I still feel great about my performance last week. It was the craziest set I've had, and it was so much fun. It's real hard to describe how great I felt after that show. It was great.
The reason for this post however is not to gloat about that last show, but to let you know that I got my date for Portland's Funniest Professional. It's on March 14th (the day before my birthday) and hopefully all will go well. I can't imagine that it'll go poorly. Once again, my goal isn't to win the competition, I just want a big crowd to go out on. I could almost just not do it based on how well my last show went, but I promised myself I'd finish out my shows.
I'm already missing doing shows. I only need to prepare for another 3-5 minutes of being funny for the competition, but already it feels like something is missing. We'll see if that continues, but I know I'll miss it. And I'll love that there's no more worrying or planning and then being disappointed because either nobody showed up or the crowd wasn't into my humor that night. But through it all, I made some great friends, have some great memories to hold onto, and can say I gave it a shot and often did great. No more mystery there. So hopefully I'll see some folks out at the Comedy Connection on March 14th at 8:00. Who knows, if I do well, there will be another date.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Monday, February 12, 2007
Wow! Just WOW!!!!
I can't even believe the show last night. It was beyond my wildest dreams on a show to go out on. I wasn't alone either, there was something magical about what went down last night for Portland comedy.
I'm going to lay the groundwork for what happened. Linens-N-Things was having their Christmas party and decided to have it at the Connection. They pretty mush filled up almost 3/4 of the room alone. They were a young and rowdy bunch. None more rowdy than this flamboyant gay man named Nick that was heckling at the drop of a hat. He was interrupting everyone. There was also a group of young women stage right that were getting more and more drunk as the night went on. It was a recipe for disaster, but it was holding together enough up until my set which was the last for the night.
I was going to play my set straight, but sitting there and seeing how annoyed everyone was getting with Nick, I decided to play off that through my set. I made up a couple of jokes on the spot about Linens-N-Things that went over well. I asked if they had any regulars that came in and if they called them nicknames like Wet Spot. Nothing too crazy, but just enough to engage them. Then I went off.
It was one of those moments that Dustin likes to say, I verbally raped a heckler. Although, it went even further and more over the top than usual. Yes it was a verbal rape. Yes I left him a quivering mass on the floor, but I let him have both guns so hard it shut up the gayest man I've ever seen. Not a peep from him the rest of my set. And I was killing. I must've had about 6 applause breaks through this section. Even with the microphone, I couldn't get louder than the crowd.
Then when I was getting back to my jokes, trying to focus everyone in the room. The girls to stage right were chatting up a storm. I stopped mid-joke (The one that the punch line is "Legendary" in case you heard it, which was oddly appropriate) and turned to the girls and said. "Excuse me ladies. I don't mean to interrupt, but there's a skinny kid onstage telling some jokes. It's my last set ever, think you can hold off for a minute?". That went over pretty funny, but here's where the set climaxed, one of the girls grabs the front of her shirt like she's going to flash me, and screams "I love you!". I don't for a second believe she loved me, but i did believe she was really shitfaced, and pretty close to being coaxed into flashing her boobs. We went back and forth for a couple seconds, and within 15 seconds, she was flashing her chest. The room exploded. I was speechless. It was crazy.
Then when the room finally calmed down for what seemed forever, I said. "I had a couple more jokes I could tell, but honestly, there's no way I can top that. I just want to say thank you to everyone for making my last set great. I want to thank you if you came out to see me perform one last time, and I want to thank..." It was starting to sound like an Academy Awards speech, but it felt good. There wasn't just applause, there was hollering, applause, and a standing ovation that lasted all through the high fives and hugs the other comics gave me on the way out.
It was a night like no other, and will be hard to ever get that rush, or that feeling ever again. I'd never give it up for the world. It was one of my proudest moments, and sincerely thank anyone that I know that went to see it. I appreciate everything, and all the kudos last night and on myspace.
I know I've been referring to this as my last show, but there is Portland's Funniest coming up at the end of this month and the beginning of next. Once I get my date I'll post it here and myspace. Even if I won that, with the $1000 prize money, it'll never come close to how I felt last night. Thank you.
I'm going to lay the groundwork for what happened. Linens-N-Things was having their Christmas party and decided to have it at the Connection. They pretty mush filled up almost 3/4 of the room alone. They were a young and rowdy bunch. None more rowdy than this flamboyant gay man named Nick that was heckling at the drop of a hat. He was interrupting everyone. There was also a group of young women stage right that were getting more and more drunk as the night went on. It was a recipe for disaster, but it was holding together enough up until my set which was the last for the night.
I was going to play my set straight, but sitting there and seeing how annoyed everyone was getting with Nick, I decided to play off that through my set. I made up a couple of jokes on the spot about Linens-N-Things that went over well. I asked if they had any regulars that came in and if they called them nicknames like Wet Spot. Nothing too crazy, but just enough to engage them. Then I went off.
It was one of those moments that Dustin likes to say, I verbally raped a heckler. Although, it went even further and more over the top than usual. Yes it was a verbal rape. Yes I left him a quivering mass on the floor, but I let him have both guns so hard it shut up the gayest man I've ever seen. Not a peep from him the rest of my set. And I was killing. I must've had about 6 applause breaks through this section. Even with the microphone, I couldn't get louder than the crowd.
Then when I was getting back to my jokes, trying to focus everyone in the room. The girls to stage right were chatting up a storm. I stopped mid-joke (The one that the punch line is "Legendary" in case you heard it, which was oddly appropriate) and turned to the girls and said. "Excuse me ladies. I don't mean to interrupt, but there's a skinny kid onstage telling some jokes. It's my last set ever, think you can hold off for a minute?". That went over pretty funny, but here's where the set climaxed, one of the girls grabs the front of her shirt like she's going to flash me, and screams "I love you!". I don't for a second believe she loved me, but i did believe she was really shitfaced, and pretty close to being coaxed into flashing her boobs. We went back and forth for a couple seconds, and within 15 seconds, she was flashing her chest. The room exploded. I was speechless. It was crazy.
Then when the room finally calmed down for what seemed forever, I said. "I had a couple more jokes I could tell, but honestly, there's no way I can top that. I just want to say thank you to everyone for making my last set great. I want to thank you if you came out to see me perform one last time, and I want to thank..." It was starting to sound like an Academy Awards speech, but it felt good. There wasn't just applause, there was hollering, applause, and a standing ovation that lasted all through the high fives and hugs the other comics gave me on the way out.
It was a night like no other, and will be hard to ever get that rush, or that feeling ever again. I'd never give it up for the world. It was one of my proudest moments, and sincerely thank anyone that I know that went to see it. I appreciate everything, and all the kudos last night and on myspace.
I know I've been referring to this as my last show, but there is Portland's Funniest coming up at the end of this month and the beginning of next. Once I get my date I'll post it here and myspace. Even if I won that, with the $1000 prize money, it'll never come close to how I felt last night. Thank you.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
1 Down and 1 To Go!
As far as next to last shows go, I had a pretty decent one. The host for the night was DJ Hazard, and my friends Tuck and Dustin were on tonight. DJ Hazard was a nice guy. He was friendly and just chatty enough between sets and did a great job keeping the energy up in the room. I had an eight minute set which went pretty well.
The crowd was into the show. Dustin had a great set, and so did Tuck. My set went pretty well too. I opened with a new joke that I hadn't written out about tax season. I thought of the premise earlier today and figured I'd give it a try. It was fairly clever and G Rated which isn't normally my style, but it struck me as cute so I gave it a shot. The rest of my set was fairly tame too. I kept away from "crotchular jokes" as Luke would put it. As a matter of fact, none of my jokes ended crotchular, I even changed some that normally would be into more tame versions. The only thing close was a vagina reference, but it was brief and not really graphic to that region, so I won't count it.
At first I was a little bummed to see that I only had 8 minutes, while my other friends had 10, but then I figured it's better to get me used to shorter time for the Portland's Funniest. Then again I don't really care about time and wasn't 100% sure I stuck to my time tonight. One more show left before the competition. The last scheduled show is February 11th.
Until then, make sure you wash behind your ears.
The crowd was into the show. Dustin had a great set, and so did Tuck. My set went pretty well too. I opened with a new joke that I hadn't written out about tax season. I thought of the premise earlier today and figured I'd give it a try. It was fairly clever and G Rated which isn't normally my style, but it struck me as cute so I gave it a shot. The rest of my set was fairly tame too. I kept away from "crotchular jokes" as Luke would put it. As a matter of fact, none of my jokes ended crotchular, I even changed some that normally would be into more tame versions. The only thing close was a vagina reference, but it was brief and not really graphic to that region, so I won't count it.
At first I was a little bummed to see that I only had 8 minutes, while my other friends had 10, but then I figured it's better to get me used to shorter time for the Portland's Funniest. Then again I don't really care about time and wasn't 100% sure I stuck to my time tonight. One more show left before the competition. The last scheduled show is February 11th.
Until then, make sure you wash behind your ears.
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