Dear Diary,

I wasn't on stage last night, but not to worry, I spent my time trying to slide new jokes into existing setups. I'm having a hard time coming up with new "topics", and at the moment I am really just adding jokes to my current ones (i.e., more skiing jokes, more work jokes). The problem(s) with that; maybe people aren't interested in skiing, and it's hard to add/change jokes and bits I've been doing for a while. New dogs and old tricks or something like that, I guess. Last night was kind of reminiscent of the Boondocker, by which I mean the audience was a bit rough. Monday night I stayed at home and wrote while watching "Brewster's Millions" with Richard Pryor. I'm trying to get into a habit of writing at home; I've been writing in bars and clubs for so long, it's weird to be in my living room on a comfy couch instead of in a smoke-filled room on a crappy chair. Writing with television on kind of reminds me of college, when I would do homework with cartoons and comedy central on. Back then I used to watch standup about 6 hours a day (I had tapes and tapes full of recorded specials and Premium Blends). Nowadays I don't watch much standup on TV, because I am either not around or my roommate has the remote. I'm not sure if I would watch much if the conditions were changed, as I get pretty afraid of subconsciously lifting someone else's material. Plus I get tired of the “why didn’t I think of that” stuff that goes along with seeing a really clever comic. I think the real trick to writing that I have to get used to is, that writing is like gambling. You keep “playing” though you won’t win every time, and the more you play the better chance of hitting the jack pot.

Crossing the border

Last night I went over to Fairview to catch John Garrison MC-ing at the Funny Bone in Fairview Heights. He was working with Johhny Kavanaugh and Mike Lukas. The first show was really good, Lukas apparently has a strong improv background, so he fed off of the audience like a Vampire, just grabbing ideas and occupations and making characters on the spot. He had complete control and threw in call backs to jokes he was writing on the spot. I've seen guys act like that at parties in front of 4 or 5 people, but never on stage in front of 150. During the second show, Brett let me do a spotlight, he said five minutes, but my DVR said I did more like 7. I am always scared of running over, but when I apologized he said he didn't notice. I felt really good on stage, especially compared to the Boondocker; I had a really good energy, and though I messed up a joke or two, the audience was really fun. This will sound weird, but I felt kind of like Brett Clawson on stage, only sober, the way I punched a couple of my jokes. I'll have to listen to the audio to see for sure. I split in the middle of the show; which I hate doing, because I don't want to seem disrespectful to the other comedians. All in all it was a fun night, until someone hit my car, messed up my driver side door and didn't even leave a note. What can I say except; Karma, that's what I get for leaving early...

Were the midterms hard?

Last night I picked up Paul Harris in Westport and we drove into St. Charles to meet Bill Davis. The three of us were going to ride to New Haven where Joe was having a show at the Boondocker. We arrived and were eventually joined by Joe and Dano Sullivan. I kind of knew the show would be rough, last time I was in New Haven it was a hard show. I told Joe I would be glad to host knowing I'd "eat it" but hoping I'd get the crowd settled for some comedy. I did eat it, for about 12 minutes, but sadly the crowd wasn't ready for Joe when I called him up. Joe was on stage for about 4 or 5 minutes when he said "F&$% it" and got off. Paul was next, and thankfully he brought his guitar; it's hard to heckle a guy with a guitar (they'll just play on). Oh yeah, there was a heckler, and some people in the front weren't even facing the stage. Yeah, Thanks for coming out. Paul did well and did about 15 or so. Dano was next and made it 20-something minutes and bailed because of the audience. Then Bill Davis went up and did about a half hour. Sadly, Dano's screaming at the audience didn't get their attention, so Bill's more laid back approach wasn't very well recieved. All in all, it may have been one of the worst nights of comedy I've been privy to, however. I'm not upset I went however, I look at it like this, shows that horrible will make me appreciate my time on a real stage. As Tyler Durdan said in fight club, "Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessel's life, his breakfast will taste better than any meal you or I have ever tasted!"

on being ready

I'm not sure why, but last night I really couldn't concentrate on comedy. I was at the Funny Bone and all, but I couldn't settle down to write or be creative or be productive at all. This weekend, Mike Armstrong said that he'd like to work with me again but to get any 'real' amount of work I'd need another 10 minutes or so. I have to admit that's kind of intemidating, as I've been doing comedy serious for about 2 years and have maybe15 minutes of material I can present all at once (sometimes I leave stuff out or forget stuff). Back in Minneapolis, I was doing crappy jokes just to fill the 5 minutes on stage, and I'm kind of afraid I might start doing that to fill the rest of 20 or 25. I've heard it said before that starting (featuring) too early is the best way to quit featuring; or something like that. Basically if you're not ready, you could be digging a hole for yourself.
I did manage to pick up some more passes for Tuesday nights, and I have plans to go buy some sort of stamping device so I can plaster my website on the back of them so
1) people who get the passes are more likely to visit the website and
2) the staff at the Funny bone know who gave those people their passes.
I mailed some passes to my Accountant and everyone from Alexander and Associates, it would be cool if they showed up...

It's funny because it's true

I tried to do this yesterday, but I felt very uninspired sitting in front of my computer after my roadtrip to Springfield. I think I may be conditioning myself to where I only 'blog' well when I'm at work. Stupid Pavlov.
This weekend I opened for Mike Armstrong Mike's a former police officer from Kentucky and one of the nicest/craziest people I've ever met. He works clean also, which was really cool. I told him about my responce to the idea that working clean is a limitation, which is: "Working clean is like running with weights around your ankles, it may be harder, but it sure makes you a better runner". The shows at the Funnybone in Springfield were fun. First show friday was great, I got it on tape, but wasn't zoomed in enough for my liking. I did put it up on the media page in Mp3 format, though. Second show friday threw me a bit, as I changed up the order of my set and had to look at my cheat sheet twice. That really bugs me, as I haven't had to do that in a very long time, even with new stuff. Friday night, I hung around Breaktime (the FunnyBone's bar/dancefloor area) with Don Bassford, Jr ("Junior"). Special thanks to Anita and Nikki for teaching me how to dance.
Saturday Mike and I grabbed breakfast and bummed around the mall. I got a tie clip! We joked around a lot, and he kept saying I should use stuff on stage, and finally convinced me to add a couple things, which I did Saturday second show. Then I grabbed some lunch with Anita and watched some Jamie Foxx standup, which was clever but surprisingly dirty. I don't know why that surprises me, but it does. I went running around 5, showered and showed up at the club. Both saturday shows were fun, and I felt I had a really good set second show. I'll probably be posting that to the media page when I get my video software back on my computer. One thing I wouljd like to mention is that the crowds in Springfield were very cool, after the show they came up, complimented me and were very appreciative, even after the second show Friday, where I felt I didn't have the greatest of sets...
Anyway the whole weekend was awesome, and I made it home in one piece. Anyway, now it's 8:36am and I need coffee. There's nothing funny about that so...

new toys!

Monday I went to my local Target store and purchased some index cards for 54 cents. While there I decided it would be a good idea to look at Digital Voice Recorders. Now, since I am a dork I should really clarify that "look at" means "stare at until I break down and purchase". I bought an Olympus DVR VN-120 for about 40 bucks. I played with it a bit while doing laundry and after work Tuesday, but the real test came at the Funny Bone. My set was pretty good. Paul Harris said that I started out a little slow, but I built speed and excitement and had the crowd at the end. He was right, about the slow part at least, the jokes I began with were kind of one-liner-ish where the funny depends on the delivery (which has lots of pauses and stuff). I did my dating problems jokes, tried out a couple new college jokes and ended with my Tetris bit. I helped keep time last night with Scott, which was pretty educational because I could really see how frustrating it is when people don't stick to their time.
Anyway, I got home, and using Audacity (an audio capture program), I was able to get my set from the DVR and upload it to the website. If you want to do something similar, download Audacity at the link provided, you'll need this Dynamic Link Library, Lame.dll. Anyway, you can listen to my set here.

I'll add one, I guess

The previous post took me almost all morning to compose at work.
For those who don't know, I was an English major in college, and writing papers about random topics with little to no resources was one of my specialties (my degree is a BS in English, after all). That's what I consider the previous post, just a paper expressing my thoughts; since the post rambles a bit and doesn't have a recognizable thesis, nor a good closing paragraph, I don't expect more than a "C-".

I ramble a lot, huh?

I'm trying something kind of new with comedy this week; I'm sitting down and writing. I have the worst habits when it comes to writing, or I would if I actually wrote. I'm not saying others write for me, what I am saying is that when an idea pops in my head, I write it down, but I hardly ever "just" write. I brainstorm when driving and when at clubs, but when I'm at home I get distracted. Between episodes of Futurama and chores around the house, I get a little too distracted to write regularly.

New jokes are amazing. As a comic there is nothing more exciting and more scary than a new joke. They're like rollercoasters; it could be a lot of fun, but there's a chance you could be thrown from the car and horribly mangled or killed. Sometimes a joke won't work; it could be the wording, it could just be the joke or it could be the audience. Sometimes, one word can make or break a joke, sometimes it's how you stress certain parts, sometimes it's delivery. Some jokes that aren't "written funny" can be delivered in a way that works. Sometimes a joke just isn't funny, I remember some stuff I wrote in Minneapolis about driver's education classes, it never got great (any) laughs, even now I don't think they could be salvaged.

There is a bad side to new jokes, too. Getting new jokes means dropping old ones. And for me, that sucks because when you're only doing 5 minutes a week (if that) it gets hard to change up and "rotate" your jokes. I'm not saying I have a great voluminous library of jokes, but it gets hard to make sure that certain jokes don't go untold for too long. The solution is to go on stage as much as possible, and try to expand that 5 minutes into 10 or 15 or 20. The problem with that is apparently not all stage time is good time. I use to think it was, and at that point of the game, I think I was right. But now that I've gotten more "comfortable" on stage, I need to work on voicing my jokes. One of the guys at Westport quoted James Johann for me, "You do [crappy] clubs you become a [crappy] comic". I used to do a room called the Red Sea, which was terribly fun at the time, and it was a great chance for me to work on the wording of my jokes and memorize set orders and stuff like that; but the audience wasn't always, well, an audience. If I were to do the Red Sea nowadays, I am afraid that that-kind of vibe would alter how I deliver my set, and if done on a regular-enough basis, that 'change' might become the norm for how I work onstage.

I've read and reread this entry a half a dozen times to make sure it makes sence, and that I'm not completely full of it... (I usually have a disclaimer about how I don't know what I am talking about, I just say what makes sense to me)... The only thing I can come up with is; writing is fundamental to comedy; stage experience is essential to stand-up. Being a good writer allows one to arrange jokes in a communicable fashion, but having stage experience allows one to write in their "voice" and to deliver material that fits that person. The two appaerntly go hand in hand. There are way too many variables to keep track of in comedy, I guess the people who are best of it either keep control of said variables or don't consciously bother with them. The mere fact that so many variables exist makes comedy a science, but the creative way comedians handle comedy and crowds make them artists.
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Oh yeah, I wasn't on stage last night... The crowd seemed kidd of big, and I probably would have had fun... I'm working on turning smoe of my existing jokes into a poem; it may not be as funny as the jokes, but it's a fun excercise.

Wash You

Last night Janine Brito headlined a small comedy show at Washington University's "Ursa's Cafe". It was a pretty neat little cafe where people could get wraps and smoothies and such college foods. Anthony Joplin convinced Janine and Ken Jr to let him host, and Gabriel Kea, Tommy Chamberland, Joe Lehnig, Matt Wolff and I all did some time. I had a blast, even though I was only on for about 5 minutes... I did my college/spanish jokes and today wrote a couple new college-centered jokes that I need to try out. Last night was pretty cool, and though I parked "illegally" by some parking garage, my car was there when I was done; that's always a bonus. I needed to add a line here, otherwise the avatar to the left displays improperly, so that's why this is here...

a sigh of relief

Last night was the second show at Harry's Hard Times in Montgomery City. Before the show, I went to my brother Jason's and had a steak dinner. I got to Hard Times at about 7:20; where I found Andi and Brett. They had arrived early because they didn't know how lost they might get. I do the same thing, when possible. Anyway, eventually Joe showed up, and a crowd formed. Due to considerable procrastination on my part, the headshots did not arrive to Miller Light every early. And so, the posters that weer made arrived Wednesday. That and maybe a couple other factors caused our crowd to be about 55 people. Same as last time, I started the show, making a couple announcements and then going into my set. I think I was on stage for about 10 minutes, I forgot to do my skiing jokes (I ended up doing them later) and a couple other bits... I would have liked to get them all in one set so I could see how much time I have (maybe in May). I did some new/recent jokes and a couple brand-spanking-new jokes. I also did all the old work jokes, my prom bit from high school. Let me tell you, Montgomery City can't get enough of my tetris bit. I brought Joe up, who was pretty drunk, he did his time and got good responce. After the show, people said he was better than last time, which is always good to hear. Andi Smith either won or lost a paper/rock/scissors game with Brett so she went next.
I honestly don't think Montgomery City knew what hit them; I announced Andi as the funniest female comedienne I've ever seen (and I wasn't lying) and she delivered. People in the crowd said they were amazed at the level of talant I bring to their city. Andy did about 40 minutes, and even included some jokes I'd never heard before (I've mainly only caught her set at open mics, so her time there is usually limited).
Brett told me he could have gotten a full week in Cincinatti, but he had agreed to do my show first, so he only got a weekend there. Brett seemed to have the crowd in control; they didn't talk or get disruptive throughout any of the show, really, but he threw a lot of pauses in (either to make it look like he wa drunk, or because he really was drunk, different audience members later offered their opinions). I tried lighting Brett around 9:45, but he said he wanted to keep going, and Harry the owner, was loving the show, so I let him run. He finished, I closed the show out and we hung around for maybe an hour. All of the comics got posters from the show, but strangely enough, none of us had pens that would work, so we couldn't sign them...
I had an absolute blast last night, and am really happy with the comics I picked. The next show is in May, and I'm hoping to Have Jimmy Rice headline and Tommy Johnagin feature. It's now about 10:06 and I need more coffee...