A heartbreaking post of staggering genius

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on September 26th, 2010

We were awakened this morning (we’re in Vegas, on PDT) with a text asking if we knew what was going on with Greg Giraldo. Rumors ricocheted around the internet. It seems like the worst hasn’t happened, according to most news outlets. Giraldo remains hospitalized, and he’s in a bad way. We are hopeful that he pulls through.

So, our attention was diverted from our main task– to nutshell our experience here over the past six days at the World Series of Comedy. So we forgot to relate one story. And, as it is a heartwarming tale, we figured everyone could use a bit of uplift.

We were hanging at the Fryers Club meeting here in Vegas on Friday night when we encounterd Jay Mandyam. He was in town to participate in the WSOC. He went up Tuesday night and lost to Brandt Tobler, but, like many of the contestants, he stuck around to take advantage of whatever the WSOC and Las Vegas might have to offer.

So, he finds himself at the Fryers and he tells us that the thing that inspired him to try comedy was a family trip onboard a cruise to Alaska the summer before he entered eighth grade. And the entertainment on that ship was Geechy Guy. Mandyam purchased Geechy’s CD and beat the hell out of it for months afterward. Sometime after that, he tries (and likes) doing standup comedy. And now, several years later, here he is, a standup comic, in Las Vegas, hanging out at a gathering that is hosted by… Geechy Guy.

He was thrilled. We were thrilled to hear the story. We are happy to relay it to you.

We never know who might be inspired by our performance.

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