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.