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...