My Tryout for Last Comic Standing, part 2

It was 2008, I had made the cut, not to get on the show, but to tryout.  I looked back at a bunch of poor souls who slept in the street all night just to get booted.  Bill Bellamy, the host, was going around and interviewing comics.  Then I noticed something sad – most of the people interviewed weren’t even comics, they were just costume wearing douchebags.  I watched as a guy wearing a Lincoln outfit and another guy wearing a stuffed gorilla on his back got five minute interviews.  Real comics?  No time!  There’s a guy dressed like Charlie Chaplin over there!  (There actually was and I hated his guts.)

A young man with a ponytail handed me a waiver form.  This is awesome.  I’m going to get to tryout on camera!  Then a limo pulled up.  Roy Wood Jr., a touring comedian, got out and walked in the club.  The rest of us were told our tryout would be…behind the club.  What?  Just before we walked around back, I told Camp he had a huge pimple on his face, which freaked him out.  I’m a dick.

Around back, there was a tent with four tables.  They divvied up the 40 in my group and told us ten to a table.  Then the long hair that handed me my clipboard earlier suddenly was my judge.  “Go ahead and give me your best 30-60 seconds!”  I realized, slowly, that I had a very small chance to advance.  I thought back to the times the staff told us to act excited for the cameras and how a nationally touring comic got right in, while us cattle were herded out back.  All fodder for ratings shots.  Then I remembered the last show I did for money about six people were there, so I had better suck it up and give skinny Fabio my best half minute, there, in the tent flapping so loud I could barely hear, with no microphone, no stage, no judges and no cameras.  Hope is a cruel lover, no pun intended to my current fiancee.