I have decided to on occasion go over some of the highlights and lowlights of comedy as I near a full decade of doing whatever in hell it is I’ve been doing. I can start with something I’m not sure I’ve ever blogged about, the real first time I did stand-up.
I for real started comedy in 2007 – that’s when I actually wrote jokes, hit real open mics, and once I got going, didn’t stop. However in 2004, my roommate Brady proclaimed to the entire group drinking at our house that there was a comedy open mic at Adobe Gilas that I should do. Brady had three states 1) Going to work and grumpy 2) Home from work and crushing Natty Lights and 3) Sleeping/sleepwalking. I didn’t really want to do it, so I hoped he was deep into stage 2 and would forget. He didn’t.
I can’t remember if he peer pressured me or actually signed me up (he also signed me up for ballroom dancing class one time – quite the dickhead), but I got coerced into doing it. I didn’t know much about stand up then, as in, I hadn’t watched stand-up at club ever at that point. So I wrote jokes heavy in shock factor. 90 seconds worth of material, including the always smooth move of an inside joke about my other roommate banging his girlfriend. Crowds LOVE inside jokes, let me tell you.
I walked into the bar/restaurant on a Saturday afternoon and there was a host and a huge gong behind the stage. Only three of us were signed up. Low turnout at 3 pm on a Saturday, apparently. I was last and watch as the first two got the gong. One guy looked like Gollum and did three jokes about what his girlfriend (probably made up) thought was funny. GONG! I hit the very small stage, proud to have just finished my ninth beer in the last hour and a half. The stagefright melts away, as does the coherence and likeability. I did my awful set and the seven people that came with me loved it. The other nine people hated my guts. I still can’t remember my set, but I can yet to this day see that large girl at the head of the table right in front of the stage looking at me with a disdain that would stop a train in its tracks. I didn’t get gonged, only because I had a home team there.
I did the set at a party a week later, but that was it for three more years. Looking back, I now realize I fit the stereotype of a young white male comic more closely than anyone in history and I’m glad I took a break…and so is anyone who might have seen my next set in that span. Hey young white guys – there’s shocking and there’s funny. Not always the same. You’re welcome.