Monday Night Live: How an occasionally homeless comedian created a comic’s haven at Pancho’s Restaurant

Danno Carter hosting Pancho’s Comedy Night #237 on Monday night. Next Monday is the show’s five year anniversary. Photo (CivicCouch.com)

Danno Carter hosting Pancho’s Comedy Night #237 on Monday night. Next Monday is the show’s five year anniversary. Photo (CivicCouch.com)

 

Danno Carter is a curator of sorts. One of his areas of expertise are the bars of the South Bay. He knows them all, pretty much.

He arrived here 10 years ago, by way of Hollywood. He’d driven straight to Hollywood after graduating from the University of Notre Dame in 2006. He was chasing a California dream: he wanted to be a comedy writer. But like so many such dreams, this proved illusive. Few twentysomethings find much creative work in Hollywood beyond becoming a glorified grunt —  that is, in the nomenclature of the entertainment industry, a production assistant, which Carter did.

And so he decided to become a comedian. This, too, proved to be a quixotic quest.

“I wanted to work in comedy somehow,” Carter recalled. “But it’s very hard to find your start in stand-up in LA… It’s hard to get up [on a stage]. If you do an open mic at one of the big clubs, you sign up, there’s a lottery, they pull names out of a hat, about 20 percent of the dudes get on, and then you are performing three minutes your first time in front of all comedians who didn’t get on the show —  the worst crowd ever.”

But Carter is nothing if not a creatively persistent man. He broke into the scene by adding a guitar to his act, which gave him access to that greatest of scarcities within the comedy world, stage time. He booked regularly at the Comedy Store and the Improv, but then encountered another problem: the other comedians hated the guy with the guitar.

“The clubs generally like it, but the comics hate it,” Carter said. “They hate following music, for the most part. I understand why, because the thing that makes standup the hardest is dealing with silence, and if you are strumming a guitar or a uke, you don’t have that silence. That is the scary part.”

Meanwhile, at least one part of his California dream had come to fruition. He had some old college friends who rented a house on the Strand in Hermosa Beach, and Carter —  who is also an expert couch surfer — came down for weekends and fell in love with the beach.

“As soon as I saw the South Bay, I thought that this is what I was picturing Southern California to be like,” he said.

He and some friends rented a house in Manhattan Beach shortly thereafter. Comedian Bill Maher, at an appearance at Hermosa’s legendary Comedy & Magic Club a few years ago, spoke directly to this aspect of the California Dream, opening his set cursing playfully at the audience.

“F*** you. You live at the beach,” Maher said. “Isn’t that the point of life?”

Seven years ago, a friend of Carter’s had an idea: a comedy night at Pancho’s, the venerable, beloved old restaurant at the corner of Highland and Rosecrans in Manhattan Beach. Pancho’s is rightfully famed for the beautiful, airy, Old World charm of its multi-leveled, labyrinthian dining areas, but locally it is equally renowned for its bar.  Located at the restaurant’s highest level, perched above the rest of the restaurant and somewhat mysteriously adorned with a lot of large, mounted taxidermied fish, the bar attracts a vibrant clientele every night of the week. For decades, Pancho’s bar has been an entertainment destination known for its crack rock ‘n’ roll cover bands, and perhaps even more for its karaoke nights.

Pancho’s didn’t immediately warm to the idea of adding comedy, and Carter’s friend lost interest. Carter didn’t. He’d begun doing stand-up in bars around the South Bay —  at such places as the now defunct Club 705 in Hermosa — and suddenly every room came under his scrutiny for its comedic possibilities. Pancho’s was the crown jewel.

“It’s a perfect room,” Carter said, in the course of a recent interview at Pancho’s. “I mean, I’m from the East Coast — this is like a New York sized club in here.”

Five years ago, Pancho’s gave him the green light. Monday night was available and thus was born Pancho’s Comedy Night. It began biweekly, and more than a little rough around the edges.

“At first we had a lot of drunk people stumbling in here not knowing it was comedy night. They wanted to sing karaoke,” Carter said. “I’ve had people jump on stage, and I [had to] run over to the sound and turn it off, then steal the mic from the people. [They were] the drunkest people around because it’s a Monday — they partied all weekend, they went out all Monday, they come in here thinking they are going to sing karaoke and they see some comic up here….”

During those first shows, Carter was introduced to the many aspects of being a host. This included everything from building the lineup to being both the security guard and stage manager, which meant running sound and lights and handling the unexpected.

“At one of our first shows, while I was on stage, a guy in the crowd literally fell off his stool, collapsed and passed out on the floor,” Carter said. “I asked his friend, ‘Is this real?’ He said yeah. I thought it was a seizure. I whipped out my phone and called 911 from stage, put them on speakerphone and they picked up. As I was telling them what happened, the guy came to and I asked him if he wanted an ambulance to come and he was like, ‘Why?” So I said, ‘Okay, nevermind, false alarm,’ and hung up.”

Such is Carter’s openness to happenstance and gift for what, for lack of a better word, could be called networking —  in the Danno universe, this is more a topsy-turvy improvisational human mash-up, a flesh and blood Facebook kind of network that strings together hundreds of bar folk, dozens of Hollywood comedians, and a bounty of couches throughout the Beach Cities. Which is to say that the guy who had the so-called seizure, Sean Allen, would become one of Carter’s best friends, and Allen’s couch would become an occasional home.

“His girlfriend is Mulan at Disneyland, so their couple name I gave them is ‘Musean,’” Carter said.

Danno Carter hosting Pancho’s Comedy Night last Monday. He arrived to find no curtain, and found the ones pictured in the restaurant’s basement and tied them together with Pancho’s buttons. “So you can see how my career is going,” he told the audience. “Curtain-finder at Pancho’s.” Photo

Things quickly picked up momentum. Pancho’s management embraced the show and a few months in made it a weekly feature. Somehow, this fledgling comedian had stumbled upon exactly the right time and place to create comedic gold. This Monday, the show’s fifth anniversary, will be the 238th comedy night at Pancho’s.

“It’s a great room, and there’s not much else going on in this little corner of Manhattan Beach,” Carter said. “But I think it’s been a serendipitous location because it’s just close enough to Hollywood to get all the comics to come down and do a set, but just far enough that people are intrigued by something different and new. There’s not that many other comedy shows in the area and Monday night works better here than it would in other places — because so many people are in the service industry, so they have a random Monday night off. It works well to get a good lineup because there are not many other shows in LA on Mondays. Whereas if you do a Thursday night show you might get a better crowd but you’ll get a worse lineup.”

From the get-go, the lineups were better than anyone could possibly expect for a free comedy show in a Mexican restaurant on a Monday night. People coming for the first time to this day are astonished to find some of best up-and-coming comedians gracing a stage with a dead shark glowering over their right shoulder.

Mitch Cohen is a more recent convert, having discovered the show only last year. During one of his many drives down Highland Avenue en route to the airport, the airline pilot took note of the sign above Pancho’s, which advertises its rock bands, karaoke, Sunday brunch, and “Mon Nite Comedy 9 mp” (the mp, whether accidental or not, is somehow apt).

“What the hell,” thought Cohen. “What’s there to lose?”

“I was shocked —  shocked at the number of comedians, typically like a dozen or so, each goes 5 or 10 minutes or sometimes a little longer…. and shocked at the quality of the comics,” Cohen said. “The nice thing is I share it with all my friends, ‘Come Monday night!’ and then they get this surprise, too. Everyone enjoys it. It’s kind of a hidden gem; it’s hard to know it’s even there unless you drive by and see the sign.”

Allen Selner, another regular, said the show reminds him of Manhattan Beach’s bygone years, when a looser, “anything goes” vibe reigned, versus the “more high end, snooty restaurant” scene that has more recently prevailed. He has likewise introduced friends to the show and has always gotten the same reaction: “How has this been happening in Manhattan Beach for so many years and I’ve not heard of it?”  

“It’s a fun place everyone can go at the end of a Monday and really have a laugh,” Selner said. “I think Danno has really achieved something. It’s really fun.”

The quality of the lineup has grown over the years, but it was strong from the outset. Carter drew on friends from the comedy world at first, about 15 comedians. Many of them have gone on to broader success, appearing on Conan O’Brien,  Jimmy Kimmel, and Last Comic Standing. Sarah Tiana, who appeared at Pancho’s second comedy night and will return for its five year anniversary, is now a regular on Chelsea Lately, as well as several Comedy Central and CMT shows. She just shot her own half-hour special for Comedy Central. Dwayne Perkins, who has appeared at Pancho’s since the very beginning and will also return next week, now has his own Netflix special, “Take Note.”  

One of the stalwart stars of the show from its start has been Chris Traven, a South Bay local whose laconic, off-beat style is reminiscent of Steven Wright and who regularly serves as the show’s closer. He and Carter met while performing at Club 705 and would run across each other at gigs in Hollywood. Their friendship grew as the Pancho’s comedy night did. A few years ago, after Carter broke up with a girlfriend and found himself once again homeless —  this is a pattern — he ended up on Traven’s couch.

“I’ve been the guy on the couch before so I’ve been paying it forward,” Traven said. “And we had a really nice couch; it really is comfortable.”

Traven, who is also a bartender at the Comedy & Magic Club, said the Monday night shows have become a haven for comedians. In addition to improving his own craft with the recurring stage time, he’s able to share notes with comedians he’s long admired, such as Lachlan Patterson (of “Last Comic Standing” fame) and Nick Vatterott (a regular on Conan and Jimmy Fallon). But mainly, he said, he comes back for the fish.

“It’s a space thing —  it’s just set up well,” Traven said. “And the fish, everyone talks about the fish. It’s a weird thing. The rest of the restaurant is kind of foresty, trees everywhere, and the downstairs is all super nice. And then there’s that weird little room. It’s like they had all this weird stuff that they had to put up somewhere, and they had these fish, so they put them up. What else are you going to do with them?”

The fundamental constant has been Carter, who leads off every night and introduces each comedian between their sets. He’s honed his own act, but what has evolved perhaps, even more, is his work as a host. He is of the “anything goes” school, not just of comedy, but of living. He’s played with the very form of what a live comedy show can be.

“One of the best things I did, I used a girl’s Bumble account [a ‘hook-up’ app, akin to Tinder], and I told all her matches to meet me for a drink tonight at Pancho’s, ten o’clock, wear a red T-shirt so I know who you are,” Carter recalled. “So I started the show at 9 p.m. saying, ‘Ladies and gentleman, anyone who shows up at 10 o’clock wearing a red T-shirt is going for this girl right here.’ And at 10 o’clock, 14 guys come in wearing red T-shirts. They don’t know they are walking into a comedy show; they just go straight to the bar and order a drink — a group of dudes in red t-shirts, all around the bar. And two of them have become regulars, always coming back to the show. ‘Alright, you got me.’” With our tinder gold mod apk, you can get all the benefits of tinder gold without having to pay a penny. That’s right, with our Tinder MOD (Gold, Platinum) you can enjoy all the premium features for free.

Another time, Carter posted a notice on Craigslist, saying that a production of Peter Pan was looking for actors and holding an open audition at Pancho’s. He asked that actors show up at 9:30 in costume as either Captain Hook or Peter Pan.

“I didn’t see it, but I was told one guy showed up dressed as Peter Pan, walked in, went, ‘No way,’ and bolted immediately,” Carter said.

His responsibility for the room extends to filling it, and his method is grassroots: he does a Sunday pub crawl, sometimes with Traven, and drums up a crowd on foot, by mouth.

“It’s what I call my Sunday’s Pancho’s Promoting Pub Crawls,” he said. “I just go out to bars in Hermosa and Manhattan, and everyone I meet, I tell them about the show… If I see them at the bar and they are out of town people, I’ll try to make them laugh a couple times, and then we’ll be friends. ‘What do you do?’ ‘I’m a comedian.’ ‘When can I see you?’ ‘Tomorrow night, Pancho’s.’ It almost always works.”

He also uses this method for his own romantic ends. If the show starts late on any given Monday, the chances are it’s because he’s waiting for that one girl he especially invited. Usually, she shows. Sometimes, he’s found more than one special girl.

“Other times, I’ll invite like eight girls and they’ll all show up and I’ll wind up with zero,” Carter said. “So that doesn’t work, but it makes the show pretty good.”

Of course, this is often as much about couches as it is romance.

“Some guys go to bars looking for a girl to hook up with. I mainly go looking for a bed to sleep in,” Carter said. “And that would probably come with a girl’s shower with lots of awesome soaps and shampoos. And the ultimate situation would be if they had a puppy to play with.”

There’s a downside to this approach, as well: a displeased woman always knows where she can find him.

“I can avoid her on Instagram or Facebook, but I will always be here every Monday,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do about that.”

He’s fine with it. Like many comedians, he lives a life that almost invites bedlam. It’s all about what one can bring to the stage, which is a truth that is tied into why Monday nights at Pancho’s have become a destination for comedians.

“Because this is what we do,” Carter said. “We feel incomplete for the day if we didn’t get up on stage. But if we get up and do 10 minutes we feel great, as long as it goes well…Your car was stolen, doesn’t matter; you made a joke about your car being stolen, all worth it. I mean, anything bad that happens to me, I’ll turn it into something fun. I’ll put myself in terrible situations, just to try to get material.”

Some of the regulars have become a part of the show. One guy known among the comedians as “Bluetooth Cowboy” frequently sits up front wearing a cowboy hat and a headset; one couple shows up almost every week and makes out. The comedians often use this as material; each time the couple seems to get offended but then returns to do the same thing the next week.

“For those two people, this show is their aphrodisiac, for whatever reason,” Carter said. “Whatever turns you on, right? You want to come to my show and make out, I don’t care. It’s better than heckling.”

Former Lakers coach Phil Jackson was a regular for a while. He’d come and eat dinner downstairs, then stand at the same place by the bar at the same time each week, usually during the fourth and fifth slot in the lineup. Comedians started requesting “the Phil Jackson spot.”

“We’ve had an NBA champion, a Super Bowl champion, a college basketball champion and college football champion, a Heisman trophy winner, an Oscar winner, and a Cy Young winner, all in this room,” Carter said.

Carter thinks Pancho’s has prepared him to host his own television show. Pleasing bar owners, he said, isn’t unlike pleasing a network —  his success is measured by drinks sold, rather than ratings, and the margaritas are flowing every Monday night.

The greatest regular of all is Elba Lopez, the sweet-natured server who is one of Pancho’s ongoing treasures and has watched the show grow from day one. She said every night at Pancho’s is fun, but the special feeling in the air every Monday is unique.

“Everybody is so happy. People come early now and reserve tables sometimes. Danno does a good job,” she said.

“This,” Lopez added, “is the best night.”

Carter said that the intention of Pancho’s comedy night is simple.

“No one makes me laugh more than my cousins, my high school buddies, and my college friends,” he said. “I’ve tried to create an atmosphere at Pancho’s where it feels like that —  we are all friends and family, laughing together.”

Pancho’s Comedy Night’s fifth year anniversary begins at 9 p.m. March 19 (3615 Highland Ave., MB). Danno Carter also performs March 30 at the Ice House Comedy Club (24 N Mentor Ave, Pasadena).

Photos by “Captain Mitch” Cohen. Click any photo for full screen gallery

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