“I did the Paramount, I did the Moore. I felt like I was done with Seattle.” So says comedian Daniel Carroll from his new digs in Astoria, Queens. But he’s not really done with our city. He’s taking over the Comedy Underground for a Boxing Day homecoming show, to be joined by a half-dozen local performers—some recognizable from his old People’s Republic of Komedy days. Speaking by phone, and pausing his daytime viewing of Sweet November (for material, he swears!), Carroll explains how his February move to New York has been a sink-or-swim experience in that city’s ultra-competitive comedy scene. “It’s amazing and terrible at the same time,” he muses. “There’s comedy in every borough.” Already he’s played some of the better clubs in Manhattan. In Brooklyn, he’s encountered the dreaded Williamsburg hipsters and found them to be “pussies” in comparison to back home: “Capitol Hill hipsters are so much more intense than Brooklyn hipsters,” he says. “Not only are they [in Seattle] hip, but they’re mad at you for not being as hip as they are.” And Carroll is enjoying his reprieve from the chilly cult of Seattle nice—strangers actually talk to one another on the sidewalks, he notes approvingly. Then there’s the stimulating supply of potential joke fodder: “I like a shitty cabdriver. I really enjoy it when I see a crazy street person.” Not like here, where people are silently embarrassed and disapproving. (21 and over.) BRIAN MILLER

Sat., Dec. 26, 8 & 10:15 p.m., 2009