Last night while writing at the Starbucks in Westport, I came upon a startling discovery; it's not the premise that makes a comedian unique, it's the way he/she presents said premise. I've been sitting on a Halloween premise for at least two months, because I don't know how to word the joke. And since wording and delivery are as or more important than the premise itself, (see here or here for further info) I'm kind of at a loss. I was talking to Janine Brito and I think my delivery has gotten a little stale, and I'm really not sure what to do about it. Acting classes? Red Bull before getting on stage? Buddhist meditation? I realize that some people just aren't cut out to be comedians, but I refuse to believe I fall into that category. It's so frustrating, because most of the advice I hear/read says something like "you'll find it when you find it". Kind of the way Columbus found America while looking for India? If you follow that type of thinking, I'm probably going to end up as a magician or something. Oooh or better yet a ventriloquist who juggles!
As for the crowd last night, there must be something in the water, because the level of apathy in the room last night largely resembled the Bistro on Monday. It wasn't a very good example of crowd size/quality for the two comedians who drove down from Minneapolis. One, Mike Brody, used to run an open mic I hit when I lived in Minneapolis, and the other, Nicholas Anthony, was in Las Vegas last October. It was really cool to BS and catch up on some Minneapolis news (even though I haven't been there in 2 years or so. Anyway, I did my set and may or may not have gotten laughs (I'll have to check the audio), but I distinctly remember mumbling the f-word in the plural vocative1 (ie ****ers) under my breath, I don't think the crowd caught it, but that doesn't matter to me. It's not just the not-being-clean that bugs me, that's also a sign I'm getting frustrated on stage; and there has to be visual signs clueing the audience in. And if they know I'm rattled, I'm not going to sell my jokes.
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1 Vocative: adj : relating to a case used in some languages; "vocative verb endings" n : the case (in some inflected languages) used when the referent of the noun is being addressed.