I have an alibi

Last night I made the list, which shocked me because I was just on a couple weeks ago, but I'm not going to complain… Moments before the show started, Scott Avery asked me to keep time until he closed down the box office. I sat down at the back table and tried to compose a set list (I wanted to end on my 'new' porn joke, and staring at a cheat sheet helps me remember stuff like that). I wasn't able to study a whole lot or prep myself for the stage (I was on 11th) because when Scott showed up, I ended up sitting with a friend who met me at the show, I didn't want to study in front of them, so I paid attention to the show. My set went pretty well; I went up with confidence and led off with the Ferrari joke adding the phrase "what the crap" which punched my disgust up a bit (later, someone commented on how it was an odd yet effective phrase (my words, not theirs, they were D-runk). I skipped my Lotto tickets joke and Sports and Sex Comparison (which was intended to lead into my porn joke). Instead I asked the crowd if they were drinking, being the 11th comic they had time to drink so they indicated they were quite loudly. I did my I quit drinking joke, which is really 2 or three lines. I'm not sure when they lit me, but I went straight to my "I like porn" joke and when I stepped off stage, my DVR said 4:05 or so. After the show, my friend and I went over and judged the karaoke contest at the BackStreet Jazz and Blues club. Scott Avery, who did Rat's Round and Round won by a landslide thanks to his drunken jump kicks and a considerable amount of vodka.

Excuses excuses...

Last night, I didn't get out of my condo until about 9. Usually I'd be at Main Street Bistro and getting my game face on around 8… When I showed up, Jim Stout was there; I've only seen Jim once before since I stopped going to the Comedy Forum. We BS'd a bit and then the show started, he didn't seem to have any hard feelings about my not going to the Forum anymore. Clayton brought up Tom, Gabe, Kyle and then myself. I was afraid I'd have to work blue again because of the small crowd size, and Milster said that I should go with what I'm comfortable with (which is working cleaner on stage). Anyway, I'd say I was about PG-13-ish because according to Chili Palmer, you can drop the F-bomb once and still retain PG-13 status. Anyway, I was up for about 7 or 8 minutes, I think, and then I had to get off. I really need to plan ahead if I am going to do longer sets, because my jokes had little to no continuity to them. I'm actually on the list tonight so I'll be at the Funny Bone (truthfully, I'd be there anyway).
LL tomorrow.

I need my fix...

Ok, so I missed my usual Wednesday blog about Tuesday, but I did so for decent reasons; they didn't have an open mic, Tuesday. I think they had auditions for entertaining on Carnival Cruise Ships. In any case, I didn't go and I missed Wednesday's show at LL because I was in Columbia. To make up for it, I put out an Bucket of Fish, my first in over a month. I also re-designed the Bof Interface, so that it isn't "powered" by blogger.com anymore. Blogger just didn't offer the navigational tools I want to the comic strip. Now I am using a program I wrote this weekend which creates the linking codes to give me "First / Previous / Next / Last" buttons under the comic strip. I'm obviously still using blogger.com for this, because it's the best tool for the job. Anyway, I haven't done anything comedy-wise in about a week, and am feeling rusty. But tonight's the Main Street Bistro with Clayton Champagne and others, so that should help.

Not very Smurfy

Last night I was hanging out at the Main Street Bistro and Clayton Champagne let me go up first. Since the crowd wasn't very attentive, and since Clayton works pretty blue, I knew that I need to get some attention. And so I dirtied up my set, a lot. I tried to avoid the f-bomb, but would have to listen to my set to see if I used it or not. I was also more aggressive, I remember thinking that I was talking extremely fast; and there were a couple times I either slurred, mispronounced or stumbled over words, but I tried not to back up and correct myself; (and that was really hard to do). In anycase, I did probably 10 minutes (there weren't a lot of comics there) a bunch of which I haven't done in a while. Needless to say, I won't be posting the audio. I stuck around for Andrew Faasen and Robyne Leisti's sets.

now THAT'S scary!

I left my condo around 7:30pm in order to catch the 7:55 train to Laclede's Landing. And It took like 30 minutes to get there, and my return trip at the end of the evening was just about as bad. So I spent about 2 hours going to and from the Landing for 8 minutes on stage. It's a good thing I don't have anything better to do with my time...
I tried out my porn jokes last night, somewhere in the middle of my set and they got a decent responce; I think my Ferrari joke is loosing momentum, which is dissapointing. I added a part, which I refer to as "Hungry Bum", but I doubt that it becomes part of a regular set. Which is sad, because I wanted to talk about a Hungry Bum breaking into my car to steal McNuggets. Then again, you can't always get what you want... but if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need... Anyway, I had to split around 10:15 or so because I had to catch the next train back to the N. Hanley station (where I left my car). Some of the other comics have said that I am crazy for riding the MetroLink, and my ride back to my car almost confirmed their beliefs. When I got on the train, there were some unsavory characters on the car with me, but it didn't get scary until our fourth or fifth stop, when a couple hundred drunk, smelly cardinals fans got on the train with us. So for the next half hour (they all got off at my stop, how convenient) I got to listen to white-trash talk about whatever-it-is-that-white-trash-talk-about, also I saw a fat teenaged girl almost fall over every time the train started or stopped. After she almost fell, she'd grab the hand rail (which is useless once the train has reached a constant speed). Noticing she didn't have to hold on, she'd let go, just in time for the train to slow down (or speed up) again. Sadly I will be missing any Metrolink Shenanigans next week because I'll be in Columbia for the Dr. Zhivegas concert on 9th Street.

Pimp my Blog

Woohah. Everyonce in a while I get an idea for some webpage feature I want to add to the site. More often than not, I don't know how to do it, so I have to ask for help. Well this week, I wanted to change how the avatars here in the blog look. I wanted to put them up by the title and date, kind of how the guys at Penny Arcade do it. Doing that, though would require putting an image tag (img src=) in the blog template and then I wouldn't be able to use all the different avatars I have… Seriously where's the fun in that? So I asked some guy named c0l0rad0 and he hooked me up. Now, the avatars rotate in sequence, 001,002,003 and so on. Anyway, it's a new(er) look to the blog and I'm excited. I'll talk about Wednesday's comedy a little later today, I just wanted to point out the update.

www.ThisIsMyFerrari.com

Last night at the Funny Bone, Dano Sullivan was hosting, and Bill Davis was the first comic to follow. Near the end of Bill's set, I noticed that no one "on deck". I went over and sat down since I was third on the list. Sure enough, the second guy (who I've never heard of / seen before) wasn't ready (or willing?) when his name was called. Dano did another minute or two and called me up. I had a good set, more comedians told me I looked comfortable or confident. Kevin Patterson gave me a possible tage I could use, Gabriel Kea told me I moved a lot, but only from my waist up (I had a neck cramp, so when I tried looking left or right, my whole body moved instead of just my head), and Chad Huff gave me some advice about blowing through one of my bits too quickly. My set order was a little mixed up, instead of starting with the Ferrari bit, I put it in after my dating stuff, and I closed with my pharmacy joke, which doesn't have the punch needed for a closer. Anyway, I'm still looking for a closer. I was surprised to get home and have power, so in celebration I watched Family guy and Futurama (the very first episode) and went to bed. My ceiling fan made the room kind of cold, but I left it on all night out of principle. Tonight I brave the MetroLink again to get to Laughs on the Landing. Hopefully I'll figure out how to read the schedule so I know how late I can/have-to stay.

Cold Shower Tuesdays

Last night at the Main Street Bistro (formerly known as Ricky's on Main) I was the first comedian up, except for Clayton Champagne the host and MC. In the workshop, Jeremy and Matt suggested that I expand on my Make-a-wish opener. Typically I say "Come on you guys can do better than that, this is my make a wish"; the problem is sometimes people don't hear the second part, so my opener looses it's comedic effect. That happened last night, so when I delivered the second half of that joke, no one knew what I was talking about. I think I should say "Come on, this is my make a wish, you guys can do better than that".
Last night I also tried out a bit on pornography. Porn jokes coming from a "clean" comic? Aww yeah. I also did my new alztimer's joke, which is a little dark and since it puts my grandma (who is actually suffering from Alztimer's) as the "victim" (for lack of a better word) of the joke, seems mean. I trimmed the fat on my Funeral joke and dropped it to a one-liner, which got groaned, kind of. And I closed with my "Black Name" joke. I need to stop doing that one for a while, so I don't accidentally do it at the Funny Bone. I'd really like to get a spotlight there, and Behrens says I won't get one with that joke.

Oh yeah, I don't have any electricity at my Condo, and haven't since Saturday afternoon. That's nearly 3 days without electricity. I don't have any flashlights, my TV is useless, the fridge is broke and I can't do laundry so I'm wearing my "old" clothes that aren't exactly in style; I'm about two degrees away from being Amish. Anyway, Tonight's the Funny Bone; I need to figure out what I want to close with.

The fall of Marcus

The fall of Marcus? Over-dramatic much? It's Friday and I'm just getting around to talking about Wednesday. I switched it up a bit on the way to the Landing, in many ways. One I forgot my cell phone at home, and didn't realize I was waiting at the Metrolink station on North Hanley. Two I stopped at the Metrolink at North Hanley. Three I left my wallet, all forms of plastic currency and identification in my cubicle at work. Four, I was late meeting some college friends at LL. More than a couple people questioned my sanity when I decided to ride the Metrolink to the landing, but considering the 25 dollar ticket I got last week, I figure I'd try it once. I hadn't ridden the ML since about 2001 when I saw the Bloodhound Gang at Mississippi Nights (my first concert ever). Anyway, there was comedy involved (sadly, nothing funny on the Metrolink) so I'll get to that now.
Since there wasn't a crowd, the start time at LL got pushed back even later that usual. I'll risk saying we started at 9:30 (I showed up at 9ish, and it was a while before we started). I was planning on hanging out for a while since my friends Dori and Tim came to see me, so going up early wasn't a huge concern for me. There was a plethora of "new" "comics" there that night, and needless to say, by the time I got up I wasn't in the greatest of moods. Also, I don't think the crowd was entirely interested in the show anymore. I hate blaming stuff on the audience, because seriously there's always something I can do better, but sometimes it's a self-fulfilling prophesy. The crowd looses interest, I get upset (for lack of a better word) that I didn't go up earlier, and I loose my rhythm, stumble over words and end up self destructing on stage. Wednesday marks the second time this week I got frustrated, cursed on stage and muttered to myself on stage about a joke didn't work. That doesn't surprise me, I've pulled the same trick with alcohol, cigarettes and Golden Tee (2001 through 2004). When something doesn't work just right, I give up and intentionally do poorly. I've tried quitting smoking a lot of times, and usually when I slip (or fail, whatever) I'll just end up buying a pack of smokes and smoking them all in a couple of hours. After all, you might as well go all out. My friends that came out didn't think I did badly, but as I've said before, I'm very critical of myself and I see things that others probably don't. In any case, I got a ride to my car from my friend Dori, and so I avoided a late night ride on the Metro. I've still got my return ticket and it doesn't expire until the 31st, so I'll be taking it next Wednesday. Until then, I should concentrate on writing I guess. I'd like to bust out a new "Candy/Costume" joke and try my "Hungry Bum" joke. Sometimes the names I give jokes just make me smile. Othertimes, they're very boring, like "FDVP". That name's not funny at all.

D'oh

Last night at the Funny Bone, I had a couple co-workers show up to watch, and one brought some friends, which was cool. I went up 8th or so, and I was moving the microphone to the right-rear side of the stage and I remember something getting caught in my throat. It might have been some soda/spit/mucas or just nerves, but I panicked for about a half a second thinking I wouldn't be able to launch into my set. I swallowed, dislodged whatever was there and by the time I was facing the microphone I was ready. I haven't gotten a chance to listen to my entire set, but I really feel I started out with a "commanding" presence. I really like the way Greg Warren works on stage, he doesn't always have a lot of physical movements, but when he speaks as Greg (instead of one of his relatives/characters) he speaks with authority. I started out (I like to think) like that; I did my new Ferrari joke, which I think I can actually expand a bit on, and went into my usual dating material. However, my Lottery Ticket joke didn't hit at all, so I didn't want to close there, so I did my old closer (the Blackest name joke). Only, when I delivered the punch, I said "the whitest thing about me..." instead of "the blackest thing about me..." so that didn't hit either. I didn't even notice until Gabriel Kea mentioned it to me. Oh well. On a side note, this scene from The Simpsons popped into my head.

Lisa:

...it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt.

Homer's brain:

What does that mean? Better say something or they'll think you're stupid.

Homer:

Takes one to know one.

Homer's brain:

Swish!

For any Simpsons fans out there, I lifted that quote from here.

Hey ricky you're so fine...

Last night I headed over to Ricky's on Main because it's less than 10 miles from my place. Of course it is in St. Charles which requires crossing a bridge and risking heavy traffic and even death, but hey it's comedy right? I showed up early because I wanted to work on some bits that I haven't completely gotten on paper. I did 2 pages of free writing, and by the time I was finished (it took a while) a large group of maybe 10 to 15 people (mostly attractive girls) had come in. I was sitting pretty much in the middle of the "VIP" seating, and so I got up to give them more room. Also I wanted to concentrate a little more on writing. I wasn't very successful in the long run, but I think I came up with one new phrase I wanted to use on stage, I don't remember what it is, but I wrote it down.
(Notepad:1 Memory:0)
Originally I was going to try out a couple new bits and just use my "Spring Training" philosophy, but then that group came in, and soon 7-top of girls showed up, so I decided on just doing the set I've been working on recently. There were only 4 or 5 of us to start, so we had "unlimited time", but I was only planning on doing 5 minutes, because in Random Rooms¹ (like the Red Sea, any Kousamano show, and Ricky's) shorter is always better. Clayton Champagne lead off and MC'd, then Ken Jr., Bill Davis and myself. Clayton, Bill and Ken averaged about 8 to 12 on stage, because we started around 9:30 and I was on by 10:00. My set went well, the crowd was paying attention, which is rare for Random Rooms, and I finally threw in my Comment Cards joke, which I've been wanting to do for weeks. If I'm lucky I'll remember to do it tonight, though I think I need to rework the examples. Hopefully I'll get feedback at the workshop Saturday. After my set, Araj Rojani (I am most definately spelling that incorrectly) went on, I wanted to stick around for Stevie P's set, but I'm so used to getting out of a place by 10 and getting to bed that I didn't even make it to the end of Araj's set (I saw him do about 10 minutes, probably).
The bottom line; I suppose, is; I think I'm almost done working with my dating material for now, if I can record one solid set of every joke I lump in that catagory, I'll try to move on to a different chunk, like work or college or something. My goal is to turn my catagories (like work, dating, college, skiing, drinking) into 4 and 5 minute chunks. This will get me a chance to work on stage pressence and let me re-familiarize myself with my jokes. It sounds a little OCD-ish, I'm sure, but I like working with a plan of action.

¹ Random Room: Any open mic venue that is not specifically designed for stand up comedy; where members of the crowd may not have known there was comedy planned before they showed up.

For Hire

That last post probably read a little like a text book, which is somewhat intentional. I posted a while back about how I bought a ton of books in order to learn some stuff about comedy, like writing exercises and such. Today I got the idea that I might be able to write a book on comedy, trying to add stuff that I feel was left out of of all the books I have. Here's something that popped in my head today. It's based on Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I call it Robinson's Hierarchy of Comedy. Maslow proposed that human's need stuff. Different stuff at different times. The most basic needs like food are at the bottom of a pyramid, and complex stuff (like self actualization) is at the top of the same pyramid and only pertinent when the lower needs are provided for. For example, someone who is hungry and sleepy is less likely to want to reflect on his value in the universe.
My Hierarchy of Comedy works in a similar fashion. First off, something needs to be Funny. If it's not funny, there's no comedy. End of story. After that, there is structure. Structure isn't necessary, but it helps. Right now, structure takes up the entire middle of the pyramid, but I really think it should be about step Two of Five. Five of course being Message. Some comedians have a message in their comedy, like end racism, but no one would care so much if the message wasn't delivered in a funny little package. Anyway, that's all I can really think up at the moment about the Hierarchy. I'll probably have to expand on that quite a bit if I want to write an actual book, but I did just come up with that...

that'll be 10 dollars

Today was the third workshop at the Funny Bone. Today Jeremy Essig talked to us about writing and writing exercises. He gave us three writing exercises; one called Free writing or Morning Papers, where one writes for a defined amount of time or space (like 10 minutes or 2 pages) and doesn't allow the pen to stop moving. It gets out a lot of subconscious thoughts that could potentially result in writers block.
The second exercise Jeremy got from a workshop he attended. It involved bubbles. That makes is sound way reputable, but once I explain, it should make sense. The main bubble contains your topic, or maybe just one part of your topic, and there are connected bubbles in which you answer the five W's (Who What When Where Why). You can also answer "How" and anything else you want, they'e your bubbles. The point of exercise is to come up with as much as you can about a certain topic. It's always important to know what you're talking about.
The third exercise reminds me of college algebra. More specifically the Pythagorean Theorem. The Pythagorean Theorem states that a² + b² = c². Now typically, math is not funny, no matter what my college algebra teacher at MACC said. Instead of the letters standing for the sides of triangles, here "a" stands for one subject, the main subject of your joke. "b" stands for a second, usually unrelated (hopefully somewhat random) noun or idea. In the workshop today, Jeremy used one of my bits as an example: the bit compares being a cashier at Sam's club to playing a game of Tetris. Here, being a cashier at Sam's club is "a", and playing a game of Tetris is "b". "c" of course stands for the speed of light. I mean funny. "c" is funny. The point of this exercise is to create a comparison between two unlikely things, combinging it with the bubble exercise may help.
There was another exercise we kind of touched on, but only briefly when talking to one of the guys in the class about a bit they were working on. Basically it's Role Reversal. If you're working on a joke that involves, say, a mechanic and how they screwed something up, describe the scenario as it happened to you. Then try to retell the scenario as it happened to the mechanic. Being able to tell a joke from a different point of view can make a joke more relatable, and possibly less jarring or offensive.
The underlying theme I think in the exercises above is know what your talking about, which is something Joh Morgan talked about last week, and (I think) supports how I compare comedy to a science. That and respect the Bubble.

Time is on my side, yes it is...

Last night the crowd at LL was pretty good, to begin with. I was lucky enough to go up 4th, and I broke a cardinal rule; I opened with new material. Sunday I was driving on 270 and I saw a Ferrari with tinted windows, and I came up with a premise for a joke. Basically all I had was a rough idea on where I wanted to go, and a couple lines that I wanted to use. Well, Wednesday while waiting for the show, I developed the joke more fully, and felt confident enough to take it on stage. And since I couldn't fit it comfortably anywhere inside my dating material, I opened with it. Just in case it bombed, though, I was going to follow it with my usualy opener to try to recover. Turns out I didn't have to. It worked, and I did the joke exactly how I wrote it. That made me pretty happy. The rest of my set went really well, though I've been wanting to try out a new bit, and I keep forgetting, but oh well. I had the crowd laughing and got through the material I wanted and I bailed at just under 4 minutes. Keep them wanting more, as they say. Ken Jr. said I should stick around as he'd probably pull me into the top 5. Well by the end of the night, the top 5 became the top 9. Out of 18 comics. During the "audience voting" I didn't get the responce I was hoping for, but I did go on at least an hour and a half prior to that, and much of the audience had shifted around, and possibly left, only to be replaced by other audience members. The 9 got dropped to the top 2, between Mark Faegenbutz and a girl who was a first timer. Faegenbutz won. I would have liked to win, mainly to pay off the 25 dollar parking ticket I got for parking down the street, but that's ok.
I'm really happy to have been doing so well as of late, especially since I'm coming off of a dry spell, but I've been doing a decent amount of writing (admittedly, it's not to structured) and I've got 4 or more new bits, all but one of which I'm doing on stage now, and it doesn't seem like I'm gaining any time. I haven't done an extended set in a very long time, and it's weird because it's like I don't know how much time I could do. I have a dozen or so full bits that I haven't done in months, but it's hard sometimes keeping track of them all. I know I'm moving more quickly through my material, but that's because I haven't found a way to keep the my pressence and pace myself. It's frustrating because there are so many dimensions I need to keep track of, just when one starts to improve I realize I've been neglecting another. Chad Huff used to tell me fairly often, that I was too hard on myself, and that I think about stuff too much. I know I'm hard on myself, my theory is, if I'm not hard on myself, who will be. I might as well demand as much out of myself as possible, that way when bookers and clubs demand a lot of me, I'm used to it.

I have no segua for this, but it's been on my mind for a bit;

The scariest thing right now to me is the Wheel of Fortune. Not the game show, I rock at that. Who buys vowels, seriosly? What I'm talking about is the Greek/Latin idea that those who are on top of the world will sink to the bottom, and those on the bottom will eventually get lucky. Everything's cyclical. I'm just afraid that my luck will run out before I can really hit a breakthrough in stage pressence/timing. Then again, being at the bottom only makes one appreciate the top that much more.

/me knocks on wood.

stage presents

Ahh Thursday. I'm back at work after three days off. I tried blogging about the Funny Bone yesterday at home, but it seems I am too accustomed to doing it at work. Stupid Pavlov. Anyway; here goes.
Saturday at the workshop, we had guest speaker John Morgan, the ragin' cajun. He was very cool to listen to and made several very good points about performing your stand-up instead of delivering your it. He invited the class to come check out his show at Fairview Heights. Tom Milster and I were there and the show was pretty cool. Then I checked out Peter Berman at the Midnight show in Westport. Peter actually remembered me from the last time I was in town, which was pretty cool. His show was pretty good, especially for a midnight show.
To Tuesday: Tuesday morning I woke up in a State park on a float trip vacation with my family. The plan was for all of us to float together until about lunch, when I and my sister (and her kids and husband) would split off and haul to get to the pick up early so we could get on the road. Matt Behrens said he'd get me on stage, but I was afraid I wouldn't make it back until 9:00/9:30. We got off the river at 3:00, waited an hour for a bus, took a forty minute bus ride and were on the way out of the canoe-rental lot by quarter 'til five. Long story short, we made excellent time and 20 minutes out of St. Louis we called ahead for Pizza Hut. We got to my sister's and the pizza was practically waiting for us. Anyway, I got in a shower and was at the funny bone by 7:30. I went up about 12th and had a really good set. I worked on the things Behrens brought up in class, and only did about three minutes (there were about 16 comics, so looking back, I'm glad I went a little short). I got a lot of compliments on my set, which rocks because I think my stage presence is coming along. I hung out in the Jazz club a bit afterwards, but split around 11:00pm. I had wednesday off, and spent most of the day catching up on Tivo.