Famous for his Pachelbel Rant, which garnered well over five million views on YouTube, Paravonian will be traveling throughout the East Coast and Midwest over the next few months. Musical since his childhood, when he learned to play the cello in grade school, he didn't start bringing his guitar on stage till he was already established as a stand-up comedian. The boredom of waiting for his sets at comedy clubs led him to bring his guitar with him to entertain the other comics waiting in the wings. Since then it has become his major comic tool.

In addition to college campuses and beer joints, Paravonian did the Edinburgh Fringe in 2008 and even traveled to Afghanistan to entertain the troops back in 2005. It was the furthest he's ever traveled for a gig, and he described it as "...a great experience."

He has opened for Roberta Flack, Danny Bonaduce, Gilbert Gottfried and even Meatloaf.

From Rob's MySpace page:

I played the cello for 12 years. I've been in rock bands. I'm a comedian. I will beat you at Ms. Pac Man. I will never shake my Midwestern roots. Lots of people know me from my Pachelbel Rant that's been making the rounds on the internet lately. Aside from minor internet accliam [sic] I make my living tooling about the country performing at colleges and comedy clubs.

So who inspires Rob? Well, he toured last year with the late George Carlin, and says that having worked the legend was the biggest thrill of his career. When Carlin died this past summer, Rob paid tribute to him on a friend's blog.

Carlin at 71 was, above all, a comic, and that's what impressed me the most. With the amount of success, visibility, and recognition he had earned, he could easily have set up shop in Vegas and made a fine living doing concerts of his greatest hits. Instead, he chose to work on all new material, fine-tuning it to the point where it's not only funny but also says something.

Carlin's death meant that Paravonian's work schedule was all up in the air, but for him that meant back to the comedy clubs and campuses he has made his name at over the years.

Other influences were Johnny Carson, Jack Benny and The Simpsons. He considers Kyle Broflofsky from South Park as one of his comic "heroes." Paravonian studied comedy in Chicago at the famed Second City Training Center and became one of their improve regulars.

In addition to his comedy website, he also has a blog, or web log, to provide more timely updates to his friends and fans.

Rob Paravonian has three live comedy CDs - Live on Both Coasts, Official Bootleg and Playing for Drunks; three studio CDs - Living it Down, American Cheese and Don't Crowd the Plow; as well as two DVDs - 40 Minutes From Chicago and Rob P. Live.

Wendy Sullivan is a blogger, writer and radio host. Her paralegal background and freelance career has allowed her the opportunity to research into various and sundry areas from politics to war to health care. Unique among her peers, Wendy has moved 30 times in her 32 year life so far. She is creating an e-book right now to assist individuals and families to relocate with as little stress as possible



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Funny how these days stand up is associated mostly with comedy. Maybe it's natural in a sense that stand up comedy has made a major break trough in this new millennium. The word originally means performing for an audience standing up, in front of the audience. It could be a big or small group; the performance is done standing in front of them.

In this way, all performing arts that meet those qualifications are stand up performances. And this is what the word originally means.

I live in Finland and I'm a professional magician. I once got an email from a local comedian who said that I should remove the word "stand up" from web site, because I was a magician not a comedian.

I gave him a small lecture how things are and told him I had been doing stage magic professionally for 15 years and since I had a web site, I have been advertising stand up performances along with close up performances.

Later he apologized, but this phone call actually reflects the way people think these days.

Sometimes I get requests for gigs, where the client asks me to do little close up, then a performance for all and in the end little stand up...

When a word gets branded, it seems to establish a new meaning and people start to take some things for granted.

Of course I tell my customers how things really are, but I have changed some text on my website so that people can more easily understand the difference. I also advertise myself only as a magician; I have a link on my pages that says "stand up" which lead my customers to my stage performance page, but seems many don't read this page at all, they just understand it the way they have learned it.

Actually for me this isn't so bad.

I get requests for gigs where the client wants me to do stand up. Well, they understand it as stand up comedy only, but comedy is what I do also. I mix magic and comedy and my performances are actually very funny, so what do I say?

I say nothing; I say perfect, I do it exactly the way you want!

This has happened many times and my clients have never complained, because only thing they are concerned about is getting a performer that does a good job. I am a professional entertainer, so I do a good job - case closed and money in the bank :-)

In this way comedy, being so popular as it is these days, helps me in a way also. Still I feel I am not doing anything wrong and I am not trying to deceive or mislead people in any way on my web site; I let them know exactly what they are getting in detail.

To me stand up is a very logical word to use, because I'm doing close up also. Close up for small groups at a time and stand up for larger audiences.

If we still think about the word, what it originally meant, as I explained before, to me it can mean a thousand different things. Anybody on stage in front of their audience is doing stand up, and I don't want to complain, looks like it only means more job for anyone who is doing comedy in one form or another.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kim_Wist

After making it all the way through college (to my great surprise), I found myself working for a San Francisco advertising agency as an account executive on the HP account in the early 80s. It was an OK job. The agency people were a fun-loving, crazy bunch, and the HP people were nice if not a bit nerdy. At that time HP pretty much only hired engineers figuring that it was easier to make marketing people out of engineers than to struggle with making non-engineering marketing people understand their products. The net result was that, although competent on the technical side, these poor nerds had absolutely no imagination.

One day they were struggling with how to make their upcoming sales conference an exciting and memorable event. Of course they couldn't think of anything so they asked my advice. I guess they thought I had a good imagination or something, but as it turned out, it was a risky thing to do.

I knew exactly what they needed to do, because I had faced similar situations several times in the past, and there was something I had done that had always worked. It involved jungle animals.

You see, back in those days, Marine World was located right across the Bay just south of the San Mateo Bridge on the Peninsula. Marine World had a great program back then which allowed you to rent out one of their Tigers or Lions for an event. Now, this sounds risky, but it really wasn't. Marine World knew just how to totally pacify these animals and make them completely comfortable around lots of humans. The secret was that they hired 18 and 19-year-old girls and let them continuously handle the cubs until they were about a year old or so.

Needless to say, the girls just doted on the cubs. I've heard it said that the average tiger cub's feet didn't touch the ground until they were too heavy to carry around continuously. The cubs loved it... the girls loved it, and the animals were totally calm even in crowds of people.

After the cats reached about a year or so, they were turned over to the official trainer, a guy named Peter, who got them used to being on a chain and travelling around in a white Ford Econoline van with straw in the back. I had gotten to know Peter quite will after hiring his cats for a variety of events over the past couple of years. Peter and I even took a female lion to an event at the Oakland airport with jets landing and taking off, and she was fine. Peter said that the cats looked forward to these outings, because their lives at Marine World can get a little boring.

Peter was the archetypal lion trainer. He was tall, strong, good looking, and sported a cool mustache. Women at these events were sometimes confused about which they liked best, Peter or his cats.

Anyway, HP's sales conference was to be a big, catered affair. They were going to set up a huge tent to take advantage of the nice summer weather. Their entire sales force would be seated in the tent, and then they were going to announce a new vp of sales. They wanted to know how to make his appearance more dramatic. After the introduction, everyone would retire to the lawn area for an elegant lunch. They kept saying, "Think Gatsby."

So, I said, "Well, we hire Peter and his tiger, Benji." (Benji was a 650 pound Bengal male. A real calm, well-behaved and absolutely stunning cat). "Then, you announce your new sales guy, and Peter walks Benji up the aisle. They'll never forget it."

I've never really understood why they bought into this idea, but they did. I then had to explain why it was a good idea to three levels of bosses back at the agency. Once I convinced them that Benji was always well fed on the way to the gig (in his little van with the straw in back) they bought it.

So, the big day arrived. The tent was a monstrous, white nylon with about 300 chairs separated into two sections and a nice, little stage at the end. Going into the tent, everyone walked through the lawn area with beautiful white tables set for lunch. Umbrellas and banners fluttered softly in the pleasant breeze, and everyone walked by the fabulous lunch which was spread out on both sides of the entrance, so they could see what culinary delights awaited them after the presentation. Sales people were just buzzing with anticipation, and the biggest question was who would be their new boss?

Well, it was a perfect setup for Benji, that's for sure. He arrived just in time - looking a little bored in the back of his non-descript Econoline. I said hi to Peter and to Benji (I SWEAR he remembered me). Peter and I chatted. Benji put his massive head down and started snoring. Suddenly, we got the call. "Come on! Come on! It's time!"

Peter opened the van door, and Benji gave him that "I'm napping here. What the hell do you want" look. Peter put this huge chain around Benji's neck, and gently guided him out of the van. Actually, Benji kind of pours out of the van, and it rocks back and forth during the process. 650 pounds is a LOT of tiger.

Benji seemed kind of listless and uninterested during the walk to the tent. I guess he was still a little sleepy. Well, we got him to the tent without incident, and we were waved right in. I heard someone say, "Won't you please welcome your new boss?"

As Benji sauntered up the aisle, people were jumping out of their chairs. Some were getting ready to make a run for the door, but Benji was in the way. Remember, most of these folks were from the east coast and Midwest, and they'd probably never seen a free tiger before. Benji has a way of kindling really primitive reactions even though he doesn't mean to. In fact, I saw him give a look to a couple of the more panicked audience members that was like, "WHAT IS your problem?" So, people looked a little foolish and gradually took their seats.

Benji walked up to the stage like he owned the place and he and Peter ignored the steps and leaped up onto it. Benji then plopped down, hoping to resume his nap as the real sales boss took the stage. The crowd was just WILD. They loved it. The best part of all was when the sales guy was waving his pointer around at some charts, and I saw Benji look interested for the first time that morning. He raised his magnificent paw and batted the stick out of the guy's hand then put his head down again.

That brought roars of laughter from the crowd, especially because the sales boss had quickly retreated to the other side of the stage. But, Benji was bored again.

Well, I was thinking that this was the best jungle-cat performance ever when it was time to walk Benji back outside. As he went down the aisle this time, people were reaching out to touch him and cheering him. Benji took it all with an unimpressed demeanor as though such adulation was his God-given due as king of the jungle, which he undoubtedly was.

The trouble began as we exited the tent followed by the crowd. I mentioned that all the food was piled on both sides of the tent entrance didn't I? And that the proud chefs and servers were waiting in starched white uniforms with their chef's hats all proud and composed?

Well, Benji didn't notice them. What Benji DID notice was something he had never seen before. Something that caught his absolute, predator-keen attention. It was smoked salmon. Big sides of whole salmon. Even I could smell it.

Benji stopped short, and I saw Peter tense up. Benji started walking toward the nearest salmon as though Peter didn't exist. Peter had his heels dug into the grass and was yelling at Benji in his most commanding, tiger-trainer voice. It did no good. Benji's kind had survived for eons by being able to focus on dinner and stock it to the kill no matter what other distractions there were.

As Benji approached the table with the salmon, the guy standing ready to serve it was frozen with a look of total terror on his face. Peter had given up trying to play tugboat with a 650 pound tiger and was now hitting Benji as hard as he could on the nose with his fist. I don't even think Benji was aware of this because he then leaped up onto the table with the salmon.

The table began sagging, shaking and showing signs of eminent collapse under Benji's 650 pounds. Dishes, utensils, serving pots and everything else on the table started crashing to the ground, and Peter redoubled his efforts to beat Benji into compliance. Now the entire tent had emptied out. The HP sales guys were all laughing so hard some of them were literally rolling on the grass. The chefs were yelling something in a foreign language, but the guy behind the table... the guy who was supposed to serve the salmon to well-behaved HP sales guys... well he found himself face-to-face with Benji!

What the poor guy didn't know was that Benji wasn't interested in him at all. Benji just wanted salmon for lunch. I really don't think Benji meant to scare the poor guy either, but over millennia tigers have evolved a pretty scary face. Benji's was about the size of a small sofa, and he has all those dramatic black and orange stripes. Although Benji's look was friendly, those eyes can hypnotize a water buffalo. Also, Benji did let out with a small growl. Benji probably meant it as a statement to the guy that he would really like it if the guy would serve him some of that wonderful smelling salmon.

Not knowing this and with primitive reactions taking over, the guy peed his pants, screamed and passed out. It was a scream that was so piercing that it scared poor Benji, and Benji peed, too. Of course since Benji had been holding it all morning, and since he WAS a tiger and all, he had a lot more pee than the guy, so all of the table cloths and napkins were instantly soaked with tiger pee, which even smelled bad to Benji. He forgot all about the salmon and jumped down off the sagging table dragging Peter with him. The crowd was roaring their approval with peals of laughter and cheers.

Finally. Finally, Benji allowed Peter to guide him back to the Econoline amid cheers and whistles from the HP guys. The Econoline took off, and I guess Benji went back to sleep for the ride up the peninsula.

Reality began seeping into my brain, too, and I wondered just how long I would continue being employed. Well, I needn't have worried too much. The sales guys just thought it was the best thing they'd EVER seen, and there was enough food on the other tables that they all got to have their nice, Gatsby, lunch. Peter later told me that he thought Benji had a great time, and was anxious to do it again. I wasn't so much.

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