Last night was one of the most unique comedy nights I've ever had. Ever. Paul and I decided to walk to the club because it was nice out and only a short walk (half mile or less) to the club from the condo. As we walk up, Pat is just getting out of his SUV. We all walk in together and pass a bus for the Arkansas School for the Blind. I saw it, and briefly thought about my blind jokes and wondered if they'd be a problem, but in the past I've never offended anyone with my skiing and drinking jokes.
Fast forward about a half an hour. I'm sitting in the back and I see a blind guy being let to the bathroom, so I figure "There he is". Pause: I only saw 1 (one) blind guy right there. But there was a bus outside, indicating more than one person came in the bus. Un-Pause .
Now, skip to the next chapter; I'm on stage and doing alright. I opened with my Hooters joke, which is working (though I think I need to see a couple of the last lines with a VERY specific tone of voice (tone might be the wrong term, I might be talking about pitch, but since Brother Christian (one of my choir instructors from the seminary) isn't here, I can't ask. Anyway, I'm a little ways into my blind skier joke (I found a new setup, by the way: I like skiing, because I'm kind of good at it, and anyone can do it. I've seen people in wheelchairs ski; I've even seen blind people ski. It's crazy because.... So this guy in the front row says something. It's a light-hearted heckle, like he's trying to help me out. Anyway I respond neutrally (I don't insult him, but I also don't encourage anymore from him). He says something else, I say something else (still neutral) and then he tells me he's blind. And that threw me so hard, even HE saw it. He said something about how it caught me off guard. Then he said something about having a seeing eye dog with him. I thought he was talking about his date, and I said (laughingly) that it was rude to call his girl that, and the crowd died laughing. Then I looked at his feet and saw an actual Seeing Eye Dog (named Duke). So then I broke out a joke I haven't done in years about how I dated a girl who trained seeing eye dogs. Somehow I got the audience (and that guy) back and finished out my set. I don't know chronologically where it happened, but I did my Ferrari joke again and wrote a new line on stage to close out the bit. I'm pretty excited about it. Near the end of the show, I was playing Zombieville, USA and some audience members in the back started asking me about it. They had iPhones too and we started talking about them for a bit. After the show, they said they'd look me up online and be my Facebook fans.
The second show was good, but I had to kind of "work" to get through my set, which is fine. I stuck to my time second show (I went over a minute or two first show) and got to try my Ferrari joke again. This time I dropped a couple parts that I think aren't necessary or necessarily hilarious. I'll work on them tonight and until I figure them out. I'm very stoked right now because I might be coming back to St Louis with about 2 more minutes of material. I haven't been sleeping well at all this week, seriously I went to bed at 4 this morning and I was up by 11. I'm going to blame the bed in my emcee room and try to catch a nap this afternoon before the shows because as always, I'm driving home tonight so I can work tomorrow afternoon.

Paddy G in the house

Pat Godwin showed up right as Paul and I were heading over to the club tonight. He had a valid/personal reason for his absence last night, so I'll leave it at that. I was nervous about tonight's show because Paul and I re-worked my Ferrari joke today and we literally spent an hour on it. I opened tonight with my new Hooters joke and it did alright, though I think it's way funnier than the audience gave credit. My set went well; the audience was good but a little tight. After my set, Pat said that I did well, especially given the circumstances. Tomorrow we have 2 shows and 3 on Saturday. Now that I have a definite outline for my Ferrari joke, I'm planning on doing it every show. I'd love to come back to St Louis with a couple new polished / semi-polished bits.

100% unexpected

The show tonight at the Loony Bin in Little Rock was really good. It was open mic night and since Pat Godwin wasn't performing tonight they had 9 locals go up and then I did about 12 and Paul Strickland closed out the show with 25.
Some of the open micers did really well, and a couple did not. The audience hung in there, though. My set was really fun, I had a couple people heckle early on, but I shut them up by being quick (read I snapped at them) and a little vulgar. But not real vulgar. My math jokes got some serious laughs tonight, which shocked the heck out of me (cause it's Little Rock and they NEVER laugh at the math jokes). I had a couple of weird reactions from the crowd (they laughed at treasure map, but not booty), and they really laughed at the Abraham Lincoln punchline but not the hat/sneak/beard tags.
Paul Strickland is very funny; he has some lines that are just beautiful and he's got a really good stage persona. Offstage he's pretty easy to get along with and he's already helped me in the writing of some jokes.
I'm very excited about the rest of the week.