Lot of catching up to do (again)

Last week, I hosted at the Comedy Forum with Joe Zimmerman and Butch Lord. Both 8:00 shows were awesome, and I got them on tape, so I'm pretty excited about that. However, both 10:15 shows were a little less fun for me so I am (understandably) less excited about those. I did come up with a joke about me being bad with names, so I'm going to try to work on that some in the coming weeks. Last night I headed over to the Forum, but low audience numbers kept us from having a show. So after a while I headed to Lloyd and Harry's, but I was feeling really under the weather, so I did a couple minutes and got off stage. I only watched one or two comics after me before I had to leave to pass out at home... Hopefully tonight I'll feel better.

a lot of catching up to do...

So on December 11th, Johnny Kavanaugh and I did a corporate one-nighter in Martinsburg, MO. We were the entertainment for a group called the Silver Savers (the senior citizen types with a certain amount of money). I learned a lot that night, about corporate work, about one nighters and about doing shows where it's entirely possibly no one can hear you even though you're 10 feet away from them. My set was rough to say the least, but I have a much better idea of what I'm working with when I think about corporate work.
Monday I pulled a two-for, which I haven't done in quite a while. Even though I was late for the Comedy Forum's open mic (and even though they didn't have much of an audience) I got on stage there and ate it. I maybe had a joke or two that worked, but the set as a whole was pretty much a stinker, so that sucks. However, I totally redeemed myself at Lloyd and Harry's just an hour later. Since Clayton's starting to do open mic there again, I went over that way and worked on a new joke and had a decent set.
Last night at the Funny Bone there was a really annoying table in the front that everyone talked to. It was like every comic thought they would have the zinger to shut these people up. I didn't talk to them, but I did try some new material (which did not work the way I wanted (which would have been to get laughs (from the audience))). I closed strong, though and only went over by 30 or 40 seconds.

The best news of the evening, though came when I got a call from a new agency and got booked for a one nighter in March. I've been trying to get work from different agencies for a while, and I'm hoping I start featuring some one nighters this year.

That Dang Show

Wednesday night, I went to Scooty's in Soulard to do a show with and for my friend Katie. She's been doing a show down there for a while and I finally had a Wednesday night off so I headed down. The crowd was less that cooperative with some of the other acts, and even the door-girl was heckling for a while, though I totally blame it on her apparent lack of the ability to handle her liquor. Eventually she left, so there was no real loss there.
My set was good, I "stormed" the stage, and rather than trying to make conversation and relate to the audience (because I knew they'd just talk back and therefore derail me) I just plowed through my material. I think that technique worked in my favor, because it showed I had confidence in my material and in my being-on-stage. So the audience listened and laughed. Afterward, a couple people came up to me and complimented me, which felt good. When you can "rock" a small audience enough-so that they come over, that feels nice. I've killed in front of 200 people before and after the show, they just walk by like I'm a ghost or a homeless vet. Smaller audiences are harder, but the potential victories there can be so much sweeter.

3 non comics

Tonight at the Comedy Forum, we had an all time record low audience turn-out. I tried to round up a bunch of random people on Myspace advertising drink specials, but we ended up having three audience members who weren't comics (originally we had 5, but 2 left). I came up with a new joke in Little Rock and did it on stage; it's a little blue for me and Mike Strantz offered to buy it from me so I might sell it. God knows I could use the money.

The end of another week

Last night's shows in Little Rock were very different from each other. The first show was great, the audience really seemed to get the subtle stuff. My set wasn't the best in the world, but I had a good time because the crowd was laughing at stuff the rest of the audiences didn't like/get. The third show of the night was like pulling teeth, that audience had really low energy and it made for a less enjoyable time on stage.
Somewhere throughout the week I realized something about myself. I'm hardly ever happy with a set, even when I get compliments from audience members and other comics. I guess I'm only happy with the kind of sets that make for good demo tapes. Maybe I'm a perfectionist or maybe I'm just looking for a new demo...

Life in the Little Rock

Wednesday's open mic show went pretty well, there were only five Little Rock comedians there for the show, but we had a decent sized crowd and I had a good set. After the show, Matt Singer (a local comic I know) and I went out to some bars and hung out. Yesterday was Thanksgiving so we didn't have a show. Steve the club's manager invited the out of town comics over to his place for Thanksgiving where James Johann and I ate well and then I played Wii video games with Steve's family. We have two shows tonight and three tomorrow, so I'm hoping to get a good, longer set on tape for some agencies from whom I'm trying to get work.

all out of gum

Tonight's show at the Comedy Forum was sparsely attended. Thankfully Landon agreed to emcee since he had some people there. I was determined to have a good set despite the low numbers, unlike last week where I gave up on the audience before I even got on stage. Riding the wave I (feel like I ) am on, I did a similar to the one last Tuesday and used it as a chance to work on my Pro Bono Pimp joke. Hopefully I'll have a good set tomorrow and run with some nice confidence for Little Rock.

Wrapping up my weekend

This weekend was outstanding. Not because crazy things happened, not because I got a decent amount of sleep, and certainly not because I threw up (A LOT) last night and got picked up a nice bout of diarrhea (thanks to some Arby's I think). This weekend was awesome because I had two shows, both one nighters (which usually have the opportunity to be rough (to say the least)) and both went better than I could have hoped.
Friday morning, I woke up super early to drive to North Platte, NE with David Graham for a show at a bar called Touch Downers (I think). The show was great, though I had to use a cheat sheet on my Iphone to remember a new order I'm working on. I ended up doing 33 minutes and got a lot of nice compliments after the show. David had really nice things to say, and so now I'm not nearly as anxious of featuring as I was.
Last night Joe Lehnig, Dan O'Sullivan and I performed at an Elk's lodge in Washington, MO. We weren't allowed to use the F-word (which wasn't an issue for me) and the sound mic cord was really dodgy, but other than that the show went extremely well. I opened up and did about 13 minutes. Joe did really well, and Dano only slipped up twice with the F-word (he played it off well, and no one got upset). After the show, everyone was very happy with the show, and on the way home Dano had some nice things to say about my comedic talents. I've always believed I'd make it as a professional comedy, but now I'm starting to know I will. It's a great feeling.

lazy lazy lazy

I've gotten pretty lazy with this blog. Things have gotten kind of slow, I suppose. At least that's the way it seems. Most of my shows go pretty much the same, either I do well and am satisfied with the results, or I encounter some problem (be it me, the delivery of one particular joke, or a rough audience). Since most of my sets seem to continuously fall into those one of those categories, I feel that my blogs have become categorized as well.
The week with Leo and Kevin ended well, Beth was very complimentary to me and invited me back. Her calendar's full through January, so hopefully I'll get back down there around February or March. Hopefully February.
Tonight at the Comedy Forum I emceed for a small crowd. Mike Howington was in town and brought people, so we had a show (and he gets a mention in the blog). My set consisted of me explaining the open mic rules (not as charismatically as I would have liked) and doing a couple of new jokes which poorly segued into other established jokes. I worked pretty blue most of the night and even told a couple book jokes between comics to keep myself amused. I kind of wish I would have taken the audience more seriously because the two new jokes I tried could have worked WAY better had I actually believed the audience would like them. I'll have to wait for another small crowd sometime and hope that I don't give up before I get on stage then also.

Good start to the week

Last night was the open mic at the Tulsa Loony Bin. So I got to host the show for 7 open mic-ers, Ken Kramis the feature and Leo DeFour the headliner and a good sized crowd. I started the open mic telling people they'd see pros and amateurs, funny comics and un funny comics. I told them to laugh at the funny ones but not to encourage the bad ones. I didn't do any time up top, so I tried to have funny things to say between the comics, so that when I finally got to do my time, I would hopefully already have a reputation with the crowd of being funny. I called some guy Gomer Pile from Full Metal Jacket and they quoted the movie, but got it wrong a bit.
My set went alright, I played around on stage and talked to the audience a bit. Nothing real substantial or hilarious ensued, but I had a good set, and felt really good about just winging it more and taking the chance of being spontaneously funny.

Not a lot to say

Last night at the Forum, we had literally five audience members and we did a show. Because I knew no one would want to emcee, we just did a relay race where each comic brought up the guy after him. I tried talking out a couple of things on stage, but since I went up first (and there were only five audience members) I can't say I got any actual experience from the set; I realize now that kind of sucks to say/write.
No show tonight at the Bone because they're doing a debate thing. So I won't be getting onstage until I hit the Oklahoma City Loony Bin tomorrow night.

Not what I wanted

Last night at the Forum, I didn't have my video camera so I can't examine exactly why certain jokes didn't work. A couple of jokes (that I feel have promise and am certain worked last week) bombed big time; and this super rude table up front was talking, so I just said "Talk a little more during my set, why don't you?". I then apologized and said I was having a bad week because of my quitting smoking. So I did that joke, and the rude people kind of paid attention for a minute. I never really got out any "good" "new" jokes, and the whole set seemed kind of like a waste since I didn't get it on video; but we'll try again tonight and hopefully I'll get a laugh out or two out of the new stuff.

Fewer problems than Jay Z

I just watched my tape from Tuesday's show at the Funny Bone and I'm really happy with my set. I've been struggling to write more jokes because I want to feature (SOON) but right now I have just short of 30 minutes of material (some clubs require 20, some 25, some 30). A good rule, people tell me, is to have 150% of the time you need, so if you need 30, have 45 just in case. So apparently I need to write 20 more minutes of material (which is essentially doubling my current joke library or catalog).
My problem at the moment (or problems) are:
-I want to continue to work clean
-I don't want to embarrass my family should they ever hear/see these jokes
-I don't know what my "voice" is yet.
-I procrastinate and don't write enough.

The last problem there should be an easy fix; just write more have a schedule and stick to it. Sounds easy, but I watch a lot of movies and have new ones coming in constantly, also I got suckered into playing World of Warcraft again and I have a very low level of self control when it comes to video games.
As for working clean, I like that still. I don't mind filthy humor and during a regular day some pretty nasty stuff comes out of my mouth, but I just don't want to do that on stage. It's not because I think I'm better than anyone else, it's just a choice. And marketing, I'll be honest.
The working clean thing goes along with embarrassing my family. I'd rather they not know about certain things I've done (and do), but I'm starting to think that if it's funny and an audience can learn about my life, I should probably do it.
As for my voice, I have no idea what it is. Am I auto biographical? Probably. Sarcastic? Sometimes. Self deprecating. Oh yeah. But listen to someone people always rave about; George Carlin for instance or Richard Pryor. I'm not familiar with very much of their work (I'm a bad comic that way, I guess). I've never sat down and listened to any of their albums or CDs or whatever you want to call it. But if I heard one of their jokes; I would venture to guess I could say whose it was. You know? They have that voice. It's like when ANY Offspring song comes on, I know it's them, they have a familiar sound to them, a theme of sorts (but more like a common style (the guitar, the drums, bass. Even before they start singing I know who it is). I guess that's what I'm looking for... I think Pryor actually said it takes 15 years (I could be misquoting him) to find your voice. I'll be 40 then, and will probably need to pay some bills, so I hope I figure it out before then. It doesn't have to be soon, but it'd be a whole lot cooler if it was...

Today's problem

Friday night some lady (who's seen me more than a couple times) told me to write more material. "I'm working on it."
Saturday, Al suggested a lackluster set first show was because my setups are too long and I don't have any 1-2 punch lines big hitting jokes. "I'm working on it."

Last night I tried to talk out a couple stories on stage at the Forum open mic. Few if any got laughs, and only because I was talking blue.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to only do new material at open mic; I think I lasted 1 week. The problem is I don't know what to write about; since I try to base most of my bits on my life; I'm limited to what happens (or has happened) to me. And since I work clean, I guess I'm not able to use certain words or take certain positions on subjects... The problem with writing material at this point for me is; I don't know how I write jokes. I'm still really confused about who I am on stage, am I happy or bitter, self-confident or not; I really don't think an audience could take both happy and sad me, and then see me go from no self confidence to some or a bunch. Even though I do that in real life; sometimes I feel untouchable, sometimes not. Maybe the audiences would be able to follow along... I'm pretty sure though, someone will say it's confusing. It probably will be at first.

it could be considered illegal in some states...

I'm working with the Untamed Shrews this week; it's pretty fun. I know Andy Woodhull and I went to the absolute worst strip club with Marge Tackes; but according to my blog, I've not worked with them before. Thursday night Keith Cissel and Kevin Patterson came out to the club because they've worked with the Shrews a lot and are pretty close.

Last night after the first show, some lady came up to me and told me to write more jokes. She said she'd seen me before and that I was funny, but that she had seen it before. I tried to play it off like I wasn't insulted (I was, but only a little) and told her I am writing, but I'm not generating new quality material at a pace I'm happy with yet. The second show was a little rough for me, but Al and I did a weird give away at the end of the first show, where we were both on stage with 2 microphones and some envelopes and tickets. It was kind of cool bantering back and forth like that; I couldn't help but think of the Sklar brothers...

Hello, rich people

Friday night, David Graham and I did a Yacht club private show in St Charles. I did 26 minutes and was really happy with my set; the acoustics weren't the best, the lighting was almost non existent, and the audience was drunk and rowdy (stage right) and quiet and uptight (stage left). But I had a good time, I did about every joke I had, and I made some money. Being able to fill that amount of time feels good, but I keep thinking to the advice that pros sometimes give. Have 1 1/2 of what's needed. If you need 30 minutes, wait until you have 45. Just in case. I'm really hoping this will help motivate me to write more, so that when I am required to do 30 regularly, I will have a little extra in my back pocket just in case.

Breaking rules and breaking down

Tuesday I went up first at open mic, and I did about 80 or more percent new stuff. It was a bunch of the stuff I did Monday at the Forum, and I ate it hard. I won't blame the crowd, but I think if I had been later in the show, my reception wouldn't have been so frigid...

Sick on Sunday

I did a guest set last night at the Funny Bone. I hadn't even thought of getting on stage when I walked into the club, but Rahn Ramey was headlining, and he's taken a shine to me, plus he LOVES guest sets. It's not like I wasn't prepared. I always have an "open mic set" ready should something happen, and I did get to try out a new joke or two that I've been working on. I had to leave before the show ended, though, because I started to feel kind of sick; I ended up throwing up until about 4:30am and didn't get the best night of sleep...
Tonight at the Forum, I did a bunch of new stuff, and even though the audience wasn't the largest I had a good set. One group of about 6 in the center-to-stage-right side of the audience didn't respond too much, and one guy didn't even smile once. I even went a little blue during a couple parts, but I have a couple of new jokes that I'm really looking forward to playing-around with. The show got over in good time; we only had about 14 comics. I didn't hang around much because I'm hoping to call it an early night and get my strength back for when I have to go to work later this week. Hopefully I can trick my immune-system into working by tomorrow night or Wednesday morning...

not helping

I can't even remember much of the first show last night. I remember doing one new joke and it working alright, which is why I did it during the second show. But that's about all I remember about the first show. The second show was (for me) was tough. The crowd just stared at me during 80% of my set. During the intro to my drinking chuck, I asked if people ever blacked out while drinking: "You guys ever black out when you drink?" Nothing, "You guys ever drink?" Still nada, "You guys ever speak?" (I could hear Claude and John laughing in the back, which made me smile). Afterwards we went to "The Bar" and I got really dizzy and thought I was going to throw up, thankfully I contained myself and when we got back home I passed out quickly and quietly. I don't know what came over me, but it kinda sucked.

Three days in Tulsa

I've been in Tulsa since Tuesday; and it's been a weird week. I forgot to call the club last week and tell them I'd need a key to the condo, so no one was there when I stopped by Tuesday afternoon. That's totally my fault. To kill time (in hopes that someone would come by) I went to the movie theater that is in the same strip mall as the club. There, I spent fifty cents to watch Wanted with Angelina Jolie and then another fifty cents to watch Hancock with Will Smith. Between movies, I checked the club, and noone was there. Eventually Claude called and told me he and John were at the Condo. Problem solved.
Wednesday night we were supposed to have the open mic (followed by myself, John and Claude) but we didn't have enough customers so the show was canceled. Instead, John, Claude and did a little writing back at the condo.
Tonight's show was awesome! It was a great way to kick off the week. Before the show even started, some bachelorette asked to kiss me on the forehead as some sort of party checklist. She didn't know I was one of the comics, and her party got a kick out of that when I was on stage. My set went well tonight, I really felt I warmed up the crowd, however I felt like I commented a little too much on certain current events that had little to nothing to do with my set. Aside from that distraction, I'm very pleased with my time. I did have to change some jokes since my set was cut short since we had a guest set. The guy (a local from Tulsa) Aaron Michael King, did well and ended up closing the show after Claude with announcements and such, which was awesome since I'm doing Claude's music cue's this week.
I'm really looking forward to the shows tomorrow night and Saturday. We found out tonight that we won't have a Sunday show, which sucks because I'm a sucker for stage time and I really want to use my time for more than myspacing and watching TV.
I think the most significant learning experience came Tuesday when I was just killing time and trying to spend as little money as possible while waiting around. Obviously the life of a comic isn't all shows and parties afterward; but it was really boring and kind of depressing not having anything to do or anyone to talk to.
But that's why I have black jack on my iPhone!

Saturday and Sunday shows

Both of the shows Saturday were great. Some of the staff said that the second show crowd would probably be troublesome, but they were great. The only snag I hit was during the announcements between John and Claude. I stumbled through the gift cards one and blanked on one of Claude's three TV credits. Rookie mistakes. No one mentioned it, but that doesn't make it better.
Tonight's show was really good all around. I opened with my black name joke and it went over really well, I also played with my Adult Video store joke and it got a decent response. The week went by really quickly; I'm assuming that as my "tour" goes on I'll start to miss home (read: my girlfriend).

Good Intentions

Last night after the first show, Claude tried to sell his DVD after the show. One guy asked if he could get a DVD of tonight's show, which is when I jumped in and said we could do that since Mark Payne recorded the whole show. That seemed really weird, that we happened to be taping and someone wanted it and asked for it specifically.
As for the actual shows; the first one was WAY better than the second. I hate it when people are "racist" towards Second Show Friday. They always act like S.S.F. is a nightmare to deal with. So when they have a S.S.F., they don't respect it or give their all, and so the show sucks. And it just perpetuates the stereotype... It's not fair, and I hate it.
Anyway, the second show is like the Second Show Fridayarchetype. Plato would say it was the show from which the stereotype was born. In short, it sucked. Weird talky people throughout the entire show, one girl fell asleep during the show, oh! and a bachelorette party. My set wasn't too bad, I didn't get big laughs, but I got just enough to know people were paying attention and weren't completely considering lynching me.

premeditated destruction

I performed at the Loony Bin in Wichita tonight and had a pretty good time. I didn't record my set because my camera was near the end of the tap, and I didn't have a spare in my bag (which means I don't have a spare on this trip). My set went well (I can say that since there is no physical proof) my Shoes joke is getting better responses, I think the way I hesitate to think how to describe my frustration in describing the woman's attractiveness when compared to the shoes is working. I did the "normal" announcements since no one at the club told me what announcements to do. Last night they only specified mentioning that Tim Wilson is coming for a special engagement next week. After the show I handed out more cards (and when I got home someone had already friended me on myspace from tonight's show!) and headed home.

I smoked three cigarettes tonight. I have a headache from that and even though there are two shows tomorrow I'm hoping not to smoke tomorrow (or at least not that much).

The road to Wichita

6:20 PM
The drive to Wichita was a pretty easy one; I stopped in Columbia to grab a quick lunch with Leroy, but his regional manager kept him looking for some holy grail of shipping records; so that took a while. Nothing real eventful happened on the ride up, I listened to old episodes of The Bill and Dan Show. I also thought about how the next two weeks are going to go. I'm not worried about my sets, I've done these rooms before; I'm going to be working with the same feature and same headliner for the next two weeks. The week could go badly if I don't get along with the guys or if they get along way too well and I end up being the third-wheel. I did meet John Burton (the feature act) and he seemed cool. I'll type more after the show.
12:52 AM
The Loony Bins do open mic on Wednesday; but their open mic show is followed by the regular show. Before the show, I was talking to the manager and he told me how they quadruple-booked the emcee spot for this week. Luckily the other three either couldn't make it. I've heard of double-bookings; but wow...
Tonight, I brought up four open micers (who were allotted 10 minutes each!). I didn't do any material before them, I just explained the open mic "rules". I did my set the open mic guys (and gal) and did well. The crowd was a little weird, but I think I got some good laughs. After the show, Claude (the headliner) and I talked about how all three of us didn't think they'd get the clever stuff. But they got my shampoo-dog joke, which is really just a joke for other comics. However, they didn't like my Abraham Lincoln reference so I was forced to do my Lincoln impression.
After the show I gave away my new marketing cards, I'm hoping people will want to be friends on Myspace or join my new email-list.

One for the road

Last night we recycled last week's list for open mic. A bunch of people didn't show, so Jeff threw up a bunch of people who weren't on the list. The crowd was weird, a kind of talky that goes beyond annoying but doesn't quite reach heckling and therefore require removal. Paul Harris did get "kicked" in the stomach though, apparently because he claimed a woman's pants were pink, she claimed they were red. Fair enough, I've seen people killed over that same issue. In the streets.
My set was fine, I'm still tinkering with the ending to that smoking joke (tinkering means I am trying the same line over and over again and hoping it will work better this time) and my Shoes joke. Gabe Kea said he liked my energy level; he said that I started out kind of low, but brought it up to the right balance of excited and relaxed by the middle of my set. After the show, Gabe and I picked up Sarah and we saw Tropic Thunder, it was pretty decent; very over the top. I kind of liked it, but probably not enough to warrant buying it.

If I were famous, people would read this...

Last night was my 29th birthday; because of that and because I am leaving town for a four weeks, I decided to invite a bunch of my co-workers from the Boathouse to see the show at the Comedy Forum. To my utter amazement, a huge group came out for the show. The show was more of a showcase than it was an open mic, which was really cool because my friends got to see the best and brightest (and hopefully they'll be more willing to come to another show). I went on stage last, and Al Canal even brought me up (after making the crowd sing happy birthday to me. My set went well, I got it on tape (Even Al's intro) and afterward Sarah threw an after party at her place. Tomorrow I head out of town, and it's really exciting, though already I can feel the pressure of not having a ton of money to spend on this trip and I'm already a little anxious about paying my bills when I get home, but I suppose that's just one of the "fun" parts about stand up comedy. It's like being nervous on a roller coaster, only instead of fearing a possibly-lethal ride malfunction, I fear not making a payment to my condo association.

Cool as Ice

Last night's show at the Comedy Forum was not your typical open mic. For starters, we had WAY less comics show up than normal, and on top of that, we literally doubled our audience size twice throughout the course of the show. We started with around 7 or 8 people, and ended up with more than 30. I remember looking up and one point and just being flabbergasted at the number of people.
I'm happy with my set last night, I am still working on the same two bits, but I also did my old Walmart jokes, which were kind of rusty. I started off my set with my black-name joke (even thought 6 of the 12 (or so) people in the audience were black). It got a decent reaction, but I even said that I was starting off trying to upset the audience so that I could win them back (thus seeming more triumphant). Anyway, the show ended around 9:15, which is almost a record as far as I'm concerned and I went to pick up Sarah and see Pineapple Express (it was alright, but not as great as I expected).
Next Monday is my birthday and the Forum is doing a showcase of some of their favorite comics, hopefully I can get some of my co-workers to come to the show.

Over six hundred and sixty posts...

Every great once in a while, a ton of people will show up for an open mic; it doesn't happen often, but when it does it's the kind of night where the energy permits everyone, n00bs and veterans to do well. Last night was most certainly nowhere near that kind of night.
Not to say last night was terrible, but it was nothing more than average. Some guys did great, some did well, others not so much. I did four bits last night; PANTS and Shoes, Justin's cigarettes, and the Gay Bar story. The Cigarettes joke close is a work in progress and so is the Shoes joke, so they went alright.
Apparently Rooftop and Yahoo are doing a new competition to use political and topical bits (that are clean and funny). I'd like to say I'm going to try but political and topical humor isn't my forte, but I won't NOT try a bit if it comes to me...

Too much on the plate

Last night I was emceeing for the Forum's open mic, and at the same time talking to Al about going to the racetrack, talking to various comics about demo videos, and keeping time for the guys on stage. More than once, a comic ended while I was not in the room; which is my fault. I really felt bad because it kind of disrupts the show (which makes the other comics have to work harder). So that was kind of discouraging.
My set went well, I am still working on that Shoes joke, and I'm tinkering with my joke about Justin's nasty cigarettes; and Andy Woodhull gave me a great idea for my Adult Video Store joke, so I'm planning on writing a bit of that out tonight and trying it at the Funny Bone.
In website news, I added a new format .MP4 to each of my two videos. Sadly none of the three are playable on my PC in IExplore, but each plays in Mozilla (both on my PC and Mac) and Safari (Mac only). I think if I have time tomorrow before work, I'll try to upload my montage, since Myspace AND Youtube won't allow it...

Stressful end to the week.

Last night was the end of the week for me, Andy, and the Fryman at the Comedy Forum. Both had asked me to tape their sets in hopes of getting something good on a DVD. So I showed up with all my video supplies and tried to find the best place to record the show. It took a while, and I tried a couple different ideas and positions for my tri-pod (the problems were: 1-I needed a power source, as my camera would not survive a two hour show on my battery and 2-I had to switch tapes after Andy.
Eventually Al set up a high-top table in the back near the audio equipment. We used a milk-crate, a trash bag and some Duct Tape and I was in business. Before the show, I write down three jokes I wanted to do during my set, the DQ joke, the Charity show the one about the Adult Video Store. I didn't remember to do the Charity show one, but Andy gave me a great idea for the Video Store joke.
Andy told me what joke he wanted to close on, and then he was going to pitch his T-shirt so that I could get a tape in for the Fryman. I got one in and everything went great until the end of the show. I started getting nervous then because the Fryman hit fifty minutes (on my camera; I had to start it RIGHT before I went on, so it had all my announcements and everything (about three minutes worth of stuff) and I was afraid he would still be on stage when the tape ended.
I couldn't stop looking at my iPhone at that point, because he and I had already talked about using this set on his new DVD (which I would get to "engineer") using a couple special features from his current one. Anyway, he ended up getting of in time and when I got off stage I stopped the camera at 1:00:00. Tomorrow I get to check out all the sets I did this past week and work on Fryman and Andy's movies; then it's back to the Forum for open mic.

Night of firsts

Last nights shows at the Comedy Forum don't really follow the "Second Show Friday" stereotype, because the second show last night was WAY better than the first. Don't get me wrong, the first one was good (I worked on my Shoes joke and my Nasty Cigarettes tag) and I got it on video, but barely... I'm working on filming all my sets this week (and Andy's as well), but I accidentally chose a wide-screen format for the first show, so the 40 minute video I shot took 80 minutes to process. So literally it was done after the 10:15 show was supposed to start (we started a little late, and I was able to get the late show). That second show will go down in history, because there was a weird energy in the room, the kind where when I did my Mozzarella sticks joke, someone offered me a mozzarella stick. Hell yeah, so I ATE it on stage. While doing my set. At one point a little piece flew out of my mouth and on my arm, so I grabbed it and just said "I got it" and ate it again. During the Fryman's set, people kept sending up shots (a bunch of them too) so he got a little drunk, which the crowd loved. THEN he found out a bunch of cops were in the audience; and he kept joking about it being a set-up. We didn't get out until late, because he went a little long (but the crowd was loving it, so no one seemed to mind). Tonight I'm taping the entire show, because Fryman wants a shorter tighter headliner set for his DVD. Go BabyTurtle.

Is it the shoes?

Last night was a different kind of night at the Comedy Forum; for starters, I couldn't find my "lucky" comedy t-shirt. Yeah, I have one; I also have lucky comedy shoes. But I wore those last night. Another oddity of the evening came when Al Canal told me we'd be using an "announcer". I'm familiar with the concept; a person who does little-to-no material and just does announcements (hence...). A lady named Evelyn was there who wanted to try it as she had experience in another city. So my set was weird because I didn't go up to a "cold" crowd. OK, I did, but I had someone bring me up. While looking for ideas for credits or whatever, Andy Woodhull (who was featuring) said I write one of the most renowned comedy blogs in the Midwest. So she said that. That was cool. My set went alright, even though we had exactly eleven audience members. I'm working on a couple new jokes (which I'll likely do the rest of the week) and I'm also trying to get all my jokes on tape, so I can start arranging them into a longer feature set. I won't be using the tape for demo, since it'll be from different angles and I'll be in different clothes in front of different audiences, but it will give me a more approximate estimation of how much material I have, and where I think each joke should go. I want to have the right segues so that my feature set is as fluid as possible (when i need it).
Today, my video camera started acting up, and I had to go to Best Buy to get a 25 dollar head-cleaner. Weak. Since I can't find my 6-4 pin Firewire cable (which lets me hook up to my lappy), I looked for one of those. Too bad they didn't have one. Of course if they did, it would have been 6 ft long and thirty bucks. That's overkill and over-priced. I bought a 3 ft one of ebay for a penny when I got home and it's retractable and shipping is only 2.99. Looks like that was the better buy. (I know the store is called BestBuy, but better IS the appropriate word to use there, since were only comparing 2 options. Better is the "comparative" form of the word "good" and "best" (the superlative form) should only be used when comparing 3 or more things.

I guess I have the most renowned comedy blog in the Midwest for a reason.

Did you bring me a monkey?

Yesterday I drove to Chicago to do a guest spot at Senese's Winery and Barrel of Laughs comedy club. I left around 1:30 and got to the club around 6:30, so I killed some time at a local Starbucks and then went into the club. When I met Bill Brady, the owner, he introduced me to James Wesley Jackson and Vince Viecelli (the headliner and feature respectively). He also asked if I needed a 2 minute light, to which I asked how much time I was doing. He said ten minutes and I said no (I didn't need the light). Then he said fifteen. I got confused for a second, as if he thought I was saying that ten minutes wasn't enough. I checked, and he said that's not how he saw it, so I was safe. Then I told him I wouldn't need a light regardless because of my timer (I ended up doing 14:53). Bill also said the only words they allow are s**t, damn and hell. I said I don't even use those, so we should be fine.
Bill usually hosts the shows, so I was auditioning as a feature act (I've heard that his club is a good one to start out in, and he admits that he likes giving people a chance). I went up after Bill did about 15 minutes of crowd work. Vince had already warned me about pacing myself after Bill because it's a weird transition. He said that usually his first five minutes are lost just trying to get the audience to shift gears.
My set, which I got on tape, wasn't bad. After the show, I told Bill I wasn't disappointed, but I know I could have done better. There were times where the audience was with me, and times where they just weren't. My skier, email and phone sex jokes all did pretty well, but that's only a couple of minutes out of my entire 15 minutes that really got half the laughs I wanted...The PA system was a little loud, but I got used to it after a bit on stage.
After the show, I hung out and talked to Bill a bit, gave him my promo kit and headed home. By this point it was about 10:20 or later, and my Garmin estimated my arrival at 3:19AM.
Somewhere around Springfield, IL I had to pull over and take a small nap, but that only lasted about 7 minutes when I woke up (because I left my car running for the heater) and for a split-second thought that I was still driving on the road. That pretty much woke me up for the rest of the ride home...

Late as heck; I blame the cats

So while I was in Appleton, my girlfriend (Sarah) who was in Colorado visiting family informed me she got two cats. Their names are Conrad and Doug; named after characters in the Showtime dramatic series Weeds. Since then, I've been very occupied playing with the cats and have NOT been blogging as much (or as quickly after a show) as I would like. Tuesday's show at the Funny Bone was alright. There were a lot of "new" guys, and the audience kind of petered out at the end. Since Matt wasn't there, Jeff had me run the meeting, and I asked Jeff if I could do about 6 minutes to practice for my set (tonight) at Barrel of Laughs in Chicago. I did my six (maybe a little more) and had to drop two jokes because I didn't have time, which means if I do six tonight (I'm not sure how much time I'll be doing) I'm going to have to change my joke lineup. I'm really excited about Barrel of Laughs, but people at work have been asking when I'll know if I get anything out of it. My answer is just "could be months", which as I think about it, is a really disheartening answer. I know in comedy a lot of auditions don't go anywhere (and it takes a while to find that out (I had an audition in South Bend, IN back when the Funny Bone there was open, did well, did them a favor, and never got so much as an emcee week). That stuff happens; and as much as it flat-out sucks; it's comedy and I'm alright with it. I hope we have a decent crowd tonight, and I hope I get to do about 7 to 10, I think I could rock a 7-10 minute set tonight

uh huh

Tonight's open mic started off badly; during the meeting, I told the other comics that they'd be getting 1 light with a minute to go and no second light. Instead of another light, I was just going to stand by or walk onto the stage. I asked Steve Poggi to do the off-stage announcements to start the show, and the microphone was squelching really badly, so we let the Green Onions play a little longer and I just walked on stage and did everything "by hand". I cursed quite a bit on stage, and didn't try any real new material. I did try writing out loud for a bit, but it really just sounded like a too-long, rambling segue.

Saturday's shows

I really enjoyed Saturday's shows at the Skyline Comedy Cafe, I worked on my new shoes joke that follows my PANTS joke, and I did my mozzarella sticks joke, which I haven't done in a while. I remembered only too late that I wanted to try my kindergarten joke (even though it's only a thirty second (or so) bit) so that would be the only thing I would change if I could go back in time. Well, that and I would have reminded myself to bring my video camera charger so I could tape all week.

Monday's open mic

I did my set a capella style at the Forum tonight. The comic who emceed (I forget his name) hooked up an "echo machine" or something to the mic, and so it wasn't completely functional during my set. I went a little over (ok, I went over by three minutes) but the crowd enjoyed my set, and I was able to work on my hand gestures and I REALLY played with how my voice sounded on some of my jokes. I worked on my shoes joke a little bit and tried heading in a different direction (based on a suggestion from Steve Poggi) which fits my character more and makes me seem less like a jerk. It wasn't funny, but I have confidence it will be by next week. Unfortunatly I did swear a little bit, but I learned more during my set than I lost by cursing, so I'd call my set tonight a win. Around the end of the show, the emcee said (on stage) that he had to leave, so I took over hosting duties and closed the show.

Thursday and Friday

It's Saturday now, and Tommy, Mike and I just got back from watching the Green Bay Packers practice. Thursday's show (after the football incident) went well. I did my skiing joke and considerably less jokes in the rest of my set and was spot-on for a 12 minute set.
Friday's first show was alright, but I didn't feel I had a great set, nor did I feel I did a good enough job with the announcements (there are 11, which is a bunch, but I can't complain. It's what the clubs wants...). One of the waitresses actually told me she thought I was a thorough emcee, which was nice.
The second show Friday was great. I tried a new joke that Mike and Tommy helped me with, and I opened with my Ferrari joke, which I haven't done in a while. After the show, we grabbed some food and met some of the club staff at this dive-bar called Union Jack for a drink and I played some Buck Hunter. Mike, Tommy and I stayed up til around five AM, and got up at around 1:30 today, which is ridiculous, but it was a good time.

Resistence

Yesterday I woke up super early and met Tommy Johnagin at his place so that we could drive to Appleton, WI. Along the way, we picked up Mike Palascak in Chicago. Somewhere along the trip, we played the Alphabet game (that kids game where you find words on billboards that start with specific letters of the alphabet. Tommy and I were near the end, and Mike came from WAY behind to win. He passed us, and while on 'Z', Tommy tried to distract him, but did such a horrible job Mike realized what was up and saw the winning Z-word. We ran into a bunch of traffic thanks to the EAA fly-in at Osk Kosh and showed up to the club to get the condo key at 7:30 (the show was at 8:00). We hit the condo and got back to the club with ten minutes to spare.

The show went really well, I did around 12 minutes to open and my friend Steve Hartman (whom I worked with in Milwaukee a while back) did a guest set. Mike and Tommy had good sets, and somewhere in there during the announcements a waitress dropped a bottle (or glass) and it hit the floor. The audience clapped and cheered, so I said "Like you've never screwed up at work before". At the time I was really proud that I came up with that line so quickly, but looking back it may be kind-of stock. At the end of the show, since I left my phone at the condo (bad move) I didn't know when Tommy was getting off stage, so I was late and had to sprint to the stage. I was out of breath and had trouble with the announcements. The last time that happened to me was YEARS ago at Fairview Heights and Joey (the manager at the time) yelled at me a lot. Neither Casey nor Cliff mentioned it, so I'm hoping they didn't notice / think it was a big deal. Tonight I will try to remember my iPhone and hopefully will be able to avoid any similar problems.

After the show, we went shopping, and it took forever to find the supermarket. The one we found was so poorly laid out, that it took us literally 90 to 120 minutes to get everything. Near the beginning, I threw a box of tampons in the cart and eventually forgot about it. While we were checking out, I went to the bathroom and when I came back, Tommy and Mike were wondering how the Tampons (which had already been rung up) got into our cart. So the cashier had to call for help a couple times before she figured out how to refund Tommy and Mike's money. Meanwhile a huge line (at about 1:30 AM?) grew and there were a lot of people waiting in line. Tommy tried to lecture me about how that should teach me a lesson or something, but I kept on laughing...

Today, I woke up around 10:30 or so and did a bunch of video editing. I just got Final Cut Express and am learning how to use it, around 4 we went to a park to play a little football. About thirty minutes in, I tried to catch the ball and ended up dislocating my left pinky. It looked sick. I thought I broke it, but it didn't hurt as bad as I thought a broken finger would. Either way, we grabbed our stuff and started walking to the car (so we could at least go to the hospital) when some homeless guy asked us for bus fare. We told him we were going to the hospital and so he asked again, so I showed him my finger and somewhat exasperatedly told him we were busy. Before we got back to the car, I wrapped my finger in my shirt and popped it back into place. So then we played some more football, only I was all-time QB and no one would throw the ball back to me, they'd just had it over. It was still fun and we didn't get accosted by any more bums who apparently had more places to be than we did.

Kerley's show

The Show Friday night at Kerley's Pub in Hannibal, MO was alright. Due to a list of weird circumstances (All the regulars went on a giant float trip, La Grange is celebrating their 225th anniversary and something else I forgot). We ended up with about 40 audience members; one group talked through the entire show, another thought that they could help out by yelling suggestions. My set was alright, a bunch of people missed stuff, like the Six flags joke and my imaginary dog thing. But at the end of the day, we got paid, the owner wants to try another and Dano sold a bunch of merch. So the show was alright; but now I have to figure out who to take to the next one...

A tale of two shows

Saturday's shows at the Comedy Forum couldn't have been more different. The first show was amazing, the crowd was good and I performed my emcee skills at their technical best. I don't mean technical like "Well, technically I didn't cheat on the test", I mean the skills an emcee should use (warming up the crowd, doing announcements, bringing up comics ETCETERA) were on point. At the beginning of the show, I had to alert the audience that we were a waitress short, so their drinks might take a minute or two longer than normal. At that point, some dude in the front drunkenly yelled that he and his table needed a waitress. So I proceeded to remind everyone that they should keep their table-talk to a minimum and turn off their cell phones. I did my set (and it went really well) and brought up Reggie Reg who was doing a guest spot at the request of David Graham. I was a little sad that my time was getting cut in front of such a good audience, but I didn't voice that to anyone because who am I to complain, you know?
The second show was rough. My new six-flags joke didn't work at all (I have a feeling everyone was either drunk or a little slow) and both Jeremy and David had to work to get the audience to go with them. Aside from my six-flags joke, I tried mostly my "'A' material" so it's not like I didn't try to warm up the crowd...
It's weird how two shows in the same night can be so radically different...

Three shows, two nights, one crazy blog

I'm emceeing out at the Comedy Forum this week with headliner David Graham and Jeremy Nunes (pronounced Newness). Thursday's show was a little light, I think we started with twenty people, but we ended with around 30 as there were a lot of late comers. My set went well, though; I'm opening with the six flags joke and moving right into the story of how Sarah and I met. Both of those jokes are going over pretty well and I'm excited I'll get to do them a total of seven times this week (including open mics).
Friday's first show was great, I really felt like I got the audience warmed up. I didn't prepare a set list, so I kind of stuck to some of the standards (Drinking, Celebate) but I also threw in a joke or two that I didn't do Thursday. After the show some people told me I did a good job. You don't get that too often at open mic (I kind of did Tuesday) but it feels really good to have people treat you like a professional comedian.
The second show last night wasn't too bad, my first three or four jokes were great, and then the audience kind of petered out for a bit, but I did close strong and set the table for Jeremy and David. Some dude kind of yelled a couple of things out during my set (it was like he was trying to tag my jokes for me), and after the first time, I looked at him and said "That wasn't funny at all", and the crowd laughed because it was the most obvious statement I could come up with. I'm not real quick with hecklers, but I've heard you want to say the first thing that comes to mind; we'll see about that, I suppose. Two more shows tonight, which I am excited about, and then my next professional show is on the 25th in Hannibal, MO with Dan O'Sullivan and Joe Lehnig. It's going to be sweet.

Tuesdays Joe Murray Update

My set Tuesday was great; the two new jokes I tried Monday worked again, and I closed strong, so the audience (hopefully) was left with a good impression of me. My middle jokes (the Match.com, shampoo and braille menus stuff, which usually work well) did alright, but not great. I'm excited to have a new joke (two, actually) to work on, since my last attempts at jokes (the DQ bit and the stuff about the Boathouse) aren't hitting the way they did (I've actually dropped the BH stuff completely, since it's apparently more funny to me than actual audiences).

In Joe Murray news, I asked Joe what he thought about his set Tuesday, and he said it was "awkward". "I changed the wording on one of my first jokes, and had some weird pauses throughout my set", Joe said (I'm paraphrasing since it's been two days), "time to head back to the bone yard". (OK, Joe didn't say, that, but I really don't have anything else for the Joe Murray update...)

Newness almost pays off

Tonight at the Comedy Forum, I was paging through my notebook, looking for old premises that might still be useful. I came across one about my first few dates with my girlfriend, Sarah, and decided the story of how we met is actually funnier than I initially realized. Also, an idea about my recent trip to Six Flags (with a little work and the name of a recognizable local sports celebrity) turned out to be a good opener. (After the show, I told both jokes over the phone to my girlfriend; and she didn't "get" the Six Flags one, (maybe I didn't tell it right) but she did like the one about her).
My website's going a little hay-wire at the moment; I've been messing with third party software to help speedup the updating process; and I kind of screwed the pooch, so I tried hosting over at GoDaddy.com but it has advertising (since it's "free") and I hate that. It looks unprofessional. So currently my website is down; hopefully I can get it back up by the morning... changes to the GoDaddy settings take a while to take effect...

No complaints

Last night the show at the Funny bone was alright. I spent the hours leading up to the show creating a website for Andy Faasen. The show itself was good, my set was just about exactly what I was looking for. My charity show joke got a laugh during the setup, although the punchline laugh seems smaller that the one for the setup now that I think of it. I screwed up my shampoo joke again, I keep omitting the same line, and it's kind of necessary as a setup to the second half of the joke. Had I gotten that right, the joke probably would have done better, but I would have gone over my time (I got off stage at 3:58).

Welcome back, comic

I was really hoping for a fun show, now that I'm back in Missouri; but the audience members of the Comedy Forum tonight weren't up for the challenge. I basically tried the stuff I did all week in Louisville and my Charity show joke.
About an hour in, I started lighting people early. I don't want to be the guy who tells people they aren't going on stage; but I also don't want to sit through a 150 minute show. Nothing to note, really...

One more night, two more shows

Saturday night's shows were a lot of fun. The second one especially felt really good, I switched up my material a bit and really felt like I rocked the audience. Even the third show was good. Beforehand, Mike told me to stay away from the fat jokes; there were some rather large individuals in the audience (Mike called it Biscuit N' Gravy night). I made sure to do my email joke, because I know Mike likes calling back to that at the beginning of his set, and he told me it's one of the funnier jokes he's heard. I also closed on my Gay bar joke and have been working on my timing all week.

Tweeners

The first show tonight was really good; I had a really good set and closed strong after my five minutes. I did a joke between a guest spot and the feature, Big John, to bring the audience back, and did the announcements between John and Mike. Second show, Mike asked me if I did my Email joke, which I hadn't so he asked me to do that instead of announcements between him and John. I did, but since I really haven't dusted off that joke in a while, it didn't hit the way I (and Mike, I assume) had hoped. The shows were both good, and I spent a lot of time talking to the waitstaff; I told them this, and it's true; they're some of the nicest club staff I've met on the road. Everyone knows my name and says 'hi' to me. It's awesome even though I feel terrible since I don't know all their names.

7 shows 5 days

Tonight at the Comedy Caravan I hosted the professional show and did their Unprotected Sets Open Mic. The pro show went very well, I did five minutes and Jacob Williams (who has the same name as my God-son) did a guest-set. My set was awesome, I started out welcoming a couple big parties we had and made a quick joke about one of them, and then I did my set. My Advice joke went over very well; and I cut my smoking joke down a bit and I think I ended on my Abraham Lincoln Impression, but I may be confusing that set with the open mic one.
The open mic scene in Louisville is really different from St Louis. It's a much more "alternative" scene and my somewhat straight laced comedy seemed out of place tonight; or course it could have been that I started my set with about three or four new jokes. That part was fun because I wanted to see if I could dig myself out of the hole I was in. I couldn't. The crowd was pretty cold for the rest of my set and the rest of the night (they had been cold before my set, too. It's not like I ruined the show). I still had a really good time on stage.

Camals, sand, and comedy

Yesterday I left St Louis around 11am and drove to Louisville, KY. I'm emceeing this week with Mike Armstrong and Big John Richardson at the Comedy Caravan. I'm really excited because I've been to Louisville three or four times in the past two years; for open mics and a spotlight with Mike once on a Saturday. So it took two years to get in the club and finally being here feels awesome. Of course, it's also really nerve-racking because I want to be invited back, so I have to make sure I bring my A-game.
Last night there was a professional show and an open mic (called Unprotected Sets) at the club. The professional show went well, my set got laughs (and groans from some of my grosser material), but overall, I had a good set. Since it's a new club, it took me a bit to get accustomed to the PA system, I was later told that there was a sound guy making adjustments to the levels. I didn't know that so I was moving the microphone on instinct. No one told me about what announcements to do between John and Mike, so I just checked out a couple posters on the wall and went with the standard, website, box office, big-name coming up routine. No one said anything and when I asked if that was alright, the sound guy, Rob, said it was.
After the show was the open mic, I stuck around because I wanted to meet and hang out with the local comics (and perform). I tried to do a completely different set than I did in the professional show, because I didn't want to look like I only had a ten minute set or whatever; so I tried a couple new things and a couple really old things and was complimented after my set by a couple comics and audience members. Since I'm never really happy with my sets, I can never really tell if someone is saying "nice set" to be nice or because they really liked my set. After the show, some audience member to me a bunch of my material had "potential". He also told me that he didn't mean for that to be a back-handed compliment, and that he did think my stage pressence was good. After the show, I headed back to the condo with Big John and watched some sport center with Dustin (an out of town open miker and friend of John's) and his girlfriend. Then I went to bed.

22 comics...

The open mic last night at the Funny Bone was really fun. We had a decent sized crowd, and a large lineup of comics. Including Jeremy, Tommy and Dano, twenty-two total. I went up third and had a decent set. In the middle of my Shampoo joke, I added a joke about the Drunk show, and then launched back into the rest of the shampoo bit. I forgot a line or so of the joke, which only added to the confusion, but I kind of liked the feeling. I doubt I try anything like that in Louisville this week, because I HAVE to make a good impression.

late entry

Long show 24+ comics, had to start cutting comics' times.
Forgot to blog this for a week, can't remember many details.

hottest show around

Last night at Fairview Heights, the air conditioning was out, so it was easily eighty degrees in the club; and even more on stage. I was asked to emcee, which I agreed to do because of my Louisville trip coming up this week. I'm very pleased with the job I did, even though the crowd was a little stiff; most of them were drinking non alcoholic water and fanning themselves with the table tents; so they were kind of a tough sell. In any case, I had one or two decent comments between comics and nailed the announcements. Tommy Johnagin headlined the week, so he did about 27 minutes at the end of the show; which had to be unbearable with the heat and humidity the way it was but he did well and I pitched the Kilo-Diabetes foundation tickets (I didn't check, but I doubt we gave away many tickets, because an un-air-conditioned comedy show in the summer isn't all that tempting, even for a dollar).

slump busting ahead

Monday's show fell into the slump category, but only because the crowd wasn't really primed. Tuesday's show was much better, I'm getting the confidence back in my material. I realized while talking to Dano, I think, that my material has worked before, so I know it's funny. So it must be something mental or physical (my head's not in it, and/r my body is revealing nervousness/something). Though the crowd wasn't great, I had a couple friends in the audience, and they thought the show rocked.

into the mild

Sunday's audience sucked. They couldn't get warmed up and I ended up having a terrible set. Not many of the comics had a good set, though a couple did. Bozeman headlined, obviously he did well. The worst part is I've been absent from Fairview since March 30th, so I was hoping to return and have a good set with my new material. Instead, I looked terrible in front of my girlfriend and a friend of ours from work.

Sadly, I was not the "Party Star"

Tuesday's show at the Funny Bone was outstanding. The majority of the performers did very well and the crowd was really responsive. After getting such a negative response Monday, I was worried that I am telling my Dairy Queen joke all wrong. I kind of consider it my "go to" joke (mainly because it's my favorite new joke) and because when civilians are like "Your a comic, tell me a joke" that's the one I pull out. But after doing that I became worried that I was telling it like a "street comic" (see: street magician) instead of a stage comic. My set went really well, and in particular my Weekly Rates joke got one (just one) lady to laugh really loudly at the final punch. That made my day.

Why I hate the white trash

Last night at the Forum, I let Patrick Brandmeyer host the pro/am open mic, and he did a really good job. The show went around an hour fifty, and a bunch of people went over their time, but the audience (for the most part) was stellar. I say for the most part, because after the-third-to-last-comic and the-second-to-last-comic we lost over half of the members to the outside bar. My set wasn't great, which sucks. I opened up with my Dairy Queen joke and apparently it hit a little too close to home for some audience members, who knows. Anyway, I tried a couple changes to my Boathouse jokes and even threw out a new line about turtles, but as a whole the audience really didn't seem to like me (not that I'll be loosing any sleep over it).

busy busy busy

I keep forgetting to blog after shows; so it looks like I have some catching up to do.

Saturday was the drunk show at the Blue Agave, Joe Lancy, Joel Thornton, Landon Meyer, Steve Poggi, Brian Dowell, Kevin Bunetic, Patrick Brandmeyer and I performed. I was emceeing the show, and everyone from Joel to Kevin were competing for their own charities. The rules were that they had to be twice the legal limit (.16 BAC) before performing and they had to do twelve minutes to qualify. Officer Cathy Effing and her breathalyser proved to be too accurate so I had to fudge the numbers a bit, but that doesn't mean the guys weren't wasted. Kevin and Steve were super belligerent and Brian ended up throwing up in the back of the "showroom". The audience ended up voting for Joel Thornton, so I think some Animal charity got the money from the door.

Monday at the Forum, I kind of gave up on stage. I think the small audience (and the fact that a bunch of my friends went up and didn't get the results they deserved) had something to do with it. My DQ joke and my smoking joke did go over well, though.

Tuesday, last night, was a similar situation. The audience wasn't bad, and I was only third on the list so it's not like I could claim they were slow or terrible only e minutes into the show. Anyway, I did my DQ joke and it worked well, my restaurant material didn't ALL work, I need something better for the dreams part and I need a good punch at the end of my smoking joke. Hopefully I'll come up with something by next week.

I blame it on the crowd

The crowd at the Bone Tuesday was decent, but not great. My set didn't go as well as I had hoped, but I think I should have not-opened with my boathouse material. Maybe the Dairy Queen stuff should be the opening bit of the three I am working on currently. Short blog, I have to shave my head and beard not. Viva la mustace!

It's not dead until we say it's dead

I hate crowds that don't try. With the exception of spending some money on tickets and drinks, they do NOTHING for comics or clubs. Last night at the Forum, the crowd was extremely weak and wouldn't give a positive response to hardly any of the comics.
So I did what I normally do, tried to go up and win them over, got agitated and went blue. Eventually, I think that got them, after some terrible abortion joke that I've been sitting on and some other vulgarity-laced material.

What did I learn last night? My abortion joke is funny, and pretty much nothing else. But I did eat some cheese sticks. That makes it a good night.

New Haven, New Room

Last night I hit the road with Joe Lehnig and Dan O'Sullivan, destination: New Haven, MO. Four years ago this Augist I did my first professional show at the Boondocker with Joe and Dano, and Andy Faasen. It's good to see I've come so far in four years. Kidding. Every other time I've been at the Boondocker in New Haven we've done the show in the dance hall and the acoustics and seating were less than accommodating. Last night we did the show in the smaller bar-room. To quote Dano, the lights were "hideous". I taped the show, and took a look at the tape and it's terrible. The audio isn't too bad, the PA system was alright, though there wasn't a microphone stand, which Dano found annoying. Over-all my set was good, I did around twenty minutes, but forgot to do a couple (maybe five) jokes/bits. I did a good job and warmed up the crowd. The ride home was a trip, Dano and I took 94 through wine country and I'm still surprised that we didn't hit any deer. The roads were windy and dark; but I play a lot of video games, so it wasn't too difficult.

New material is scary

Doing new material is scary; especially when you are doing a set with "lots" of new material. I opened tonight with my Dairy Queen joke, and it was pretty well-received. The third punchline in the list of three I do in that joke got groaned a bit, but Tommy Johnagin talked to me and told me how to play around with it to get the best response (ie get laughs). I did some new material about waiting tables (this list is basically for me stroke, baby, dreams) and it went better than I had hoped. I closed on my health and smoking bit. That was weird, especially because I've been using it as an opener basically since I wrote it. I got more laughs on the kryptonite line than I have in most of the times I've told the joke as an opener.

My Pet Tricerotops and table twenty one

My girlfriend thinks I have A.D.D., and I'm starting to believe she's right. I'm barely able to concentrate on writing when I actually want to sit down and write. It's terribly annoying because I want to write more material and improve the material I have, but sitting down is so hard because I get distracted so easily. Even now, I'm working on some video editing and moving stuff around on my harddrive(s) so that my laptop's internal drive has enough space for a second video project.
Despite my inability to regularly sit down and write new material, I tried a couple new jokes tonight at the Forum. Several comics and I agreed tonight was not the night to do new material, but we found that out AFTER we had performed... Whoops. I'm working on a bit about Dairy Queen at the moment that I like, and have a couple things about my job as a waiter in progress and I thought of a truly ridiculous prank to pull on my roommate, but it's based upon my being bald, and isn't really all that unique or different from my shampoo joke. That's the last thing I want; is to have some set that's based on my being bald with call-backs and weird hand gestures. I mean it works for Josh Blue, but he has cerebral palsy, not a shiny head...
At the end of the middle of my set, I started getting a little blue, which isn't something I'm proud of, but if I were to look for a silver lining, I'd say at least some of the crass things that came out of my mouth were funny; I mean I know I can be funny when working dirty, I'd just prefer to not get so agitated that I go there.

by the seat of my pants

Tonight was a great night. I emceed at the Comedy Forum for Costaki Economopoulos and Brian Aldridge. I first worked with Brian in Milwaukee in 2006 and when I saw his headshot a couple weeks ago; I got excited. I remembered him being really funny and we hung out (went shoe shopping, which is weird), and when he walked in tonight, he recognized me. That's awesome. I love how in comedy, you meet a comic, hang out for a week and then not see them for a year (or more) and you're still cool. There's this weird connection some comics share; it really makes it easier when you're in a different town and away from friends and family.

My set tonight wasn't great. I mean I had some KILLER laughs, but I also had one or two (which is one or two too many...) dry spots where material I consider proven didn't deliver. However, while I was on stage, I wrote a couple jokes on the fly, which I am normally completely against doing, and they got some good laughs. Even during the middle of the setups, I was thinking to myself "Why are you doing this? You don't know where you're going here", and then a punchline would come out and work. Even though we only had 18 people in the audience, the entire show went really well and the audience members weren't uptight about being so small; which really helped make the show rock.

a whole new hair cut

Last night at the Comedy Forum, we had twenty six comics show up. TWENTY SIX. The Forum is lumping comics into one of two groups; the Pro-Am guys and the open mike guys. Pro-Am comics should typically get a little bit more time since they're hopefully working and should have a better chance to have a good set. Since we had so many comics last night, though, I had to keep everybody at 4:00 minutes. I don't remember the entire show, but I do know I recorded my set and tried out a bunch of new-ish stuff.

Tonight I rewrote the DQ bit and did pretty well, however I followed a female comic who had about 3 minutes on having a shaved head as a child and how people thought she had cancer. So my first twenty fifteen on stage were basically wasted because some dude in the audience said I had leukemia and I didn't have a snappy comeback. Aside from that my set was good, and I came in under four minutes, which hasn't happened in a while at the Funny Bone

How should I know?

I was at the Comedy Forum tonight, and near the beginning of the night, it looked like we were going to have a small group of comics go on for a smaller audience. Later, after the meeting, it looked like we were going to have a big group of comics go on in front of a bigger audience. Andrew Topping hosted and I was up second. Jeff Wesselschmidt would later tell me that he loves it when I turn on a crowd. Because apparently I turned on the crowd. Somewhere within my first joke, an audience member (who sat in the very last row, so I hated those audience members already (I mean it's not CHURCH, so what are you "hiding" from?)) said something and I immediately told him to shut up. He piped up a couple of times and I was rude and insulted his hypothetical G.E.D. Anyway, I did my married woman joke and my presidential impersonations thing and launched into my I guess you had to be there t-shirt idea. I kind of gave up on the crowd, and probably pissed them off for yelling at that dude so quickly. My lesson learned tonight was not to go after a talkative audience member within the first 10 minutes of the show.
Speaking of advice; I've been asked for a lot of advice lately from new comics; and it's really weird. For starters I don't know that much myself, so I think it's weird that someone thinks I can teach them. Secondly, I've been in the position of asking advice; it made me think of the comics and people from whom I ask advice (I basically only ask advice from people I respect and think are funny).


(
Another comic and I used to talk about how we saw ourselves as the lame kids in high school and one group of comics as the cool kids (Alpha Betas, Blue Ribbons, the Claire Standish's and Andrew Clark's). My friend and I were kind of afraid of talking to the cool kids for fear of making ourselves look stupid. But we would occasionally ask them for advice.
)


That's how I have felt (sadly, I am not Judd Nelson-ish enough for my own tastes) lately. Regardless, I've been asked advice about stuff like stage presence and how to write jokes. The weird part is I remember asking those questions, and I remember figuring out the answers of having them being told to me. So I kind of reenacted it, only with the other person playing the part of me. So when a dude asked how to write jokes (I think he wanted a kind of Holy Graille format to writing jokes - like a way to make ANYTHING funny). I mean I've asked comics if they knew that before, but there's no real answer to that question. So I just told him how I write and hoped he would use what I said to supplement his own style. It was a weird situation, because I don't think I'm qualified for that kind of thing.


Another thing has been on my mind. I know it's idiotic, but I'm getting offended by people calling themselves "comics", and talking about their "dream" when they've been at less than a dozen open mics. Maybe I'm being immature or dumb, but I get upset when people try to put their new-found hobby on the same level as my near-career. (It was either call it a destiny, which I think is too much, or near-career). In the past four years, I've met probably fifty to a hundred people who've all showed up with a couple minutes of jokes and dreams of stardom and then were never seen or heard from again. Meanwhile, I've been at hundreds of open mics, gone from never working professionally to getting booked in seven states (performing in ten) and working a dozen clubs. And they have the "nerve" to call themselves aspiring comedians, or say that Stand-Up is their favorite thing in the world. If so, why don't I see them at every open mic? (The first thing I did in St Louis was find out where all the open mics were. Sounds like a logical step, right? Find one open mic, then ask the people more where to find other open mics... Rinse Repeat). I know I come off as a complete egotistical a-hole, especially since I SAY "Comedy is my favorite thing" and I CALL IT "my dream"...
I know there's no way to tell if these noobs will be around in four years... but when people do open mic twice and then immediately make a Myspace Comedy page, it cheapens what I do. And that's not right. I've heard comics call the clubs their churches, and I completely see that point of view. Comedy is my religion, and I can't stand blasphemers.

I'm not the guy

I watch a lot of anime.

I play a lot of RPG's.

Wikipedia defines grinding as the process of engaging in repetitive and/or non-entertaining gameplay in order to gain access to other features within the game.

(I'm going somewhere with this, I promise)

In anime and RPG's; the main character works and works and eventually hits some unknown level and becomes (usually) an unstoppable fighting machine. I've been "grinding" stand up comedy for quite a while, and I'm starting to realize that I'm not going to hit some crazy, near god-like level. And the weird part about it is, I'm good with that. In cartoons (which aren't real) the grinding process is massive and so the pay-off is just as massive. In life (read my life) the struggle is varies from moderate to massive, but I am rewarded periodically with good sets, a new joke, work at a new club, or a "good job" from some random audience member.

Last night I was at the Westport Funny Bone, and Rahn Ramey had Andy Faasen and I do some time. I got to emcee (I omitted my black-name joke). The crowd was pretty talkative, so my set wasn't the Kaioken Kamehameha set I am (always) looking for. However, my gay-bar joke got a great laugh for my closer, which was awesome. After my set, Jeremy Essig went up, then Andy, and then I did my skiing joke as Rahn told me to do some more time. I did that joke, saw a light in the back and brought Rahn up. During the show I asked about announcements and Matt and Jeff didn't have anything other than the website/myspace and wait staff.

Sometimes I wish I didn't know people read this, and sometimes I wish I would have used more anonymity because then I wouldn't feel weird about revealing the weird way my brain works, or how I sometimes confuse reality with Japanese Kung Fu Cartoons, or movies staring Taimak and Julius Carry. Sadly I'm too stuck with this blog to start a new one; and too busy to commit to the OCD task of giving the blog a new address and "coding" all the names and references in order to create the anonymity my self confidence probably needs.

A guest set and then some

Thursday night, I got off of work early and so I headed to Westport to catch Rahn Ramey at the Funny Bone. Jeremy Essig was featuring, and Rahn asked if I wanted to do a guest spot. I said I would; and then Matt told me I would be hosting. I asked Jeremy to watch my set, and he said he would. My set went well, and while talking to Jeremy we discussed my Black Name joke and how in a seven minute set there might not be enough time to recover should the audience not appreciate it (which somewhat happened during my set). He did say that my energy was good on stage, which I hope means I didn't look nervous or uncollected (not collected? is that right?). Anyway after the show, Rahn gave me one of his DVDs (that I edited and designed a cover for), thanked me and said he would pay me at the end of the week. I'm really glad that he likes the finished product.

Relay Race

Last night, we had a bunch of comics at the Funny Bone and not so many audience members. Matt debated whether or not to do a show, and decided to do one relay race style. So instead of having an emcee, each comic brought up the comic after them. The show wasn't that bad, either. There was a really talkative lady up front at first, but Jeff Johnson shut her up and then another one piped up. Ugg. My set went alright, though I went over my time (I did four and should have done three) but I got out a new joke about my engaged cousin and the audience laughed and a couple comics said they liked it. I also did my Hotel Rates joke, and Jeff Wesselschmidt said I should spell it N-I-G-H-T-L-Y because I might thrown off fewer people.

At least I ate fried cheese

Last night i had twenty-two or twenty-three people on the list; during the meeting I explained that I absolutely hate 2 hour shows and would be adjusting the times everyone got accordingly (so I gave everyone four minutes). I sat in the back the entire show and kept time, and it's amazing how some people don't know the difference between three and four minutes on stage. I mean; they'd see the first light and sometimes do another fifteen seconds and bail; that's fine with me, I'll never complain about someone going under their time at an open mic/pro-am; but being able to know how much time you've-done / are-doing / are-expected-to-do is a key foundation to being a successful comic. It's one of the things that hardly gets brought up; but it's vital nonetheless.
As for my set, I went a couple shades of blue I'd rather not discuss and rushed some punchlines and generally did not have a good set. Sometimes it's you the comedian; sometimes it's the jokes, sometimes it's the audience. Last night it was the audience (at first) and then it became me. I did try one new joke out last night; it's short but I need to shorten it up and slide it in between some similarly topiced jokes then it will probably work much better.

I've made it through another week at the Comedy Cafe in Milwaukee, and last night's shows were great. For every set this week, I tried to do at least one or two different jokes; I started and closed the same all week, but made sure to throw in a bunch of different stuff. I don't really remember a ton of details about the shows last night, I remember I did my Weekly rates joke and my mozzarella sticks joke and the latter was better received than the former. The main event last night was the drive home from about 11:30pm to 5:30am. I literally got about three hours of sleep this morning before I headed to work for a 9.5 hour Sunday Brunch Shift. It's strange, but even at quarter to ten, I'm not all that tired...

One show only

Tonight we only had one show at the Comedy Cafe. Tonight was the Brewer's home opener, so the club rightfully expected low turn out and decided to have only one show. The worst part was that Pat had to do radio at the field for some Tailgate extravaganza. So Pat had to "sell himself" to people who were at the event competing with ours.
The show itself was really good. I'd even dare to say great. My set went really well, I did my Phone sex joke and my Sams' club joke and nearly got applause breaks on both of them. After the show, a bunch of people came up to me and thanked me. I'd say the first six or seven of them were all guys, so I got self-confident and thought I had upset the female audience. Eventually some ladies told me they liked my set, and one even said she thought I was the best. Afterwards, Steve Pat and I went back to the casino and I lost forty nine dollars playing 2-4 Kill Limit Texas Hold 'Em.

Exciting times

It's 12:37, Friday afternoon and I literally got up today, grabbed my lappy and walked to a bar in Milwaukee that has free wi-fi with Hannibal Burris, the feature act this week at the Comedy Cafe. We did one show last night, and it was a ton of fun. The announcer this week is Steve Hartman from Appleton, I'm the "Second Opener", and Pat Dixon is headlining. My set went really well last night; before-hand I mentioned to Pat and Steve that the crowd might not like me because there were some large-ish women in the audience and I have more than a couple fat jokes. But I didn't really upset anyone enough that I wasn't able to win them back later.
I don't know where it happened in my set; I think it was at the end of my two seminary jokes; some girl "Woo"'d really loudly, and without too much hesitation (so my timing was really good) I said "What's your name?" and I got a huge laugh off of that. Also, during my shampoo joke, I called back to the blind skier (I've kind of modified that joke a couple times over the past week, which is really cool. I like the idea of freshening up my material).
After the show, we were talking to four audience members and they wanted to know about my shampoo joke. I had to admit it is one of the few that isn't based on "truth", but then I said the married-woman joke was. Then we talked about killing people for like 6 minutes and some dude offered his services. Repeatedly.
After that, Steve, Pat and I went to Potawatomi Indian Casino to play some poker. I actually won one hand, but ended up losing 40 bucks. We'll probably go back tonight; which is a terrible financial decision on my behalf, but it'll be fun.

About the scene

Joe Murray said I should talk more about the scene in my blog. People have told me before to change stuff to keep my blog interesting. "Hey you should..."
-write jokes in your blog
-actually be funny
-talk about other comedians

I've tried writing jokes in my blog, but they never sound right. I don't think my jokes translate as well written as they do spoken, and I don't want people to think "that's not funny" when they read one of my jokes. As for being funny, I don't know how to joke-up the fact that I emceed in the Jazz club last night. Honestly, it wasn't that funny (to me).
I also don't like talking about other comics; If I trash a comedian, that would obviously be bad. BUT, if I compliment a comedian, like Joe Murray (who is really funny and almost magically dark), then what about the comics I don't compliment? I mean would Josh Arnold, Jeff Wesselschmidt, Mikey Manker and Mark Feigenbutz be mad I didn't mention them too? I'd rather not take any chances on people not having thick skin, you know?

"Tonight", there was some SLU Vs. MU comedy battle royale at the Funny Bone. I heard that the show wasn't great; but I wasn't there. I was next-door at the Jazz club hosting the open mic. That's right, hosting. The crowd was a little weird and my set was weird because I went up without any offstage announcements or ANYTHING. Just me walking up and saying hello. I'm pretty sure I should have got the comedians to start clapping as I walked up to clue the people in the audience into what's up. Anyway, the night was alright; we only had 11 comedians or so. I gerrymandered the times for the guys who have more experience and we got about 90 minutes out of the show.

Bogied the gimme

Tonight I was at the Comedy Forum. The show was really good, though I wasn't happy with my set; I wanted to show Kevin White some of my new material since I haven't seen him in quite a while. Honestly, that's probably too much new, weird material to do in a single set, but I took my set's Saturday night really seriously and I have a good idea of what I'll be doing in Milwaukee this week, so I don't mind not-practicing tonight.

The best part of my set; I got a great tag for my Shampoo joke. It'll probably find it's way into my normal set, especially if I'm not getting the reaction I want from that joke. Woot.

I keep forgetting to blog

I keep forgetting to blog, or rather, I get too distracted. On the bright side, I remember what I wanted to write about from Saturday's shows: I did well. It was nice to kill after Friday's not-to-great set o' mine. The first show was literally sold out and I had a great time, I think I found the ten minute set I want to use in Milwaukee (oh yeah, I'm working with Pat Dixon then, I haven't worked with him since March of '05 so I'm really excited). The second show Saturday was pretty good too, I got some more clips for the montage thanks to Patrick.
Tonight's show at the Fairview Heights Funny Bone was great. Due to some weird mood I was in, I went on stage and basically aimed at attacking the audience. My fat jokes kind of "angered" a couple people, but then I got them with my smoking jokes, then I'd piss them off with another fat joke, but get them with something else. My favorite part was when I did my shampoo joke; few people laughed at it, so I said "You guys are either stupid or not paying attention". I think my bluntness on stage conveyed some weird confidence and I had a good time and closed strong.

I should know better by now

Last night I was at the Comedy Forum with Wild Bill Bauer and Patrick Ryan; the first show went really well; but the second show didn't exactly go the way I wanted. Between the shows I was talking to some regulars and they said they were happy to hear some new jokes from me. I told them they should come into the second show and I'd do a bunch of new stuff. I asked a group of about seven "kids" (early twenties) if they wanted smart jokes or dumb jokes. By smart jokes, I meant my Math, Chemistry and Spelling jokes. They said smart, and sadly I tried to deliver.
Second show Friday is not the time or the place to try the weird stuff. You'd think I'd know that by now...
Anyway, the show got off to a bumpy start and I totally forgot that Dan Walsh was doing a guest spot, and at the end of the show I wasn't in the room when Wild Bill finished his set, which was embarrasing. It was not my best showing. I'm hoping tonight will be better, I'd pretty confident it will be.

Learning experience

Last night I emceed at the Comedy Forum for Wild Bill Bauer and Patrick Ryan. I learned was really excited to play with my new "Local joke" stuff and I learned something about my 10 minute set; that stuff should go near the middle/end. The audience just wasn't ready for it in the first three minutes. Throughout my entire set, the audience was a little stingy with the laughs; but I maintained and (to my knowledge) didn't show any frustration. The audience continued acting this way through Patrick's and Bill's sets, which is unfortunate because they're both really funny.
I'll probably use tonight and tomorrow to find the combination of jokes I want to use in Milwaukee next week. I really want to make sure I do well there because I do NOT want to get bumped BACK down to Announcer.

It's because I'm busy and tired

I'm getting a little to lax with the ol' blogging; Monday's show at the Forum was alright, I emceed but really didn't want to (it was just a lack of options) and since we started late and had a small crowd, I went from everyone doing different amounts of time based on their "skill" and/or quality of jokes to a flat 4 four minute time frame. At the beginning of the show, I tried to bring everyone on stage with some weird credit; like being the swashbuckling champion of Pittsburg in '87; but I ran out of ideas about 6 people in.
Last night's show at the Funny Bone was great; Paul Harris was organizing some event for VH1's Save the Music charity, and so a bunch of people that Paul knows came out. I had 1 coworker show up and he brought 2 people, so that was nice. My set went really well, my jokes about local jokes did well, and I was able to do about 8 bits or so in my 4 minute time (admittedly, I did go over a bit). I'm at the Forum this week and going back to Milwaukee next week. I'm going to try to use this week to find my best 10 minutes so I can impress JD and the guys. No point in going up there as the Opener only to get thrown back down to the Announcer position...

I think I got a little too angry at the audience last night at the Funny Bone. The crowd didn't seem to generous with the laughy-laughs. And so I looked at them with annoyance (more than once). After the show, Jake Baker told me not to take comedy too seriously. Initially I had no idea what he was talking about because comedy is just about the ONLY thing I take seriously... But he was talking about me getting mad on stage. I've never really thought about it, but I guess I do need to work on that. Because if I can still enjoy the bad sets during the bad sets, I think I'll be able to convert some audiences to my side.

Half off sale

Last night the crowd at Fairview Heights was awesome. From the beginning of my set, to the end I had a really good time. I got an applause break for my Black name joke, and tagged it on the fly with "If you're not laughing at that it's because you're either WITH a fat white girl or you ARE a fat white girl". Then during my smoking bit, I thanked the audience for not calling me a quitter and did an impromptu act-out where I was some lame-audience member saying they were funny for calling me (Marcus) a quitter. During my Quincy Snow Routes joke, I added a part where I immediately do a local reference, but I screwed it up a bit. (Tonight, I did it properly at the Comedy Forum, and it went over really well). I accidentally did my Nervous around cute girls joke last night which meant I did not have time for my new high school dedication joke. But I did get to do that one tonight, and I moved my Abraham Lincoln impression to that bit (instead of my Mia Wallace joke); Andy Faasen told me tonight when I nail the wording that joke will be amazing. He's already told me it's his favorite of mine, which is awesome since I think Andy's a great writer; so hearing a compliment like that really means something. Anyway, the crowd tonight at the Forum was alright; certainly not as great as it has been there. I asked people to move up to the front, and some did, but a bunch told me they would and just stayed where they were. Also for the first twenty seconds or so of my set, I just stared at a lady who was on the phone in the front row. I looked at a table that moved up front and said "I told you would I wouldn't pick on the audience, so I won't". I probably should have, but live and learn, I guess. We had nineteen comics at the Forum tonight, and we started late, so the show ran a little longer than I had hoped, but the audience, other comics and Al didn't seem to mind, so I won't stress over it.

misconstrueage

Last night I was on at the Funny Bone. I was hoping to have a better set that the last time I was there. My set Monday at the Forum was pretty good, and I wanted to work out some of the new jokes I've written lately. Anyway, I know the jokes are good, I'm confident in them. So I was able to be confident on stage. Sadly, the audience wasn't with me. I did one joke that I consider to be smart/clever (and funny) and they didn't get it, so I said "I did that joke in St Peters last night, and they got it..." A couple minutes and a few smart-jokes-that-went-unappreciated later I ended my set and said "that's it, I'm going back to St Peters" meaning, I'm going to where the crowd appreciates my material. Anyway, Dan the box-office guy thought I was bashing the Funny Bone, and I had to explain that I wasn't. I was bashing the audience. For being dumb. I recognize that sometimes the comic isn't delivering the jokes right (or he isn't delivering the right jokes) but last night was simply the audience. Or it was something I did to make God angry.

Laundry List

Tonight at the Comedy Forum, I did ten minutes (give or take a handful of seconds) and a bunch of it was new material. I did my joke about (the superscripted numbers reflect the newness of the joke (lower number = newer)):

-how I quit smoking, how my friend Justin quit smoking and how I got people to quit bumming cigarettes from me¹
-the weekly rates of the worst hotel in America¹
-why Emergency Snow Route signs are unnecessary in Quincy, IL (and why local jokes are funny)¹
-why being in a seminary might cause you to be an atheist and bad with women²
-why I'm not nervous around attractive girls³
-how to trick girls into taking off their pants by screaming²
-why I LOVE mozzarella sticks but like my girlfriend²
-how the girls on Match.com rejected me ² (where I proved how local references always work)
-why I think married couples should register for better stuff¹
-why you shouldn't name high schools after small town business men¹
-why my friend Doug thinks I should start drinking again²
-why girls act like teases and let people buy them drinks³

There may have been more in there, I tried watching my set (but I was distracted by Letterman). Sarah asked me if I get bored writing my blog after every show, and I told her that I wish I was able to be more Doogie Howser-ish. Meaning, I wish I could say what I learned, instead of just saying "tonight I was on stage, it was fun, I did this, that happened" etc.
That being said, I did a crap-ton of new material tonight, which gives a warm, tingly feeling inside or something. Having been in a weird writing slump and having watched all my peers come up with amazing stuff, it feels good to have something new to show.

Who's house?

Last night the first show at the Comedy Cafe started a little late; and so Dan, Carl and I all had our time cut a bit. And by a bit, I mean I had mine cut entirely. So when the show started, I just went up and did announcements; welcome to the show, turn off cell phones, keep the talky-talk down, happy birthday to this lady (at which point some lady in the front was like "we have birthdays too, pay attention to us" (I'm paraphrasing, of course). The lady also had the deepest, raspiest voice I've ever heard. Like Ned in Southpark, only without the mechanical larynx. (An interesting note to the story, the lady ended up being Scott Henry's aunt and she was disruptive during his set too). Anyway, I brought Dan up, and when I went up after his set, I had to announce the Gold Cards (people fill out contact information and someone gets their bar-tab payed for). I also had to announce someone else's birthday, since Chris told me to. So while I was on stage, I goofed off with that announcement a bit. I don't recall how it went exactly, but luckily since I was taping Carl's set so I could make him a DVD, I have it on video. I remember saying something like, "Next time I'm up here, I'll have another birthday to announce, or maybe I'll come up and we can celebrate Christmas three months late". No matter what I said, it was the only laughs I got that show.
The second show was much better, since I got to do some time; I did the same set I did Thursday and no one asked if they could dance on the tables or told me it was their birthday or anything, it was nice. After the show I hung out for a bit, talked to James and then went back to the condo to pack.
This morning I was supposed to catch a train to Chicago and then one to St Louis, but since I forgot about Daylight Savings, I missed my train by 1 minute. Literally, that's what the lady at the counter said. So now I get to wait for the next one, and I'll end up getting into St Louis around 11 tonight and completely missing the Fairview Heights open mic. It reminds me of the line in Dogma where Bartleby says "Your hard-on for smiting has prevented us from negotiating what should be the relatively simple matter of catching or staying on a bus."

Not all change is good

I did some major trimming last night during the announcements and it threw me a little off my game. I also tried doing a different set than Thursday, so that might have been a little to blame as well. I forgot an entire sentence or two in my skiing joke, and only realized it about half-way through the last part of the joke. I felt really dumb, but I think the audience just thought that they missed something; because when I got to the one-legged guy part they were back on board. After my set, Duke came up to me and told me he was watching me for Eric to see if I could handle the opening position. He asked how much time I had, and I told him, and he said he might trust me with about ten minutes if I was a little bit more animated. I told him to watch the second show and then see what he thought and he said he would. Hopefully whatever report he gives to Eric will be beneficial to me; as I'd really like to come back and have a chance to do more material.
The second show started and I made a couple more changes to the announcements (not mentioning the other comics on the bill) and when I did the cell phone/table conversations bit some lady asked if it was ok to dance on the tables. I shut her up in a couple of sentences, but she turned out to be kind of a pain throughout the whole show. Not a major pain, just an annoyance.

Thank you, electric blanket

11:13PM
Pre-show:
I'm at the Comedy Cafe in Milwaukee this week; getting here was a little strenuous: I had Sarah drop me off at the Amtrak station this morning at 1AM. Unfortunately, the station closes from 12:30AM to 3:30AM. So we took a nap in her car until about 4AM (my train was scheduled for 4:30). I slept on for most of the ride to Chicago, where I had a three hour lay-over. Luckily I killed some time by having lunch with Mikey Manker. The train ride from Chicago to Milwaukee was pretty quick and my cab-ride was pretty good. I took a nap and got up around 6.

The show:
Doing announcements at the Comedy Cafe doesn't leave a lot of room for material if you go verbatim off of the laminated card they have. I've been doing the announcements for a while, and was able to get through them pretty quick so I was able to get to my jokes pretty quick. I was only planning on doing my black-name joke and my smoking stuff, but I didn't see a light so I did my sober joke and my black-out material and I closed on my gay-bar story. My set went really well and I got some really big laughs. During my "I don't think that dog even exists, now he's in two jokes" line, I thought I heard the comics in the back laughing really loudly. My second favorite part of the night was when I brought up Dan on stage and said he was the 1987 Pittsburg Swashbuckling champion and when I brought James up and said he saved my life in Vietnam.

The opener this week is Dan Polydoris from Chicago, the feature is Carl Lee from Oregon and Scott Henry is headlining (the last time I was here, Scott was headlining). My buddy James Irving Berry stopped by and did a guest spot.
At the end of the show, I blanked on Dan's name so I said "keep it going for Scott Henry, Carl Lee... ... ... myself and that other guy". It was embarrassing, but the crowd was already getting out of their seats so no one but James noticed.
James and I talked about emceeing at the Cafe, and he said he trimmed the announcements (he isn't doing them verbatim) and moved the Gold-Card announcement to after his set. He said that doing that allowed him to do an additional minute or two up front.