The Chicago Just for Laughs festival has started and tonight I got to go to a special semi-secret warm-up show by the Conan O'Brien writers, who are performing tomorrow at the Bank of America Theater downtown. The show tomorrow will be hosted by Andy Richter, but filling in for him tonight was Jimmy Pardo, accomplished standup comedian and host of the Never Not Funny podcast (and warm-up comedian for the Tonight Show for Conan's seven months in LA). Jimmy's material is good, but what he's probably best known for is his crowd work. I.e., making fun of people in the audience. And in the odd, dim lighting of the Lincoln Lodge, who can Jimmy see in the crowd? Fuzzy Gerdes. That's it. So the first ten minutes of the show was me. Whee! (Though really, it was very funny and not at all mean.)

And hey, Reggie Watts is cool, huh? Glad I finally got to see something live, albeit short, from him.

Update: I'm a "local comedy personality".