Melissa Surach is a writer and comedian who was born and raised in Jersey City. She has an MFA in writing from The New School. She writes about comedy, booze, food, ghosts, theater and more. For more about her, go to melissasurach.com.
The show opened with the funeral, as the comedian mused on the irony of grieving while organizing the event, which is essentially a party for other people. Later, Steffé invoked his late father who delivered the moral of the story in a bit about a trip to a strip club that involved blood. Be nicer to women, his dad urged.
Downtown, where it seemed there was a dearth of music venues, FM filled an unmet need, with its unique mix of punk, rock and roll, funk and singer-songwriters. Certainly, the club had its ups and downs. Some nights it was so packed it was almost a fire hazard, other nights were so empty that shows got cancelled and the entire place closed early.
Alcohol tourism is a serious industry. Jersey City may not be wine country, but in just the past four years, it has become home to a craft brewery and a distillery, and another brewery is on the way.
The most prestigious comedy event of Jersey City, the Sixth Borough Comedy Festival, returns this coming summer for the third successive year with a new name: Jersey City Comedy Festival. The event will showcase a diverse range of talent representative of the second most diverse city in the nation, according to wallethub.com.
Until recently, this sad town of Jersey City was a comedy desert, or perhaps more aptly, a comedy death trap. One was hard pressed to find a comedy show in town.
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