"I am semi-famous because..."
Warning: This page is supposed to be Funny!
(So if you don't laugh, I have failed.)
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On November 21st, 1984, I was in the paper. And not just any paper. The Moose Jaw Times-Herald. Yes that's right, the one in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada.
And this was before the internet, at a time when the newspaper was EVERYTHING. 
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In 1986, Theoren Fleury taught me how to skate. Well I already knew how to skate, but he taught me how to skate better. Well, he taught my fourth grade class how to skate better, and I was there. After the hour long class, he was giving people autographs. I didn't know what an autograph was so I didn't get one. This was before he made it to the NHL and became one of the best hockey players in the game.
Here is some information about him on Wikipedia. They haven't mentioned our encounter from 1986, but they probably just ran out of room, or something. |
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In 1987, I had lunch with Colonel Sander's second wife, Claudia Sanders. She signed my placemat for me so I would have proof, so that later in life I could create a web page and brag about it.
And when I fix my scanner, I'll show you the proof. Then you'll know I'm cool, for sure. |
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In 2002, while I was at work it was brought to my attention that Jackie Slater was in the office. And when he was about to leave, he was standing next to the receptionist's desk. And so I took that opportunity to go make an awkward impression. I went over like I was going to talk to him, but instead I walked over to the candy jar and looked for a piece of candy. Then the person he was waiting for finally arrived, and this other guy from work was standing next to me. And then, the most amazing thing happened. Jackie Slater talked to me. Yeah, because as they were about to leave, he nodded in my general direction and said "Fellas." And since there were only two of us guys there, that means I was one of the "fellas" which means that Jackie Slater talked to me. |
By the way, Jackie Slater is a Pro Football Hall of Famer. Here is some information about him on Wikipedia, but I don't see any mention of our encounter. They probably haven't updated it in a while.
| In 2005 the company I worked for printed this story about me which nobody had time to read because we were all too busy working. |
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A year and a half later, on Thursday June 29, 2006 I went to Mark Whitney's Comedy Co-Op and performed 6 minutes of open mic stand-up comedy in front of 17 complete strangers. I was terrible, but I enjoyed every second of it. After that night I went back to the Comedy Co-Op every Thursday for the next few months because it was so much fun, and I got to know a whole lot of comedians and made some life-long friends.
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On September 13, 2006 Jim Gaffigan left a message on my myspace. That blew my mind and prompted me to mention him in my standup the next day. When I sent him audio of that performance, he replied back saying "hah, thanks" and he also said that he thinks "sexy walrus" does go together, which means he listened to the whole thing. |
On September 14th, 2006 I paid $15 and entered a contest for 91X Radio. Out of 23 comedians I placed in the top 5!
On September 29th, 2006 I was on 91X radio for three minutes. I did 91 seconds of standup, and then was interviewed for about another 91 seconds. It was on the air before 6am so nobody heard it, but it was on the radio.
On October 18th, 2006 I officially became a member of a boy band. The Boy Band of Comedy.
We had our premiere, and then 2 weeks later, our reunion.
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On October 23rd, 2006, someone recognized me at an outdoor food court and yelled my name across a bunch of people's tables. She recognized me from standup. That's the first time that's ever happened.
On October 28th, 2006, I was on 103.7 Free FM for about 5 minutes. I performed some of my standup through regular conversation. It was good radio, and they want me to call in again. Anyway listen to Keeping it Weird on San Diego's 103.7 Free FM, Saturdays from 8pm-11pm, because you never know, you might hear a weirdo named Stuart Swanson.
On November 2nd, 2006, my name was in the San Diego Reader. They got the band name wrong, but they miraculously spelled all of our names right:
On November 4th, 2006 I was in the finals for the 91X contest:
Out of the 5 finalists, I was in a 4-way tie for 2nd place. So I didn't win, but I hung out with George Perez and did a few shows with him and Zoltan up in Orange County!
Zoltan introduced me to Bob Murphy who was one of the first comics on Comedy Central. And the three of us produced the next round of Boy Band of Comedy shows. We were all over the place and already working with some top comedians.
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I thought for sure, "By now, after doing standup for a whole 5 months..." word had made its way to the midwest and everyone in Missouri and Illinois had heard about me. I thought comedy club owners were sitting by the phone, waiting for my agent to call them and book a show for Stuart Swanson.
So since I was visiting home for Christmas in Greenville, Illinois, I thought for sure I could do a show somewhere in St. Louis, Missouri. That way my friends from back home could drive 60 miles away and see for themselves that I wasn't making things up -- that I really was doing stand-up comedy. Sounded like a great idea to me!
I was wrong about one thing. Comedy Club owners in St Louis had not only not heard of me, but they were not interested in having me on any of their shows. Even with a month's notice, and even some online proof that I was a decent comedian, I couldn't get a shot to be on any show in all of St. Louis, even for 10 minutes. I called at least 3 different comedy clubs and explained the idea, even threw in some funny conversation into it, but no. I guess being on the radio, joining a boy band and being funny for 5 months straight wasn't good enough for some people.
So I thought about this for about 45 seconds and I decided that I didn't need "Dave" from "The Funny Bone."
I called the owner of the movie theater in Greenville Illinois and pitched the idea of having a comedy show on a Saturday night before Christmas Eve. I mentioned that it would be clean, and that it would be the same price as their movie tickets...
On December 7th, 2006 The Greenville Advocate wrote a nice article about the show that was about to be.
On December 13th, 2006 I met a guy from the Sopranos. But I won't tell you which one because, well, just because.
About a week before the big show, I got a call from 101.7 WGEL radio in Greenville. They said they wanted to do a printed interview based on questions they asked me over the phone. Then they replayed our conversation several times on 101.7FM -- I never heard it for myself, but a few people told me they did.
On December 21st, 2006 there was an advertisement in the Greenville Advocate with my name on it.
Also on December 21st, funny story -- my flight got cancelled due to weather, and there were no other flights that I could catch.
I thought about that for about 45 seconds, and then left the airport and got into my 1989 Ford Crown Victoria and drove from San Diego, California to Greenville, Illinois. It took me 36 hours.
In the final week leading up to the show, two large posters that looked like this were on the front windows of The Globe Theatre:
For five days, my name was up in lights:
They left it up there for three days after the show was over! Man, that's either respect or extreme laziness.
There was a brief followup after my Greenville Show, and this time there was a picture. I just remembered how unbathed I was that night.
1995 Graduate, but that's fine. They were probably tired from laughing so hard, couldn't get all the facts straight.
I met Dat Phan on January 5th, 2007. He is a really nice guy, and an amazing comedian. He destroyed the artist colony for 35 minutes... there were no lulls, it was non-stop vietnamese humor. Vietnamese people are fast. In fact Dat was not only the fastest Vietnamese person to win Last Comic Standing, but he was the fastest person to win Last Comic Standing. We're still friends to this day, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't know who I am. Although to be fair, on December 6th, 2014, he did "like" a meme that I reposted that someone else designed.
On February 18th, 2007 I was on Fox News. I got all mad and walked off the set because my clip was only 8 seconds long. Here, watch:
On February 19th, 2007 I met two of the members of the band Ours:
Stu and Race
Stu and Pit a.k.a. The Drummer a.k.a. Jimmy Gnecco's brother
On Saturday, March 3, 2007 there was an article about the Famecast contest:
On Sunday, March 11, 2007 I was in the North County Times for being in the famecast.com contest. Here is the article in it's nearly-original state. I had to modify a few things for accuracy.
I had to split this into two images because the picture of my head is too huge for the scanner.
They messed up a couple of things of course, but I don't let that kind of thing get to me. I'll just leave the article in its nearly-original state.
On March 17, 2007 I was on ABC 10 News at 6:30. It was hilarious. Aaron cracks me up.
March 24th, 2007: Another brief article from the North County Times
On March 29, 2007 The Greenville Advocate printed this article:
April 2nd, 2007: Here's an article about the famecast contest
On April 12, 2007 The Greenville Advocate printed this article:
On April 14th, I performed at the famecast.com finals. The show was made available to over 6 billion people via live webcast.
You can view the performance here
Stand-up I performed on Friday, April 20th is on public access television
I won a national competition at famecast.com on April 21st, 2007, beating over 300 million people.
April 24, 2007: Some press about the win: billboardpublicitywire.com -- I like the part where it says, "lack of exposure is what keeps some of our best artists in the shadows, we aim to shine the spotlight on those that have what it takes, but have lacked the breaks." Man, I'm really grateful for this whole thing. Yeah.
April 26, 2007 The Greenville Advocate printed this:
April 29, 2007 The North County Times printed this:
In 2008 I met the greatest vocalist on Earth, Jimmy Gnecco of the band Ours. He signed my wife's poster, and then we talked for at least a full two minutes. (My wife and I.) It's rare that my wife and I talk to eachother for more than a few seconds at a time, so this was pretty neat.
In 2009 we were the only two people on a shuttle bus in Las Vegas, when all of a sudden a really happy lady and her husband entered the bus... I know that sounds pretty normal..... however, she started talking and the things she said sounded interesting so we listened. She mentioned that she just won some money on the show Let's Make a Deal. She also mentioned that the show would be airing on December 10th, 2009. She said she was the one "with the football goal on her head" so we knew what to look for. We watched, and sure enough, there she was. She actually turned out to be a terrible contestant. She didn't even ask for extra money or anything. Wayne Brady basically asked her if she wanted $600 and she said "Yes!" immediately. Wayne Brady was like, "oh kay.." (Usually it's slightly more intense than that, and the contestant gets more money from him, or a deal. But hey at least she got $600.)
In 2013 we ate at Crossroads in Hollywood and I happened to see that Tal Ronnen was about to walk past our table. Without being a total jerk, I got his attention because I wanted to personally thank him for the awesome meal, and just wanted to meet him for a second. He actually came over to our table and talked to us for a couple minutes, and then afterwards gave us a free lasagne on the house. It was like the coolest thing involving food that's ever happened to me.
In 2013 we ate at Real Food Daily in Beverly Hills, and there really weren't very many people in the restaurant with us, but the person at the table next to us was Deeta Von Teese -- and I didn't stare at her.
On January 31st, 2013 -- my brother-in-law Marty met and talked to Pat Roach and Jonathan Dunsworth. They even had a full conversation.
I was not there at all. But that's my brother Marty in the middle, and he was definitely there.
On February 14th, 2014, I was on Episode 6 of Doug Culp's podcast at YAMATAT.com which can be heard by trillions of life forms.
On December 5th, 2014 Mike Birbiglia did not run away when I said hello. He did leave VERY soon, but it wasn't immediate and it was at a normal speed.
Oh you think that was photoshopped? I don't photo shop things, especially wives. And my wife is in this next one:
On February 9th, 2015 the prime minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, asked my brother-in-law Marty if he would pose in a picture with him and some other random people. My brother Marty agreed to do that because he's about as awesome as a human being could possibly be.
I was 2,500 miles away from that photo when it was taken.
On February 21st, 2015 I was live on internet radio station wsradio.com
The replay is permanently available here:
wsradio.com/0221-stuart-swanson
For those reasons, I consider myself to be.... semi-famous.