You'd be surprised

I hosted the open mic last night and had an absolute ball; every time I got on stage, I'd talk to the 4 people and either do a joke of mine, or tell them some "book joke" I know. Something. We only had 9 or so comics and we tried to keep the show quick so we didn't ware out audience; that was the best move and we gave/had the best show possible under the circumstances. I'm at the Forum tonight; I'm going to try to tape so I can put some sort of video on my website.

Making due

Tonight at the Westport Funnybone, we had an audience of thirteen. During the pre-show meeting, Matt explained that he was looking for an emcee this week so all the guys going up should try their best material and make an effort so he could find someone to work this week. At first, I wondered what material I would do (and I wondered if I could get away with working on a new bit); but then I realized I'm already working this Thursday and Friday so it really didn't matter.
Because we had such a small audience, Matt cut everyone's time so the show went along really quickly. I went up second and did three bits: the one about Justin quitting smoking, the new one about Mozzarella sticks and the one about the married woman. All three did pretty well; but there was one tag, I think that didn't work. I don't remember specifically what it was, but I was just talking it out anyway, so it's not like there's a real loss there. After the show I headed to Walgreens to pick up cold and flu medicine and headed straight home.

Who doesn't love a new toy?

My MySpace friend Karen works at Best Buy and hooked me up with a new camcorder; so I had a new toy to play with at the Fairview Heights open mic. I got an itty bitty tripod and set it up in the back of the room at the club. I zoomed in quite a bit and messed with the exposure so the shot came out pretty well when I transferred it to my computer. My set went really well, too. I did a completely different set than last week's open mic; because I wanted to work on my new mozzarella stick joke. It went really well, and I ended up talking out a lot of tags off the top of my head. It was a lot of fun, and watching it later on video I faced forward a lot more than I did during my last video on Rooftop, so it wasn't as "weird" for me to watch.

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Paid and on my way

I left the Springfield Funny Bone tonight pretty much as soon as I got off stage because I really wanted to get back home. I knew 1) that my own bed was waiting for me, and 2) so was Season 1 Disc 4 of Dexter and I wanted to see the season finale. It was amazing.
The shows tonight went quite like the shows last night. The first one was a little tougher to get laughs than the second one. I'm not sure what it was; but there are a number of things that the Springfield club does that other clubs (in my experience) do not. The owner (or his son) host the show and spend the first ten minutes doing some announcements and corny book-type jokes and stuff and then they bring up the opener (me). It usually goes something like "The third Wednesday of the month is our open mic, so if you think you're funny, come try it. That's where comics get their start, like this young man..." or "Before the headliner, we have an opener, an opener is a male of female who's just trying to get more stage time so they can get better..." Second show, Don brought me up as "Marcus". The other really weird thing is they use music to bring up their comics. I've never liked having music play while I get on stage as I think it's completely unnecessary. Because then I have one more thing to do on stage (cue them to turn off the music) before I can set my attention on the crowd.
I watched a recent video of mine on Rooftop, and noticed that while I try to look the audience in the eyes, I was scanning back and forth (right to left to right to left) rapidly. Really rapidly. It looked almost freakish, and so tonight I made a mental note to slow my pan and to keep centered and focused on the middle of the room more. I'm not sure if that will make the audience see me as funnier or not, but I certainly think it will make me look a little bit more natural should I be taping a set.


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Hot and cold

I'm in Springfield, IL tonight working with Ricky Gutierrez; I haven't been up here in a while; so I'm really excited to get booked again. The first show was a little hard for me; I'm not sure if it was my nerves or if it was these two rather heavy-set ladies in the front row. My set went alright, but there were some noticeable places where the crowd wasn't laughing at a thing. Ricky said it was because we were in the "bible" belt... I told Ricky that I didn't want to do my "fat jokes" with them right there; and he said I shouldn't alter or censor my set.
Second show I was told I could do longer, so I decided to do the jokes I omitted and there was a pretty hefty-sized girl in the front who laughed really loudly at the "only one's I can catch" line. The second show was completely different from the first; I felt like I was on fire. The crowd laughed at every joke, and I was making better eye-contact than the first show. When I got off, Ricky told me I needed to work on my timing because I was stepping on some laughs; I disagree because the laughs were coming in the middle of sentences and too much of a pause would be a little confusing (I think). After my set; I said goodbye to everyone and headed to my hotel room so I could rest and try to recover from this cold that I have.

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A 6 and two 2's.

Tonight, Andy Faasen, Steve Poggi, Dan Walsh and Mark Faegenbutz and I were at the Comedy Forum tonight doing an-extended set showcase. For ten people. Matt asked me to host and I suggested Mark to close because of his rendition of Starship's Nothing´s Gonna Stop Us Now. The show was good, there were two two-tops (one had a younger man and lady, the other had two thirty-something ladies). The girl from the couple and the Caucasian woman at the other table laughed a lot throughout my set, the six-top was a little a tougher nut to crack; but they did seem to enjoy some of my stuff. I remembered to do my PANTS joke, but forgot to do my gay-bar story. I'm still not feeling too hot, this cold or whatever-it-is is really bringing me down. Hopefully I'll be able to bring my A-game in Springfield tomorrow.

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It could have been a lot worse

Tonight at the Comedy Forum, we had an audience of six non-comedy related people (ie, non-comics, people not dating comics). For a crowd of six, they were awesome. I and a bunch of the guys had extended sets (because there were only eleven comics on the bill) and I learned I have about eight minutes of just relationship stuff. I was really hoping I could do my "PANTS" joke, but it totally slipped my mind. I did try out my new Mozzarella sticks thing, and it were much better than expected. I'm really hoping it turns out crisp and funny. I think it's original enough to be a keeper. I left right before the end of the show, because I'm not feeling too hot right now. So I hit a Walgreens and bought some night-time cold medicine to knock me out.

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"Good" is not good enough.

I was hoping to rock the house tonight at the Westport Funny Bone tonight. I had a prime spot going up seventh and even asked Matt to watch since I was hoping to show what I have learned on the road. Sadly, my set didn't get the perfect 10 I was hoping. I'd love to blame it on the German judge giving me a low score. I shouldn't complain about having a good set (I would guess I scored about a 7.8) but I was shooting for the moon. Anyway, last night was hopefully the last time I do that exact set for an open mic for a while. I've got a new joke I want to work on, and it needs to go with my relationship stuff. It's really fun having new stuff to play around with.

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I'd like to buy a vowel

J.R. Brow hosted the open mic tonight at Fairview Heights; I was slated to go up seventh but ended up eighth because two people got added up front and one person didn't show up. My set went really well; Brian Dowell said it was one of the strongest he's seen in a while. Some guy from the audience said he liked my material and said it was "raw", which doesn't 100% sound applicable to my style, but maybe 63.83%. That sounds about right. J.R. also said I did well and said my stuff was clever.
Before the show, I was talking to Matt, the bartender about a joke I'm working on, and he asked if I was doing the joke tonight. I told him since I wanted to have a good/great set I didn't want to test anything tonight. I did, however, promise him that next week if I get on stage, I will do a completely different five minute set than I did tonight which will include the joke I'm working on.
Right now, I feel like I've been peaking comically. As incredible as it feels to be doing well and to be comfortable on stage and to have people laughing at the right places, the one (ONE) thing that worries me is what follows any peak. That is: a valley. Slump. Dry spell. Whatever you want to call it, eventually my "perfect streak" (for lack of a better phrase, I don't want to call myself perfect) will run out. And I am not looking forward to that. But then again, this streak has been especially fun because it came at the end of a particularly bad slump. So the next slump will suck, but it will make the next "peak session" that much better. Rota Fortunae. Latin for the Wheel of Fortune.

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almost out of gas

Last night was the show at the Blue Agave in Belleville, IL. My buddy Leroy and his lady were in town for the Blues game so they came along. For some reason, my GPS device decided to take us along Martin Luther King Jr Boulavard to get to the show. Kevin, Landon and Brian asked me to emcee, which I was a little hesitant to do; emceeing a club show is one thing, but a one-nighter is a completely different beast. Way harder to gauge and sometimes way less as "rewarding". Anyway, the show actually went really well. At one point I did a joke and some dude in the audience said "I guess you had to be there". So I started talking about my "You had to be there t-shirt" idea, which was completely impromptu, but it got the audience with me and they enjoyed it. I ended up doing about 10 minutes, as did Kevin and Landon. Brian did about 25 to 30 so the show was about an hour long. Afterwards, Leroy, Nicole and I headed home, this time NOT using MLK Blvd to get there.

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LYRICS

Stiff as a bored

Tonight's audience at the Comedy Forum was kind of hard to please. I was hoping to get them all laughing and ready to join in on the fun that is open mic, but I wasn't completely able to do that. I did get some laughs during my set (I heard Mikey Manker laugh at one of my jokes out loud. Hearing a comic laugh can be way better than hearing an audience laugh, though hearing both would obviously be ideal). Anyway, at the end of my set, I decided to talk-out a bit I wrote on my MySpace blog. It didn't get the laughs I had hoped for, but I saw some potential. I'm really just happy to have a creative/original new bit to work on.

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Professional Improv

Bill Chott called me a couple of days ago and invited me to join him and some of his other students at the Westport Funnybone for a corporate Improv show. Myself, and seven other students played improv games while Bill facilitated. We performed for around an hour for the Business to Business department of Charter Cable. I felt a little rusty, but since I wasn't in a whole lot of "scene-based" games, it wasn't too noticeable. And besides, everyone in the club laughed quite a lot and seemed to have a good time. After the improv show, I headed over to the Jazz Club to watch the rest of the open mic. I did not get on stage, though I would have liked to.

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Working with the audience

Last night I was at Fairview Heights for their open mic; and so were ALOT of other comics. I mean ALOT. Twenty at least; which is twice as many as I saw the last time I was there. Though it took a while for them all to show up, we actually ended up with a good-sized audience. The audience was a little rowdy, to say the least. I was really nervous that I was going to get on stage and eat it; because that would erase all the confidence I'd picked up through the past month of work. Thankfully, I went up and had a really good set. It seems weird to say that a phrase as short as "Keep it going for me, I just quit smoking" could be so important, but as soon as I said it, the crowd cheered for me. From there my set went really well. I closed with my Gay-bar and gay-friend stories. At the part of my gay-bar story when I say "Can I buy you a drink anyway" a bunch audience members said "Yes" before I could get to it. So when I said "Yes you can" they laughed even harder because they were on the same "page" as I was.

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LYRICS

Three little pigs

7:42 PM
Tonight we have three shows at the Loony Bin in Little Rock: at 7, 9 and 11. After the third show I plan on driving straight home to St Louis (which is why I brought my lappy along to the club. I didn't want to wait to blog tomorrow and I didn't want to leave it in the cold in my car). Right now, Mark Klein is on stage in front of a really big crowd. My set went well; I was told to do 7 minutes and I looked at my stop watch when I got off (after bringing up Brandon) and it read 7:23. I actually planned out almost exactly which jokes I was going to do before I got on stage. My smoking joke has 2 parts, and I decided to just to do the first half. I naturally wanted to do the "more fun when drinking" bit and it went really well. Less than half the audience laughed at my "religious differences" joke; which sucked; and they didn't really appreciate my motorcycle story either. I think the longer of a set I get, the more I can prepare an audience for that joke. I heard Steve talking on the phone in the box office and he said the 9 o'clock show was sold out. I can't wait for that one.

9:21 PM
During the second show, I forgot to start my stop-watch; so I had to "eye-ball" how much material I needed to do and tried to close on my "religious differences" joke. it didn't get the big hit I was hoping for, so I jumped straight to my email dump story. The "more fun when drinking" bit got a big "woo" during the "butt-tag" part from some drunk college-looking guys. Any my gay-bar story got a really good response. I'm thinking that I could close on that during shorter sets. Of course that would mean I should need to do my drinking material AFTER my bad-with-women material. I might try that next show, though if it doesn't work, I can't think of any bits I can do after that to close on.

11:22 PM
Brandon's on stage right now; before the show I asked if I he would mind doing twenty-five so that could do around ten. He said he wouldn't mind, and I hope he didn't take offense to my asking. When I got on stage, the audio from the funny video montage was still running; I probably should have done a stupid little dance to the music that was playing (Fantastic Voyage by Lakeside). I would like to say the set went great; but the crowd was a little stiff with me. They didn't laugh at a couple of jokes (especially my email joke, which I tried to close on); so I closed on "religious differences", which didn't get the big closing round of applause I wanted.

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LYRICS

Stereotypical Arkansas crowd

We had two shows tonight at the Loony Bin in Little Rock. Both of them went well, but each one had a little hang-up that kept the shows from being awesome: when I got on stage for the first show, the microphone was not on. So when I greeted everyone I even said "my microphone's not on" which got a chuckle. But then when the mic got turned on, it was super loud. I could head my voice BOOMING through the PA. I don't like being able to hear myself through the PA more than I can hear myself naturally, and there was some feedback which wasn't pleasant to listen to, so I moved the microphone and my left arm lower. But my voice continued to BOOM and I kept hearing the feedback during my set. I repositioned myself a number of times and nothing much helped. Later Mark told me that the lower I put my arm and the mic, the higher they turned the volume. Next time, I'll say something (I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want to break the "fourth wall" and admit there was a problem twice. At the end of the first show, I mentioned that Todd Yohn was coming to the Bin next week, but as soon as I got off stage, Jeff announced it over the PA; so I got really self-conscious that he didn't think I did a good enough job announcing it. But he didn't say anything about it to me between shows, so I guess it wasn't a big deal.
The second show was pretty good; no microphone difficulties, but the audience wasn't as quick on the uptake as the first one. Also; there was this table in the corner (stage left, about 8 o'clock really) that WOULD NOT SHUT UP during my set. They were really distracting me; I don't know if they kept any audience members from not being able to hear, but they very nearly kept me from being able to talk. I really didn't do anything about them though, because I didn't want to start the show off on a weird note. "Hey welcome, glad to see you all, shut the hell up, here's Brandon". During the second show, I did about 14 minutes and did my Smoking joke, the drinking chunk (with my new parts I've been working on all week), my dating material (there is some older stuff I want to add, but that can wait until next week or so), and I closed on my skiing joke. I didn't do any of my job stuff (and I'm hoping to bring back one joke, if it doesn't seem too hokey or dumb to me). I'm thinking that with the recent changes I've been making, I'm adding a lot more to my over-all time. I'm really hoping I can come up with about 4 more minutes by summer and another 4 by my birthday. It's good to have goals; even really REALLY hard ones.

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Less talk more kkomedy

Tonight at the Loony Bin in Little rock, we had a decent sized crowd. They were a little tight with the laughs though. I did my fifteen with few problems and enough laughs to qualify my set as good. The one joke I'm trying to work out most this week didn't work AT ALL, but it's because I'm trying to write it on stage. After my set, I literally ran it through my mind a hundred times, I texted my best friend, Leroy about it, I called Kevin White because he texted me earlier this evening. I ran it by Brandon, the feature a bunch of times, and finally when I got back to the condo, I think I figured it out.
The weirdest part about my set was some of the crowd members were REALLY loud when they ordered from the wait staff. I hate that, because it's not only disrupting to me the performer, but I can't do jack about it. You can't tell them to shut up if they're spending their money properly.

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He's gonna get you in the end
Then he'll be your only friend
There's nothing that'll save your soul
All you need is alcohol

you could cut it with a knife

I'm at the Loony Bin in Little Rock, AK this week and tonight I emceed their open mic which was closed by feature act Brandon Vestal and headliner Mark Klein. I started the show and explained what an open mic was to the crowd and brought up the first local guy (cold) to the stage. Steve, who was in charge tonight, told me to do my set at the end of the open mic before Brandon and Mark went up. There were eight open micers and I think three of them said they were first-timers but the crowd seemed to like them, or at least give applause when each one was done (which doesn't always happen at the St Louis open mics). I did five minutes after the open micers and did well, and Brandon and Mark did 10 and 30 respectively. Mark was supposed to do 20, but he recognized that the waitress didn't have all the checks out and collected (there was only one waitress, and the staff said that the crowd was the biggest open mic audience they'd had in a while) which saved me because Corey the door guy asked me to stretch while Mandy got all the checks up.
After the show, I went to a bar called "Grumpy's too" with Mark and we met Jeff, the club owner for a drink. There were some audience members at the bar (technically there were two different groups of them) so I hung out with some kids more my age for a bit, and then hung out with Mark and some older audience members. I promised Sarah I'd call her after the show, so eventually I excused myself from Jeff and Mark and headed back to the condo.

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They wanna see us go hog wild
Over beans and barbecue

Finished in Tulsa

Tonight's show at the Loony Bin in Tulsa was great. I'm really lucky that all the shows this week went well for me. I've never had a week where I walked away from every single show feeling good about myself and my sets. We almost didn't have a show tonight because there were only a handful of people at 7:50. The staff didn't even seat anyone until around 8:00 because they didn't know if we were going to have a show. Obviously we ended up doing a show; albeit an abbreviated one. I did seven minutes, Joe did about twenty-five and Rahn did thirty-five.
Again, tonight I did not use the microphone for my set because I wanted to remove subconscious obstacles. I did my time and as I have almost all week, worked on my friends-say-I'm-more-fun-drunk bit and my Mia Wallace bit. Both are coming along well; I am especially loving the new Abraham Lincoln part of the Mia Wallace story. I don't have to do anything tomorrow and have to be out of the condo and on my way to Little Rock by 11:00am Tuesday, so I'll probably work on Rahn's DVD and play some World of Warcraft. I can think of worse ways to spend a day.

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Paint all three

I could have asked for better sets tonight. During the first show tonight, I had to be done by 8:15 and I finished about 30 seconds early; I didn't know what I was going to close on; and had done about 7 or 8 minutes of just my bad-with-women material; I didn't want to close too early, so I threw in my Gay bar/tease bit and it went really well. After I got off stage, Rahn said that Beth liked my set, and later she even told me so; which really felt good. Second show, I was a little nervous, because the crowd wasn't laughing at the videos that were showing on the drop-down projector screen television as much as the crowd before the first show. Also, last night Beth said that second show Saturday is the hard one, so I was a little apprehensive to begin with; anyway she told me to do 15 minutes for the second one, and I did. The crowd was amazing, there were at least sixty or seventy people and they were great. After the shows, Rahn told me that I Aced three shows back-to-back. One of the guys from the second show who sat in the first row asked my advice for someone wanting to start doing stand up; I could only tell him what people told me. Get on stage as much as possible; All stage time is good stage time. I've been on stage more in the past three weeks than ever, and I absolutely feel a hundred times better than I was at the end of November.

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LYRICS

Wait until tomorrow

Tonight was a good night at the Loony Bin. Beth asked me to do the show start because she doesn't like doing it, so I got to do the opening announcements and bring myself on stage. The door guy, J.R. reminded me to be done by 8:15, and I'm really proud to say I was off stage 8:14:56. Uncanny. I ended up doing about nine minutes, and didn't get to do everything I wanted, but I got off on my "Religious differences" joke and got a good laugh so I ended on a high note. After the show, I helped clean up a bit to flip the room, but Beth told me just to relax. Even Rahn said that he used to clean up, but it didn't get him anywhere. So I felt kind of nervous like they though I was trying too hard. Second show, Rahn did the show-start announcements and told me to do "my time" like I did Thursday. So I did more time that show, but forgot to do my Mia Wallace joke. The crowd second show was amazing; easily the best second-show Friday crowd I've ever seen.

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The condos keep getting nicer

I drove into Tulsa today from St. Louis; Six and a half hours and three dollars in tolls were a small price to pay for working a new club. I'm working with Joe Tyler and Rahn Ramey; we had an audience of about thirty at the Loony Bin, and I seemed to get off to a slow start; but the audience warmed up about half-way through my set. I could hear myself through the PA system, and since I was drinking soda (and not coffee) my voice sounded and felt weird to me; I'm thinking tomorrow I'll stick to coffee. I also tried to get into the Mia Wallace bit more easily and had little to no luck with it. The joke worked, but the setup wasn't as smooth as I hoped. I'll play with it tomorrow, and again and again, until I get it nailed down.

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Oh no; let's go

The Comedy Forum invited me to emcee for their New Years Eve shows. It was my first NYE gig I've done, and so I was really excited about it. The first show was almost entirely composed of people over 40, ready to get loose until 10:00 when they call it an early evening. Second show; I had to do some inside-joke for one of the regular customers. So I tried to work it into my set so that it would work for the entire crowd. The whole thing depended on me finding a guy named Ted in a table of 12 (1/2 male, 1/2 female). So I tried my best and thought I had figured out who this Ted guy was; but I was wrong. So the inside joke just laid there. Seriously, it went over like a fart in church. So that set wasn't the strongest I've had, because I was so busy trying to work in this inside joke (the lady gave me an extra ten bucks, so I felt obligated) but it's not like I didn't deliver a good set. It just wasn't a great set.

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