STAND-UP TUESDAYS: Dan Cummins

November 6th, 2012

Angie Frissore

Stand-Up Tuesdays is a weekly comedy spotlight written by the wonderfully talented Angie Frissore. Covering both known and unknown comics, Stand-up Tuesdays is your new source for all things funny.

This week, Angie puts a spotlight on Dan Cummings. If you or your comedy troupe would like to be featured on Stand-Up Tuesdays, please email utgjames@gmail.com.

Comedian Dan Cummins recently released his third and latest album, Hear This!, on Jack Records / Warner Bros. Records / Loud Mouth Entertainment. The new album follows 2010’s release Crazy With A Capital F, which was named one of iTunes Top Ten Comedy Albums of 2010, and offers a solid hour of Cummins’ much-loved absurd observations and dark autobiographical stories.

“It’s a little different than the others stuff, so hopefully people like it,” Cummins recently told me. “One day everything I had written just felt contrived and I just rebuilt my act.”

The rebuild definitely works in Hear This!, as Cummins successfully pulls off talking about a guy masturbating openly at a gay pride parade to telling hilarious stories about his children all in the same set: “Pre-kid, I never seriously considered kicking a toddler. I never weighed that out. Now I’ve had that thought.”

Cummins has been featured on The Late, Late Show, The Tonight Show, Last Comic Standing, Comedy Central Presents and in his own one hour Comedy Central special, Crazy With A Capital F. He’s also provided guest commentary for shows like G4’s The International Sexy Lady Show, and World’s Dumbest… series on TruTv.

“I watched Saturday Night Live growing up, but I never listened to, like, Eddie Murphy and stuff. I never thought, ‘Oh, I should be a comedian,’ I never thought of what that entailed,” Cummins cites, reflecting on how he got started in stand-up. “In college, there was this sketch comedy show and I watched it the first year, and all of my friends were like, ‘Oh, you should do that. You’d be perfect for that.’ So the next year I auditioned, I got in, and it was a blast. Had so much fun, I gained a little confidence and did it the year after that. Then I had my one year in college where I was serious on focusing on band, a garage rock band. Very serious. And then after college, I worked as a counselor briefly and as a trainer at a gym, and I hated both jobs. My fiancé at the time, she found an open mic, and she thought I would be good at it, that I should try it. I prepared for, like, a week or two with just basic ideas and gave it a shot, came back the week after, and on and on and on.”

Hear This! features incredibly laughable stories about Cummins’ two children, including the story behind the CD’s title, which is how his son chooses to begin anything he has to say. The real comedy gold, however, is in Cummins’ stories of his daughter, which quite possibly could rival that of Louis C.K.’s.

“A while back I’m Skyping with Monroe, and she was being sassy and I’m like, ‘Keep it up; when I see you I’m going to tickle you so much, you don’t even know. I’m going to hold onto you for like an hour.’ She just goes, ‘So, when I see you I’m going to punch you in the face for real.’”

Dan Cummins’ Hear This! is one of those great comedy CD’s that captures your attention like a 1940’s radio show. There’ll be no multi-tasking here, as Cummins has you sucked into to his world from the start. Pick up your copy today over at iTunes and get laughing!