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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