embarrasado

It's Friday and I'm just now getting around to writing about Wednesday (I've been too busy at work to blog, this job's getting in the way of my goofing off...). Anyway the show at LL was pretty cool. I mean the crowd was larger than normal, and because the Forum was having it's open mic, there were fewer comics. Usually when I have a good set at the Bone, I follow it up with a lesser-quality set somewhere else. Not Wednesday. I brought the confidence, brought the mic-control and brought the funny. To pay homage to Kirsten Dunst, I brought "it". I did the single material again, but forgot one new bit I wanted to do. Pete Lytal and I had talked about my going skiing in February, so I did my ski/ride jokes, and my snowboard pants bit went over. I wasn't even plannig on doing it before the show started, and it came out with new phrasing, and it worked well. Anyway, at the end of the night (I actually stayed to the end) they let this drunk guy named Ed up. He did about 3 minutes of what I'll call, non-funny non-jokes. Strangely enough, though, the guy had good mic control. He held it right, was audible (except for the slurring) and kept his voice at a reasonable volume level. Ken called up the performers who had good sets (Nikki Glacer, Tom Shelton, drunk guy Ed, and two others that escape my memory) and awarded the 25 semolians to Nikki Glacer.
Laughs next week will be my first chance to get on stage, as I am going out of town Sunday for a float-trip vacation with my family and won't be back until Wednesday. Since I'll be in the "Great" out doors, chances are I won't be blogging anything...

comic's night out

It's Wednesday night, but I want to talk about Monday. Why? Because if I talk about tonight, I won't have anything to do at work tomorrow. Monday was a show at Ricky's in St Charles, and the crowd was pretty much 100% comics. A curse word slipped out, and the flood gates flew open. Typically I work clean ons stage, though I curse in real life. The way I look at it though, is no one keeps track of strike outs and home runs in spring training, so I'm not counting Monday.
*sigh*
I don't even like sports...

return of the king

During the open mic meeting that takes place before every show, they called my name while reading the list. It took me quite by surprise since I wasn't on the internet-copy of the list. The only reason I can think that he would have added me is because the GM at Gold's gym said she'd come watch a show. I gave her passes and told her to make reservations since she said she was going to bring a big group from the gym. I didn't see her last night, and no one came up to me and said they were from the gym, so if they made reservations and they no-showed, that might make me look bad, but for now, I was on the list.
I went up 8th or so; the crowd wasn't very big, I'd venture a guess of 40 to 50. But I went up with the with what I want to call a more commanding presence. I did a bunch of the same jokes I've been doing, dating stuff mainly, I added in my virginity/fear factor joke, my sports and sex joke (which I tagged the crap out of, using almost everything I've written for that) and my Marcus-itus joke, which I think needs some tweaking. I've been running the same material because I am trying to get a four to five minute chunk of dating material. Then I'll work on a 4-5 chunk or work material, then college, and so on… I'm also working more on stage presence than the simple recitation of jokes, and I think it's paying off. Anyway, I got audible laughter, and think I had a pretty good set. After my set, a lot of people congratulated me, which was awesome because I haven't had "energy" or "confidence" on stage in forever, and that set really helped, especially since the crowd didn't seem very forgiving most of the night.

not funny

Just so people know my computer won't post (which mean it won't turn on properly). So I am not able to do much with the website at the moment.
I think I'm going to buy an apple.
Then possibly a banana.
Word.

better late than never

Last night I was on stage for the first time in about two weeks. I skipped last week's show on the landing to watch Mike Birbiglia at the Westport Bone. My show with Tom Milster at Bel Air Bowl was canceled, and Maggie O'Briens started too late for me to participate. No one told me the bowling alley show was canceled, probably because no one knew. When I arrived at Bel Air Bowl, I walked to the lounge where I saw some sort of Rotary thing going on. Not wanting to disturb the group, I went back to my car to take a nap. At one point, I called the bowling alley and asked if they had any comedy going on tonight. They said "no", hmm, thanks for the update. Eventually Tom showed up and we hung out in the bowling alley waiting in case anyone showed up (like Stevie P or Brandan from the last one) so we could tell them it was canceled. No one did. Afterwards I went over to Maggie O'Briens and hung out for a bit. The group there wanted to wait for the ball game to end, but I wanted to go to bed, so I split. I kind of have issues with performing in front of a crowd. It's one thing if people COME to see a comedy show, like an open mic or an actual show. But to hole-up in someone's bar and all-but-force them to watch/listen to comedy can be annoying. Especially if that someone is already drunk, coming from a baseball game, and just wanting to drink more.
As for last night, I had three friends show up, Tim Brown and Dorinda (Nordeen) Staton. Tim was my RA in college, and Dori and I were RAs together. Dori also brought her husband, Jeremy. I had a cheat sheet ready to go on the stool because I wanted to try a couple new dating jokes, but I never used it (nice!). I also feel that I was WAY more conversational with my tone and related well to the audience.

becoming human

Ok, I had every intention of dropping down to about one post a week, in hopes of not being so… philosophical, but last night was too cool to not blog.
I was hanging out at Westport before the show, listening to some comics talk. Mike Birbiglia, Bob Biggerstaff and John Roy were talking about rooms in New York and LA. At the end of the conversation, I introduced myself to Mike, as was planning on hanging out that week and I didn't want him to think I was stalking him. Mike asked if I was a comic, I said I was, and then he asked how comedy was going for me. I didn't want to give a generic answer like "Good, good" but I also knew he wasn't asking for my life's story, so I said something like "Not bad, you know, ups and downs". I tried to give the overall impression that I was enjoying comedy but I'm not at the level I would like to be at. Now, I was kind of surprised that Mike took the time to ask HOW comedy was going for me, so I was floored when he continued the conversation. I don't remember exactly how it went, but I mentioned how I was having problems finding my voice. Mike then had me tell him one of my premises. I used the dumped via email one, because (I feel) it's quick and easy to understand. Mike had me tell him the joke. He didn't laugh audibly, but he did say it was a funny joke. Then he had me tell the story how I would tell it in normal conversation (as opposed to how I would tell it trying to get laughs). I guess you would say he wanted me to tell it trying to get understanding. I did. Then he said, tell me the joke, word for word, but use the tone and manner from the way you told the story. I did. Like I said, I don't remember what all he said, but he was basically showing me how he delivered jokes on stage. Not like a "hey, and here's a punch line", but a "now I've got you interested (and relating with me, the comic) and here's a twist". He said it was like selling something, using a trick called the Bait and Switch. He's right, a good salesman is the one who can appeal to your humanity, not one who talks fast and overwhelms you with information. In regards to talking too fast, he referenced an interview with Jerry Seinfeld on Laugh.com, I have to check that out.
Mike also tagged my email joke on the spot and gave me some advice on how to roll with a joke and not "stop when you want the audience to laugh" but "stop when the audience is laughing". There's also a timing trick he said to keeping the laughter at a certain level by starting a joke as the laughter is coming back down (not starting when the laughter is done, but when it's about 1/3 of the way down on its decent). Like in Tennis, Mike said, you want to hit the ball, when it's about 2/3's of the way up after a bounce. Keeping the crowd laughing too hard will wear them out, and letting the laughter die will make could lose the audience.

false advertising

Last night at the Bone my friend and fellow comedian Paul Harris asked why my blog wasn't funny. That's a good question, and one I plan to discuss at a later date…
I wasn't on last night, so I did a Bucket of Fish. Kevin Patterson stopped me last night and said he hadn't seen my site in a while, so he was checking it out and saw the comic. He was complimentary (You could learn a lot from Kevin, Paul) which is always cool to hear.
Anyway, back to the "funny business". Why aren't I funny in this blog? I don't know, I usually just try to talk about what's going on with me, and I usually don't see that as being funny, I guess I don't have my "filter" on at all times. Mike Birbiglia has his secret public journal in which he talks about his everyday life and it's very funny, but I'm no Mike Birbiglia…
To me, my life seems a little boring, allow me to explain; right now I'm typing this at work, on the clock, flagrantly abusing my company's internet bandwidth. I have headphones on so I don't have to hear my coworkers talking on the phone (they're supposed to be calling Doctor's offices, but when the topic of car insurance comes up a hundred times in a conversation, I'm pretty sure they're not talking to someone's OBGYN). I don't work on the phones anymore, which rocks. I'm what's called a Business Analyst. What I do is, I make charts and graphs, organize data, construct databases, manipulate queries and basically "dork it up" professionally. I love it. It's like problem solving all day, the problem is, I get too excited about my few accomplishments. Some days, I'll be working on a query for hours and the logic will escape me, so I get errors, duplicate records and all types of annoying computer messages: "member already exists in an object module from which this object module derives". Anyway, I overcome these obstacles and like I said, I get excited. Too excited. I've been known to jump up, throw my arms in the air and make a happy noise like "Oh yeah!". My coworkers will look at me with annoyance (because I'm interrupting their long distance phone call) and I'll sheepishly slink into my seat mumbling, "I found the one to many relationship and avoided a key conflict". The only thing worse that the look my coworkers give me is the look my boss gives me when I'm blogging on the clock. I know because I'm getting that look now.

So the moral of this blog is:
Making long distance phone calls at work. Good
Blogging: Bad

cinqo de comedio

Last night I showed up at Laughs on the Landing, and Ken Jr and Mike Manker were already there. Mark Faegenbutz and another guy (John something) showed up eventually. And that was it, comic-wise. Turns out, everyone else was probably at the Comedy Forum competition. Ken, Mike and I sat at a table in the back before the show and talked shop, which was pretty cool. We discussed writing, style, stage pressence, and some other stuff. I'd not talked to either about those types of things, so it was neat to hear what they had to say. We didn't have a big crowd, in fact I think we barely broke 15, but it was fun. Ken Jr was hosting, and I went up second following John. I recorded my set as usualy, and told a story about when I got my hockey helmet and how easy it is to pretend to be retarded while wearing it. I got a couple of laughs, but I'm not a story telling comic, so I think I wasn't doing it right. When I tell the same story in person, usually people laugh; some things just don't translate onto stage, I feel. Anyway, I did Sex and Sports, Lucky Mike, Clean Comedy, and some other stuff that slips my mind. I was up there for about 10 minutes (we all did extended time because there were only five of us).

New avatar

This week I was on the list at the Funny Bone, so I invited some people from work in hopes that they'd show up and I'd be funny. I ended up being first on the list, and the coworker that showed up was just a couple minutes too late. As for my set, I did my sports and sex bit, saying "if you ask me sports is a lot like sex" to which a girl in the front row said, "because you're not good at either" or something like that. That was pretty much the next sentence I had planned on saying, so I switched it to "well, I'm not exactly a first round draft pick" and finished with an attempt at a rule of three ("I usually watch on TV or play by myself"). Anyway, I also tried my "Lucky Mike" bit, and am hoping to expand it into a larger piece. Anyway, I stayed through the entire show and most everybody had a good set.

*note: At one time I said I wasn't going to do my material in my blog, but since I've been reading past posts and haven't always known what the heck I was talking about I'm goint to attempt it. I know that written humor is different than spoken humor, but still I want to test it out.