try standup comedy

The last ten weeks at Goonies have been a blast. I’m developing a routine that’s fun to perform and still makes me laugh even though I’ve been doing some of the material for more than two months. I’m learning how to be a stand-up comedian from those who already are and I’m putting this valuable information into practice each week.

Last week was the first time I performed my first set without running out of material. In fact, I had to cut my homophobia routine short when they flashed the dreaded flashlight indicating that time’s up. I didn’t do so well on the second set as I didn’t have any other material prepared, but I did try out a couple ideas that I thought were funny.

This week, since there were so many comics, we were only allowed to get up once, but we had a full eight minutes to perform instead of the usual five. The extra time was awesome. I did the five minute routine I had prepared and then I went into my new jokes. It was amazing. I was in the moment and in touch with the audience. This was beyond a doubt the best performance I’ve ever given.

I started out with my ventriloquism bit and then transitioned into my dating spiel. Then it was on to my homophobia set. I just love my homophobia jokes and am happy to announce that this portion of my act keeps growing every week. I don’t see why I couldn’t build that into an entire ten minute routine.

The segue from my homophobia jokes to my republican jokes never gets a laugh and I’m not sure why. Maybe the audiences I’ve been playing for are too conservative. Here’s what I do. After I finish my last homophobia joke, I say, “Speaking of homophobia, the Republican National Convention is coming to Minneapolis.” Nothing. Not even a snicker. Perhaps it’s too cliché. I don’t know. Anyway, then I go on to say how excited the mayor is with the anticipated, economic impact from the convention. “He’s expecting the sales of Depends and Geritol to be through the roof.” That always gets a hearty laugh and I’m sure that’s more cliché than the connection between homophobia and Republicans. Oh well. C’est la vie.

My new material went over better than I had expected. I think part of it is because the audience was happy with me and thus more likely to give me the benefit of the doubt. But, I also think I have some great new stuff. The biggest laugh I got all night was from a new joke I wrote about the movie Hairspray, Scientology, John Travolta, and Tom Cruise. They ate it up.

Five friends of mine from work, all girls, came to watch me perform. They have been coming every week for a month now and I just love their support. This time though, the place was so crowded that instead of sitting at their favorite table over on the right side of the room, they sat with me at my table. I normally sit by myself so that before I go on, I can concentrate on what I’m going to say and then afterwards, I can think about what changes I want to make. But, I LOVED having them sit with me. Being surrounded by five gorgeous, young women did wonders for my reputation.

I do a lot of gay and homophobia material and so after my set, Julie, the emcee, joked as I was walking to my seat, “Enough already, why don’t you just come out of the closet, Tom.” It was hilarious and everyone laughed. Then, she saw that instead of sitting by myself I was with a bevy of young ladies. A truly priceless moment.

One of the coolest things about the whole evening, though, happened afterward. My friends and I were standing on the sidewalk in front of Goonies and chatting when one of the other comics came up and complimented me on my routine. Then, he told me that he had a gig for me. I gave him my phone number and he told me he’d call me Monday with the details. Yes! So while I don’t know exactly where this stand-up comedy road is leading me, I’m having the time of my life finding out.

My stand-up comedy word for the week is confidence. It is absolutely necessary to have it if you want to perform in front of an audience. You don?t have to appear confident to the audience, which I’ll touch on in a little bit, but you do have to believe in your material and your ability to make other people laugh.

After last week’s show, one of the pros sat down with me and offered a bunch of invaluable advice on how I could improve my on-stage presence. The first thing he pointed out is that I needed to work on my confidence. I didn’t look like I belonged on stage. I didn’t know how to react to the mic stand, the stool, and the audience. Instead of exploding onto the stage and making my presence known by rearranging the mic stand to how I liked it and positioning the stool where I wanted it, I would simply walk up, grab the mic and start talking. Usually, this would leave the mic stand, sans microphone, standing right in front of me, serving as a distraction for the audience.

Keeping in mind the pro’s advice, when the emcee called my name, I jumped up on the stage, shook her hand, and then went to work. I grabbed the microphone and asked the audience to give another round of applause for the comic that had gotten up before me. This allowed me to start out with positive energy and gave me the time to move the mic stand and set the stool beside me for my notes. Taking another cue from the pros, I started my routine by making a comment about the previous comic. That night was his first time participating in Open Mic night and so I said, “In honor of Colin’s first time, I would like to reenact my first performance.” With that, I squinted into the bright lights, put on a look of terror, and said, “ooooh, shiiiiiit.” That was it. It got a laugh and I finally exuded the confidence that I had been missing earlier.

It’s important, though, to recognize the difference between having and exuding confidence, and appearing confident. They might sound like they are the same things but there is actually quite a large chasm between the two. What’s necessary for success is having and exuding confidence. This is done by knowing your material and delivering the material successfully. It isn’t necessary, however, to appear confident. In fact, a number of comics have turned bumbling into an art form. The key is that even though they appear as incompetent, they are actually performing a rather difficult routine effectively. Without confidence, their comedic responses wouldn’t be matching up with their bumbling actions and instead of being entertained, the audience would simply be embarrassed for the comedian.

This week I had confidence. I knew my material and had practiced my routine sufficiently. I was conscious of how I portrayed myself as I walked on stage and arranged my environment. I was alert to make eye contact with members of the audience. From the moment the emcee called me until the moment I sat down afterward, I was in charge of my performance. It felt great.

OK, so I finally tried out the whole ventriloquism thing. And I sucked! OMG! I was a huge, steaming pile of disgusting suckage. Well, maybe I wasn’t that bad but it’s important that you picture me completely bombing as you read this. I’m sure some of you will find it easier to imagine than others. Have you got that image? Great, let’s move on.

Wanting to run with a “made of wood” theme, I named my little puppet buddy, Knotty. You know, knotty pine? Anyway, I’d written a bunch of jokes about his coniferous beginnings. For example, a bit into my act, Knotty complains about how I’m always making fun of his family. I respond with, “What do you mean? All I said was your mother was an Oak and you came along because your father was a little board.” It did get a few laughs, but it was among only a handful of instances that were appreciated by the audience.

I don’t think the problem was with my jokes though, I think it was with my delivery. With visions of Edgar Bergen, Charlie McCarthy, and Moritmer Snerd bouncing around in my overly optimistic mind, I ordered my ventriloquism doll on line. I probably should have spent more time choosing the perfect one and getting to know it’s inherent personality, but I’d already written the routine and I really wanted to see whether it was as funny as I thought it was. The jury’s still out on that one, but even though I bombed, I still learned a lot and had an amazing time. Plus, bombing with ventriloquism gave me the perfect lead in for my second set.

I walked up on stage, adjusted the mic, and announced, “From my first set, it’s probably no surprise that I don’t date much.” I got the biggest laugh I’ve ever gotten from that, wholly based on how horribly I sucked at ventriloquism, and I ended up doing a fantastic job.

I haven’t used the ventriloquism dummy in my act since, but I do make a joke about him. I mention about how I was wanting to do a ventriloquism act but we had a major accident at the house. A huge fire. I announce that Knotty didn’t make it. Then I say that I really thought he was going to but when he was crying out for help, this lady saw my lips move and saved me instead.

I have developed a bunch of new jokes for this Thursday. Wish me luck.

Last week, my friend Dan talked me into going on stage with him and performing a stand-up comedy routine for Goonies open mic night. Since we have such a relaxed and effortless repartee, we thought it might be cool to just go up there and improvise. And by “WE,” I mean “HE.” Anyway, we did get up and it did turn out relatively OK. We didn’t get a lot of (intentional) laughs, but we didn’t get pummeled by wave after wave of semi-pliable foodstuffs either. In fact, according to Dan, the manager of the place asked us to come back. I have to take Dan’s word on this since I couldn’t find the door quick enough once it was all over. I wasn’t exactly embarrassed, but I sure didn’t care to hear the kind of comments I would have made after a night like that.

For whatever reason, I believed what Dan told me and agreed to do the same thing the following Thursday. The plan was the same as before. Neither of us would prepare anything; we would just get up and see what we could improvise. Well that was the plan until Thursday anyway. Around three in the afternoon, the day of the show, Dan comes into where I work and says that he thinks we might do better if we each do our own routine. I was taken a little aback, but I’ve learned that even when Dan’s schemes sound a tad hair-brained, they usually do work out fine. So, I decided to go along with his plan.

The coffee shop I work at closed at eight that evening. I figured I’d get off by eight fifteen and make it to the club by eight thirty. The show started at seven thirty. That meant I had a chance of taking part in the first wave. It also meant that I would have zero time to prepare a routine. Luckily, work was slow. I spent the rest of the evening running all the jokes I could remember through my mind. I started to feel like I was going to be OK, but I still didn’t have anything to open with. I needed something to grab their attention, make them want to listen to me.

Then it hit me. It wasn’t especially funny or clever, but it was one hundred percent mine and it was something that I could remember in time for the show. So, I developed it as best I could in my mind and then jotted down a few notes about it ? just in case.

I got off work on time and made it to the club about the time I had been expecting. The guy who was performing when I arrived was the same guy who was HILARIOUS last week. Once again I was very grateful that I wouldn’t have to perform directly after him. The next comic up was my friend Dan. He walked up on stage and after having them lower the lights a bit so that he could see the crowd better, he said, “everyone who masturbates raise your hand.” Well the crowd loved him from that point forward and he did an amazing job.

He did so well in fact, that I began to suspect that he didn’t come up with the idea for us to work separately that afternoon. At any rate, while Dan was doing his thing, the emcee came up to me and told me that I’d be after the guy who followed Dan. Yikes! It was starting to sink in. Not only was I going to have to go up there by myself, but I was going to have to compete with Dan’s excellent performance.

The guy before me wasn’t good or bad. He was the Where’s Waldo of comedians. That was just what I needed though. The emcee called my name and I jaunted (love doing that by the way) up to the stage. I was definitely nervous but I was confident as well. From the semi-success of the previous week to the little bit of time I’d been able to prepare my routine, I felt positive that I could do this.

“OK guys, I need you to back me up on this,” I said in opening. “Don’t women truly have it better than us? The guys were sounding off with “hell yes” and the women were rolling their eyes, but both groups were paying attention to me. “They live longer. They get flowers sent to them. More often than not, they don’t have to pay for dinner on their dates. And, as we learned last week, guys get speeding tickets; women get WARNINGS.”

By this time, everyone in the place was silent and paying attention to what I was saying. I was amazed because deep down, I knew it wasn’t that good of joke. But they were giving me the benefit of the doubt while they waited eagerly for the punch line.

“So, I had to think of something that we men have over the women,” I continued. “Then it hit me.” I looked down at my shirt. “As long as I don’t change my shirt, I have a permanent record of everything I’ve had to eat that day.” I pointed to a spot near the bottom. “See, here’s breakfast: ham and eggs. Up here we have chicken parmesan from dinner.”

The cool part was that even though this joke was about a seven or eight on the lame-joke-o-meter, it still got me going and got them listening. I was able to do almost the full five minutes and I did get plenty of laughs. I was nervous as hell and wondering whether I’d lost my mind leading up to the show, but from the second I started speaking, I knew this was something I could do.

The club puts on two shows every night. The emcee asked me if I wanted to do the second one too. I told him that I didn’t have anything prepared but that I could tell some jokes or something. He said with a hint of sarcasm, “that’s kind of the point,” and shook his head. I did get up for the second show and this time I opened with my bear hunting joke.

On the first day of bear hunting season this hunter grabs his favorite rifle and makes a trek into the woods. He walks up this steep hill and into a quiet valley. There, in the distance he sees a bear. He raises the rifle to his shoulder and shoots. The bear falls down and the man runs over to where the bear fell, but when he gets there, the bear’s not there. Then the man feels a tap on his shoulder and turns around. It’s the bear. The bear says to the man, “there’s only two ways you’re getting out of here. Either I’m going to eat you and you’ll get out when I take a dump or you can bend over that stump over there and let me have my way with you.”

The guy doesn’t want to get it in the butt by the bear but he doesn’t want to die either so he drops his drawers, bends over the stump, and lets the bear do his thing. The man leaves but he’s pissed. He goes home and gets his bigger rifle and buys some hollow tip shells. Then he heads back out into the woods. He walks up that same steep hill and into that same quiet valley. Then, in the distance, he sees that same bear. He raises this more powerful rifle to his shoulder and shoots the bear seven times. The bear falls down. The man runs over to where the bear fell but the bear’s not there. Then the man feels a tap on his shoulder and turns around. It’s the bear. The bear says, “you know the deal.” So the man drops his drawers, bends over the stump, and lets the bear do his thing again.

Now the man is really pissed though. He goes out and buys a semi-automatic rifle with a laser sight. He gets three full clips of titanium bullets and he goes back out into the woods. He walks up that same steep hill and into that same quiet valley and sees that same bear in the distance. The man raises this super powerful weapon to his shoulders and lets an entire clip of bullets fly. The bear looks like he’s dancing as the bullets slam into him. Finally, after shooting two entire clips, the man runs over to where the bear fell but the bear’s not there. Then the man feels a tap on his shoulder and he turns around. The bear says to the man, “you don’t come here for the hunting do you?”

Well, even without any real preparation, my second experience with stand-up comedy was a success. I’m planning on doing it this Thursday too. Wish me luck.

I went to work on Thursday feeling pretty good. I only had to work my evening job that day. Shortly after I arrived, however, I started feeling stuffed up and began sneezing. It got worse as the night went on. Well, around five o’clock or so, one of my writing buddies from around here came into the store. He told me that he’d just been to Goonies (the comedy shop) and that he signed us up for a comedy gig. Yes, that’s right, he signed us up to perform on stage.

My first thought was NO WAY! I didn’t have anything prepared. I just knew I’d make a fool out of myself. People from all over, including small animals and children, would tease me unmercilessly for the rest of my life. But, my second thought centered on how I don’t like backing down from things that scare me. I joined the paratroopers in the army because the idea of jumping out of a plane frightened me. I send my stories in for publication because rejection terrifies me. I’ve done a lot of things in my life precisely because I have this crazy need to stand up to my fears. So, my second thought, the one I went with, was why the hell not?

I still had a few more hours of work and I didn’t want to drive myself crazy worrying about what a fiasco I would cause, so instead, I ran through a couple possible opening lines in my mind. Then, I imagined it being a blast. That helped a lot.

So, I got off work and drove down to the club. Dan, my friend, was waiting at the back door to let me in. While we walked upstairs, he told me that our turn was coming up. He told me to just have a seat and don’t worry. Yeah right. I can easily avoid worrying when it’s my idea, but when someone else suggests it, I fret like the daddy of a fourteen year old girl on prom night. Anyway, I found my seat.

Dan had mentioned when we talked on the phone earlier, that the comics weren’t that funny. The idea was that even if we tanked, we wouldn’t stand out in the suckage department. Well, the first guy I saw was good – damn good. I tried not to laugh at his jokes, hoping the others in the club would take my cue and not laugh as well. It didn’t work. The more I tried not to laugh, the funnier the guy was. For the first time since Dan mentioned this idiotic plan to me, I felt scared. After the King of Comedy finished, the emcee announced a comedy duo. Dan and I stood up to go to the stage but it was a different duo. And thank God. A husband and wife, newly married but in their fifties, strolled up to the microphone and proceeded to BOMB. OMG! The audience started to feel sorry for them and offered a sympathy laugh or too, but boy did they stink. All of a sudden I felt invigorated and wasn’t worried about being tarred and feathered before the night ended.

The next guy was kind of funny. You could tell he was an amateur, but he did have a couple good ones. Then it was our turn. The emcee announced the second comedy duo of the evening, Dan and Tom (yeah, I guess he deserved first billing since he did all the work).

We both stood up again. We both walked up to the front of the club and climbed onto the stage. We both stood in front of the microphone…and we stank. Not as bad as the other duo, but pretty bad. Dan was asking me questions and I was answering with one word answers. Our usual witty repartee had been replaced by the transcript of some blind date from hell. I had to do something. I grabbed the mic and told them my dad’s favorite joke. Then I started winging it. I got a few laughs and Dan joined in. All in all, we still kind of stunk, but not as bad as I had imagined and definitely not as bad as we could have. I guess I’ll always be grateful to Dan for giving me the kick in the ass.