Lacking Laughs

Last night Dan Chopin hosted the open mic at Westport in the guise of Deacon Dan O'Flarity. The show was pretty weird, and the audience was pretty poor, they just didn't get some of the jokes throughout the night. Since it was a "themed" night, I tried to do all my seminarian jokes; but I only had about 2 minutes worth, and I didn't want to get off stage that early, so I did some of my other new-ish material. That material seems to have definite potential, as it got some laughs after two minutes of silence. My presentation last night seemed to really lack confidence. I think I should start to limit how much new material I do, because I'm not achieving the desired results. I've been trying to show that I'm writing more, but I think that even if I was able to produce four new minutes a week that got no response; the point would be moot if the four new minutes were not funny. On the bright side, my stopwatch showed 4:00 even when I got off stage. Bow to the master.

best hump day ever

Tonight we had a massive crowd at the Forum. A bunch of comics brought people which was awesome. The crowd endured the entire show, which ran about an hour and fifty minutes or so; I did around nine minutes so A Top could take a "break" and I did all the new material I did Tuesday and a bunch of other stuff. I had a really good time and got it all on tape. Andrew Faasen said my Abraham Lincoln joke is the funniest thing he's ever seen me do. Compliments rock.

if you're not nervous...

you're not doing it right. That's what Kyle Cease told me a long time ago. Last night I was really nervous about going on at the Funny Bone. I had a bunch of new material, and was going up 17th out of 20. My set went better than I expected and I was able to kind of talk out a couple of things. But it wasn't exactly off the top of my head; I was able to try out a couple different angles on my salutatorian bit and my black name joke got a good laugh right out of the gate. It was a good time, and I'm going to try to post the video on Youtube and link it below so that people can see what I'm talking about...

(Mad Art (Comedy) on Parade)

My improv teacher, Bill Chott rented out the Mad Art Gallery for his Comedy On Parade show. It featured some sketch comedy artists, humorous poets, story tellers, some of Bills Improv students and three stand up comedians, myself, The Reverend Brian Dowell and Gabe Kea. I was the first act up on stage, besides Bill, and had a good set. I keep hoping that "this" set will be the one where I figure out how to deliver the Mozzarella Sticks joke, but I suppose the longer it takes, the sweeter the victory will be when I finally get it.

Uncanny accuracy

I got to do a spotlight at the Westport bone tonight (there wasn't an open mic in Fairview, and way more importantly, Eddie Gossling is in town). Dan Chopin was hosting and Greg Warren also did some stage time. My set went really well; I worked on my mozzarella sticks joke some, and kind of reworded a couple parts on the fly. Eddie, Greg and Dan all said I had a good set; Dan even told me that since I was taping I should use that for a demo, but I told Sarah to zoom in and out for weird effects in the montage. I used my gay bar story as a closer again, when I do that, I usually cut and run after the first punchline just in case the second one doesn't get a good response. I'd hate to get a good laugh, then get a mediocre one, then leave. Finish strong (and on time) I always say. When I got off stage and shook Dan's hand, my stopwatch said 5:01.

Bullseye.

Secret Smokers' Show

The two shows last night at Mason City Limits were fun. The first show was packed, and I ran around frantically looking for my camera, the charger and a coaster so I could frame the shot properly. But thanks to the curse of the camera, the crowd (though energetic and numerous) was not on the same page as me for my set. Eventually, I just got weird and started talking about my jokes (like the Shampoo-dog one). I closed with some of my work stuff and then Melissa did a spot and Rich closed the show.

Second show was weird; we had 5 ladies in the audience. That's it. I had already gotten a lot of video and so I decided to change shirts for this show and not use the microphone. I only got about 6 seconds of video for my montage, but it's enough to help. Because I strive for perfection, neither of the shows are anything I'd be "proud" of, but both audiences had fun and Rich and Melissa both said I did well and I had fun, so I'm not beating myself up over it like I probably would have in the past.

the best four letter word

It's 3:23 AM and I'm still up in my room at Mason City Limits. I'm working with Rich Ragains who is from Louisville, KY and brought Melissa Duran (one of Louisville's local comediennes) with him. During the 7:30 show, the three of us did time, Chris hosted, Melissa followed, I middled and Rich headlined. The show was pretty tough, as the crowd of thirteen was pretty hard to crack. There was one guy named Bill (I think they said his nickname was Kraut) who was very drunk and called me out on my shampoo joke, since I didn't shave my head today. He literally had me speechless. I was able to get back to my act through it wasn't as clean or smooth as I would have liked. I did get a new tag or so though, which got really good laughs from the other comics and from the crowd.
The second show couldn't have been more different. We had a few more people, and they were a lot of fun. Ryan went up after Chris instead of Melissa, I still middled and Rich still headlined (that should go without saying). My set was a lot of fun, I played around more with my set (meaning I kind of talked about it) and ad-libbed a lot more. i called myself out of some of my own jokes (which Rich called creative and "a comics' comic's jokes" (you have to really look at that phrase to get it, I think). After wards, we (Chris, Ryan, Jeni the waitress, Peggi, Gonzo, Rich, Melissa and a couple others) all hung out at John and Peggi's restaurant.

Last minute calls

Al Canal gave me a call today to fill in as the host for the show at the Comedy Forum tonight. It's Valentine's Day, but Sarah's out of town so I said I'd do the show. I tried focusing the crowd before I jumped into my jokes, and thought I had the audience ready to pay attention; but one table wasn't able (read: sober) to listen. These two guys in the front row were at a table to two women; the guys were closest to the stage and facing each other (not even facing the stage!) and they had some valentines flowers in front of them so they "had" to yell to hear each other. Eventually I did my shampoo joke and around half the crowd didn't get it initially, so when I said "you're not paying attention" I pointed out that the one guy wasn't even looking at me, so he COULDN'T get the joke. I also said that a blind guy would get the joke before he did (he was quite drunk). Dan O'Sullivan was there for the show and told me I did what I could. I felt kind like I didn't set the table for the feature, William Alexander, but the crowd was entirely focusable to start with.
At least I got some good video for a montage I'm working on, right now I've finished 1 minute and 11 seconds out of 5:19.

It worked

I hosted at the Comedy Forum tonight, because I wanted to try a couple of things that Bert talked about at Zanies. There were about twenty or so audience members and none of them were sitting in the first two rows. I told them straight up that if they moved up to the front, we wouldn't make fun of them AND the show would be 10 times better than if they stayed. And a third of them moved up; I want to say it made a big difference. The show was really good, I did probably 13 minutes up front and sandwiched my new jokes (that I lead off with last night) and they went over well. We only had 11 comedians on the list (including one new guy) and so I let everyone do about seven to eight minutes. I talked to Al after the show and picked up two more weeks at the club, one with Costaki Economopoulos in April. I'm really excited about that.

Breaking the rules

One of my cardinal rules is to never start a set with new material. But rules are sometimes meant to be broken, right? No. The answer is no. The crowd at the Westport Funny Bone tonight was extremely tight and I did not connect with the crowd while I was on stage. I tried to get them with some of the stuff I've been working on lately; but really didn't have much luck. Eventually I just basked in the awkward silence. Of course, that just made it more awkward. I would have felt bad, but the crowd was tight all night and I'm trying to get some thicker skin and not take bad sets as hard as I did before.

A night of firsts

4:28PM
I'm at Mikey Manker's apartment in Chicago. I took the "MEGABUS!!!" here this morning for $21.25. The bus was a double decker (and yes, I sat on the upper deck) and wasn't very crowded at all, which was nice. I got to Chicago and met Mikey around 2:30 and we grabbed lunch and took the Chicago Transit (the Blue AND the Red lines) to his place where we're currently hanging out and he's working on his résumé.

11:45PM
Mikey and I took the 'L' train to near Zanies. When we got there, we met Mark Knope and Nate Simmons the other two guys who were showcasing tonight. Before the show started, Bert (the booker) sat us down and talked to us for about 45 minutes about hosting shows, showcasing and being a comedian. A lot of the stuff he said about hosting really made sense, but contradicted what I've been doing and what I've seen personally. I've been told that the emcee is supposed to do announcements and get the audience ready for the feature and headliners, but I was never given specific examples. Bert gave some, which seemed so simple I almost thought they were rudimentary. Nevertheless, his tips seem like they will work, and so I'm going to practice them and hopefully have experience hosting the way he likes when I get booked.
My set was AWESOME; I was first among the show-casers, so Dobie Maxwell brought me up and I did jokes I was comfortable with and got a good response from the audience. Later, I saw the notes that Bert made and they said "Single mother of like, 8 (just 8)" meaning I shouldn't say "like, 8" and "nice set, right on time". Nate followed me on stage and asked if I would tape his set, and I did. Mikey and Mark later asked me to tape their sets too, so I will be mailing them all a DVD or two. Mark offered to pay me and I said it wasn't necessary (I like doing favors for fellow comics) but he said he'd use my return-mailing address to send me a couple bucks. I'm not one to argue or not-cash a check, so...
After the show, Mikey and I stopped at a place called Mullens where he got some wings and I got some Mozzarella sticks (they were about 20% bigger than the usual kind I get and were pretty good, plus I got 8 of them. booyah) On the way home, we saw a couple having sex in an alley against a car. Since it was easily 15 degress out (February in Chicago) I was a little surprised (also, I've never stumbled upon that kind of thing before) and so Mikey and I crossed the street until we got past them (the couple kind of fled into the alley, I'm not sure if they continued or not). As we got past them, Mikey and I both burst out laughing.

SYG IGH

Vince Morris was emceeing last night at the Fairview Heights Funny Bone; he brought everybody on stage with really weird intros; I knew what he was doing (trying to get people to react to an unexpected bump) but I still was unable to do anything to respond to his intro saying that being on the list was my make-a-wish.

I was trying to time out my set for my showcase at Zanies. Sadly, my set was not very helpful. The crowd was really tight all night, I went a little blue and I berated the audience. Paul Harris was on stage a couple of comics before me and when he got off stage, he said "you guys have been great" or something like that. Vince went on stage and told Paul not to lie to the audience; if they were a terrible audience, tell them that. So when I got on stage, i told them that. Not immediately. I was a couple jokes in and not getting many laughs, one guy at stage right was laughing out loud. I did my shampoo joke and almost no one laughed at stage left, and I said "If you're not laughing at that you're either blind or retarded". The only redeemable part of the night was when I got good laughs (from a vast majority of the audience) on my Gay-Bar story.

I'm thinking about opening with that joke tonight, and closing with my Phone Sex joke, I've been told that I tell that joke the best; and I think that if I switch up the topics my set will seem more well-rounded.

You don't hear that word every day.

Mike Shawky called me and reminded me that Dan Walsh heard about an open mic at the ShowMe's in O'Fallon, MO tonight. Dan got called to duty for the Marines so he's busy tonight and was unable to make it, so Mike and I went. I got there first, and signed the two of us up while three old guys played guitars and sang old OLD cover songs. The band had "groupies" or some kind of following; anyway these people had tambourines, maracas and other noise making toys/instruments to accompany the "singing cowboy" songs, Elvis tunes and other blue-hair favorites. I went up first, and have no idea how much time I did, but focused on making eye contact with the few people that were close and paying attention. I got some laughs; had to deal with quite a bit of microphone feedback and there was some dude who kept saying "Ehh" throughout my set. I'm not sure if he did it every time I said "Right?" or asked a question, but it was annoying.
Anyway, I did my set and got off "stage" and went back to where Shakwy, Addler and I were sitting. Then the band did some more time and Shawky went up. I split out after he got off stage. We may be trying it again next week, with less (no) music and more comedians. I will be in Mason City, though, so I'll have to live vicariously through the others.

They really mean it

I went to the Jack's Iron Horse Bar & Grill tonight to do Cutthroat Comedy with Steve Poggi, Joel Thornton and John Sokolich. We had about 4 audience members sitting in the front row, and maybe 2 or 3 more non-comics sitting back with Steve and Joel and John. The bar, which was easily 40 or more feet away was surrounded by 10 to 20 people having conversations and not paying attention to us. Since I knew my material wouldn't be rocking the house so I focused on timing myself. I figured if I did every joke I consider in my "current" set (since there are jokes I don't do anymore) and get zero jokes, that's the amount I can assume I can do during a worst-case-scenario feature set. Sadly I didn't start my stop-watch so I know I did about 18 minutes and I didn' do every joke I wanted. My intentions were good; but I started goofing off at one point, and so my only reward for the set last night was another weird open-mic experience.

It's about time

I'm really trying to make a new 7 to 8 minute demo video for my website; but tonight at the Comedy Forum was not the night. The framing for my camera was great, and I did 13 minutes because Al pretty much lets me do what I want, especially since we only had 9 comedians and 9 audience members. A friend of mine, who's been promising to come watch a show for months came out and brought 2 friends; so that was nice. Unfortunately, The audience was neither big enough nor laughy enough to make the video I took good for anything more than a project I'm working on. This project really has me excited and will likely take about 3 to 6 months to complete. It's somewhat comedy related, but it won't exactly be beneficial to my career; I guess it could be considered a "bonus feature" to a DVD that I might one day make. Still working on my mozzarella sticks joke and now I'm starting to wonder what kind of set I should prepare for Zanies in Chicago. I am pretty sure I want to end with my gay-bar joke, because I tell it well and it usually gets a really good response.

confidence is key

I told Jeff (to tell Matt) that I wanted to Emcee at the Funny Bone last night; and I actually got to, which was pretty cool. I was really hoping to do super well (10 out of 10, 5 stars kind of deal) so that the club could see how far I've come. Sadly, my set wasn't stellar. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't impressive in any sense of the word. Chad Huff told me not to get down about it; he said (and I've seen it) that even headliners have not killed while emceeing an open mic. Pete Lydal (I can't think of how to spell that for the life of me...) told me not to kill myself. Several times during the night, I tried to make some cracks and comments between the other comics, and not many of them were well received. But after one comic who didn't do very well, I did my "pro homo" joke and got some laughs out of the crowd. It felt good to take control of the helm, so to speak, and show that I can regain a show's momentum.

Only two out of five

I taped both shows at the Forum tonight, and neither are really usable for a new 7-10 demo tape. I got sidetracked by the audiences who were a little too talkative and I tried rearranging my set so I could close on my Gay-bar joke; the first show my set went Smoking, Drinking, Women back to the Gay Bar. I don't even remember the order for the second show. I do remember getting off-topic and talking about some of the truths behind my jokes (the audience was asking questions and stuff); and when I mentioned that out-loud, I could hear Ralph (the feature) laughing in the back of the room. Tomorrow is Sarah's birthday, so I won't be at the Forum (Steve Poggi's going to be filling in for me).