I think the most interesting part of doing comedy that I didn’t expect was how many absolute lunatics I’ve ran into. If I think about it, music takes years of practice to be good, art is a wildly unique gift and so and on and so forth – anybody unstable enough to talk in front of strangers is an open miker, the first step to being a comedian. And oh boy, have I seen some pearls.
- I saw a black woman do blackface at an open mike. It was so bizarre, the black chef came out of the kitchen and argued with the woman for a couple minutes about the racial components of the piece. The whiteys just shut up and watched.
- I did a couple shows with a guy that put a dip in and burped the whole time he talked. He couldn’t have been more incoherent if he was wearing a dog muzzle.
- I have done shows with comics who cried after their sets.
- I had a guy tell me I was almost to his level. I had won three comedy club competitions and was doing 4 to 13 paid shows a month; he hadn’t done an open mike in six months. When he went to piss, his wife, who I had never met, told me she was humiliated when he was on stage because he was so unfunny. He was basing his “success” on winning a clap off at a bar against four other comics where he brought the entire crowd and the prize was a $10 bar tab. Almost there, everyone!
- I’ve seen multiple comics blacked out onstage, even at paid shows.
- Lastly, the winner. A man who went by No Money Down Productions presents Still Gettin’ Paid was so mentally unbalanced, he was removed by security before the show. He called every comic the “N” word for five minutes, said he was a professional because he did comedy in his basement and admitted he quit taking his pills because they were holding him back. He also had shaved his entire head except a question mark tuft of hair on the front. It was the most appropriate haircut I’ve ever seen.