While I wish November looked a little better, I must say that I’m pleased the rest of 2009 seems to be filling up. I’m starting to develop a keynote speech as well, which I really think will be the key to unlocking huge potential in 2010.

Wow did the picture of Melissa ever spike my website hits! So intimate portrayals of a Canadian stand-up comic’s attempt to make something of himself = meh. Big boobs = lots of clicks. I think you know where I’m going with THIS one in the future.

I’m now listed number 1 on Google when you search for “Matthew Murray” so thank you to everyone! Unfortunately when I do an image search under Google I get some dude on a keyboard, or the crazy guy that killed people in the USA. So for the next few days enjoy the Matthew Headshot Buffet!

Today’s picture is our hero looking all bad ass at work. Note the lack of chin and the sexy fireman on the shelf behind him.

Cranbrook can’t come soon enough! I need a little mini-vacation. I’ve decided to experiment with my set this weekend, I’ll tell you more next post

Please enjoy this hot pic of my girlfriend as an easy way to increase traffic to my website

Now that’s more like it, what a change from last night! While I (again) had a brutal sound system to work with, this time I had the respect of every audience member and their full attention…except for the guy that put the red police light in his shirt and walked through the crowd looking like a pregnant man with a glowing flashing stomach. DVD and CD sales were great, and I contributed a potion of my proceeds to the Humboldt Firefighter Equipment fund. Thanks guys that was a blast! I’ll have video up soon.

Missed a skunk by about three inches on the way home, that is the closest I’ve ever come to hitting anything, ever. I may/may not have hit a gopher once though I’m pretty sure I didn’t, but for 10 years of stand-up my travels have been incredibly accident free. I did fall asleep at the wheel once on the way home from Fairview. I was by myself and nodded long enough to swerve off the road. I missed a road post by about 4 feet and was able to drive out of the ditch with zero damage. Once again my ‘Murray luck’ comes through and Melissa and I did almost 250 clicks in just under 2 hours tonight.

One more fantastic day with my boys tomorrow. I’ll get the Humboldt footage (if it’s usable) up by Monday!

Well I did my best, but wow a room full of very drunk single women and a microphone that cuts out every third word is NOT a great combination.  I was glad to lend my name and efforts to a worthy cause, but I think I’ll take a more structured approach next October.  I wish the ladies of healthy boobies the best of luck in their efforts!

If you want to see the tragic clip, have a look below.  This will NOT be the audition tape I send to Just For Laughs.  I really think this site is a great opportunity to show both sides of comedy.  The refined, edited and sliced concert setting and the ‘other’ settings where we try to do our best and battle against sight lines, bad equipment, and drunks. 

Tonight I’m in Humboldt and next weekend it’s Cranbrook for the Laugh Shop.  I found out Trevor’s living in Rosetown so I’ll be able to pick him up on the way.  to waste some useful time, I recommend this link, launch a kitten today!  My personal best is about 1400 feet http://www.funny-games.biz/kitten-cannon.html

iphone, irewards, ispy, iexams, everything starts with ‘i’ now!  Seesh don’t people know that the coolest letter is still ‘x’?  X-men! X-treme! X-ray specs!  It used to be, if you wanted to make something cool, you added the letter ‘x’, hell even the band Bush became cooler as Bush-X.

I guess that ‘i’ will be the cool letter for now, but I think it’s time to get ahead of the curve.  Here are my guesses at the next cool letter once the icraze dies idown.

V – V is an excellent letter.  It’s easy to draw and has a commanding sound.  While some products are already using the letter to start words or titles (Don’t try Vector cereal it will make you ibarf)(And while I’m on the topic, why the hell do they call it “Vector Meal Replacement”? I replace the meal of Breakfast with a bowl of cereal, thus…making a meal….<sigh>) I think that V will be an excellent modifier.  Doesn’t new Playstation 3-V sound cool?  Or V-tech, V-PC.  I think V’s day is coming.

Z – while this does have the benefit of being the last letter in the alphabet, it runs into the US/Canadian “Zee/Zed” problem.  That aside, the Z can be angled and styled to add to product names.  You can also use it as a cheesy replacement for “the” as in “Pepsi to Z Max” Expect Italians to be offended.  Oh well.

Q – They tried once already with the invention of Q-sound.  It may work as a cool letter just because it isn’t used often, thus making it cool, but it does have the unfortunate stigma of being the gayest letter of the alphabet.

Tomorrow is my show at the Healthy Boobies fund raiser to fight breast cancer, I hope  to see you all at Bellisimo’s at 8 PM for a bachelor auction, comedy, and support of a great cause.  Saturday I’m out to Humbolt, to entertain the firefighters.  It will be  our first opportunity to bust out Melissa’s new TomTom, ijoy! (Wow, spell checking this post was an inightmare)

Without going into too much detail, let me just say someone in my past has committed a travesty against me and has jeopardized my ability to provide for my family. Enjoy your new clothes, webkins and video games, and continue to neglect what’s important, bitch.

That junk aside, I DID have the pleasure of speaking with Toby Hargrave today.  He’s enjoying life on the west coast, and all his hard work is paying off for him.  I’m having issues with Revenue Canada right now, so when he called and opened with “This is the CRA we want to discuss your recent…” I damn near screamed his head off.  You so funny Toby… <choke, sputter, strangle>  Click his picture to see his site.

They’ve changed my opener for Cranbrook next weekend to Trevor Buchanan.  I haven’t worked with him since…EVERY other Laugh Shop gig I’ve done in Saskatchewan this year.  That’s ok he’s great to work with, and smells like a girl.  Dude we are seriously getting hammered that weekend.  I’d be stunned if we’re sober more than 4 hours that trip. 

My Calendar is starting to fill in slowly, and I’m going to try and drum up more business this week.  Would it kill one of the 100 people per day (and I love you all) that visit this site to leave a comment?!

Holy crap, I blinked and i missed Tuesday.  Horizon was a whirlwind of activity, and some encouraging sales are on the way.  I love my job, and my team is getting better all the time.

The casino had a promotion for all members who have a birthday in October, so Melissa and I went there for her chance at free cash.  I was amazed how  many people come out for this event, and wow are they old.  While it was cool for the casino to put on a free ring toss cash  game (We won $5 cold hard cash baby) as well as cake and coffee, what really struck me was the number of old people sitting by themselves staring off with a half eaten piece of cake in front of them.  It makes me think it isn’t the date of the birthday or the sign you’ve made it another year, its the people you have around you that make your birthday special.  This year was my greatest one ever, as Melissa took the time to sit with the kids and have them draw books of activities they like to do with Dad.  Combine that with a  few heartwarming cards filled with words of affection, and a kick-ass BBQ, and I enjoyed being king for a day.  Sadly Melissa has now put the bar so high on birthday celebrations that my ‘trip to the flea market and tickets to Russel Peters’ just doesn’t measure up.  Although I did score points on hitting her constant need for all things Elvis, by ordering a custom license plate that says DNBCRL (Don’t Be Cruel).  Luckily she’s keeping me around so I’ll have more chances at this in the future.

The night capped off with a performance of the Blue Man Group, a personal favorite of mine.  Being a drummer once upon a time, a show like this thrills me to the core.  Great mix of performance art, comedy, progressive rock, and interactive technology.  And they were blue!

I have my boys this week, can’t wait to see them tomorrow!  I promise this blog will get funnier soon!

My beautiful girl Melissa cooked up a storm today.  Full Thanksgiving dinner with all the fixin’(is it “fixings” or fixins’ or what? I don’t know…) Friends know I’m in the year of Mattitude and my first Thanksgiving was no exception, thanks baby!

Melissa is currently training at Rhinos gym here in Saskatoon.  It’s a private gym where she gets 1-on-1 attention twice a week.  Rhinos information is at the bottom of this post, I wholeheartedly recommend them!

I’ve been hard at work preparing DVDs of this years family photos and videos for my Mom, and I can’t believe the sheer mass of material I have to pick from.  Having a Blackberry on me 24/7 pays off.  Having a camcorder, digital camera, voice recorder, and email all in my pocket makes it easy to catch moments when they happen.  I’m debating putting up a family page here but I haven’t decided yet.

I’ve watched a few episodes of the Cleveland Show.  It’s very hit or miss right now so I’m going to reserve judgment.  It feels 50% fresh and 50% jokes that didn’t make Family Guy.  It does seem like they’ve stretched the writing team over two shows rather than launch a new project.  That being said the ‘Touch my Cleveland Jr.’ segment last week was pretty funny.

We did make one mistake today.  We thought we could ‘pop in’ to Safeway on Thanksgiving Monday to pick up Cranberry Sauce.  Two tills open and Bertha McGiant decides to cart her gelatinous ass to express till 2 and unload her 247 items onto the Express conveyor belt.  We watch as the cashier finally bags everything by herself, then the lady picks up the bags, walks three feet, puts them down on the ground, and proceeds to unpack and repack all the bags again.  Can’t image why she’s alone…

Rhinos Fitness
1801 Broadway Avenue,
Saskatoon, SK
955-5035
Ryan Godfrey

First off I would like to thank Gerry Dee for providing another reference to add to my page.  I’ve updated my calendar and reference pages above, feel free to check them out.

It’s official, I will be helping the ladies of Healthy Boobies this Friday October 16th on their Bachelor Auction to raise money for Breast Cancer Research.  The event is this Friday so to all my Saskatoon people please come down and check this out!  View details about the group and the event at www.healthyboobies.com

Melissa and I sandwiched a shopping trip between two DVDs.  We started the day with Michael Moore’s “SiCKO”.  It makes me a proud Canadian to see movies like these, and I’m really looking forward to “Capitalism:  A Love Story” though I’ll probably wait for that one to come out on DVD as well.

We ventured out to Costco today to enter the fortress of really big food.  We’re on a health kick (Well I am, Melissa’s been trying to eat healthy for over a year.  I think I McTorpedoed that effort for a time) so now the house is filled with things she calls ‘ingredients’.  Thank god she can cook because I’m used to being a 2 minute microwave away from dinner, or at worst picking my favorite combo by number.  But apparently when you put all these things in the fridge together and add heat, delicious healthy meals come out.  Beats me how she does it, but I’m happy to do the dishes afterwards.

We ended the night with Saw IV.  While I am not the horror movie type, Melissa loves the damn things.  I’m slowly working up my ability to watch them, and surprisingly, this one had a semblance of a plot.  While there were plot holes big enough to drive a truck through, it was nice to break up the slashing and splattering with dialogue of all things.  I’ll keep you posted on Saw V.

Well that was an experience!  Melissa and I went to 5 different places looking for Halloween costumes for the kids.  My boy Liam definitely has my genes, as he wants to be Darth Vader.  I don’t think he’s  seen the Holy Trilogy with me in years so his pick really surprised me.  So store after store we hunted until we finally found a kids size Vader mask.  It’ll take some accessorizing but we’ll make it work.  Thankfully Max wanted to be a ninja, thank god one of them kept it simple.

My phone is finally starting to ring with Christmas shows, and for all the people that book me (you DO read this every day…right?) the answer is YES I have a clean 60.  Yes I know what clean means, yes it’s 60.

Russel was amazing at TCU.  Seeing that caliber of control and stage presence really inspired me to start upping my game.  I miss the days where I would sit up all night at coffee shops with other comics working and re-working bits.  Thank goodness I have Melissa out here to kick my ass.  I truly believe that 2009 has been the greatest year of my life so far but almost all of my gains have been personal or professional from a day-job view.   I think 2010 will be the breakout year for me in comedy.

I’m going to be having a theme to each day’s writing.  I’m sure I’ll cover stuff that interests me like the odd WWE/MMA show or my latest poker night, but what I want is for each day to have a recurring event, similar to the guest blog at www.andrewgrose.com (click the link to have a peek) I’m thinking off some weird themes too like ‘different places in Saskatoon I can take a picture of my stuffed animals’ and ‘the ongoing saga of Matthew’s houseplant’.  riveting must-read style writing that exposes the true human nature of us all…..or maybe I’ll do something else.