy Grounds Coffee & Tea in Alhambra!

Saturday! There might be a couple things, not sure yet.

Sunday! I’m back on Chatterbox Comedy Night, because after writing a whole big post about doing it last week, I ended up dropping out because my mom broke her leg.

See Ya L.A.Tour!!

6 Years

Tomorrow night is the 6 year anniversary of the first time I did stand-up. Stand-up anniversaries are pretty meaningless and I don't think anyone really "celebrates" them, but I will definitely celebrate mine by visiting my mom in the hospital. She came into town on Sunday to see my shows, and ended up stepping off a curb and breaking her leg in 3 places. What a klutz!

Anyway, stand-up anniversaries don't matter, but show anniversaries do! They're always super fun and special, and tonight I am honored to be on the Performance Anxiety 6 Year Anniversary Show! at the Pleasure Chest! It's a sex shop! I will be doing all my filthiest material about Data Entry.

But how about some shameless cross-promotion? Another option for your plans tonight is to see my dad's book reading, BigCity, a Novel by Scot Sothern, at Skylight! He wrote and published an amazing novel called BigCity, and I've been meaning to write about it for awhile, and will continue meaning to write even more about it. I am halfway through it and shocked by how vividly I remember the words and the characters and the events (while still never sure what's gonna happen) from when I read an early draft about 15 years ago. I never remember anything! But the writing is just that good, and it's fascinating to revisit it and pick up on all the ways he has influenced me and my own writing.

So go to the reading! Or go to the comedy show! Or go to the hospital for your injuries! But definitely buy BigCity on Amazon! See Ya L.A.Tour!

Social Anxiety

Hi. I have social anxiety. I don't like talking about the details of what that means for me. I can only say that it is real and affects my life, and directly hinders my progress in going forward with what I want to do professionally (comedy). Now. I know that you also have social anxiety. I know this because every single person I have ever met in my entire life has insisted that they are also "shy" or "antisocial". Like, every single person. (Obviously, only if the subject came up.) I'm pretty sure my sister is the only person I have ever known to be like “Yeah, talking to people is easy. Something is wrong with you." Love you, Mikela! This phenomenon of everyone ever telling me how awkward they are is like if everyone was telling a heroin addict, "I totally get it. I have also done drugs." Obviously, my problems are not comparable to a heroin addict's problems! But the disparity between experiences, are also not really comparable, but sort of? The point is, depending on who it's coming from and my perception of their social prowess, it can be annoying.

Here's the thing. No one is being disingenuous. No one is wrong about how they feel. Everyone IS awkward, I promise. What helped me, though, was seeing a more extreme aspect of it. Next Wednesday is my 6 year anniversary of doing stand-up, and these are the steps that brought me to my current level of success of being booked on FOUR shows this weekend (spoiler alert: this is a promo post).

1. 2011. I wanted to do stand-up, but the concept of me doing stand-up seemed as laughable as one of my classic, killer bits of today.

2. I went through what felt like a million hoops to get to a psychiatrist who would give me medication. It was not easy, especially for someone who can't use a phone (if you're not sure what I mean by that, great news, you are not antisocial.)

3. The psychiatrist recommended social anxiety group therapy, which sounded like an oxymoron. Why the fuck would I ever go to something with "group" in the name? I started taking Prozac, started feeling better, agreed to group therapy.

4. Went to social anxiety group therapy, and for the first time, saw myself in other people. These were REAL "heroin addicts". Of course I had met people who were like me before. But it was significant to enter a room of 8-10 people where no one spoke to each other or even looked up when a new person entered. People who could not get up and close the blinds to get the sun out of their face because they had already sat down and didn't want to draw attention to themselves (this came up for multiple people as a very recent example of anxiety when the teacher asked us for one. The sun was coming in at a real bad angle that day, and none of us did shit, and it fucking made sense to me). These were people who would accept physical, emotional, financial inconveniences in order to avoid talking on a telephone.

5. So anyway, it was really helpful and led to me being capable of doing stand-up. I stopped going because I felt I had accomplished what I had initially set out to do. I liked the group and what it did for me. I fucking loved all of the people who were in the group, and you better believe we did NOT keep in touch because are you even paying attention. I also began to feel like a fraud in the group because I was doing something that would seem absurd to them, as it did to myself a few months earlier. I didn't want them to view me the way I view people who regularly go to parties telling me how shy they are.

And again, you ARE shy. I believe you. It's ok. But there are radically different levels to it. We might be pretty similar. Like, if we definitely know each other, and are frequently in the same place, but never say hi or make eye contact, I think you are great. Let’s never change.

I certainly have good days. Often enough, I can get by and pass as comfortable. But if we are not “friends” and have had a normal, breezy conversation for longer than 5 minutes, hope this isn’t weird, but that was a HUGE deal for me. It doesn’t happen very often.

Comedy, and entertainment in general, is largely reliant on networking. People in the comedy community are constantly networking over their hatred of networking. I actually understand and see the value in networking, and don’t think it’s a bad thing. I know the behavior people are thinking of when they say they hate it, but from my perspective, networking is literally just showing up places and talking to people, and doing that accomplishes way more than you probably even realize. I do not show up places and talk to people as often as I need to.

And that is why 4 shows in 4 days (originally 5, but 1 was cancelled!) is a monumental event for my See Ya L.A.Tour!!

Tonight! I’ll be in Ventura doing What’s Up With Merlot? An Evening with Matt Kirshen. Ryan and Doug are also coming along, and last time we did this show together (with Travis as well) was the night we decided to end Sleepaway Camp. What will we decide to put to an end to tonight!?!

Friday! Red Carpet Comedy w/ The Bateman Cousins S2 April Fools Show! This is going to be a big, wonderful show, and it is very nice of them to have me!

Two shows Sunday! First, 2 Wet Crew at The Satellite with my old Sleepaway friend Jay Weingarten! He is great, and I’m looking forward to seeing him and his show!

But then, I have to leave right away for Chatterbox in Covina. More on that LATER.

Wow. What a weekend. 4 shows, and only 2 of them spelled my name wrong on the flyer! That’s pretty good! Hope to see you around at one of them! See ya later! See Ya L.A.Tour.

See Ya L.A.Tour

HUGE news!! After some consideration, I have decided to change the name of my single city tour of a handful of Los Angeles shows before I move to New York. Instead of "Farewell LA Tour", it will now be called the "See Ya L.A.Tour". I hope this is acceptable. Anyway, no shows this week.

Fucksummer

One of the main reasons I am leaving Los Angeles is because the weather is so terrible. I hate warmth! After an admittedly pretty long (for L.A.) winter, it is now officially summer again already and the sun is shining and it makes me sick (like, it literally, physically makes me feel nauseous, and I don't understand how it doesn't have this effect on everyone). I know that New York has very brutal summers. One of my favorite movies is Do the Right Thing, which is famous primarily for its powerful message of summer being the worst. But NY also has OTHER seasons. It's miserable for a set period of time, and then it ENDS and the rest of the year is pretty nice.

So tonight, I continue my "Farewell LA Tour" at Bitchface Comedy in Pasadena! It's hosted by Rachel Mac, who I once talked to about my hatred of warm weather, and she was definitely not on the same page. Somehow, we have remained friends despite this enormous disagreement. I think she is fucking great, and I know this show tonight is going to be fucking great, so hope to see you there, no matter what your opinions are on weather!!!!

New York

Hi, I am moving to New York soon to pursue my dreams of living in New York now I guess. Before I leave, I’m going on a Farewell LA Tour. It’s named that because I’m saying farewell to LA, and it’s also an “LA Tour” because calling something a tour when it’s all within the same city is VERY funny. So far, I have booked upwards of 5 shows (expecting a lot of WOW reactions for this achievement). There will likely be more. If you would like to book me on your show, please email me at Facebook Messenger (or wolfsothern@gmail.com). I am here through the end of April.

Tonight is the first stop on my tour. Ron Lynch's Tomorrow! Crapshoot! at midnight, which is one of my favorite shows. I will be reading about the history of Data Entry, and it could get incredibly filthy and/or violent. It’s exciting because Ron asked me to do something “short and weird”, so it reminds me of doing Sleepaway Camp every week, where instead of relying on just stand-up, I had to scramble to come up with something short and weird at the last minute, and it was insanely stressful but also very rewarding. Which all makes sense because Tomorrow! was a huge influence on Sleepaway.

So I hope to see you there “Tomorrow!” But actually tonight, because I absolutely refuse to acknowledge midnight as the turning of a new day, it’s so stupid that we do that.

Festival/Show Submission

This is the stand-up video I use to submit to festivals and big shows.

Sleepaway Camp Comes to SF

BAY AREA!

Get ready for an all out invasion of comedians from Los Angeles (and comedians from SF too)! Straight from the beautiful Skid Row™ of Downtown Los Angeles comes the boys of SLEEPAWAY CAMP®! They're going to the #legendary Cynic Cave© At Lost Weekend™ stage. So be there on January 17 to be a party of true magic.

Lineup:
DOUG FREEDMAN
AUSTIN WOLF-SOTHERN
JAY WEINGARTEN
TRAVIS RUST
RYAN SCHUMAKER
MARY VAN NOTE
ALISON STEVENSON
FINN STRALEY
Hosted by KEVIN O'SHEA

Friday Night, January 17, @ 8:30pm
The Cynic Cave @ Lost Weekend Video, 1034 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA - $10

More info here.

Sleepaway Camp Holiday Christmas Party

Merry Holidays, Campers!


It's that time of year again. Time for our 2013th Annual Holiday Christmas Party! Get to the Downtown Independent early to hang out and dance in the lobby with food, drinks, a Santa photo booth, and whatever else is supposed to happen at parties! I've never been to one!

Then, at 9:30pm, join us in the theater for our regularly scheduled comedy show, featuring a live staging of the birth of Jesus AS IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

Don't miss out as Sleepaway Camp puts the "fun" back in "Xmas".

NATIVITY SCENE

Sleepaway Camp: Parents Week

Welcome Campers!

Our first show was a tremendous success! Tig Notaro performed! She is my favorite comedian! See pictures from the show here.

The Sleepaway Camp counselors are so proud of all the campers from Bunk 69 and Bunk 420 who made it out to see our new show. We are even proud of little Trevor. Just kidding! Fuck Trevor.

Our second show is going to be just as fun! We have another unbelievable lineup, and the SC gang could not be more excited! And now that we've gotten a bit more settled in to our camp, it's Visitation Week! All the counselors will be bringing their parents to the show, and the campers are encouraged to do the same. Seriously, please bring your parents! Or just bring yourself and some friends for a fantastic, family friendly night of clean comedy where there will definitely not be any nudity on-screen.

*Warning: There will probably be nudity on-screen.

Featuring:
NATASHA LEGGERO
MARY-LYNN RAJSKUB
ILIZA SHLESINGER
MATT GOLDICH
JOSH THOMAS
KYLE MOONEY
DOUG FREEDMAN
TRAVIS RUST
Juggling by SCOT NERY
Music by CARLALA & THE FUNK
Hosted by AUSTIN WOLF-SOTHERN

With more to come!

More info here.

SLEEPAWAY CAMP FIRST SHOW

Welcome Campers!

Holy Fuck has left the Downtown Independent's industrial-looking, indoor campgrounds, but a new show is taking its place called Sleepaway Camp! Watch our commercial about the transition here.

Sleepaway Camp will continue in the tradition of Holy Fuck by providing a fun, funny, and FREE comedy show every Tuesday night at the amazing, comfortable, beer-selling Downtown Independent Theatre!

Our first show has such an incredible lineup!!!!!
BARON VAUGHN
MICHAEL RAYNER
BETH STELLING
MELISSA VILLASENOR
JERROD CARMICHAEL
AUSTIN WOLF-SOTHERN
Music Direction by ALEX BICA, Conductor of the EROS ORCHESTRA
Hosted by JAY WEINGARTEN!

With more special activities and surprises!

This is going to be so much fucking fun! We have truly saved the best for first, as this will DEFINITELY be the best show we have ever done so far. Come hang out!

More info here.

Trailer for Sleepaway Camp Comedy Show

Beloved cultural institution HOLY FUCK. FREE COMEDY., a weekly free comedy show at the Downtown Independent, is coming to an end. I, along with my friends Doug Freedman, Travis Rust, Jay Weingarten, and Ryan Schumaker, will be taking over the space with a new show called SLEEPAWAY CAMP (named after, but not based on, my favorite horror movie, and third favorite movie of all time). The new show begins July 16. Here is a commercial we shot about making the transition between shows.



Many, many thanks go to Dave Ross and Jeff Wattenhofer for appearing in this video, showing it at the last couple of Holy Fucks, booking the SC members on the final shows, and otherwise helping out in every way imaginable for making the transition smooth, and introducing us to their awesome audience.

The Hoop Dreams Comedy Hour One Year Anniversary!!!

It's that time again. But this time, IT'S OUR BIRTHDAY!!! That's right, Hoop Dreams is one year old!!!

Please come and celebrate the youth and life of Hoop Dreams with the whole gang, along with all of our very special birthday party guests!
Featuring:
Emily Heller!
Chase Bernstein!
Dave Ross!
Joe Dosch!
Austin Wolf-Sothern as Doug Freedman!
Doug Freedman as Austin Wolf-Sothern!
Hosted by Jay Weingarten!

$3 admission and $3 beers! Free birthday cupcakes!?!

Wednesday, June 19! Our final show at the Neon Venus Art Theatre, 7023 Melrose Ave. in Hollywood!
More info here.

Holy Fuck! June 11!

I'm on Holy Fuck again June 11, opening for Rory Scovel doing an hour! I'll be doing my Movie Taglines presentation.

Hoop Dreams: March Edition

Hoop Dreams Comedy Hour! Wednesday, March 20! There is very little information on this flyer because I threw it together very quickly with MS Paint! There may be some surprise performers that are not advertised (there definitely will be)! I'm hosting! It's at the Neon Venus Art Theatre, 7023 Melrose Ave. in Hollywood! It starts at 10:00pm so be there by 10:15pm because we will actually start somewhat promptly at 10:30pm! It's $3!!!
More info here.

Holy Fuck!

Tonight! I'm on one the biggest, bestest shows in Los Angeles! It's at a movie theater! The one that I work at! This is exciting! The Sklar Brothers are also performing! I love the Sklar Brothers! They were in Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV!

February's Hoop Dreams Comedy Hour

Hoop Dreams Comedy Hour! Wednesday, February 20! OMG!

At the Neon Venus Art Theatre, 7023 Melrose Ave. in Hollywood - $3
More info here.

The Hoop Dreams Comedy Revolution: "Are Men Funny?" Edition

"The reason why you know more funny chicks than funny dudes is that chicks are funnier than dudes." - Madam Carolla

"All male comedians ever talk about are video games and their johnsons." - Everybody

This month, on Wednesday, January 16, the Hoop Dreams gang seeks to find the answer to the age old question... "Are Men Funny?" Get ready to fall in love with a spectacular line-up of cray cray, super hot, masculine, funny boyz from all walks of life.

At the Neon Venus Art Theatre, 7023 Melrose Ave. in Hollywood - $3
More info here.

The Hoop Dreams Baby Jesus Birthday Party Comedy Event!!!

The next Hoop Dreams Comedy Hour Or So is Wednesday, December 19! Look at this flyer I made! I did a great job! The show will be equally as great! The lineup is seriously incredible and exciting!

At the Neon Venus Art Theatre, 7023 Melrose Ave. in Hollywood - $3
More info here.