Phew! That's Out Of The Way

Last night, my set was good and bad. It's hard to explain why this makes me feel good, but most honestly it's because I'm a little superstitious. I had been on a stretch of really great shows. It seemed like I could do no wrong, and it was making me uncomfortable. Anybody that's worked in stand-up will tell you, you're bound to have some stinkers in the mix, it's just how it goes, but it'd been too long.

First off, the first half of my set went great. I was killing throughout. That was the set I keep running getting ready for Portland's Funniest Professional next Wednesday. I feel really good about that set, and feel it represents my humor well, as far as delivery, content, and creativity. The material isn't over the top raunchy either, and as a matter of fact, I don't believe there's any cussing at all in the set.

The second half of my set is where the gravy train lost the biscuit wheels. I didn't bomb at all, but I wasn't cohesive either. I ran a couple of new ideas I had floating around, but it's obvious they need to be flushed out to become jokes. I ran a couple of other jokes too, and my "accidentally gay" joke seemed to have fallen a little flat last night. In retrospect, it still got laughs, but maybe I'd gotten too used to the harder laughter my usual set gets. Not a problem though, I took the opportunity to play with the crowd. It was fun, and I realize that when I "spar" with the audience, I usually do pretty great. It's becoming a bit of a fail safe for me to bail out if I don't like how things are going.

I capped the set with a street joke, but I had gotten away from my clever joke material, so it seemed to come out of left field. It got some laughs and chuckles, but not uproarious by any means. But it felt good to get it out of the way, to suck a little life out of the room. I'm not very worried about that for next week though, because I feel like I have my competition set down pretty well, and there's not a lot of room for error. When you only have between 3 and 5 minutes, you don't play much with the crowd, and surely don't bounce new material off a crowd.

I'm excited for the competition. Once again, not because I think I'll win, because the crowd should be big and fun. Also I'll be tripping the light fantastic with some great comics and close friends. I was sad to find out that my friend Dustin didn't make it to the finals. He went over on his time, and if you go over, it's done for you. I was really hoping to find myself, him, and Timmy Brochu on the last night if possible. Those have always been my favorite shows to do all along. They're great guys and really funny. I think the three of us have material that plays well off the other and our target audience is about the same.

My next update should be next week Thursday morning, because the competition is on Wednesday night. Regardless if I have a great night, or a lousy one, you'll still get to hear about it. Wish me luck and say some prayers. Because as we all know, God wants a little unknown comic from Portland Maine to do well with his fart and rape jokes.

Stimulater!

It Felt Pretty Good.... Aside From The Poops!

I had a show last night, and it was the first one since the 1st round of the competition. I wasn't entirely as sharp as I'd like to be, but that's why I asked to go up before the semi finals, I want to work out any nervousness or kinks. And I did. My set all-in-all was actually quite good.

My set for the competition is 5 minutes long, and when I showed up last night, I was scheduled to do 10. What I basically did was my competition set, which still did great even though it was a pretty small crowd, and then played with the crowd for the remaining 5 minutes. That worked out pretty well and was fun, considering I'll be hosting in a couple of weeks, it was actually pretty good practice.

The tough part was the little things that were adding up to try and shake my confidence. I was kind of tired, first of all. Heidi and I had been doing some housework etc for a good portion of the morning. At lunch time, we went to the Clambake for lunch. We ended up crashing after that for a nap, and a gigantic plate of fried clams just stewed in my belly for a couple of hours. We went out to the movies to see Hot Fuzz with my friend Mike and his wife and followed that up with dinner at Chia Sin. Flash forward about an hour and I still have the United Colors of Benetton in my belly. From Scarborough to South Portland my body decided it no longer wanted to keep any of the food in my lower half. We stopped by the house and I exorcised what looked like a demon made of funnel cakes.

While we were at the club, we watched the show. I was hoping to be on early so I could go home and catch the end of the Red Sox game and maybe the Sopranos and Entourage, but no dice, I was closing the show. While we were sitting there with Dustin, he decided that he'd like to introduce his beer to my penis, and spilled it all over my crotch. He said he thought he might have a spare pair of pants in his car, but I figured I'd try and use the situation to my advantage onstage. I did a little, it was okay. I also got a really skinny kid named Ben to come onstage and almost strip. I told him he needed to finish a joke I told him, or he'd have to get naked for the crowd. I didn't force the issue, but the crowd chanted for him to take it off. It would've been awkward to see, but really funny if it had payed off. It was funny in the end and he was ultimately embarrassed beyond belief. He and the crowd had a good time with it.

Overall my nerves were a little up, but I don't think it mattered because the crowd like me last night. Also I have one more show before the semi-finals this Thursday, so it'll all be good. I'll run my set again and maybe have some more joke at the ready.