ITJ ITS

No audience will ever truly appreciate the amount of work that goes into a comedian's set. That goes for headliners of course, features and even open mic-ers. Really that could be said for a single joke...

I think I'm having a lot more fun on stage now; I'm going up with set lists in my pocket and not needing them (as much); I'm playing with the order of my set more and more, and even re-wording jokes to keep myself on my toes and to find the best wording for the best reaction. My set tonight was good, especially considering the small-ish size of the audience. I worked on my Solicitation for Murder joke (which I refer to in my head as the Mia Wallace joke) and it got some laughs in it's new format. I was hoping to close on the newly-reworked motorcycle joke, but I got more groans that laughs. Whatever, since I missed it earlier in the set, I closed on my PANTS! joke. It's a little too short to be a really successful closer, but it served the purpose and kept me from going (too far) over (4:15, I think). Other comedians still tell me that the yell in that joke startles them, or they (like myself) watch the audience members for jumps. I'm getting compliments on my stage pressence, which really encouraging; I'd really rather have one or so a week than a ton all at once. It keeps me going, especially when people say I have a streak going. I had a weird dream last night that I think I could turn into a new Bucket of Fish strip, but I have to free-up some time to manipulate the pictures I already have since drawing isn't my thing and recycling bad-existing-drawings seems to be. I wish I could update more frequently, I really don't know how guys who have real web-comics do it. Maybe it's the talent or the fact some of them make a living doing it and don't sit in a cubicle 10 hours a day...
Forum tomorrow, hopefully I'll be blogging about how the Mia Wallace joke is killing and the motorcycle is a worthy condender for a closer...

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

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

So the question's repeated, why even try?
When there's rocks in the road, pot-holes in the lawn,
The victory's sweeter when obstacles either,
Are side-stepped or crushed on the way to the door

taping (together) sets

Last night's shows over in Fairview Heights were pretty good. I drug my video camera out because I still can't find my audio recorders and I ended up getting Janine's, Dave's and my sets. I told Dave I'd throw his on a DVD for him, but at the moment my camera isn't playing nice with my lappy. I hate not writing down the night's events right after they happen, because I don't remember them as clearly, nor do I really get a good sense of what the experience taught me. It's like if I know I learned something, but I'm not able to explain that and certainly not able to think about it or pay attention to it later. Both sets last night were alright, I got my PANTS! and Match.com jokes out well enough, though I only used the phrase "pre-emptive shut-down" during the second show; that's my favorite line in that joke, though not many audience members truly appreciate it.

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

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

Dropping Everything

Last night I got a call from Jeff at the Westport Bone. He asked if I wanted to do a spotliht over in Fairview, and I said "yeah". So he told me to head over. I literally was in my car driving three minutes later. Daryll Roades was headlining, when I got there, I found that Dave Waite was the feature and Janine Brito was emceeing. I met Dave at an open mic around a month ago, and remember really liking his material. The first show, I went up for an eight minute set and did pretty well; during my set, I started one joke, and switched to another before I got into the real setup. I switched the setup to my motorcycle joke and it hit really well first show. After my set, Daryll suggested I use it as my closer; so I agreed to do that second show. After the first show, some dude came up to me and said I should try guys. I didn't know how to really reply to that, but it was kind of funny, and flattering since I'm sure he was referring to himiself...
The second show I did five minutes, and twice, I was "pre-setting" up a joke and I decided not to do it but to do something else... That kind of sounds weird, but the presetup, as I call it, seems to be kind of interchangeable within a chunk of material. The crowd was had a bunch of minors, which was weird to have a lot of sober people at the second show Friday. I tried closing on my motorcycle joke, but it didn't hit the way I wanted, so tried to close on my Black name joke, which also didn't it. I looked at my watch and only had :15 seconds left, so I bailed. It was a snap-judgement or whatever, but I didn't want to go over, and I certainly didn't want to go 0-3 for closers in one set. During the seond show, Gabe Kea showed up, so he, I Janine and Dave went over to Andi Smith's house and hung out for a while. It was pretty cool and I didn't get home and asleep until 3:30am and I didn't get out to bed today until 1:30 in the afternoon or so. I love being a comedian.

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

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

LYRICS

White Boy Wednesday

Stand up comedy is a weird mix; a bit of science, some art and somewhere you try to make people laugh. Some people have an easier time of it than others; sadly I don't see myself as one of those people. I've heard some very nice compliments lately about how I've seen more confident on stage, have written some great (ok, good) new jokes and have seemed to enjoy my stage time more for the past six weeks. Thankfully most of the people who said or thought those things weren't at the Landing tonight. I struggled with the crowd tonight and probably didn't seem to confident. I had to go to my cheat sheet twice, with only one joke between the two glances. As far as I'm concerned, major deductions should be tallied there. My joke about recycling dental picks and q-tips probably isn't a great opener; of course I've only done it twice, but I'm sure it needs to be more of a middle-set kind of joke. I'm tickering my married woman joke and it's coming along, but it's not where I want it to be, so tickering will continue until I decide to ticker with something else.

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

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

This thing that I found
Ain't gonna bring me down
I'm like a junkie without an addiction

Black and Decker cotton swabs

Tonight I went up at the Funnybone between Andi Smith and Jeremy Essig. It's always cool to go after a pro because I usually don't have to light them so I can go sit "on deck" and not have to worry about running around the back row of chairs... I tried two new jokes tonight, one about my dating life and one about growing up and my mom. The second one seems to have a lot of potential, which is pretty cool. After my set Dan O'Sullivan told me I had a good set and that he thought that I was on a roll for the past month or so. There's no open mic at the Forum tomorrow, so I'm gonna probably head down to Laughs and see what I can work on; I'm pretty confident about a bunch of my new stuff and can't wait to show some of the guys there who haven't seen me in a while.

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

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

Words cannot explain it...

Tonight's show at the Bone was over two hours long; and it was (almost) non-stop laughs the entire time. I had every intention of doing a couple new-new jokes, but the crowd was huge and attentive (until the complete end, when some left) so I decided to do my moderately-new stuff. Mike Strantz even called-back my TAKE OFF YOUR PANTS joke. RooftopComedy.com even taped tonight so I can see what worked (PANTS) and what didn't (TRANSFORMERS). I lost my back-pack somewhere and it has my microphone in it, which really bums me out. I've checked everywhere I can think of, so if you know of somewhere I've been (not home, work, or any clubs) and want to remind me to look there, that would be cool.

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

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

Should have recorded it...

Not much of a crowd at the Forum tonight, but I had a friend from my last job come out with a friend of her's. They enjoyed the show and liked my set. I felt I did alright, though I did have to use my cheat sheet, and I was hoping to avoid that tonight. I think I finally worded my Preemptive-shut down correctly, or at least I thought so at the time. I left my recorded in my backpack, which I think is in my car, which is at Big G Auto getting an oil change. Anyway, the show went pretty well, sadly they're not having an open mic next week, which will probably limit me to just the Bone next week. If I don't get up, that'll be a little more than an entire week without performing; I'm not a big fan of down-time like that...

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

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

Sleeping on my couch still sucks...

I got thrown to the wolves last night; which means I was first at the Westport Open Mic. Since i was hoping to polish up all my most recent jokes, I didn't exactly have the strongest/most experiences material to whip the somewhat-small crowd into shape and get them rolling; I did get laughs, and not the kind you get when your fly is down or you're bombing, actual laughs. Before I went on stage, I noticed my heart was racing, seriously, which may be commonplace for me, but it felt like it was going probably 110 bps, I think my resting rate is somewhere closer to 70 or 80. I'm not sure if I was nervous or scared of the small crowd or what. I've been bugging some old co-workers to come see me perform, and two (that I was not able to invite due to lack of email address) came to the show last night. It was cool, but since I'm so bad with names, I felt kind of weird; plus they thought I still worked at Express Scripts, and I quit almost 9 months ago. Anyway, I forgot to type this last night, so I had to do it before work. And now I have to go.

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

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

I did not take a train a plane or bus with wings
Man wasn't meant to fly
Besides walking does the same thing: gets me outta here

this needs a title, but I'm distracted by Back to the Future III

Last night I went up third at the Funnybone Open Mic. I would have preferred to go up a little later, but I won't complain since I was on stage. My set was alright; the other comics all said that everyone had a good/great set last night; but I felt mine could have been better. Lately I haven't really been examining myself on stage the way I used to; I've been concentrating more on my material than my stage pressence. I won't suggest that I am writing more, because in all honesty I'm gotten very lazy in that regard, but ever since I took Jeff Wesselschmidt's advice and started conciously clearing my mind daily (I guess you could call it meditating) my brain's been more open to ideas and has been catching thoughts and observances that I probably would have normally missed. Watching Last Comic Standing kind motivates me to get off my keister, since I know at my present state I wouldn't have much of a chance of making a clip on tv, let along making it to the call-back round or beyond.

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

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