Three good things

Tonight's open mic at the Funny Bone in Fairview Heights helped me out a lot comically. I showed up at the club in a down-kind-of-mood; and I was able to maintain and perform well. More often than not, my mood dictates how I do on stage; bad mood=bad performance etc. Not so tonight; Jeremy Essig brought me up first, and I played with my drinking stories and really experimented with my Mia Wallace joke. The latter of the two gave more positive results than the former; in my mind 50% is a good score for "newish" material.
I was also worried that I wouldn't have a good set tonight; so having a good one felt great. I was really scared that even after the road work I've gotten, I wouldn't be able to show any improvement to my peers. Having a good set kind of changed my outlook on open mics. I used to live by open mic and die by open mic. Now I'm seeing them as the opportunity to stay sharp and work on my jokes to get them better for the pro shows. If I can keep that mentality; I'm hoping to progress even further (or farther, I'm not sure which).
Lastly, my set put me in a pretty good mood; more than anything that tells me I really love comedy. I tell people I do, and it's hard to make them believe it, I mean sometimes I even doubt if I believe it. But my set tonight really proved comedy is for me.

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Entry Level Hit

Friday's shows were fairly typical for me. The second show was fairly light on the crowd-size; but I brought the tempo of the show down and it worked pretty well. The first show was packed and I had an awesome time. Tonight's shows were similar (audience-wise). The first show had a ton of people there, and I had one of my best sets; I felt really comfortable on stage, and added a couple lines to my why-I-quit-drinking stories and they went over really well. I also added a line to my Mia Wallace joke, and it's got a lot of potential. During the second show, Andy talked to me about that joke and asked why I gloss over the solicitation for murder part. He asked if it was true, and I replied that it was, and he suggested I add more to that particular section of the joke. I agreed and we threw around an idea or two, and I am hoping I can get some ideas to work with while I'm in Tulsa and Little Rock. Al asked me to work New Years Eve, which should be a lot of fun, especially since I get to "run" or host the countdown at Midnight.

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Stop keeping score

Al Canal called me yesterday and told me the one-nighter I had booked Saturday has been canceled, so he offered me this week at the Forum to make up for it. Naturally, I took the week. I worked with Andy Ritchie (who's from Minneapolis and looks familiar (I think I knew him years ago)) and Demetrius Nicodemus who's from Toledo and we had a guest set by Jim Kauflin (I may be spelling his name incorrectly) who. All three guys were very cool and we all had great sets last night in front of around a hundred and twenty people or so. My set seemed weird to me because I was drinking bottled-water and my tongue seemed sluggish. I didn't know there were 2 "g"'s in Sluggish. My spell-check just spell-chocked me. But it didn't catch "chocked". Marcus 1; spell check more-than-one.

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Thank you and good night

Tonight was the last show of the week for me at the Wichita Loony Bin. The show had around sixty or seventy people, and they were pretty tight for my set. They loosened up a bit for Chris and Billy Wayne, but they rattled me just a bit; which doesn't really sit well with me but I did get enough laughs to have fun and leave feeling good about myself, but I could have done better. Looking back, Wednesday seems a really long ways away, and I feel like I'm a much better comic for having suffered through the Spangles Christmas party and an audience of five.

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Doing Five for Five

It snowed almost all day yesterday. So much so that the guys and I didn't know if we were going to have a show. We kept waiting for a call, but one never came. So around 5:30 or 6:00 Chris called and did mentioned that out two cars were snowed in hard-core. At 6:40 (just as I finished watching the movie Go Mark called and said he'd be there in three minutes. I hadn't even showered all day, and was still wearing my pajama pants, so I rushed to my bed room, threw on some appropriate clothes and we got into Mark's Rental Ford Focus (and we heard about that for the rest of the night). We didn't even know if we were going to have a show, Mark said we had over a hundred reservations and then over a hundred reservations canceled. At about show time, five people walked in. Mark asked us what we wanted to do a show. We said we would and he said that if people made the effort to come out, we should do a show. So I started the show for five people (my all time smallest professional crowd). I walked on stage, took the mic, stuck it and the stand behind me and said I didn't need it. I was right. I talked to the five people who came all the way from Greensburg, KS (which was like 100 miles) and did my act for 5 or 6 minutes. After I brought Chris on stage, 2 more people came in. The show went really well, and afterwards, the staff and comics sat around waiting for the second show and telling jokes and stories. We didn't have a second show, though two people did show up. I was kind of hoping we'd give them a small show, just because I wanted to break my record twice in one night.

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Proud to be

The shows last night were pretty wild. First show was amazing, I slowed down, did my time, and got a lot of laughs. I also was able to get on stage and get into my first joke really quickly; so I was able to grab their attention quickly. We didn't know if we were going to have a show at 8:00, because we didn't have too many people in the audience. We had 2 for a long time, and then another couple came in. Eventually we had ten people and Chris asked "You think we'll have a show?" and at that very moment, eight people walked in. We ended up with a crowd of about 40 or so. The second show was pretty bizarre. We had about a hundred people, and they were pretty behaved for my set, but they got a little raukus during Chris's set. During Billy Wayne's set, one dude was literally passing out near the front row; then B W started making fun of him; and eventurally the guy got up and moved to the front row. Eventually B W started singing "Proud to be an American" because the guy was being drunk and loud. The guy started singing along, but really didn't know all the words, or how to pronounce them. Mark had us do less time because the whole crowd was wasted and loosing their ability to focus, but all in all it was as good of a show as we could have provided.

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LYRICS

Slowing down and running the show

Tonight's show at the Loony Bin was awesome. We had a hundred and thirty something reservations (on a Thursday!) and the crowd was much more "friendly" than the Christmas party last night. I started my set and got straight into the jokes, and followed some advice Billy Wayne gave me, "Show the audience what a joke is. Show them a setup and a punch, and they will know how a comedy show works", and "Slow down".
I slowed down, a lot, but I'm going to try to slow down even more tomorrow. My set was good, I "sat the table" for the other two comics, and did my time. During my skiing bit, I remember specifically thinking "I need to slow down on this joke, pause here, speed up here, this is a big laugh, start talking now". It felt great to be in control of what I was doing.

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or Maybe you think my mustache is too much

Merry Christmas Egon Spangler

I drove to Wichita today to perform at the Loony Bin with Billy Wayne Davis and Chris Dowell. I got to the condo with directions I got from Becki (the office manager at the club) and unpacked my stuff and checked by email. Then Chris (the feature) came out of his room and I introduced myself to him. A couple minutes later Billy came out of his room and just said "You guys want to party?"; from that moment I knew this weekend was going to be awesome. A little bit later, I got a call from Mark at the club telling me the show was going to start at 7:00 instead of 8:00, so I told him I'd be there around 6:15 (so I could get acclimated). It turns out, the show wasn't officially starting early, but there was a Christmas party for a local restaurant chain called Spangles. They do a Christmas party every year at the Bin, and it was tonight. So I emceed their holiday party where three of their employees "competed" on stage by doing comedy (of sorts) for a hundred bucks. After that, two of the local comedians (the regular house emcees for the club, Mike Winslow and Mr. Biggs) did about 10 minutes each. THEN I got to go up and do my emcee set. I did fifteen minutes, and honestly it was rough. The Christmas party people were already really drunk and not attentive, plus they had already seen me on stage several times, so they were accustomed to me just moving the show along and not actually performing. Chris is a guitar comic, so he was able to play his songs and didn't have to depend on the standard "Setup-punch" format that I did, and then Billy went up and basically did 40 minutes of crowd control.
After the show, I helped Mark hook up a trailer to get it out of the condo parking lot, and then I went back to the club, where we all went next door to a bar called "Back Stage". Billy and Mr. Biggs were really cool and gave me some really cool advice about my set and about emceeing. Both agreed I got nervous infront of the crowd (which I did, since they were so talkative) and they both said I needed to slow down. They both complimented my material, but they said the emcee is there to move the show along, and laughs should be considered a "bonus". They also said that when an emcee is told to do 15 minutes, some clubs mean, if the 8 O'clock show starts at 8:04, you should be off the stage at 8:15. I had never thought of or heard of that before, so that will be something I probably ask about at clubs from now on. We hung out until about 1:30 when I drove Billy home.

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"Should have been there" TM

Tonight's audience was really talkative, at more than one point they were heckling each other. I got to go up second, and instead of working on the Mia Wallace joke as I have been, I tried out some of my more "normal" material that I think works better more often. I was trying to "freshen up" my set for the shows in Wichita this week. My set went pretty well, I tried a new line in my "Friends complain about my sobriety" bit, and another new line between my gay bar/tease and gay friend jokes. I also did my cock-blocked by Jesus joke, which I like and closed on my Scorpion joke, which went over pretty well. I ended up doing about 3:07, which is fine with me since I wasn't originally on the list.

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Lots of snow

Last night's pro-am show at the Fairview Heights Funny Bone went about the same as the previous three weeks, although instead of the headliner emceeing, Rob Durham did. Rob did a good job, I didn't mean to insinuate that he didn't. My set was fairly consistent with the past week or two, which makes me nervous because I've been working on my presentation a lot, and haven't figured out how to sell myself as well. In addition, I am still working on my Mia Wallace joke and it's about twice as long as it used to be, so now if the audience isn't on board from the beginning there is two times the wait until I get to something that they might be interested in.

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You can't miss the bear

Last night's contest at the Forum was a pretty good time. Al only wanted me to do a couple of minutes up front, so my opening bit mainly consisted of explaining how the contest was going to run, and making sure people didn't talk during the show. The only bit I was able to get out was my skiing one (and Johnny Kavanaugh (one of the judges) gave me some awesome advice about slowing down one part). The show was really fun, and Chris Smith (the other judge) said I did a good job bringing everyone to the stage the same. After all 18 comics went up, I brought up Tyrone, while Al and I counted the audience votes (there were two "sets" of winners, with a first and second prize going to the audience's favorites and the judges' favorites). Steve Poggi and Nick Lacer took first and second place respectively for the audience. Josh Arnold and Brian Dowell took first and second from the judges. Congrats to all four of them.

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Goodbye, Janine

I always enjoy talking to Gabe Kea after shows, because he seems to have more feedback than the generic "good set" or "good job tonight". Gabe said I looked comfortable on stage, but that I laughed at my own jokes at the beginning of my set, but stopped after a bit. I only did about three jokes: Justin's plan to quit smoking, Skiing in Colorado, and Dumped for Religious Differences. I wanted to do both parts to the smoking bit, but forgot; which is about the only thing with which I am disappointed. Sarah brought some friends, and the audience was pretty big, so I didn't feel very nervous. I really needed a good set before the competition tomorrow at the Forum. I'm hosting and I want to start the show off as well as possible, because the first guy shouldn't have less of a chance to win just because he's first, right?

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One born every minute

Landon Meyer described my set tonight as "pissy" which sounds about right as far as I am concerned. Tired of Crocodile Hunter and Michael Jackson references I said something like "What about that JFK assassination? Man, Spirrow Agnew has been in the news a lot lately huh?". I don't think anyone got my sarcasm. The crowd definitely get the sarcasm on the I hate the movie Scarface" portion of my Sam's Club bit. I cursed alot through my set, which happens when I'm feeling "pissy". We had a crowd of about 14 people, plus the 11 comics, so I'm hoping I can get on MySpace and maybe sucker some people into coming next week or something.

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Where I dream secrets, the back of my eyelids keep

She has to train for five days

I'm at a weird stage in my comedic life; I know I have certain problems that I need to work on, but I am somewhat unable to do so; much like a smoker who knows they should quit, but cannot take the first step, I just can't begin tackling certain things.

Firstly: I have a very big ego. I honestly think I am funnier than a lot of people; now I try not to act like it, because I don't want to piss anyone off or make any enemies, but I do. The main problem with having an ego is; when people who I think are "less-funny" than I think I am do better than me, it takes some of the wind out of my sails. I know it's good to be put in one's place, and reminded where they stand in life, but it's probably better to not need to be put back into one's place, right?

Part of my ego-problem comes from the fact that I think I work hard at comedy. When in all actuality I should be writing WAY more. This "hard work" that I believe I do, in my mind, makes me think I am a better comic that some of the others, especially those who are really talented. In my mind I say stuff like "those guys are good, but hard work will pay off in the end". Which might be correct, but since I'm not actually working hard, I likely won't be standing in the winner's circle. So my new goal is to write more, be more humble, complain less and enjoy comedy more.

I tried recording my set tonight at the Forum because I wanted to try to "talk to a friend" on stage tonight (and by that I mean I wanted to talk into the microphone like I would talk on the phone or in person to a friend). Instead I got caught up in a rant-like conversation I was having with Joel and Brian Dowell about why Julia Robert's character in Pretty Woman did not pay her dues in the hooking community and therefore did not deserve to wind up with the wealthy Richard Gere. Needless to say, that bit didn't capture the audience as I had hoped. After the show, A Top, Joel, Mandy and I hit the Denny's and talked about comedy, Christmas, how Jesus and Superman could be the same person, and about Girls (and Guys) gone Wild videos. I am quite sure you can't tip enough to make a waiter or waitress put up with that.

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Nothing some McNuggets won't fix

It's days like today that I hope noone reads my (this) blog. I write about shows here so I can remember what I've gone through, but also to get through that stuff in the first place, and what I don't want/need is people saying, This dude whines too much. In any case, my set tonight was far beyond sub-par in my opinion, partially due to the following factors:
I'm trying to quit smoking (AGAIN), and I may be a little of edge because of it. I didn't smoke Monday or today; and yesterday was easy enough because I wasn't around anyone who smokes, but tonight I was at the club, so though I didn't consciously want to smoke, the urge in the back of my brain may have affected my mood.

I went to Star Bucks to write today and tried flushing out some modifications on my Mia Wallace joke and my Sams club joke, since there isn't really a way to do BOTH jokes in one four minute set, so I wasn't sure what I wanted to do during the show. I go on stage a lot of times without knowing exactly what I am going to do, but I usually have a general idea, and in the rare cases where I completely wing it, it's usually during a set where I have more than four minutes. Tonight I had no clue at all.

The first joke out of my mouth was the one about me getting fired in August. Now before I got fired, I posted a joke on my Myspace about me asking for a trophy for the mistake I made, and when I picked up my final paycheck, my boss referenced it, and I genuinely felt bad. Maybe two months later, when I had finally written a joke about my getting terminated (a joke that neither mentions his name nor the company's name) I told him about it, as I was proud that I could take something as negative as loosing a job and make light of it. He told me that he didn't want to hear the joke, and that I should never do the joke in his presence. Since he was there tonight, though not directly in the audience, I know I did not deliver the joke with the same amount of confidence as I normally do, and since it was my first joke, it was a bad start.I looked bad to the audience.

That part and this next part kind of segue into each other. Since I take myself seriously as a comedian I live in constant fear of pissing off the comedy clubs in town. If I bite the hand that feeds me, so to speak, and cut myself off from being able to perform at open mics, how can I get better? I'd have to move cities, obviously, which does not seem fun to me. I've seen what happens (or doesn't happen, I should say) to guys who only perform at one club regularly, they simply don't progress as quickly as the guys who jump around (I feel), and though it might sound kind of arrogant, especially in the middle of a performance slump like this, I think I'm progressing quickly and headed in the right direction. This "segue" was longer than I expected, and rightfully deserves its own paragraph, which is weird because I don't know how to start the next paragraph...

Again, without sounding tooarrogant or pretentious, I consider myself above crap in your pants jokes. Jokes where the humor is entirely based on one crapping their pants or simply the result of that belong solely on the playgrounds of the youth of America. That is my opinion, that no educated adult would laugh at the paraphrased song "if you're happy and you know it crap your pants. My problem, which I am positive is completely psychological, is this; how can an audience who laughs at the crap-your-pants-aren't-prostate-exams-wacky guy be anywhere near able to laugh at the mundane goings-on in my like such as getting fired from a job, loosing my virginity to a married woman who then solicited me to murder her husband?

Lastly, and thus has almost nothing to do with anything stated previously; I am sick of people asking how I'm doing. Bad, I'm doing bad. I haven't had a job in three months, my rear defrost in my car doesn't work, and I can barely force myself to sleep less than 10 hours a day. But I'm not allowed to say that, I have to say "good" or "staying out of trouble" or something cutesy and clever like that. It's not that I don't appreciate the general interest of the asker, it's that I can't bare to lie to another person, but if I tell that person that my life's not exactly where I want it, the way I want to, I'm going to freak them out a bit because chances are, we aren't close enough to be that candid.

I sincerely hope no one reads this, or at the very least they don't mention it to me personally.

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Thunderhorse

New Open Mic

Tonight, the Fairview Heights Funnybone had their first Open Mic night; myself and about 10 other comedians performed. Jeremy Essig emceed the show, and I got to go up first after him. My set was alright; Greg Lausch gave me that Sams club idea, and I was hoping to work on that a bit, but it needs a little bit more writing, which I hope I will get to work on tomorrow while I do laundry. The open mic was fun, and hopefully I'll make the list next week, as it will be nice to get another weekly practice-session in.

edit: 12/3/07 9:05am I didn't even notice until I got done blogging last night, but apparently I had cut myself shaving my head yesterday morning and the blood clotted into two neat little stripes right on the front left dome of my skull. I'm wondering if the audience saw it and was affected by it; I'm also kind of wondering why no one said anything; but it's not like that's the first time this has happened.

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Big room plus small audience equals weird accustics

On Thursday, while I was working at the Comedy Forum, Al asked me what I was doing Saturday, I said I was working at the Forum, and he asked if I wanted to do a show with Dan O'Sullivan and Jim Stout at Ft. Leanord Wood. I said I'd love to, so he gave me the gig and I arranged to meet Dano and drive down with him. The venue, called the Rockin' R, was really nice. Huge room, very high ceilings, and a really nice staff, but I had to carry a wireless mic up to the stage and so I turned it on before I got to the stage and was rewarded with a healthy dose of feedback from the speakers. The mic behaved like that through all of my set and all through Jim's, which was distracting while I was on stage. Since the room was so large, and we only had 50 or so audience members, it was really hard to hear if they were laughing or not. Jim's wife was there and she said the audience was laughing harder than I could hear on stage, which helped me feel better about my set.

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Steve Martin said it best

The first show tonight at the Comedy Forum was awesome; I did about 15 minutes, and told Al that I went over. He hadn't noticed, but he did ask "Did you set the table for the next comic?" to which I responded "Yes" and so he didn't have a problem. After the first show some lady came up to me and asked if I really didn't drink anymore. She and three other people in the audience were non-drinkers as well and really appreciated my set. The second show was much less fun; and I even had some friends in the audience. There were more people in the audience than Thursday, but less that the first show tonight; but they were very talkative and pretty drunk and it was much harder to get through my set than either of the other shows. Of course, that kind of comes with the territory of working the second show Friday.

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WoW is getting in the way...

I'm getting really addicted to World of Warcraft; so much so that I can't do anything except play when I get home from shows, and I forget to write about it until the next day (sometimes days later).
Last night's show at the Forum was pretty good. I counted thirteen people in the audience when I got off stage, but a couple more people came in while the feature, Jeff McDonald, was on stage. Given that the audience was small, Al gave the three of us the "don't be a hero" speech before the show. I worked the audience fairly well, I feel, I was more conversational and had a really good time. Greg Lausch was the headliner, and I've worked with him before, so I was really excited about the show.

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His name is Jules Winnfield

Tonight's show at the Forum started really late. We literally had 4 audience members at 8:00 and only one more person showed up by 8:30 when we started the meeting. I kind of harped on the other comics pretty bad about not bringing people out. I cursed a bit, and I feel kind of bad, especially since I didn't bring anyone. However I did leave over 90 comments on different myspace pages for my "friends" in the St Charles/St Peters area; so that helps my conscience a little bit. Before the show, I wanted to make it a relay-race/tag-team/piggy-back deal, where each comic brings up the next comic. Almost not one was able to smoothly bring up the next comic, including myself.
On stage, I played around with my Mia Wallace joke a bit, more talking out my ideas than actually delivering the joke and I talked about my recent (and failed) attempts at quitting smoking so I closed on my joke about "Justin's plan to quit smoking". When I tried to bring up Dan Walsh at the end of my set I said, "That's it for me, keep it going for your next comic," and I forgot who I was bringing up. Like I said, not smooth.
The best news of the night though is that Al offered me the chance to emcee at a show Saturday in Ft Leanordwood with Dan O'Sullivan and Jim Stout, but he said he'll still let me emcee Thursday and Friday.

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You did not desert me

Calling it a night

The Funny Bone's website was down a bit, and so there wasn't a list published this week; so when the comics who showed up showed up, pretty much all of us got on stage. The audience was a little weird, though; very greedy with the laughs pretty much all night. I did about the same set I did last week, but I added (or tried to add) a bunch of stuff to the Mia Wallace joke. There's so much that came out while I was writing yesterday, I'm not sure how I'm going to work on all the ideas. It seems like it might be too much information for a crowd to handle, but it's all good enough to be told. I'll play with it tonight and the rest of this week at the Forum.

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163 hours late

I'm a week late writing about last Tuesday's show, and my only excuse is my buddy Leroy was in town and we played computer games ALL THROUGH his Thanksgiving vacation. From what I remember of Tuesday's performance, my Married woman joke is getting close, but needs some tinkering, and both my gay bar and gay friend jokes are pretty much back in the set because they're doing well and I'm enjoying doing them. Not sure if I'm on tonight or not, if I am, I'll try to write about it before Christmas.

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Work vs. games; decisions, decisions

Both shows Saturday were awesome; the first one because the there were a TON of people in the audience, and the second because I made super progress with my Mia Wallace joke. Both of my sets went really well, and I didn't have to go too over the top to sell my set. Since Tommy had borrowed a camera to film his sets, I offered to help him make a DVD with the best set. We were supposed to work on that at his place after the second show, but we ended up playing Call of Duty 4. I like to think I put up a good fight for it being my first time playing, but Tommy won. A lot.

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Dr. PC

Friday's shows at Fairview (for me) were very different. The first show, I seemed very relaxed and conversational on stage and I had an amazing set. Second show I was a little more excitable on stage, but I don't think that affected my set as much as the temperament of the audience, they were a little stiff. However the rest of the second show sailed along smoothly. Tommy gave me a tag after Thursday's show, and I tried working it in, but he and I both agree I need to add a "beat" to let the audience laugh instead of just continuing on with the joke.

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Deep end of the car pool

Tonight I got to emcee for Tommy Johnagin and Ricky Guitierrez. The show was awesome, Tommy and I both had great sets, and so did Ricky even though he has bronchitis or something crazy-bad like that. The audience wasn't as big as I had hoped, because it was "Free Wings" night, and college night and SIUE apparently did an article on Tommy and advertised the show. On the ride back, since Tommy and I carpooled, Tommy and I talked comedy and he gave me a line for my blind skier joke, which I really like, and we also "talked shop" a bit, about writing, video games, and getting away with touchy material. The weirdest part of the night, though, was when Anthony and Chrissy asked me to fix their computers (since I had just done some work on the one at the club). Since I only know how to fix problems I've encountered I'm always scared to agree to fix someone else's machine, since there's the possibility of me making it worse. But then again, I have a hard time saying no to people, so I said I'd take their computers home Friday and try to fix them Saturday. I can't wait for the shows this weekend, because I'm hoping to switch around my material a bit, I literally had no idea what I was going to do tonight until I started talking. Those sets are usually pretty fun, but it makes me nervous because if you're not paying attention to what you're saying, things could go terribly wrong.

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Wednesday the 14th

Last night's show at the Forum was different than normal; we had two or three new guys, one of whom brought a lot of people, as did Stevie P, who is back from California. I can't remember all the jokes I did, but I know the Gay bar joke and the Gay friend joke went over well, which is awesome because they're both "newly returned" to the rotation of jokes. Initially I did not think I was going to make it to the show, because I thought I'd be emceeing at Fairview, but I learned Tuesday that they aren't having a Wednesday show this week, so I called Al and he told me to come on out. I'm trying to add a bunch of myspace friends at the moment in and around St. Peters so that I can get people to come out to the contest (which has been moved to 5th, I believe). It'd be cool if a bunch of people came out to see ME, especially since I can't win since I'm hosting.

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I still won't EAT bananas

Yesterday afternoon, I drove to Cincinnati to Go Bananas Comedy Club for their Pro-Am Open Mic. Since I am having such a hard time finding a job, I really want to try getting to more clubs and making more connections, and now seems like a perfectly reasonable time to do that, unless you mention that traveling costs money or something based on fact. Anyway, my drive started out terribly because I kept forgetting stuff and home, and had to air-up my front tires of my Taurus, and I literally was in the car and turning-around-and-getting-stuff and leaving-my-place again for about a half an hour before I actually got away. I was super afraid that such a bad beginning would make the rest of my trip suck, but much to my amazement, it did not. I found the club easily, they had an abundant supply of coffee and they had a HUGE crowd for a Pro-Am show. While there I bumped into Chris Wagel, whom I had met in St Louis couple of months ago, and so I hung out with him which was cool because I was a little worried I wouldn't know anyone at the club, but everyone was VERY friendly to me. During the pre-show meeting, I learned that they were going to do the show "piggy-back" style or like a relay race where each comic brings up the next comic. I'd never seen a club actually do that, but it was really cool to watch, because some of the transitions from FINAL JOKE to INTRO were a little hard to spot, but some of them were flawless. After the show, I gave Jeff my promo package and we talked a bit about booking, and then I apologized for leaving right after the show and he said it was cool. And then I got in my car and drove back to St. Louis, I left at about 10:00pm EST (or 9:00 CST) and got home around 2:30. And then I went IMMEDIATELY to bed, because I was tired.

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Three's and Five's

Tuesday night was a pretty small crowd at the Funny Bone, and since we had quite a few comics, Matt had me light everyone a little early. As a result, I was only able to do about 3 minutes. I opened with my old Alzheimer's joke, because I thought of a new tag for it, and it did not go over very well at all. My new tag is "I really need 12 dollars", and some dude heckled "One for every year", to which I replied "Yeah, because I look like I'm twelve". I don't think my response made much sense, but neither did his heckle, and so I'd say we tied, or whatever. Unless you give me points for having the microphone or a sweet beard, then I totally win. But my third and fourth jokes (the one about the gay bar and the one about my gay friend) totally got the crowd on my side (I felt). I closed on a joke about my parents being stingy when I was a child. I'm pretty happy with the set because the last joke and the gay friend joke are hopefully going to turn into keepers, and that's super exciting.

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I'm not sure what happened

Joel Thornton invited some guys down to Sulard to Trueman's Bar and Grill on Monday where he's hoping to get a weekly open mic started. Myself, Gabe Kea, Andrew Topping and Cory Rayburn all showed up. We didn't start until around ten, and we only had an audience of four to eight (including on waitress), and we went relay-race style where each comic would bring up the next comic without ever discussing an order. That's a fun game I like to play simply because it makes you be ready or go up and wing-it. I wung-it. For some reason, I decided to work on some of my suicide material, and I also talked about my mom and the stuff my old coworkers and I did to make fun of each other. Since there wasn't an audience per se my manner of speech and presentation was very different. Gabe said I looked comfortable, which I take as a compliment. Anyway I tried a very similar thing Tuesday at the bone and just came off as depressed. I think I really made the audience uncomfortable, but usually talking about suicide can do that, so it's not like I'm shocked. I believe there's a right way to present it, or there's a funny way to look at it, but I just haven't figured it out yet, so I guess I have to keep brain-storming.

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Not quite a record-setter

My girlfriend(Sarah)'s mom (Mrs. B) came into town last week and wanted to see me perform, so I asked Josh Arnold if I could go to Harry's on Thursday and perform with Clap for Joan. He said it would be fine, but that he personally would not be there. So Sarah, her mom, and I headed out to the hill for a show featuring Joe Murray, Kevin White, Brian Dowell and Jeff Wesselschmidt. Sarah and her mom were literally the only people in show/dining room and I had to bug a young couple in the bar-room to come over more than once. Eventually the bar-staff and a couple stragglers made their way into the room. I tried out a couple new bits and was surprised when Mrs. B didn't get offended by the vulgarity and strange sexual ideas some of the other guys had. Easily my favorite part of the night was when Kevin asked Mrs. B if he had a chance with her.

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Well, I ain't been home to see my baby,
in ninety nine and one half days.

It was funny when I said it.

Not being in a great mood can usually cause me to have a downright terrible set; but sometimes, all the anger, aggression (and possibly depression) in my no-hair big-eared head can lead to a weird presence of moxie that I do not normally possess. Tonight, the second was the case. I went up probably 8th or night at the Forum out of a list of 14, and just let my agitation push me through my jokes (some old, some completely new). I feel I had a very good set, though I cursed a lot, but that's how I was feeling at the time, and rather than "hide" (or whatever) how I was feeling, I threw it at the audience and had an ok time with it. I did record my set, if only for the newer jokes to see how I worded them, so I'll probably give that a listen tomorrow. It's not like I have anything else to do...

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TMI

Last night some radio DJ's judged a competition at the Funny Bone to see who could open up for the five Last Comic Standing finalists when they come to the Family Arena next month. Fortunately I got to perform, UNfortunately I had to go first. I had fun on stage and did my time (3:47 out of 4:00) but during my last joke or so, I heard a couple talking to my left. It was very distracting, but when I looked out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw one of the waitresses, and it's not like you can tell them to quiet down. I'm glad I didn't stick my foot in my mouth there. Anyway, my buddy John Doelling ended up winning the night (and he deserved it, he had a great set) so he'll get to go to the Arena on the 5th (I think). think last night I learned I'm not a "competition comedian". For one thing, I don't handle losing well, I beat myself up quite a bit and for another, I mean, I'm not going to win many contests; I don't see myself as that kind of "wow-your-socks-off comedian". But I do do see myself as a good comedian, and hopefully I'll be good enough to keep growing as a comic, and maybe eventually I can wow some people; competition or not.

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Yesterday was my last night in Milwaukee; and the shows were a lot of fun. JD had me make sure that I mentioned it was Sweetest Day, which apparently a big deal in Milwaukee and always falls on a Saturday (he said it was even bigger than Valentine's Day). First show, I did up front what I had previously done upfront AND between Jamie and Murv. That's kind of hard to describe in a sentence so; if I did jokes "A" before Jamie, and "B" between Jamie and Murv, then tonight I did "A" and "B" before Jamie and had to find something else to do before Scott. I pulled out the PhoneSex joke, and it went over well. The other three guys all had good sets and it made for a really fun show. Second show, Eric let me do all my time up front, which I was really excited about, but I couldn't really tell if I was doing well, since I couldn't hear the audience laughing. The door guys and Murv all told me I did well, so I'll believe them. During the last show, Eric grabbed Murv to pay him, and I figured he'd send Murv up to get me (I didn't figure they'd want me in the office at the same time) but Eric had actually asked me to go to. So apparently the door guys and Eric decided to play a little joke and tell me Eric left. Howard even asked me for my address so they could mail me a check. JD told me Eric was around, so I went to the office and he wasn't there. I went back up stairs, no Eric. They sent me back down stairs, and I asked the waitresses where Eric was and they said he was just there. I even looked under the desk in the office incase Eric was hiding there. Eventually I found him, and he paid me, which was cool. I was cool that the staff felt like they could joke around with me. After the show, Duke told me I did a good job and it was a pleasure to have me there. I told him I enjoyed being at the club and had a good time. I'm really looking forward to going back.

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Late Nights, Later Mornings

Last night's shows at the Comedy Cafe in beautiful downtown Milwaukee were good. Instead of doing all of my time up front like I did Thursday, Eric asked me to do a joke or two up front and then do a joke between each performer; which was pretty hard for me to pull off. I've often replied to new-open-mic-guys-who-complain-about-short-set-time-limits that if you can't be funny in three minutes, you need to work on that, maybe get a stronger opener. Something. So I feel kind of like a hypocrite when I say it's very hard to be funny in one minute. I feel less like a hypocrite, though when I add the fact that I'm going up between three other guys and trying to get the audience to shift gears twice.

Keep it going for Jamie everyone (applause), ok now shut up and listen to this one joke and then laugh at it and then make some noise for your next performer... Weird.

Anyway, the show was good though, and afterwards Murv and his buddy Tim and I headed back to the condo, watched some weird movie called Santa's Slay and ate some pizza and wings that Tim bought. I stayed up kind of late and slept in pretty late. Now I'm at Rochambo sucking up some free WiFi.

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I Feel Some Heat Is On My Back

BOOM! Big one for Thursday

I'm in Milwaukee this week, doing announcements for JD's Comedy Cafe. There's a lot of stuff going on that I normally don't have to deal with when I do open mics or when I work somewhere closer to home like the Comedy Forum or the Fairview Heights Funny Bone.
I took a bus to get up here, because I figured if I did that and watched my spending, I might actually walk away with a bit of cash; if I drove, literally every dollar I made would go to filling my car's gas tank. The bus left St. Louis bound for Chicago Wednedsay around 10:15, but somewhere around 3:00am, just outside of Champagne, IL. The bus's transmission went down. Around 7:30, another bus came to pick us up (and I was supposed to be on a bus at 7:15 in Chicago heading for my final destination, Milwaukee). When I finally got to the windy city, the people at the bus station were very helpful and I only had to wait about forty minutes to get on the way. When I finally got to Milwaukee, I caught a cab to the club, grabbed my key and tried to settle in.
The Condo here is pretty cool; at least I like it. I've heard other comics complain, but I suppose I'm still so "happy to be doing stand up for money" I don't agree with their arguments. This week, only myself and the Feature act, Murv Seymour, are staying in the condo, since the Headliner, Scott Henry, is from here and the opener, Jamie Cruz, is from Chicago (I believe).
The show last night was good over-all. Before the show, we heard that a group of nurses (about a hundred) were coming as an organized way to keep them entertained and relieve stress that probably comes with being a nurse. The entire crowd (which may or may not include the nurses) was very talkative during the beginning (meaning "my") part of the show. Literally, I had to start out saying:

"Hey everyone, welcome to the comedy cafe, Milwaukee's home of five star comedy for over two decades. We consistently bring you the funniest and best comics around and tonight is no exception. Your headliner tonight is a local boy, give it up for Scott Henry. And your Feature tonight comes to us from Tampa, FL, make some noise for Murv Seymour. Also in the show tonight, from Chicago is Jamie Cruz. My name is Marcus Robinson and I'll be your host and emcee for the evening.
At this time, the Comedy Cafe would like to remind you that if you have a cell phone or pager, please set those to vibrate or turn them off so as not to distract those around you, and for the enjoyment of all, please keep your table conversations to a minimum.
On your tables, you'll find these (I hold up a card) )Gold Cards, if you fill them out and give them to your waitress, you have a chance to get your bar-tab paid for tonight.
Lastly, if you want to find out about upcoming shows, visit the website, www.271joke.com or call the box office at 414.271.5653, that's 414.271.JOKE. Now, with all that out of the way, you guys ready to start the show?"

Literally throughout the first 60-70% of that, the crowd was talking (loudly); and when I finally got into my act (I only got to do about 4 bits) I couldn't really hear myself through the speakers, so I wasn't sure if the crowd could hear me. It was kind of unnerving at the time, and I think it may have caused me to yell a little bit too much. After the show, JD took us all out to dinner, and Murv commented later that I wasn't very talkative. Much of the conversation, though, revolved around automobiles (classics and such, mainly), sports and local businesses/clubs/celebrities. Since I didn't feel like I could contribute, I just listened and ate my steak (which was awesome, and I finished. Usually I have to take the leftovers home for lunch in Friday). When I got back to the condo, I realized I lost my key (probably somewhere in the club) and so I had to walk about 5-6 blocks to the bar and have Duke let me into the club so that I could get another key. I'm wearing that one around my neck on a string so I don't lose it... That's what I get for leaving my keys at home, I guess...

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Hurry up and wait

Last night at the Bone, there were a LOT of comics who showed up, and a good portion of them were pros, so during the meeting Matt said he might have to bump people, and he apologized for that. He asked if anyone had guests in the audience, and since I did I was hoping to make the list. For the first four or so comics, I didn't have a list to work from while keeping time, but around four or so comics in, Matt gave me a list and I was following Tommy Drake, who was next. My set was pretty good, it was just a hodge-podge of different jokes, none of them really related, but I had a good set. I'm still working on getting to some new clubs so that I can try to start emceeing more regularly. Complaining won't do any good, since this is obviously not an easy business in which to succeed, so I'll say I've made a couple contacts but so far none have really panned out the way I would have wished.

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No cake for me, thank you

Tonight's shows were a lot of fun at Mason City Limits; I omitted my Chubby Chaser joke and didn't suffer for it, and I changed the Nervous joke, and should be able to get that where it's comfortable in no time. I also added a bit about my friends giving me grief about not drinking and used a good word that Ryan and Chris suggested. During the first show, there was some guy (named Motor, apparently he's the town drunk) who piped up a couple of times during my set and then continuously throughout Tom's. He was very hard to understand, but Tom seemed to be having fun with it (though that might have just been how he wanted it to look). I don't know because he didn't mention it after the show. During the second show, there was a bachelorette party and they were a lot of fun. They laughed very loudly throughout both my set and Tom's. During the second show, I remembered to do my Tease joke, which is kind of old, but I'd really like to get it more polished, and I omitted the Chubby Chaser joke and switched the Nervous one. I wanted to mention a thing I remembered about a cousin of mine who's been engaged for a while, just to see if I could work a joke out on stage, but it slipped my mind. Hopefully blogging about it will make me remember to get on top of that.

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What's your price for flight?

21, hit me!

Last night I performed two shows at Mason City Limits with Tom Mabe (and had a really good time). I did about 21 minutes both shows, did fairly well, and got it on video. I was very excited because I didn't have to go to my set list at all. Tom Mabe was very cool, he had great things to say after both of the shows and gave me some advice about not making fun of fat girls as much (from my Chubby Chaser joke) and that girl with the Mole on her face with the hair coming out (from my Nervous talking to girls joke). He said he'd rather me work blue than attack someone who might be in the audience. It's always weird when you decide to stop doing a joke (for me) because that kind of leaves a hole that has to be filled with new material, and not being the greatest writer, that scares me. Two shows tonight, I'm looking forward to them, my camera's not playing nice with my lappy right now, I need to remember the trick I used last time to get it to work...

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Not today, little one

Last night I was extremely nervous about performing at the Deja Vu's stand up comedy competition. I had family coming to the show and was planning on doing my Mia Wallace (affair with a married woman) joke. Since that joke's based on a story I'm not entirely proud of (and one that I'm sure my family would not be proud of) I was a little rattled. That joke is one of my favorites, though, and even though I forgot to add the second half of it, it went over really well. The second reason I was anxious was because it was a competition at the Vu. There's nothing like going back to where you began and trying to show you've gotten better. The guys on Last Comic Standing sometimes said stuff like "If I make it this far, I can justify my decision to drop out of college and do comedy" or something like that. I don't think I had anything to prove to myself, but maybe to my family. I've always gotten the feeling that they don't think I'll make it, or maybe that it'll be too hard, or that I won't make enough money. They don't get it; I LOVE this game.
Mikey Manker and I destroyed last night; they didn't lower the house lights, so while I was on stage, I played the WHOLE audience, I panned left and right and made eye contact and used facial expressions and voice inflection more than I usually do. I got big laughs on my Advice joke and my smoking joke and walked off stage feeling like a million bucks. So I was a little disappointed that I didn't win. It was my third time in the Vu's competition and I've never made it past the first round... That's all I wanted this time. Just to come back. I might get that chance though, because the booker, Matt, mentioned doing something with the "local" talent when the competition is over; he also said he really liked my closing jokes. Sweet.
Nikki Glaser was featuring and Chris Porter was headlining (which is why I picked that week to compete, to hang with Nikki). The show was completely sold out (410 people) which is awesome, and afterwards, Mikey, Nikki and I hung out at the bar and talked for an hour or two. I didn't get home until 3:30am; so I barely had anytime this morning to goof off, watch TV, work on the tube radio, go to the Funny Bone and eat before packing and heading to Mason City.

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All being offensive gets you is lit-early.

Tonight was a light show at the Comedy Forum, we only had 14 comedians show up, and we started with an audience in the single digits. About two or three comics in, eight more people showed up, so that literally doubled the size of the audience. I hosted the show and did about eight minutes up front, I began by talking to a group of Communications Students from St. Charles Community College (they were there as a class for an assignment about communicating). I can't say that my bantering was amazing, but it made the other comics aware of why they were there and it allowed me to explain to them what an Open Mic is. My set was alright, I tried not to make eye contact with the students too much, because I didn't want to make them feel nervous or awkward, so for a while I would just stare at the back of the room and talk. They were fairly responsive, which was great, but I could tell that they lost some steam by the end of the night. Two or three times between the other comics, I did a couple more minutes of material, and got some laughs there too, so that felt really good. I got a couple of good comments in between the other comics too, so I was happy about that. Tomorrow I'm in Columbia and Friday and Saturday I'm in Mason City. I'm really looking forward to both of those.

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Good news all around

I forgot to sign up on the Funny Bone's website this week, but Matt was awesome and threw me up anyway. I went third, and had a great set; it was kind of a hodge podge of different jokes I've done recently. I added a bit to my Justin bit (the one about my friend quitting smoking by buying nasty cigarettes) where I keep nasty cigarettes just to give to people who bum from me. My Advice joke went over extremely well tonight, and that makes me feel really good. Probably the best news is that I talked to Chris Speyrer tonight up in Mason City and I got booked to work up there this Friday and Saturday. I'm very excited about that and will be dragging alone my video camera just incase I'm particularly hilarious.

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The weakend

The last night of the week at the comedy forum was alright. First show went alright, I am really starting to nail down my Record-setting-error joke. But the audience second show was just dumb. They missed a lot of my jokes and a lot of Marques' and Roger's. I remember once Roger actually stopped and mentioned his surprise that the audience was that slow. I laughed quite a bit at that. I recorded both shows and really wish I could get something usable in a emceeing-promo kind of way, but the videos aren't quite good enough yet.

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Sleeping Beast

Last night I wasn't even planning on doing half the jokes I did during the first show. I got it on tape, which is really cool because my Record-setting-error joke did really well. Bill and Jim returned to do spotlights for the first show, but neither did one during the second show, so I was able to run a little longer. The second show was definitely a lot of work, the audience was pretty touch and go, though there was that one stereotypical table of drunks that loved just about everything. Sadly, right beside them was a table of white-thugs who didn't crack a smile almost at all. I talked to one of the waitresses, though and she said they tipped really well, so I guess they weren't all bad.

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Same name, different spelling, both white, weird

Last night I got to emcee at the Comedy Forum for Marquez Bunn (pronounced Marcus, strangely enough) and Roger Radley (who headlined the night I auditioned at the Skyline in Appleton, WI). Bill Davis and Jim Stout stopped by to do spotlights and so we had five comics on the stage. There was also a raffle held by the Lindenwood Mens' Basketball team for an Ozzie Smith signed baseball, so I got to call up two of the coaches to announce the winner (who was the assistant coach's wife (Rigged?)). Before the show a couple of patrons recognized me from when I hosted with Dan O'Sullivan and remembered me being funny, which was pretty cool. Anyway, my set went well; and I got it on video, which is cool because the audience was pretty big especially for a Thursday night. I had to wake up super early to take Roger to the radio station, which was cool 'cause we got to shoot the bull (which is punny since we were going to The Bull). He seemed appreciative that I ran him over there and back and was punctual (early in fact). We have two shows tonight and two tomorrow, to which I'm looking forward. Grammar!

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Amnesia on stage

I freakin' hate it when I don't write about a show until days afterwards. I know I'm not going to remember any of the minute details that make the telling worth while. But since I am a lazy piece of crap, it's 40 hours after the Tuesday Open Mic and I'm just getting around to it. I asked Matt if I could do five minutes and prep for the Vu, and he said he was ok with that. According to RooftopComedy.com, I did 4:42 but forgot my PANTS joke. My set was alright, if I remember correctly, and since the crowd was smallish, I feel confident enough to say in front of a big crowd, I'll do great.
Last night at the Forum, I completely switched gears and did all my "getting fired" material; mainly because I wanted to try out my new material about getting fired from my last job. I remember workshopping something with Janine Tuesday about it, but I forgot what that was and so I was unable to end that bit with that line/tag/whatever. Anyway, I did my Phone Sex and Sams's Club stuff (with out the Tetris thing) and had a pretty good set; the crowd at the Forum last night was pretty good: well behaved, energetic and vocally appreciative of comedy, so it was a pretty good night. I'm hosting tonight, and it should be a lot of fun.

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Mecha Shiva

Last night I went out to the Comedy Forum to do some sets and practice for the upcoming competition. I drug my video camera along and recorded both sets, but since I left my stop watch at home I had to use my audio recorder to tell me how much time I did each set. First set, I added in my PANTS joke and trimmed some tag-lines, but was forty seconds over. So the second set, I omitted my ADVICE joke and was thirty seconds under. I am going to watch the videos and see what's up with a seventy second difference. Also I want to watch the first set because Kevin Patterson who was emceeing told me that he had never seen me get so many groans before. I was telling him; I can't look like a jerk onstage with my material because people will groan. I have to make myself look like the victim; which means looking kind of vulnerable, while still portraying stage confidence and keeping people interested. It's kind of a weird juxtaposition.
After the Forum, I headed over to Corwin's for Mikey Manker's going away party. A little while after I got there, we did a show and Mikey asked me to open. The show was set up relay race style so each comic brought up the next one; at first, we had a crowd of about 20 people (mostly comics and improv people) and I figured everyone else (who stayed in the bar area (as opposed to the dining area where we were set up)) was just there to drink. Turns out, they did come to watch Mikey and say goodbye to him, but they only really got interested when he was "on the mic". My set at Corwin's wasn't bad, but it's still not the kind that you walk away from with positive things to say. In any case, I'm playing with voice inflection, body posture and facial expressions more as I'm trying to milk each joke for all it's worth.

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Giving Away my Secret Plans

Tonight I got to do a spotlight at the Comedy Forum. Kevin Patterson was hosting and Wayne Moss was also doing a spot before the feature, Danny Browning. The headliner was Don Reese; and halfway through his set I recognized his voice and style of material (and one joke in particular) from MTV's Half Hour Comedy Hour. I've blogged before about that show and how it forms a type of foundation to my stand up career; so I won't repeat myself. Needless to say, it was really cool.
My set was really good, I clocked in at 4:57, which is obviously under the 5:00 I was shooting for. During the show, after I was done, I realized that I forgot to do my PANTS joke, and I'm not sure what I should take out to squeeze it in. My set went thusly:

-Justin (New Smoking Joke)
-Celibate by Popular Demand
-Nervous
-Chubby Chaser
-Advice
-Match.com
-Mia Wallace (Married Woman Story)
-Dumped Via Email
-The Scorpion Strategy
-The Motorcycle Joke

I'm thinking of pushing the Email joke to the end of my set to close on it; I've been trying to close on it, but it seems to hit or miss, especially for a closer. Granted, when it hits, it does great, but when it doesn't it's not a great end. The Email joke is kind of in a similar place, because it sometimes gets groaned. If I trimmed the both of them, I could probably punch them up quite a bit and then I could fit the PANTS joke, which would be nice. Looks like I have a strategy for tomorrow.

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From my heart and from my hand
Why dont people understand
My intentions

Put the cheat sheet on the stool; don't hold it.

The crowd tonight was a little tight; and not in that cool, trendy, that's-a-good-thing-kind-of-way... They were a little stingy with the laughter. So it might have been in my best interests to NOT do a new minute on my-getting-fired-from-work, but since when do I make good decisions? My smoking joke (which I claimed to be 10 for 10 tonight) got a laugh really only at the second punch line, which is not what I wanted, but it will have to work. During my new bit I blanked (which got a very UNhelpful round of applause from the comedians seated by the Bull Pen) and I had to go to my notes. I did my PANTS joke and my nervous-around-ugly-girls joke and finished with the Holy Trinity of Dump-Stories. I didn't leave on a "high" note, but I did my time, which I guess makes up for that. At least a little.
I've got two weeks until the competition at the Vu in Columbia, and I'm very much looking forward to it. If I can pull together whatever I was doing last month, I'm sure I'll have a great set; it would be nice to advance PAST the first round since I've never managed to do that there. Apparently my Aunt, Uncle and two cousins are coming to the show. Not sure if that will help or make me nervous. They're very supportive, but I want to make sure they see a great set and not just a good one.

Check out my MySpace blog for jokes on which I'm working.

Visit RooftopComedy.com. Watch videos. Laugh. Feel warm and fuzzy.

Three times!

Thursday night, Al Canal had some of the open micers come in to do extended sets because Dustin "Screech" Diamond wasn't able to make the show. Dan Walsh, Mikey Manker, myself, Jim Stout and Jim "The Dad" Keith all did time before the feature for the week Dennis Shehe. My set was alright, but my closer got a big groan, and so I literally told the audience I probably should have closed on something with a big laugh, "Live and Learn". All in all the show was alright, though I would have preferred to leave the stage with more of an applause and less of a silence kind of thing going on. Live and Learn, live and learn...

Check out my MySpace blog for jokes on which I'm working.

Visit RooftopComedy.com. Watch videos. Laugh. Feel warm and fuzzy.

Don't forget handouts...

Al Canal let me run the meeting again tonight at the Forum, which was very cool; I asked that people keep their sets around four minutes (many people did three and some did even less) so the show was done by 10:00. I tried some new stuff again after listening to it on my voice recorder and it went about as well as expected. I also did some other (you could say "more established" material, I guess) with hopes of working the kinks out before the competition on the 11th. I've got one week of emceeing and two or three weeks of open mics to select and nail down a five minute set, which I don't think should be that hard. I really REALLY want to do well this time, and hopefully make it to the second round or whatever they're doing.

Check out my MySpace blog for jokes on which I'm working.

Visit RooftopComedy.com. Watch videos. Laugh. Feel warm and fuzzy.

Battle Axes and Crucifixes

Though I haven't reviewed the tapes yet, I would guesstimate that 2 minutes of the three and a half I did on stage tonight were new. I've been wanting to do more jokes about the seminary, and after talking to Stewart Huff, I really believe the key to my originality on stage (being different from other comedians, I mean) lies in my being honest. And so I did a bit (not a "bit" as in a joke, but a bit as in a small unit or measurement) on the seminary and how it has affected my life relating to women. While talking to the aforementioned Mr. Huff, I told him about my apathetic stance on the world of sports in general. He thought that that was interesting and honest and so he suggested that I talk about that, especially since I had some kind-of-funny line about battle axes. All in all my set went alright, especially since I was first (after Dan Chopin who emceed). I got some laughs in parts of the newness that I didn't expect, and if Rooftop recorded the show, that will be great to review. I wasn't as nervous tonight as I have been lately (I talked to Gabe a bit about how my pulse races before i get on stage). My pulse seemed to be much closer to the "normal" 80 or so bpm I usually clock in at. I need to do some cardio.

Check out my MySpace blog for jokes on which I'm working.

Visit RooftopComedy.com. Watch videos. Laugh. Feel warm and fuzzy.

Honestly funny

I got to do a spotlight at the midnight show at the Funny Bone thanks to Eddie Gossling. He, myself and Tommy Johnagin hung out at Six Flags today and I had an absolute blast, and Eddie asked if I wanted to do a spot, and I said that I would. My set went well, the crowd was a little talkative, but it wasn't distracting to the point of being more than just annoying. I caught the show Thursday and one of them Friday (after playing basketball with Keith Cissel and the aforementioned Eddie and Tommy) and might head up to see the show again tomorrow. Stewart Huff (who is featuring) told me after his set that he liked my set and that it sounded very honest. That's a great compliment in my opinion since I talk about things that actually happened to me. It's harder to write material similar to someone else's if you're talking about your life (unless they too shave their head, are bad with women, and lived in a seminary, then it's kind of awkward). Anyway, if you happen to read this before 6pm on Sunday you should go check out the show at the Westport Funny Bone; Clayton Champagne will be hosting and it'll be a lot of fun.

Check out my MySpace blog for jokes on which I'm working.

Visit RooftopComedy.com. Watch videos. Laugh. Feel warm and fuzzy.

A longer blog about shorter sets

Yesterday's show at the Funnybone was pretty good. There were 19 or 20 comedians on the list (including three pros) and so Matt told me to light everyone at 2 minutes and get them off stage by 3:00 (except for the pros who pretty much have free reign). I tried out two new jokes, one about being in the Boy scouts and one about being in the Seminary. The first of the two did fairly well and I think it'll be a keeper, the seminary one needs a little work, but since not many comedians went to seminary I really want to talk about it. I got a nice compliment about my stage presence last night, which rocked and really helped make my night.
Al Canal called me yesterday and asked me to help run the open mic at the Forum tonight. I got to emcee (I thought I was just going to run the meeting and run the light but I did all three). There wasn't much of a crowd, but I tried all the material I did last night and even tried talking out a couple of things kind of on the spot. I had a couple of good comments between the comics, which got laughs from the audience (but I also had some that weren't good and they did not get laughs). One of the comics said it was good that I tried to keep the audience attentive between during the show. Since we had twenty five comics and and Al asked me to end the show by 10:30, I told the other comics I'd be lighting at 3 so they'd be done by 4:00 in hoped that everyone would get on stage. No one seemed to mind, and Matt the owner seemed impressed that the show ended by 10 o'clock.
Niice.

Check out my MySpace blog for jokes on which I'm working.

Visit RooftopComedy.com. Watch videos. Laugh. Feel warm and fuzzy.

Late on many accounts...

I showed up at Muddy Waters at the America's Best-Value Inn in Quincy, IL mere minutes before the scheduled show time. When i got there, I found Landon and Kevin and not much of a crowd. Apparently the ENTIRE barstaff at the place was fired Thursday, so I guess there were rumors or something going around about there not being a show. We decided to hold off until about 8:30 rather than begin with an audience of literally 5. We got maybe 20 more people in the bar, and after a little begging, they moved to the front and we began the show. My set went extremely well, I did a little over 21 minutes and got two different applause breaks. My "chunk" of porn material didn't really register with the whole audience, but one table in particular liked it, which was cool. I'm considering dropping it since it doesn't seem to mesh well with the rest of my material. But of course, nothing's set in stone. All in all, the show was really good, I had fun and I got a much-needed boost to my confidence after the Lincoln, IL Bowling Alley set.

Check out my MySpace blog for jokes on which I'm working.

Visit RooftopComedy.com. Watch videos. Laugh. Feel warm and fuzzy.

Long show, short set

I forgot to call in and sign up for the open mic at the Comedy Forum this week; so I was put on the waiting list and was told by Al Canal that I might get to go up if there was time. I said that was fine, since I did not sign up; I should have to follow the rules (and I am/was fine with that). Near the end of the show, Al said that Landon (who was in the same "boat" I was) could do a shorter set, and I said I'd love to. Most of the audience (literally and figuratively since they were all over-weight) had already left, but I wanted to at least get some practice before the show Saturday (my birthday!) at Muddy Waters in Quincy, IL with Landon Meyer and Kevin White. I went up and did literally three jokes, not even three minutes, just three jokes. And I'm happy with that because on joke is new (came up with it this week or last), one joke is two weeks old, and the third is my PANTS joke, which someone actually requested before I went on stage. My set went as well as possible with an audience of 8 non-comics, so I'm not down about it or anything. I might be doing Radio with Landon in Quincy Friday morning if I can wake up early enough to drive out to Quincy; I've done Radio once before and had a blast with it, so it should be a good time. Look out Quincy, here I come.

Check out my MySpace blog for jokes on which I'm working.

Visit RooftopComedy.com. Watch videos. Laugh. Feel warm and fuzzy.

Running the show...

Matt came up to me today before the show and asked me to run the meeting because he was busy. I said ok, and he said I might as well just emcee while I was at it. He said i was running the show, which kind of made me nervous. So I ran the meeting and tried not to forget the little rules and reminders... What I DID forget was to mark who wasn't there for the meeting, so while I was emceeing, I didn't always know if the person's name I called (there were a lot of new people, a LOT) was actually there. So we skipped on guy and the next time, I said playing the part of so-and-so is Rob Durham, since I had told Rob I was going to throw him up. My set went alright, though I forgot to do my Justin (quits smoking) joke. So i did it between two of the comics when I thought the crowd could use a boost. It apparently worked because it was short enough and got laughs at the right places. Emceeing an open mic is kind of a weird task, because there are so many stops and starts throughout the night; I always appreciate when the emcee has a quick and or clever remark about the guy who just got off stage, and I was happy that I had two tonight. It's not really something to brag about, but I kind of thought if I didn't have something on the fly, people would doubt my emceeing prowess. The show was around 2 hours long, which is a bit much, but we had four professionals show up, so it wasn't bad and the audience was alright.
I listed to a 20 minute set I have recorded from a while back to prepare for the show in Quincy on Saturday and realized that about four minutes of that set are all jokes I don't do anymore. I made a list of the jokes not on that set and hopefully I should have enough to break 20 and get close to 25, since that's what Landon is wanting me to do... If push comes to shove, I might just talk to the crowd, but I expect that that won't end well...

Check out my MySpace blog for jokes on which I'm working.

Visit RooftopComedy.com. Watch videos. Laugh. Feel warm and fuzzy.

getting rocked as opposed to rocking

I held off on writing about the Bowling alley show in Lincoln because I didn't want to come off as whiny. The show as a whole was good, Ryan Swaar, a guy named Ted, Joe Lehnig, Gabe Kea, myself and Chris Spreyer performed for about 80 or so people. Joe stole the show and absolutely destroyed the room. And then we had an intermission. Gabe went up and did well, and then I went up; I heard a lot of dead silence during my set, though Joe told me the people in the back were laughing and I couldn't hear them. Comedians make a lot of excuses for why a set wouldn't go well; so here are some
-the PA sounded funny to me while I was on stage
-I wasn't in the right "Mind set" as my friend Matt from Colorado would say
-Following Joe (who's a little darker and a little dirtier) was harder for a clean comic (though Gabe did fine)
-Gabe brought me up, instead of the emcee, so that might have thrown the crowd
-I didn't close on the right material, though that wouldn't explain the first part of my set
-gypsies, I blame them for about everything

All of those things are excuses, which can happen, but I put a lot of stock in my comedic abilities, so I shouldn't really let them affect my thoughts on the show. To be honest I don't think I've ever been THAT down about a set, and so I was really hoping for a strong set tonight at the Bone. "You're only as good as your last set" I've heard (I don't really believe it 100%, maybe about 55.8%). I did a new line or two during my Sober bit, and have some faith it will turn into something good. My set wasn't the stellar performance I would have hoped for, but I got some laughs and was under my time, so I'll optimistically call it a win and move on. I've decided I need to start writing more/again. I've gotten lazy so I bought some new pens (dollar-fifty each) and threw away my old ones because I hate writing with them. In truth, I hate hand-writing anything, but I don't like typing during "free writing" so I guess I have to suck it up and just get to it.

Check out my MySpace blog for jokes on which I'm working.

Visit RooftopComedy.com. Watch videos. Laugh. Feel warm and fuzzy.

Three for one sale

My ipod broke yesterday so I had to go to the Mac store to get it replaced today and was unable to write about last night's show at the Forum. The crowd was smallish, around twenty to thirty people, but they weren't too rough. My set went alright, and both David Beck (the feature) and Dan O'Sullivan said I did well, which is cool. I was under the assumption that I was just filling in for one night there so I didn't think I was emceeing Friday's shows. However, I called today to make sure and Al said I could come out tonight, so I got to perform tonight too.
The first show tonight was flat-out amazing. I got applause breaks, had a great time, and during my PANTS joke, some lady in the front row was so startled that she knocked her drinks menu and schedule into the air. I finished the joke and then apologized to her (priorities: Jokes first, manners eventually). The second show tonight was drastically different, we had fifteen people, so I kept it real conversational and got audible laughs. Both David and Dano did well, but they were both joking about the strain that an audience that small can put on a comedian. David gave me some ideas for my Sam's Club DVDs bit, and Dano had some really cool things to say about me; that my stage presence has really evolved and that I'm doing really well. He was very complimentary of my hosting, which feels even better than the audiences' reactions. I'm doing a one-nighter tomorrow with Joe Lehnig, Gabriel Kea, Ryan Swaar and Chris Spreyer in Illinois, so I won't be able to finish out the week at the Forum. I'd love to keep working with David and Dano, but I'm looking forward to the bowling alley. Hopefully it will be a good show, or at the very least I'll get an interesting story to tell.

Check out my MySpace blog for jokes on which I'm working.

Visit RooftopComedy.com. Watch videos. Laugh. Feel warm and fuzzy.

the good, the bad, the moderately average

During the meeting at the Comedy Forum tonight, Al Canal had me slated to go up second following Landon Meyer who was emceeing (Landon and I are doing a show on my birthday in Quincy, IL with Kevin White by the by, which I amd really looking forward to). I had a couple guests coming late, though some didn't show up, and I asked Al if I could move to a later spot if that wouldn't mess up the flow. He said I could emcee the second half of the show if I wanted. I did wanted.
I found out I was going up after Brian Dowell so I told him I expected the worst/dirties set imaginable and he said he might "oblige" me. And he did. Very much so. My set was alright, it can be hard following a blue set with a clean one, but I wanted the challenge, so I didn't mind. My set didn't go extremely well, but I know the material is funny because I did the same set last night and it worked really well. Janine and I talked about that for a second, she said it was one of the few times the audience didn't react in a positive manner that she didn't get depressed or down about it. I completely agree. The crowd was a little light, and had to sit through some pretty unusual stuff, though nothing as unusual as a Mormon being brought to the stage in a dog cage, who proceeded to tell really dirty jokes about pigmies (that happened a week or two ago). At one point, between two of the other comics I did my skiing jokes, and it seemed to bring the audience back to attention, which was cool. It felt like I actually did something as an emcee, instead of just "give it up for that guy, and keep it going for this guy...". Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of "give it up for that guy, and keep it going for this guy...", it moves the show along, but sometimes an emcee has to get the crowd interested again. Quick remarks about guys coming on stage or going off stage are a my favorite way to see that done, but I'm not think-on-my-feety enough to do that yet.
At the end of the show, I grabbed a schedule from a table and told the audience about some of the shows coming up. Dan O'Sullivan is headlining this week, and Dustin Diamond (Screech from Saved by the Bell) will be there in late September. It might have been that, or it might have just been my lucky day, but as I was leaving, Al Canal asked me to emcee tomorrow night. I said I would love to, and am pretty excited about it. Yay me.

Check out my MySpace blog for jokes on which I'm working.

Visit RooftopComedy.com. Watch videos. Laugh. Feel warm and fuzzy.

Not today, Karma!

Tonight, one of the comics went over his time by a lot. I was waving around the lights and he asked how much time he had left and what the lights meant. I said "Bail" kind of loudly and feel a little badly about it, but he was way over, and that's kind of disrespectful to the other comics, both those on the list and those not. That being said, I went over by twenty seconds, which is roughly 1/5th of the minute-thirty the other guy went over.
I don't mention that to be a jerk and call the dude out, but to contrast that jerky-action of mine to how my set went; in a word-amazing. I tried a new joke out about my trying to quit smoking and it worked well, and I added a line or two to the Mia Wallace bit (and even modified it on the fly) and it hit well too. After I got off stage, Joe Lehnig said "Give it up for Marcus, he was surprisingly funny".

Check out my MySpace blog for jokes on which I'm working.

Visit RooftopComedy.com. Watch videos. Laugh. Feel warm and fuzzy.

I live my life like there's no tomorrow

Great closing show

Last night's show at Fairview Heights was pretty good, especially for a Sunday night show. I got through my set without any problems and got the announcements without forgetting or blanking. The strangest thing that happened, and I can only assume a wire in my brain got crossed or something was when I brought Clayton to the stage. I just finished his intro (I just said clubs and colleges) and I almost said Jeff's name. it wasn't until I saw Clayton's hair in the shadows of the audience that I realized HE was next, not Jeff. I guess if I would have been thinking it was Clayton (like I should have been) I would have given his Miller Light Tour credit in his intro.
Nobody would have noticed I'm sure, but it was funny enough I had to tell Jeff and I had to write it here so I don't forget...

Check out my MySpace blog for jokes on which I'm working.

Visit RooftopComedy.com. Watch videos. Laugh. Feel warm and fuzzy.