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.
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