I’ve done several hundred comedy shows in my run of stand-up. Even for an open mike, I like to have a little bit of prep time to make sure I’m ready to go. If that’s how I feel about five minutes of unpaid jokey time, you can imagine I am rather stand-offish for longer paid sets. Enter the cornball last Saturday.
A gentleman showed up while me and my pal Darrell were getting ready in the green room (it was an office). He proceeded to rattle off his resume of entertainment and mentioned he used to do stand-up…which is the worst ever, because that means that person is going to bombard us with shitty truck stop jokes we’ve heard forty times already. He didn’t disappoint. My usual trick is to minimize eye contact and try my damnedest to change the subject. He was impervious to my lack of interest.
Of course, he had to pull out a joke that was, shall I say, insensitive to Semitic persons. I finally just walked out on him. Then he returned and asked me and Darrell if we prepared our sets beforehand. At the time, Darrell was actually making notes and writing out a joke list. We both said yes, we actually worked on our sets before walking onto the stage in front of strangers. Then Darrell went right back to writing and I stared at him so blankly I think he felt his soul coming out. He finally got the hint, which was great, because I had a whopping six minutes to mentally prep for a 45 minute set. Thanks, conversation black hole!