Tough cliché

As per usual, I showed up at the Funny Bone this week and was ammended to the list, thanks to Brian who throws me up when he's there. I followed Michael Robinson, and was able to finally work on some jokes about my name, Marcus, and how it doesn't sound white. It was a great show, and I enjoyed myself. This week I pulled my first St. Louis "Double" on Wednesday. The Comedy Forum was easily the harshest environment I've ever seen. The crowd was rough and they got bored. I went up 4th, so I didn't have too much trouble, but I stayed to watch a new acquantence, Maurice, do some time, and the crowd was absolutely unruly. I feel kind of bad for Phyllis, who MC'd the evening, as there was no way to expect that type of thing happening. I ventured over to the Red Sea, where I waited for the MC to finish at least 15 minutes on stage. I got on, and was so exhausted, I did maybe 4 minutes. I thanked Anthony and left. Last night was the show at Louie's run by John Garrison. Fate must have been against us, because too few people showed up, and we had to cancel. On the bright side, I get to MC the next show on the 16th of September. I am super excited about it, and will be trying to get at least one new bit polished for it.

Paper, Rock, Scissers

In the spirit of one of the greatest and oldest games on the planet, I am going to have ANOTHER CONTEST!!! Woo. I can tell you're excited. This one is simple, and requires almost no intellegence at all. We're going to play a game of paper, rock scissors. All I need you to do is email me marcus@marcusisfunny.com with a list of 11 rounds of Paper Rock Scissors. I will have already made a list of my 11 choices, so everyone will play against the same selections. It would be nice if teh list were formatted something like:
1. Rock
2. Paper
3. Rock

and so on. I'll see how many people reply and then I'll see what type of competitions there are, like longest winning streak, most wins, most losses and most ties. If you are unclear about what to do, email me and ask. This might be fun... Feel free to read up on the game at wikipedia.

at least I'm not bitter

Last night was the show at the Red Sea. I found out that I'm no longer the doorman, which is kind of good, kind of bad. Now I don't feel so bad cutting out after my set. Jeremy Essig wanted to know about the show Tuesday so I invited him down. As a courtesy I stuck around to watch his set, which was really good even though I saw some of the same material the night before. The bad part (about the show) was sitting through "Silver T" or something like that, who sucked up at least 20 minutes on stage; there might have been a joke in there somewhere, but I probably missed it. That sounds harsh, but that's ok, chances are "T" doesn't own nor know how to operate a computer, so I'm safe. Oh yeah, on my way home last night I got yet another ticket. This one for speeding. 78 in a 60. 2 miles an hour faster and I'd be in jail right now. Anyway, that kind of put a damper on the whole evening, which may explain why I'm 'cranky' right now.
As for my set last night, I'd go with mediocre at best, I was the first comedian up, and I did a bunch of my jokes, tetris finally got the laughs in the right places, so did phonesex. My pharmacy jokes are getting a little better and I did my scavanger hunt joke and threw in a shampoo reference (it's funny because I am bald).

One last thing before I get fired (I'm at work, surprise!) I often mention jokes on this thing (which has been recenly called a 'diary' (I'll get back to that) ), I am not about to write my jokes on here because reading a joke can leave too much room for interpretation and just foul it up. If you want to know what I am talking about, go to a show, they're either free or about 5 bucks. If you let me know in advance and can't afford it, well, I'd offer to pay, but I got this ticket thing...
Finally, it's a blog (short for web log), not a journal, not a diary. I am not some angsty 16 year old girl writing about her secret crushed on coworkers at the Foodland. At least not in THIS blog...

Tickle this

Matt Behrens, who runs the Funny Bone ameteur night (among other things) was unable to post a list of who would be going on stage this week. On weeks like this, usually fewer comics show up, I have no idea why. In any case, with fewer comics and a list being made in the meeting I have increased chances of getting on. I followed Jimmy Rice on stage, which isn't a bad thing, but I was planning on working on some of my 'drinking' material, and Jimmy since Jimmy did his drinking material, I decided to not follow with mine. It's completely a personal preference, some comedians would say to do it and screw what the audience thinks, but I want an honest audience reaction, I don't want them hearing me talk about alcohol and remembering/laughing at one of Jimmy's jokes instead of mine. The best thing about having wrenches thrown in my plans like this is I have to pull a "mid flight recalcultion"¹ moments before I appear on stage. (<--optimism) I did my new pharmacy and lab rat jokes, I wasn't able to workin the new gambling stuff or my recently-resurrected air-hockey joke (that fits nicely with the new Pokémon stuff, I think). I got some decent laughs on my phonesex bit, and threw in some pronounced pauses on my Tetris bit. I closed with [In My Pants]. I spoke to Gabriel Kea again on being a clean comic, he seems to have opinions to share rather than having facts to force upon me. The whole idea of being clean is fascinating to me because it's basically creating a major limitation and saying, "I can't do this or that". Now as for what clean material is... I have no idea. I basic guage is "Would I do this in front of my mom?". Not anyone's mom, or someone's mom; MY MOM. She's heard my testicle bit before and probably laughed at it, sure it's a little descriptive (Gabe says it crosses the line) but if placed properly in a set, I think people would move on and not linger on the fact that I made a blatent reference to the number of reproductive glands between my legs. I do jokes about drinking because that's a fairly common part of life for many people, especially people sitting in a comedy club with a two drink minimum. I tend to avoid jokes about drugs and the use of profanity. I am not against profanity, it's definately a useful tool to grab someone's attention and emphasize how one feels. I could write more on the subject, but I'm at work right now and don't feel like getting fired. I may append this later this afternoon.

1. Midflight recalculation: (n) a. The act of altering one's plans spontaniously, as a pilot would alter a course while flying their plane/helicopter in the air.
b. To manuelly adjust one's "self" while walking

pokémon, air hockey; bad for kids

I just returned Wednesday from a family float trip vacation. It was incredible. I slept outside a couple of nights (on an air mattress, of course) and I felt very relaxed when I returned to work on Thursday. Wednesday night was a show at the Forum, I went up "blind" again and everything went pretty well. I'm working on a new Pokémon joke and I need a big kick at the end, but it'll come. Last night I went to the Bone to see Mark Lundholm and the show was amazing. I think I am going to start going to the Bone on Thursdays to see more comics. I really enjoy seeing both sides of comedy (ie, what normal people experience, the "That was funny" part, and what comics experience, the "That joke must have taken years, look at that slight movement with his hand and change in his voice, wow" part).

welcome to good burger, home of the good burger, can I take your order?

I guess once a week is about as often as I am going to update this thing. Today is Wednesday, which means I was at the Funny Bone last night. They put me on, for a record 5 times in a row. I decided to bring out almost everything I worked on in the writing workshop, mostly jokes about working at a pharmaceutical company and being a lab rat. My personal thanks go to John Garrison who helped me with a really good comparison between the two aspects of the drug indistry. As a side note I'd like to mention I used to not accept any writing help from others (both comedians and non-comedians), the class taught me that you almost have to accept help.
Last night was also kind of weird because a comedian Tommy Chamberlain was talking to before the show and told me about a joke he was working on about getting fired from an "adult phone line" (my words, not his) for various customer service reasons; anyway, while making a trasition from new material to my own phone sex bit I basically used what would have been Tommy's punch as my setup. As soon as I got off of stage, I apologized to Tommy, who may have been more angry than he let on. I also expressed my distress (alliteration?) to Matt Behrens. I didn't want him to think I was stealing someone else's material. That's a cardinal rule, that and not drinking too much before getting on stage, but I think I've already covered that one.
Just for a City of Heroes update, I gained a new power, FLY, and it rocks. I like to fly around and "buzz" other players and NPCs. I have 4 characters in my account now, Webblock, Major Danger, Big Pyro Guy (named after the initials of the neighbor kids who play that character, Brendon, Peter, and Giovani ("G") ) and Falcon Carson, named after a song by the Gluey Brothers.
Mental note: must buy Good Burger; it has Keenan, Kel AND Sinbad!!!