Me and Jordan Peele

Boom Chicago
A photo we took when we arrived in Amsterdam. That’s Val by the sign.

I’ve seen the movie Get Out twice now (paying not only for the movie tickets, but for the accompanying beers each time too).  It’s entertaining, poignant, scary, funny, thought-provoking and–cinematically–incredibly assured.

I was listening to Terry Gross’s interview with writer/director Jordan Peele last night and thought to look up some of his background on wikipedia.

That’s where I saw this listed in his Career section:

Peele regularly performed at Boom Chicago in Amsterdam and The Second City in Chicago. He and Nicole Parker were well known for their musical duets at Boom Chicago. He portrayed a popular character called “Danish Supermodel Ute” during his time at Boom Chicago and hosted MTV‘s Comedy Weekend in 2002.

And I was like holy crap! I spent an entire summer at Boom Chicago back when I was 24 (turning 25). Back then the club had just been open for a year or two, and they were doing good business, but I had no idea how important they’d become. My friends Brendan and Valerie and I played in a band together every night at the club after the comedy shows.  We were paid mostly in tips and pizza (which we had for dinner every night for three straight months).

I remember earning some extra money by handing out flyers advertising the comedy shows to people standing in line to visit Anne Frank’s house. Nothing like schilling comedy shows for cash while people are pondering the holocaust.

Anyway, Boom Chicago is big now. And going through some old photos from our time there earlier today, I came across shots of Tami Sagher too (who was excellent in last summer’s Don’t Think Twice, and writes for Inside Amy Schumer). I knew she looked familiar!  What a crazy time that was.

I also remember founders John, Andrew and Ken eviscerating Valerie, Brendan and me (especially me) in a comedy sketch about our band one night. I was the drummer who refused to ever say anything.  Ouch. It hurt to be made fun of at the time, but you know, I’m almost over it now.

Anyway, guess I’ll just go ahead and use all these connections to get a role in Get Out II. Check your messages, Jordan!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to top