Boston Clean Corporate Stand-up Comedian and Funny Keynote Speaker
Hiring a clean stand-up comedian like Shaun Eli or even exactly Shaun Eli for your corporate or charity comedy event in Boston or elsewhere in Massachusetts
About me
Okay, first of all I don’t live in Boston. That’s just the title of this page. And if you want to think of that as an Alice’s Restaurant reference that’s fine with me. I live in the New York area but I work all over the world doing stand-up comedy shows. Shows for corporations, theatres, charity fundraising events, comedy club audiences and for temples, churches and other houses of worship. And I like Boston! I’ve headlined comedy shows on five continents. Yeah, including this one.
People may say that New York is the greatest city in the world but Boston, MA is a great town. It’s young and vibrant and almost has Harvard and M.I.T. You’ve got good ice cream and other great food. And I think I have to say upfront that I’m not a Yankees fan. Nor the Knicks nor the Rangers. Not even those Jersey teams that have New York in their name because we’re too polite to sue. Or maybe we think so little of them that it’s not worth the bother. It’s not like they win anything. But then I grew up with the Mets, and they fade every year.
The only way I relate sports to stand-up comedy is that if a local team is in the finals it cuts down on comedy show attendance. Oh, also once I did a show for a Jewish organization somewhere in Massachusetts and at the end they had me help auction off some of the stuff from their silent auction that hadn’t sold. I told them they absolutely had to buy a signed football helmet or a signed hockey stick. Because otherwise they were perpetuating a negative stereotype about Jews and sports. I think I sold the helmet for a decent amount but the hockey stick didn’t sell for much. Still did better than if I hadn’t done anything at all. And I barely know anything about hockey.
Oh, I should mention another great thing about Boston- The Head of the Charles! I was a competitive rower for fourteen years (University of Pennsylvania and then the New York Athletic Club) so I appreciate a good regatta. I also liked the Head of the Schuylkill, but not the Head of the Connecticut. We called that one The Head of the Mud, because for some reason it always rained the day before and we’d end up filthy.
My stand-up comedy
I don’t have any jokes about Boston or baked beans or cream pie or even fancy colleges that I didn’t go to. That’s not to say I won’t think of one next week but basically my stand-up comedy is clean and rarely offends anyone. And that’s hard to do because it seems like most of the time someone’s offended it’s the subject of a joke, and not what it’s making fun of, that annoys them.
You could do a joke about someone driving a Mustang and someone will be upset because a mustang is a horse and it was horrible of Ford to name their car that. What does that have to do with the joke? Yeah, sometimes people are that nutty. But not you, not the people of Boston. It’s that other place with the nutty people. The sensitive horse people. I’ll still do corporate stand-up comedy for them, because that’s what a corporate comedian does. And I’ll have to listen to their complaints about somebody else’s decision about naming a car after a wild horse.
Most of my comedy’s about me or my family or things that have happened to me or things that I’ve done. If you’ve wronged me maybe you’re going to get bashed because you deserve it. Yeah, I’m talking about you, Google, and my former employer, and that parking ticket I didn’t deserve. There were no parking meters in front of the mayor’s house, and he had a driveway and a police driver. I had mom and dad’s old VW.
If you want to see what I’m like on stage watch my stand-up comedy videos.
Funny Keynote Speaker
I can be either a live funny keynote speaker or a funny virtual keynote speaker. I’m not a motivational speaker. I won’t get people riled up but I will get them laughing for my entire time on stage. If I tell my story about fighting a parking ticket in Philadelphia I may get people excited to fight for justice. Okay, parking ticket justice. Hey, everybody’s got to start somewhere. If you’re looking for a funny keynote speaker I’m your guy. So if you want to call me a corporate keynote speaker that’s fine with me. As long as I get paid to make people laugh I’m happy. And you will be too.
Your audience will arrive full of enthusiasm for my keynote speech because I can provide you with video of me on stage that you can share with them in advance. They will depart happy and grateful and will be talking about the event for days if not weeks.
I have hours of material so I should be able to link my keynote address to the theme of your event, company or industry. With a business background I may understand your industry quite well, especially if it’s banking or finance (I was a banker for 20 years before becoming a full-time stand-up comic), accounting (my father was an accountant and I have accounting jokes and stories), advertising or marketing (I majored in marketing at Wharton), insurance (I was an actuarial assistant for a couple of years), aviation (I’m a licensed, instrument-rated pilot) or boating (former rower and dragon-boat racer and I have a rather useless New York State boating license).
Also law. Though I’m not an attorney lots of people seem to think I’m one. I served for 17 months on a federal grand jury, I have at least one pro-lawyer joke and I am 1-0 representing myself in New York State Supreme Court. I sued a home improvement contractor and beat the heck out of a trial attorney using the two most powerful weapons in my arsenal: humor and sarcasm. I also wrote an article for the New Jersey Law Journal on attorneys who became comedians. And in addition to not being an attorney I’m also not from New Jersey.
I love answering audience questions after a keynote speech. It gives me the chance to be spontaneously funny, to learn about what audiences are curious about, to tell stories that are fun and funny but don’t necessarily fit into either a stand-up routine or keynote speech. Audiences love it too. It’s like a backstage pass.
One thing to note: I speak. I may pace a bit. I tell jokes and very funny stories. I don’t use Powerpoint. I don’t need slides. Just a good sound system with a hand-held microphone (not a mic stuck to a lectern). Proper lighting also helps.
Back before I was a comedian I was a banker and was chosen to be the keynote (closing) speaker at an international conference on risk management. The speakers before me were from more prestigious companies. They had a lot of data to present and used a lot of slides. This was a bit anxiety-inducing until I realized that their extensive, detailed data and slides were a drawback. It was too much detail and was both rote and confusing. I was the opposite- I had a case to present that was both interesting and easy to understand. Nobody was distracted or confused during my talk. I was the one who drew the most questions because I held their interest. And yes, I was invited back to be the keynote speaker again the next year.
Booking me for shows in or near Boston, MA, because that’s kind of the point of all these words and stuff
Email Shaun (at) Brain Champagne dot com, or call or text me at (914) it’s-funny (914) 487-3866. I’m sure you’ve already figured that out but my web person said I have to make my phone number a clickable link, so put your phone in your pocket so you can pocket-dial me. That’s why I took all the clickable phone links off my website years ago, because every month when I sent out my monthly comedy email I would get a half-dozen pocket dials. Which astonishes me because I lock my phone before I put it away so that doesn’t happen. I don’t know why that isn’t a common thing, especially since your face can unlock your phone.
Yes, I know you have questions. I have questions too- call or text or email and I’ll answer your questions. I’ll tell you stuff you probably hadn’t thought about. I’ll have questions for you too. Because a lot of things that might make sense actually don’t. I’m sure it’s that way in your business too- things that people think they know, they’re wrong about. So I will say things like push all the tables toward the stage, don’t have them all spread out. It might seem roomier that way but we want the audience as close together as possible. And that I won’t work with a mic stuck to a lectern. No comedian wants that. That’s just a couple of simple things to make the show better.
If you want me to sell sports equipment just know that I’m probably better with football helmets than with hockey sticks, but really I’m no good with either of them. I will make your guests laugh a ton and I’m happy to take questions after a show. Sometimes that’s the most fun for me because I get to show off being spontaneously funny or tell stories that are fun and funny but not quite right for a stand-up set. And sometimes I come up with a new joke talking to the audience.
So what I’m saying is, it’s not all about me. Sometimes it’s about us. So call or email or text and let’s get started. Email Shaun (at) Brain Champagne dot com, or call or text me at (914) it’s-funny (914) 487-3866. I’m a clean corporate stand-up comedian doing clean corporate stand-up comedy and the reason for this sentence is that my marketing guy (that’s me) tells me that you have to repeat those sorts of phrases a few times on your website so that evil company referenced a few paragraphs earlier knows what this page is all about.