What a great feeling. Last night's show was packed to the gills, and people were having a hard time finding seats. Kelly Macfarlane was the host, and she was very funny. I was supposed to have 10 minutes last night, but got cut down to 8. Have no fear, everyone ended up going over and I did 11 minutes.
I was scheduled to go up 3rd, which if you're one of my usual readers, is my favorite spot in any lineup. I got bumped though, ad George Hamm came in and did a set in my slot, so I had to follow him fresh off a hot set at the Merrill Auditorium with Bob Marley. The energy in the room was great last night. From the first moment Kelly hit the stage, all the way through the end, everyone was putting in the effort and it was a great night for comedy. While I was waiting to go onstage, it was hard to keep focused, because I was pretty wound up. It was kind of like the scene in 8 Mile when Eminem talking about "there's vomit on his sweater already, Mom's spaghetti", except I didn't throw up, but the energy was there and that's what that soliloquy was supposed to represent.
I opened with new material. Actually over half of my set was new to newer stuff and a lot of improv stuff too that was really working. My very first joke started out strong, but I tripped over my words towards the second half of it, and it started to die out. I saved it by stating that the previous joke was certified by waste management as a genuine turd. That saved the day. Everyone appreciated that I noticed it didn't go properly. Towards the end of my set, one guy blurted out that it was his birthday. Then a couple other people did. In short time about 6 people were saying that it was their birthday and how old they were. Before it got out of hand, I reigned in the audience by saying, "That's great, you all had birthdays, good for you. You know who else just had a birthday? Jesus. That's right, Jesus! And I bet you stingy pricks didn't even get him anything. You could've at least got Jesus a Dunkin Donuts gift card. Because Jesus is fueled on Dunkin". I'm not sure where I pulled that from, but it did kill. It was pretty sweet.
I stayed to the end of the show and waited for the crowd to clear. I had people come up and say they liked my stuff and one guy said he "really appreciated my routine". It sounded like I needed to be wearing an gymnastics unitard and dancing with a long ribbon on a stick, but it was still good to hear anyway.
Next scheduled show is January 6th at Spectator's in Sanford and then I believe on the 24th at Club Gemini in Bangor. Next Thursday is also open mic at Bingas Wingas, and where time is short this month, I'll probably do some time there as well. To my new readers in Portugal, thanks for visiting and the stuff on your site is really dirty. I'm not judging you, I'm just saying, it didn't seem like the donkey really appreciated wearing the running shorts you put on him.
Friday, December 29, 2006
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
I'm Not Disappointed
Last night I went and did the open mic at Sierra. To say the crowd petered out after the second comic was an understatement. It actually looked like it might be a good crowd before it began, but that turned around quickly. Lucky for me (insert sarcastic sneer) I was up fourth.
By the time I hit the stage, most folks were no longer paying attention, except a couple of Nick Salve's friends and a couple heavy girls that looked like they came from USM. I got some laughs, but not like I'm used to. I thought my set was pretty good, but I can't be sure really anyone was listening. I'm pretty sure they weren't. If I had to drive a long distance for that show, I might have been upset, but I really didn't care. I felt like my set was pretty decent, but who really knows. One good thing is that my most recent change to my "Advice" joke went over even in a dead room, so that seems like it'll be a keeper.
There was a point where a show like last night would've eaten at me and I would lose sleep, literally. Not anymore. I've come to terms that not every crowd is the same, and there's things about comedy shows out of my control. I can't control the crowd, the temperature of the room, if the host is being an asshole, the crowd noise, shitty waitstaff, the only thing I can control is my jokes and how I tell them. I think given the situation, I did pretty well, but the crowd response wasn't there. Oh well, there's always the Connection on the 28th. I'm not gonna let it break my stride, I'm not gonna let it slow me down. Oh no, oh no, I got to keep on movin', Sorry, the 80's took me over for a minute there.
By the time I hit the stage, most folks were no longer paying attention, except a couple of Nick Salve's friends and a couple heavy girls that looked like they came from USM. I got some laughs, but not like I'm used to. I thought my set was pretty good, but I can't be sure really anyone was listening. I'm pretty sure they weren't. If I had to drive a long distance for that show, I might have been upset, but I really didn't care. I felt like my set was pretty decent, but who really knows. One good thing is that my most recent change to my "Advice" joke went over even in a dead room, so that seems like it'll be a keeper.
There was a point where a show like last night would've eaten at me and I would lose sleep, literally. Not anymore. I've come to terms that not every crowd is the same, and there's things about comedy shows out of my control. I can't control the crowd, the temperature of the room, if the host is being an asshole, the crowd noise, shitty waitstaff, the only thing I can control is my jokes and how I tell them. I think given the situation, I did pretty well, but the crowd response wasn't there. Oh well, there's always the Connection on the 28th. I'm not gonna let it break my stride, I'm not gonna let it slow me down. Oh no, oh no, I got to keep on movin', Sorry, the 80's took me over for a minute there.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
A Bit Of A Surprise
It was another good night for me at Acoustic Coffee. I’m not really sure what’s going on, I have historically had bad luck at that room, but the last couple of times, I’ve been very relaxed and the crowd seems to have really enjoyed my sets. Last night was no different.
My set was fairly short. I had told my jokes to many of the same faces in the crowd before, so I wanted to use some new material. I only used 1 joke that I’ve told before, and one that I’ve been rewriting. Other than that, everything else was new. I had a few that I had in mind that I wanted to tell, but when I hit the stage and got into the flow of it, I forgot which ones I wanted to tell. I hadn’t written a set list. So I did what anybody would do in that situation, I made up a couple of jokes on the spot. It was funny to me because I knew that I hadn’t written them out, and oddly enough Dennis Fog told me one of the ones I told was a really good joke. It was strange, but kind of easy at the same time. Most of the jokes were potty humor, and I thought kind of "hackey", but they worked, so I can’t complain.
The funny thing about my set last night was that the crowd was extremely quiet before I got onstage. I already had it in my mind that they weren’t going to laugh at all. The first thing I did was grab the mic and go to pull it from the stand and the cable popped out of it. Nice. I didn’t let it phase me, and from joke 1 all the way through to the end, I had the entire crowd’s attention and laughter. The only thing that didn’t seem to work was a story I told about the crack addict in Toronto, but I was using that joke to stall for time. Knowing that the joke wasn’t working, I bailed on it and said something to the effect that that joke obviously wasn’t good because nobody was laughing. That got a good rise out of the crowd and I saved a shitty joke by calling it out for its lameness.
Next show for me will be another open mic in Gorham next Tuesday the 19th at Sierra. After that I have time at the Portland Comedy Connection on the 28th. Also there may be a trivia night that I’ll be hosting at Bingas Wingas, but I’ll have to wait to hear back from Timmy B on that one.
My set was fairly short. I had told my jokes to many of the same faces in the crowd before, so I wanted to use some new material. I only used 1 joke that I’ve told before, and one that I’ve been rewriting. Other than that, everything else was new. I had a few that I had in mind that I wanted to tell, but when I hit the stage and got into the flow of it, I forgot which ones I wanted to tell. I hadn’t written a set list. So I did what anybody would do in that situation, I made up a couple of jokes on the spot. It was funny to me because I knew that I hadn’t written them out, and oddly enough Dennis Fog told me one of the ones I told was a really good joke. It was strange, but kind of easy at the same time. Most of the jokes were potty humor, and I thought kind of "hackey", but they worked, so I can’t complain.
The funny thing about my set last night was that the crowd was extremely quiet before I got onstage. I already had it in my mind that they weren’t going to laugh at all. The first thing I did was grab the mic and go to pull it from the stand and the cable popped out of it. Nice. I didn’t let it phase me, and from joke 1 all the way through to the end, I had the entire crowd’s attention and laughter. The only thing that didn’t seem to work was a story I told about the crack addict in Toronto, but I was using that joke to stall for time. Knowing that the joke wasn’t working, I bailed on it and said something to the effect that that joke obviously wasn’t good because nobody was laughing. That got a good rise out of the crowd and I saved a shitty joke by calling it out for its lameness.
Next show for me will be another open mic in Gorham next Tuesday the 19th at Sierra. After that I have time at the Portland Comedy Connection on the 28th. Also there may be a trivia night that I’ll be hosting at Bingas Wingas, but I’ll have to wait to hear back from Timmy B on that one.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Not bad, could've been better.
Last night's show was at the American Legion in Westbrook as a benefit for the Westbrook Cheerleaders. It was a crowd of about 40 or so people. I wasn't sure where the place was, so I planned it out on mapquest. My directions told me to take Rte 25 to Main St and then a right onto Dunn St. If you've ever been to Westbrook, just about every Rte is a Rt 25 of some sort. Rte 25 W, Rte 25 E, Rte 25, Rte 25 Business, etc. I did find it after a spell and the Dunn street sign was about 7 feet back from the road. I got lucky to see it.
Our payment for last night was a couple of free drinks. Miller light, I have to watch my girlish figure, and all the pizza we could eat. There was just about every pizza place in Westbrook that had donated pizza to the show. There were probably about 50 pizzas in total.
I was the first comic for the night. I did about 15 minutes I'd say with my jokes and playing with the crowd. They all laughed, but they sounded exactly how you would expect 40 people in an American Legion Hall to sound. I was expecting a bunch of drunk older cheerleader types living vicariously through their daughters, and I more or less saw just as many men as women, who seemed like they were dragged to the show by their wives because they needed to support the cheerleaders. So the response was good, but I was hoping for something better. Then again, I've gotten used to the fact that the first slot is always going to get less of a response than you anticipate. Folks aren't drunk yet, and haven't gotten into the flow of the show quite yet.
Brian Brenniger went on second, and he has a joke where he talks about a woman's taint. He got up on a bar stool and lifted his legs to point to the magical area, but when he did, he lost his balance and fell backward onto the floor. It was kind of scary for a second, because people didn't know if he was alright or not. This was just 20 minutes after he showed me a bruise he had gotten on his leg 2 nights previous that took over almost his entire lower leg. That's one reason I prefer stand-up straight to physical stand-up.
I left after Brian's set, this was when people were getting up to get more drinks and pizza ans went home. I was tired and this was the third comedy show I'd been to or went to see in as many days. At this point, my next "scheduled" comedy show is back at the Portland Comedy Connection on December 28th. I'll probably try and fill time in at Acoustic Coffee on the 12th, and maybe some time at Sierra's in Gorham on the 19th. If anything else pops up, I'll be sure to let you know. But it looks like a couple quiet weeks coming up, which will give me a chance to write more material.
Our payment for last night was a couple of free drinks. Miller light, I have to watch my girlish figure, and all the pizza we could eat. There was just about every pizza place in Westbrook that had donated pizza to the show. There were probably about 50 pizzas in total.
I was the first comic for the night. I did about 15 minutes I'd say with my jokes and playing with the crowd. They all laughed, but they sounded exactly how you would expect 40 people in an American Legion Hall to sound. I was expecting a bunch of drunk older cheerleader types living vicariously through their daughters, and I more or less saw just as many men as women, who seemed like they were dragged to the show by their wives because they needed to support the cheerleaders. So the response was good, but I was hoping for something better. Then again, I've gotten used to the fact that the first slot is always going to get less of a response than you anticipate. Folks aren't drunk yet, and haven't gotten into the flow of the show quite yet.
Brian Brenniger went on second, and he has a joke where he talks about a woman's taint. He got up on a bar stool and lifted his legs to point to the magical area, but when he did, he lost his balance and fell backward onto the floor. It was kind of scary for a second, because people didn't know if he was alright or not. This was just 20 minutes after he showed me a bruise he had gotten on his leg 2 nights previous that took over almost his entire lower leg. That's one reason I prefer stand-up straight to physical stand-up.
I left after Brian's set, this was when people were getting up to get more drinks and pizza ans went home. I was tired and this was the third comedy show I'd been to or went to see in as many days. At this point, my next "scheduled" comedy show is back at the Portland Comedy Connection on December 28th. I'll probably try and fill time in at Acoustic Coffee on the 12th, and maybe some time at Sierra's in Gorham on the 19th. If anything else pops up, I'll be sure to let you know. But it looks like a couple quiet weeks coming up, which will give me a chance to write more material.
Friday, December 08, 2006
Yippeee!!!!!
I had a great set last night at the Comedy Connection. It went so well in fact, that I decided not to do a set at Bingas Wingas after, because I didn't want to risk having a less than stellar set and ruining my night.
I had 4 people show up to watch my show. Heidi, my friend Jeff Inman, and his friend Steve and his lady friend. Our MC for the night was a guy named Spanky. To be honest, whn I heard the name, I was pretty sure he was going to suck, and boy was I wrong. He had a strange energy to him that made it almost impossible not to watch him. He was awesome. I wouldn't mind going back this weekend to see him do his whole set.
I felt a little bad. One of the newer comics through the Connection was hanging out upstairs with me. He was talking about how he was going to suck the life out of the room. He had a very negative attitude about his set before he went up. It was starting to make me think I was going to do poorly as well. But I went head first into my set and bulled through it.
My set was supposed to be 10 minutes in total, so I put together a 10 minute set. When I got there, my set was trimmed down to 9 minutes. I ended up doing 12 and a half. I feel bad, I didn't think I went that far over. I'm pretty certain, that's going to bite me in the ass. We'll see. I did a good mix of new and old material. I'd say about 30% of my set was new. 60% was proven, and I did about 10% improv. The crowd was really into my set. One moment I had a joke that was going really well, and I could tell by the reaction of the crowd that they wanted to keep laughing but didn't know if the joke was going to continue. So I said, "Go ahead and applaud that joke. It's been certified by the gemological institute as a true gem". The crowd exploded after that. It was kind of cool. I did that type of thing a couple of times. I had a good number of applause breaks.
Last night was one of my better sets that I've done in my opinion. Not only was the crowd really into my humor last night. My timing and delivery was on and I had a lot of fun plying the crowd. I was bending them and moving the tempo of the set up and down at will. It was a great feeling. Teo things I wasn't fond of last night is that I went over on time and closed with a street joke, which I didn't need. My jokes were doing better tan the street joke last night. But the other thing is I had a group of people say that they were going to show up for the show and they didn't. I gave out three free passes worth 2 admissions each, and none of them showed up. I could've used those for the people that showed up, but that's how it seems to go.
Next show is Saturday night at 8:00 at the American Legion Hall in Westbrook. It's a benefit show for the Westbrook Cheerleaders. It sounds like it might be a great time. Until our next installment kiddies, make sure you eat your vegetables.
I had 4 people show up to watch my show. Heidi, my friend Jeff Inman, and his friend Steve and his lady friend. Our MC for the night was a guy named Spanky. To be honest, whn I heard the name, I was pretty sure he was going to suck, and boy was I wrong. He had a strange energy to him that made it almost impossible not to watch him. He was awesome. I wouldn't mind going back this weekend to see him do his whole set.
I felt a little bad. One of the newer comics through the Connection was hanging out upstairs with me. He was talking about how he was going to suck the life out of the room. He had a very negative attitude about his set before he went up. It was starting to make me think I was going to do poorly as well. But I went head first into my set and bulled through it.
My set was supposed to be 10 minutes in total, so I put together a 10 minute set. When I got there, my set was trimmed down to 9 minutes. I ended up doing 12 and a half. I feel bad, I didn't think I went that far over. I'm pretty certain, that's going to bite me in the ass. We'll see. I did a good mix of new and old material. I'd say about 30% of my set was new. 60% was proven, and I did about 10% improv. The crowd was really into my set. One moment I had a joke that was going really well, and I could tell by the reaction of the crowd that they wanted to keep laughing but didn't know if the joke was going to continue. So I said, "Go ahead and applaud that joke. It's been certified by the gemological institute as a true gem". The crowd exploded after that. It was kind of cool. I did that type of thing a couple of times. I had a good number of applause breaks.
Last night was one of my better sets that I've done in my opinion. Not only was the crowd really into my humor last night. My timing and delivery was on and I had a lot of fun plying the crowd. I was bending them and moving the tempo of the set up and down at will. It was a great feeling. Teo things I wasn't fond of last night is that I went over on time and closed with a street joke, which I didn't need. My jokes were doing better tan the street joke last night. But the other thing is I had a group of people say that they were going to show up for the show and they didn't. I gave out three free passes worth 2 admissions each, and none of them showed up. I could've used those for the people that showed up, but that's how it seems to go.
Next show is Saturday night at 8:00 at the American Legion Hall in Westbrook. It's a benefit show for the Westbrook Cheerleaders. It sounds like it might be a great time. Until our next installment kiddies, make sure you eat your vegetables.
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