Going to Louisville

Wednesday, I left work early, picked up Clayton and Janine and headed to Louisville. The drive wasn't too bad (for me, I may have annoyd Clayton and Janine a bit, we may never know). The showcase took place in the lobby of the Comedy Caravan (there was a stage, but it was not the main show room); when I did my first showcase there, it was also in the lobby, and I did not have the best set, so I was a little nervous. There were around twenty or thirty people in the audience, which was more than than the other audition, but this time I didn't have to go up first, so that was a relief. Instead I went up second, but I had a really good set. Clayton followed me, and Janine followed him, and after each one of us, the emcee, Tim Northern, said that St. Louis was representing itself well, which made me really proud. Even though I've not been to a ton of other cities, I've always felt that the talent in St. Louis is greatly above average. The ride back to Missouri was alright, and I got to bed a little after four in the morning. I made it to work, and when I finally got home, I slept for about eleven hours... Totally worth it.

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

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

Talking it out

I wasn’t initially on the list, but I made it on before the show started, which was cool to me because after the workshop I wanted to just spend an entire set telling the Mia Wallace story and see what parts people seemed interested in. I took about three minutes to do that and then since I had a bit of time left I did my email joke. It closed well and after the show some audience member said I did really well. I wasn’t really looking for applause or anything with the story, I just wanted to get it out and see what was workable. Its odd going up on stage and knowing you’re not looking for the laughs, but I reassured myself that the research made it worth it and no one would mind too much. The audience would forget me by tomorrow if not the end of the show, and the other comics would understand that I’m not wasting time. I recorded the set, as always and will check it out when I get a chance. Afterwards, I did a little Sister Christian by Night Ranger karaoke style. I laughed through about the whole thing.

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

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

Still the "Best", I guess

At the workshop tonight, it was just myself, Chad, Jeff and Mike Shawki. I wanted to work on the Mia Wallace joke some more, and I ended up telling pretty much all the stories related to it, and spent a little less than a half an hour on it. I got it all recorded, so hopefully I'll be able to hear what the guys had to say about it all. No one else showed up and I felt kind of bad about taking up so much time when no one else wanted to work on anything of theirs.
Tonight was Steve Poggi's last night at Lloyd and Harry's and it was some dude'd birthday, so the crowd wasn't exactly attentive (because of the Bday, not because of Steve). Katie Best said she would emcee, but she got nervous so I had to do it. I plowed through my set as best I could, working a little blue just to get the attention of the crowd. It was kind of a futile effort of my part. All in all it was a good night, I got some free writing done, which I need to paste into my Myspace Blog; I spell checked it this time, so hopefully it will look better. As much as that is possible when I'm just putting down whatever comes out... It's kind of weird throwing out ideas like that, very herky-jerky.

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

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

LYRICS

Friday and Saturday at the Forum

I had the sneaking suspicion yesterday evening that I forgot to write about Friday's shows. Apparently I did... both shows went well, and I got some really good advice from Steve Brewer about using my facial expressions more. He said that since I have a bald head, I have a bigger canvas to work with, and that when using the three parts of a joke (setup, punch, tag) I should use my facial expressions to exaggerate what I say; or sometimes I could tag a joke entirely with my physical reactions.
Last nights shows were good, too. I rocked the house first show, and had a blast. The crowd was great, even from the beginning and they treated Josh and Steve really well. Steve got partial standing ovations after both shows, which was pretty cool. I remember closing the first show and telling him right before he got off stage that he was drenched with sweat. Matt at the Forum said I did a good job that week, which was awesome to hear because I had a ton of fun. Before I left, Steve and I swapped contact info and he said that when he comes back to the area, he'll make sure to get me in the show, which was an incredible compliment and really exciting.

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

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

Obey your Master

Back at the Comedy Forum

I got to emcee at the Forum tonight with Josh Alton and Steve Brewer. Mark Lacer, Jim Stout and Derrick Hendricks did guest sets. I had a lot of fun with my set, mainly did dating material and a the skiin stuff. I would have liked to end on a good closer but I went over my time, so I I closed on my pharmacy joke. There was a table of very drunk and talkative girls in the front row, which made the show interesting to say the least. I'm really looking forward to the shows tomorrow and Saturday.

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

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

iTalk and iFunny

Tonight I played with my iTalk that I got off of Amazon dot com. The sound quality wasn't the best, but I had my iPod sitting on a stool a little behind me so that may have been why. I did a bunch of my dating material and found out my married woman bit follows my math advice and chubby chaser jokes nicely. I'm excited because I'll be able to try it at least a couple more times this week while I'm emceeing at the Forum. I free wrote today on my Myspace blog, it's full of spelling errors and typos, but I typed for about 20 minutes solid and it felt pretty good, except for my arm hurting. I'm thinking it'll be a good way to keep track of stuff I write down. Late + Tired = Bed time.

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

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

Mondays and Married Women

Work shopped the Married woman story some more tonight. It's getting hard to convey what I want to do while it's my turn in the class. I don't think I'm expressing myself well enough. I don't want to tell a "story" because I'm not good at that kind of format. My stories don't have enough punchlines, or enough details that are relavent (to me). I want a joke out of the story, but I also want it to be believable...
At Lloyd and Harry's I think I came up with the answer:

"A lot of my friends brag about their sex lives and their crazy stories. But I never had any good ones, until now. In November, I had an affair with a married woman who offerend me ten thousand dollars to kill her husband. Suddenly Leroy's story about the stripper isn't as cool. Because nothing trumps solicitation for murder."

After that I can go into more detail.

"I didn't do it, I found out the guy was a Marine, and I support the troops."
"She was the first woman I had been with, so that's how I thought sex worked; have some drinks, go back to her place, negotiate a contract. Needless to say that part got awkward with my next girlfriend." More can go after that, but it's late and I am tired. Plus I haven't flushed out all the details.
The show tonight was good, and I did about 7 minutes on stage. The crowd was talkative as usual, but I did get an applause break after my tetris joke. Apparently there are still people in this city who haven't heard it...

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

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

We want the funk, give up the funk!

Got him before he got cold...

Tonight was a pretty good night for me. Laughs had a decent crowd, and I really enjoyed my set. I did the N-Word joke (my new one; about how I don't like the N-word) and my Mia Wallace joke (the married woman thing). I did my Math joke, a little bit about Match.com and closed on this: "So I've been thinking of killing my self ALOT lately" (which got a lot of applause, I'm not sure if I should be happy about that or not...) The joke continues "but I'm not going to do it because I don't want to be accused of hacking Richard Jeni".
More than a couple of comics told me that I did well tonight, which really boosted my self esteem. I usually try to tell comics that, because I almost always enjoy their sets. I can appreciate the effort, I guess. I know what they're working for. But tonight it seemed different, like they were saying "I enjoyed your set, and so did the audience". Even if that's not what they were saying, that's how I'm going to take it, because it makes me feel good.

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

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

I'm buying a new toy

I'm tired of my audio recorder. To get any type of performance or idea onto my iPod so I can listen to it with any regularity, I have to go through a number of steps:
1) Actually record on my Olympus Vn-480 DVR
2) Hook up to my PC, upload files through the Olympus software
3) Convert WAV files to Mp3 using some terrible (buy free) software
4) Connect my Apple to my PC
5) Copy newly created Mp3s
6) Add to iTunes.

So last night after my set at Lloyd and Harry's, I decided to get a little something new. That something new is the Griffin iTalk microphone and I'm pretty excited. Now when I do shows infront of appathetic and unresponsive crowds I'll be recording the whole episode in stereo. It'll be much easier to transfer to my Mac after that so I can relive the experience over and over and over...

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

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

Cocktail Hour Update

If you can't say something nice, you shouldn't say anything at all. With that idea in mind, I've decided to stop writing "I had a hard time" and such when talking about my performances. Last night we didn't have much of an audience at all at the Cocktail hour, but I made it through my set and didn't get rattled. I'm trying to use the small crowds to prepare myself for harder shows that will likely come when I'm doing one-nighters in the middle of nowhere. I'm not looking forward to the part where I learn how to handle loud and disruptive crowds because that will most certainly be painful.
I love my Married Woman material, even though it's not really working or ready. I'm positive that it will end up in a story format, which is not my forte. When it's ready it will have pushed me to a new level, and I'll be able to punch out more stories about myself and entertain some crowds.

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

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

Comedy Forum tonight, got booked later this month!

Tonight was a good night for comedy. Even though there weren't a lot of audience members at the Comedy Forum tonight, I felt I had a good set. I worked on my Married-woman joke and my new N-word joke. They still seem to have work to be done, but I'm enjoying working them out on and off stage. As I was leaving, I told Al that I was glad to see Steve Brewer coming to the Forum. I met and worked with Steve when I was auditioning in Southbend back in August. Al offered to let me emcee that week and I naturally accepted. In fact, I've already added the dates to my calendar (the 22nd of March through the 24th, in case you're interested). I'm pretty excited about it, because it's work, in town, and it's working with someone I've met before. I am having weird issues with my iCal program. I use it to publish my calendar on my website, and for some reason it wants to open up to February. I think it should automatically open up to today's date (and tomorrow it should open up to tomorrow's date, and so on...). I've changed some of the href links on my site and am updating it right now. Hopefully that should work.

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

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

new jokes in front of 11 people

Last night at the Bone, we had a crowd of eleven. After the show I was telling the night's events to my buddy Leroy and he mentioned that low numbers for shows was becoming a running theme lately. I can't say he's wrong, really. All the open mics have been suffereing a bit, for whatever reasons. I worked on my Married Woman joke last night, as well as my Burial plot joke, and certain parts actually got a response from the audience. After the show I was pretty tired so I didn't hang out for karaoke, My DVR needed emptying and I wanted to get the audio from the workshop onto my iPod. Oh yeah, Strantz hosted last night and did a pretty good job at it; I did get thrown up first (to the wolves, so to speak) but I volunteered for it, so had it not gone well, I'd have only myself to blame.

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

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

Maid Marian cheats...

Tonight's show at Lloyd and Harry's was not what I would call well-recieved. Although a couple of guys got some noticable laughs (my new Anti-N-Word joke got one) it was hard to really pay attention to the comedians when some dude kept makeing that Tarzan noise. Not that I'm against the Tarzan noise, it does belong in certain social situations. It's just would have rather been able to hear the punchlines to the jokes. I had already invested the time it took for the other comics to set up the jokes, and I felt kind of robbed of the punchlines thanks to Tarzan guy. Then again he did buy a round for everyone in the bar, so I got a free RedBull out of it. My set went as well as could be expected, I mainly used it as a chance to work on plowing through my material admid distraction. I'm chalking tonight up as a success in that category.

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

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

Saturday at Laughs with Bill, Dan and Jeremy

The two shows with Dan Swartwout and Bill Arrundale couldn't have been more different. The 8 O'clock show had a crowd size of about twenty people, and they were very talkative and didn't really pay attention to the show. It was kind of frustrating. Janine and Lauren came down for the show. The second show was much better, there were probably three to four times the audience members. I felt like my set went better, and I switched up my material a little bit. I tried to change eat set a little, although I kept the same opener and closer and I think I did my ski material during each show. Jeremy Essig stopped by and did a spotlight, which was pretty cool. The crowd really seemed to like him. Both Bill and Dan had great sets also. The weekend was pretty cool, and I was really excited to get to meet and work with Bill and Dan. They had mentioned doing an on location recording for one of their next episodes, but I was exhausted and so we didn't have a chance. Maybe I'll get to up to Ohio and I'll have a chance then, then I can prove-disprove any rumors about the plush Swarty.com studios.

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

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

No podcast for you

The two shows with Dan Swartwout and Bill Arrundale couldn't have been more different. The 8 O'clock show had a crowd size of about twenty people, and they were very talkative and didn't really pay attention to the show. It was kind of frustrating. Janine and Lauren came down for the show. The second show was much better, there were probably three to four times the audience members. I felt like my set went better, and I switched up my material a little bit. I tried to change eat set a little, although I kept the same opener and closer and I think I did my ski material during each show. Jeremy Essig stopped by and did a spotlight, which was pretty cool. The crowd really seemed to like him. Both Bill and Dan had great sets also. The weekend was pretty cool, and I was really excited to get to meet and work with Bill and Dan. They had mentioned doing an on location recording for one of their next episodes, but I was exhausted and had company, so I headed home and didn't get to record an episode of the Bill and Dan Show. :(

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

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

if it's too loud, you're too old

Last night I got to emcee at Laughs on the landing for Bill Arrundale and Dan Swartwout. I was really excited as I'm a big fan of their podcast, the Bill and Dan Show. We did two shows, 8 and 10 pm, and both were good. The first show had about 60 people in the audience, and I had a really good set comedicaly but I got tongue tied and forgot Dan's credits when i was bringing him up, which made me feel kind of unprofessional. The second show we had about 15 people, maybe 20, and a couple minutes into my set, a large group came in and sat down stage left. They were really talkative as they sat down, but instead of loosing my concentration and getting lost, I just upped my volume a bit and continued with my set. The rest of the audience still seemed to pay attention dispite the distraction, and so I felt like I learned something really cool last night.

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

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

problems yawning

My set tonight at Laughs on the Landing was awesome. We didn't have much of a crowd, but I kept my no-fear attitude from last night and drove home the jokes I did. i even did two new(ish) jokes about anti-depressants and suicide and two new(ish) jokes about my dating life. As I was heading off stage, Adam Lough said that I had a good set, which was cool to hear. Tomorrow I'm emceeing for Bill Arrundale and Dan Swartwout, and I'm really excited. I haven't emceed in a while, but thankfully the Landing doesn't have a lot of announcements, so there won't be much like that to memorize.

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

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