The House Was Packed..... Not Really.

Last night was funny, but not really so much for the show itself. Club Gemini in Bangor is the room I liked doing before and last night was my last one there as I’m winding down. There were only 9 people in the audience and the comics. The employees of the club sat down and watched, I’m presuming so that it would look like people were there.

I went up second after Tuck Tucker, who had just got done working the room over about as well as was going to happen last night. I think I had a good set and felt good about it. I even got laughs throughout, even though as Luke pointed out all of my jokes were “crotchular”. Upon review only about 70% of them were, but it was an alarming amount, but that doesn’t change the fact that Luke’s a “Dowsch-bag!”. I ran a few new jokes and did probably about 17 minutes. It went pretty well except my closer ended of deaf ears. What are you going to do when there’s only single digit audience? Dustin went up next, and had a rough go of it, and then Sean Carr, and closed out by Luke. I think we were all disappointed that it was such a small and quiet crowd, but all-in-all it didn’t much matter.

The road trip up was pretty funny. The jokes and barbs were flying. Somehow we got on the kick of doing impressions of other local comics, and it all exploded when we started doing our Tuck Tucker impersonation. He seemed to be oblivious to the fact that he has a very distinct Indiana accent that sounds like a calmed down Shaggy from Scooby Doo. We laughed pretty much the whole time up and back and this morning my voice is horse due to lack of sleep and all the chuckles. On the way back however, Luke needed something to eat so we stopped at a 24 hour convenience store. There was a young girl working all by herself and it was just about midnight. Tuck kept asking her questions that were really sketchy. I’m not going to go into specifics on what he said, because it may or may not be incriminating, but he did ask her when he was at the check-out if she’d ever been robbed. It was exactly the wrong thing to say at the wrong time, but if I were in that girl’s shoes, I would’ve been a bit freaked out. I apologized for him and we went on our way without any police intervention.

The funniest part of the whole night for me was the moment when Tuck was onstage doing his set, and he started telling the joke we were doing on the ride up while we poked fun at him. “A Taco and a Neyap!”. It’s out of context right now, but when he was doing it onstage he was starting to crack up, which had the other comics rolling because we were in on it. The crowd was laughing pretty hard too, but it was obvious that they didn’t really know why. It was classic.

Two more scheduled shows coming up at the Portland Comedy Connection. Feb 1st, and I found out that Dustin’s on the bill that night too, as well as Feb 11th. Other than that, I’m still waiting to hear back on what date I get to do Portland’s Funniest, and then it will be done. Once again, thanks to all my regular blog readers, I hope it’s been fun to read up until now, there’s only a few more left.

And A Fun Time Was Had By All...

First of all, let me put this out there, I made my payback goal for comedy last night. I had promised myself that I'd make back the money that I put into the workshop class, and now I have and with one more paying gig lined up, I'll actually turn a profit. 18 months or so later that is.

I have to say thanks to Luke. He wasn't feeling well and suggested me for the show last night. I gladly did it, and had a good time doing it. I told a few jokes throughout the night, but mostly kept it to playing with the audience and reading the trivia questions. You could get the impression that people wanted to get through the contest, but I did tell a few jokes in between. All in all it was a blast to do. The trivia topics covered 80's TV, music, movies, and George W Bush. For instance, were you aware that Vinnie Vincent from KISS was a music writer for Happy Days and Joanie Loves Chachi? Not many people do.

Now comes the sad part of this post. If you are a friend of mine from myspace, I've already sent a bulletin about this, but if you aren't here's the rub. I'm getting out of stand-up and hanging up my seltzer bottle. I'm going to finish out my dates and then do Portland's Funniest Professional Contest, and then that will be it. I'm not saying that if the urge strikes me, I won't pop up in a random open mic, but chances are, this will be the last couple of shows I'll do. It's been a blast, and being onstage has helped relieve some stress and take me away from my normal life while things have been heavy the past couple of years. With my mother passing away, and my father being diagnosed with cancer, it was a little place I could go and feel in control even if just for 5 to 20 minutes at a time. But I've made it through the worst of that for now, and don't have a clear goal of what I'd like from stand-up.

Here's some things I know I got out of stand-up. A tougher skin. I've always had very low self esteem, but being onstage and bombing a few times tends to toughen you up. Friends. I've met some amazing and funny people along the way. I'm not going to name them all, because I'd be afraid to miss someone. But if you were there with me onstage at Gemini, Acoustic Coffee, Slainte', Comedy Connection Portland/Boston, Binga's Wingas, Mr Goodbar, Spectator's, Maine Indoor Karting, or any of the other myriad of places where I've stood and bared my soul, you know I appreciate each and every one of you. Confidence. Stand-up is very honest. You can go out there with material that you've seen do really well, and bomb for your entire set. A couple nights later you can use the same material and kill, there's nothing like a retribution show. Dreams fulfilled. I never want to lose fact that the reason I wanted to do stan-up was because I love the art. I remember going to the Portland Comedy Connection several years ago to see Mike Birbiglia, and only about 7 people showed up. I sat right up front. I might have been the only person "getting him" that night and I laughed hysterically. He may have thought I was a psycho, but sometimes someone will say something that strikes you funny, and you'll never look at something the same way again. That's pretty powerful. Now I've worked those same stages, and had some of those same awkward moments with some audience members. I hope that if someone hears the phrase "You say tom-aye-to, I say Tom-ah-to" they'' finish it with "You say fajita and I'll say vagina". Then I know someone "got me".

It's not over yet though kids. There's 3 more scheduled dates, and obviously Portland's Funniest. Next show is next Wednesday in Bangor with 2 more Portland shows coming up next month on the Feb 1st and the 11th.

Breaking The Law

Last night's show at Spectator's in Sanford was decent enough. I was up third, and as we all know, that's my lucky spot. I had carpooled up there with Dustin Beckleman and Heidi. One quick pit stop at Wendy's in Biddeford, where the bathroom was covered in a large amount of vomit, ans we were at the show shortly after that. Dustin and I decided to jockey for early slots because we didn't feel like hanging out much. He had #2 and I went third.

Dustin had a great set, and the crowd was into him from the start. he kept them the whole way. I figured I'd be golden to follow him, as our styles are complimentary. Except a funny thing happened before I hit the stage. Our host, Mark Morrison I believe his name was, was really taking the energy out of the crowd from the start. He has a very slow delivery, and he made so many molestation and rape jokes he made everyone feel awkward it seemed. He finished some material just before I hit the stage about his uncle giving him oral sex after applying Vicks Vapo-Rub all over it. When I hit the stage, the crowd for one was taken completely out of the show and disgusted, and i was a little off too. That was definitely not cool to bring me up like that.

My set started off tepid. I wasn't bombing, but I wasn't carrying the room like I thought i should have. My jokes were landing a little flat, but my delivery is quick, and I think it was a little awkward after the host's slow as crawling death delivery. About midway through my set though, things turned around. For some reason, people were getting into it, especially the table right in front of me. There was a thin tall guy who looked kind of like a military kid wearing a zip up white turtleneck sweater. I said I had a joke I'd like to tell everyone about advice. He was a little shitfaced and said "I need advice" and I replied, here's some good advice, "Lose that sweater". The crowd exploded. He was a good sport and fed me back. He said he'd been wearing his clothes for the last 48 hours, and I asked him how long his boyfriend was wearing them before he gave them to him. I mentioned to him that he looked like the only sperm swimming upstream in Sanford that night, because he was wearing the gayest sweater the town had ever seen. His mom was sitting across from him and piped up, "Hey, I bought him that sweater for Christmas". I said, "Here's some better advice, don't buy him anymore sweaters."

I even went into my hockey joke that normally doesn't do too well at that point and dedicated it to him, because it's a self deprecation joke that calls myself a faggot. It was what the crowd needed right at that moment, and it killed. Normally I wouldn't go that deep into a gay joke like that. I'm not homophobic at all, but you could get the vibe from the crowd that they were, so I gave them what they wanted.

So I pocketed the $20 we got paid for the gig ($60 left to hit goal) and we got back on the road. We chatted about how the evening went, and laughed. It was fun. I had to drive Dustin back to Portland, but when we hit South Portland, there were blue lights in the rear view. Now to pepper this story, I have a bit of a lead foot. I'm always speeding, not because I like the thrill of speed, but I drive whatever speed feels comfortable at the time generally. The cop that pulled me over asked if I had seen him, I said "No". He's said he was on the side of the road with his paring lights on, and he locked me doing 76 in a 55. Oops! I told him, I was sure that probably was the case, and that I wasn't paying enough attention to how fast I was going. I was going to go deep into a story that said He pulled us out of the car and slammed me on the hood etc, but he was really quick and cool about the whole thing. He ended up giving me a ticket, but only put on it that I was doing 65 in a 55. That makes my little infraction quite a bit less expensive. I'd only been pulled over once before about 13 years ago for running a red light, but that didn't stop my running of red light. We'll see if this slows me down from speeding.

No Salmonilla Here!

Last night was another open mic at Bingas Wingas. The crowd was a little smaller, and the number of comics was as well. I guess last month's (which if you recall I didn't do a set because I didn't want to crush a good vibe) show went a little sour towards the end. That might have had something to do with it. Last night I took the bullet and went up first.

I had a pretty decent set. I kept it fairly short, maybe to about 7 minutes or so. All of my jokes hit and every punchline got a laugh. Maybe the laughs were not as loud as I would've liked, but they were laughs all the same. The crowd was a little tough to read on which way my jokes should've gone, but I think it was decent enough, and certainly not a bomb. I have recently got a cold, so my timing was a little off, and my energy was a little low. All in all, it felt pretty good.

Other comics didn't seem to be having the feedback that they were expecting either. It was one of those odd nights that comedy and restaurant didn't seem to want to mix, but I did leave a little early in the night, so it may have turned around. Perhaps Saturday night in Sanford at Spectator's will reveal the laughs I was hoping for, but probably not. I'll show up and tell my jokes, and we'll see what happens.

Thanks for coming through and reading this post, and just know this: Every time a retarded boy laughs, he pees his pants just a little. That's a little nugget of wisdom from me to you.