Last night was probably the last Weekend Cocktail-Hour Showcase at the Landing for a while. They're going to start bringing in professionals on the weekends to do the shows. There's talk about using the local guys as hosts and stuff so there should still be weekend stage time, and the Thursday night Cocktail-Hour will still be in effect, so the room's changing, probably for the better in the long run.
Adam Lough hosted the show along with myself, Gabe Kea, Nikki Glaser, Mikey Manker and Clayton Champagne. The show went well, started around 10:15-10:30 or so (I'm not entirely sure) and ended around midnight. I'd say we had a crowd of 50 or 60 or more. During my set, about halfway in I blanked on my next joke. I had already done my Ferrari, Motorcycle, EMail, Scorpion, Nervous, Math, and Chubby Chaser and porn jokes and was in the middle of my skiing stuff when I had no idea what was next. I had a cheat sheet, but really didn't want to look at it, and so I shifted back to some dating material and then realized I had some College jokes that would lead into my Work stuff to close on Tetris. It was really neat to be in the middle of a joke and at the same time, run through a list of stuff or concentrate on something else while talking and moving my hands. I don't think the crowd noticed, because I didn't pause or say, "What else is up?" which I do when I need to stall for time. None of the other comics said they noticed. I need to work on slowing down, though, as when I rattled off the tetris beat, Clayton said I went a little fast. I want to slow everything down a bit and try commanding the stage more. That's a project I'll be working on for next couple months...
I gave Gabe and his girlfriend, Emily, a ride to their car(s). While we were driving, Gabe and I talked delivery. One of the ideas that came up was that you can tell jokes like you're telling jokes, or you can tell jokes like you're stating fact (so it's less obvious where the setup, punch, and tags are). Gabe offered that it's good to start out with a jokey-style up front because you can prepare an audience to listen, and then move to less-obvious inflections so that you don't seem cheesy or unpolished. I think my Email joke would be a good opener for that kind of thing. When I did that joke last night, I asked (as I usually do) if anyone has ever been dumped. Some people cheered. Clayton suggested I riff on those types of situations, which is a great idea, because 1) it's practice, and 2) if something goes wrong, I can do the rest of the Email joke to recover.
Last night was Nikki's last night in town before she drives to Las Angeleas, so it was good to see her (and good to work with her so I can put it on my résumé in case she blows up). All the guys at MarcusIsFunny.com want to wish her the best of luck.
Alright, it's noon-thirty and I have to vacuum, shower and do some writing (I have to be more disciplined on that). So that's all I have.
But the dawn is breaking
It's early morn
The taxi's waitin
He's blowing his horn
If anyone wants to get together and write sometime, like on an off-Wednesday, or before any of the open mics, let me know.