Video - Death By Kitten (Speakeasy)

Dustin Fisher tells a true story at SpeakeasyDC's open mic. from SpeakeasyDC on Vimeo.

Holy Quick Turnaround, Batman! I have to thank the incredibly talented and apparently extremely fast-video-editing Nick Newlin for getting this video out less than a week after it was shot. This is the video from all that nonsense I posted over the weekend about going Inside the Head of a Performer. Now you can see the fruits of my efforts. There's about a second or two when the video skips, possibly by accident, possibly because I said the F word one too many times. It's not perfect, but neither am I.

• Inside the Head of a Performer II - Part 1


• Inside the Head of a Performer II - Part 2


• Three Beer Rule

Still Standing Right Here...

Inside the Head of a Performer II - Part 2

Inside the Head of a Performer II – Part 2

If you haven’t read Inside the Head of a Performer II – Part 1, you should probably do that first. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

…I had chugged my third beer about a minute before going up onto the stage. I was ready. And once again, I hadn’t planned to do this mic stand bit, but it was already in progress and I remembered from last time, so I decided to close it out. See, at the Speakeasy, the host will adjust the microphone and stand for you so all you have to worry about is telling your story. In stand up, you are expected to do it yourself and often times, will just be handed the microphone. So I decided to play with Amy. She was adjusting it and I pantomimed the universal symbol for “higher” with my hands, while making some exaggerated facial expression to the crowd to include them in on the joke. After an inch or so, I gave her the “lower” symbol. The crowd was already laughing a little. She started to realize she was the butt of a joke, but God love her, she took it in stride (if cursing him under her breath is taking it in stride). I was finally done playing with her and she left the stage. On her way down the three stairs, so that she was the only one who couldn’t see this, I took the microphone out of the stand and placed the stand behind me, smiling at the crowd. They were certainly alive tonight and already on my side before I said a word. If this were stand up, I’d have thanked Amy and the crowd, but storytelling is a little different, and so with respect for the genre, I went into my material.

The first line was “I hate cats.” It went on from there to describe their worthlessness and one person clapped. I didn’t want to lose the crowd that I got on my side from the beginning. I thanked the one person in the crowd clapping. Crowd connection is a cheap way to get crowd members on your side in stand up, and not just the one or more people you connect with. There’s a barrier that you break down and you turn more into a guy talking about a story than a professional. And that atmosphere just makes things more funny because subliminally, they sounds less rehearsed and more real. Some of the crowd laughed, but it was the gesture that was more important than the laughter. I then went on to a joke I almost cut out for the sake of time about how modern psychology would be set back 300 years of Pavlov’s wife was a cat person instead of a dog person. I never thought the crowd wouldn’t get it, I just wasn’t sure if it was worth the time, as it’s just a throwaway line and I was pushing 7 minutes. Well, I’m glad I kept it in. They loved it and it’s likely not a cat joke they’ve heard before. My first 30 seconds was definitely above average and my credos is that I want to get out of the gate strong. If you get them to laugh at your jokes in the beginning, they will start to laugh at your personality later. That’s the theory at least.

And this was great, because I knew the next 30 seconds was probably the strongest bit I had, or at least the one I was most certain about. Jenn introduced me to her 22-pound fat cat. I made fun of her fatness, which turned out to be worded about as efficiently as any joke I had “When I first met Sweetie, I was positive she was sitting on AT LEAST one other cat.” Reaction was about a 7. Then Jenn asks if I was allergic. I said no. Oh, well then you’ll love Sweetie. “No. I’m not allergic to… shit either, but I don’t want a 22-pound lump of it sitting on the couch getting hair all over my clothes.” This was my second best laugh of the night. And I’m still unsure if I stepped on my own joke. The laughter erupted right after the word shit, but I kept going as I needed to finish the sentence. I was tempted to let it resonate, but I thought I’d drive the point home. I’m OK with that decision. A definite 9 to 9.5 of laughter.

The next 4-5 minutes were filled with 4 short stories about Poe’s (new kitten’s) discovery, the cruel trick kittens play on you, the dried Sweetie poop toy and the kitty going into heat. They were met with intermittent laughter about as I thought they would be. The story about the Sweetie poop toy was understandably met with the best reaction, but I wasn’t out of the woods yet. I still had to make sure that I would be able to keep in my new ending. I really needed about 1:30 to pull off this ending without rushing through it to make it both funny and somewhat touching. I was tempted to skip the whole part about her going in heat. There was a contingency plan in place where rather than do the cat’s voice, I would tell a joke about it. This would save me up to 15 seconds. But right before I started to bit about her being in heat, I glanced down to see a clock sitting in front of Stephanie, who was timing the show. I also figured she probably wouldn’t ding me off the stage, but I don’t want to pretend I deserve special treatment. Shit, they dinged Vijai at a livewire. They might throw the bell at me.

Anyway, the clock read 5:00 or somewhere close to that. That was a complete stroke of luck not only to have that much time left over, but also to find out that info when I did. I was able to get into the character of the cat, which didn’t result in as many direct laughs as I’d hoped, but I got to do it and I’m sure those lived with cats in heat will remember that part. And I had about 1:30 to do the ending. The climax came when I get Poe back from the kitty hospital and she had a collar on that said “Poe Fisher.” That’s when I realized that I… was a father. That line was met with some awes and laughs and honestly went over better than I thought.

So I wanted to describe how I was a father to her and one of the funniest parts of my actual life with her is when Jenn and I will talk to her. She actually talks when either one of us gets near her toy. Not meows, but talks. It’s hard to describe, but I did some dialogue on stage. “Mare ma mare ma mare mare mare.” Oh really? Then what happened? “Mare ma mare mare.” Oh really? So the island was real and the flash sideways was purgatory? That’s interesting. “Mare mare.” I should have probably just stopped there and did my final line because that was the 10 on the laughter scale. I was unsure if a LOST reference would be gotten by this Tuesday crowd, but I figure everybody has a DVR anyway. And it’s only one week a month. But it was perfect and because it was interesting on a few different levels. First of all, it came out of nowhere. Nothing had anything to do with LOST in the entire show. Second, this is the first Speakeasy since the finale and topical stuff shows that you’re not just doing stock material all the time (see the connectivity to the crowd bit in the second paragraph). Third, it’s funny to imagine that the cat had figured out this relatively complex concept. And that’s what I was going for when I wrote it. I thought “What would a cat most likely not understand?” After thinking about several different ideas like Quantum Physics and Economics, I decided it really needed to be a current events issue. BP was on the table for a while, but then the LOST idea snuck in and I absolutely needed to see if it would work. And it did. Much better than I thought. There was some touching wrap-up that could have been cut down to one sentence after that line, but I’m still happy with it.

“Don’t get me wrong, I still hate cats. I just love my daughter.” That was the last line. Stephanie said it would be nice to hear a story that showed the crowd that I wasn’t such an ass, because most of the stories I tell paint me as such and she doesn’t think that I actually am in real life. Which was sadly a touching compliment, to be called not so much of an asshole in person. So anyway, I pulled off a story that not only didn’t make me seem like an ass, but also finally didn’t have any girls in it other than Jenn (which she was happy about) AND killed the crowd. Who knew? When Amy came back up on stage, I thought I’d play with her and mess with the mic stand. I lowered it all the way. This was honestly just meant as a follow-up to the first mic stand bit, which the crowd thought was funny, but may have been seen as a short joke, which I think she actually brought up as I was leaving. Oops.

So that’s the kind of shit that goes through my head when I’m performing on stage. This was a very pleasant experience. They aren’t always. And because I had gone over my material so much, I forgot why it was funny. I hate that. But it’s good to see that I was right when I wrote it the first time.

Inside the Head of a Performer II - Part 1

Inside the Head of a Performer II – Part 1

In case you didn’t catch this in the original Inside the Head of a Performer (shameless plug), you are about to enter the head of an amateur storyteller/stand-up comedian/calligraphy artist. These are not the thoughts of Jerry Seinfeld, Jerry Lewis or even Jerry’s Subs. I take most of my shots 7 minutes at a time at open mic nights. Par example:

This past Tuesday was another open mic night at the Speakeasy. The theme of the evening was “Ranger Rick: Stories about Animals, blah blah blah.” I already knew what I was doing. I was going to finally get to tell on stage The Cicada Eating Contest story. It is one of the very few moments of triumph in my life. Only after I wrote it, there just wasn’t enough funny in it. In fact, I think it was mostly disgusting and I’d rather send the audience sprinting to the bathroom with laughter. So it was outvoted by the jury of one that lives inside my head. And instead, I wrote a story about my cat. Excitement level=very low; comedy level=mid high to high. Hopefully.

I haven’t missed a Speakeasy open mic night since I started going in May of last year. This Tuesday, however, is the first time I decided to try to drive there from Baltimore. My ulterior motive is that I wanted to stay afterwards to go back to the bar where I met Tony Reali (who hasn’t called or written or texted since) in hopes to run into him and be a guest panelist on Around the Horn or at least say hi in a less awestruck and middle school girlish way and I knew Jenn wouldn’t want to if we had to take the Metro home. Having never driven there and never really driven on 495 anytime before 8pm, I had NO IDEA it was that fucking busy. I started to shit on my way down. I called Stephanie to tell her I’d be late and called 911 to get a police escort. While that didn’t work out so much, traffic lightened up a ton, but not before I gave myself more anxiety on top of the normal performance anxiety I feel (just stage performance anxiety, ladies). At least this time, I felt mostly prepared – as opposed to February, when I strung myself a little thin just after the Sucker for Love Show ended and wrote my story the day before.

So once I got to Towne, the Three Beer Rule was in full effect. That seemed to relax the nerves a bunch in as noticeable a way as I ever remember. Or maybe it’s because I took my boxers off in the car. Either way, I was starting to calm down. I found out that I was 5^th in the lineup, just before the break. It has been told to me before that this is a power position. Stephanie said they like to put people there who will lead into the break with a decent story so that nobody leaves during the break. I’ll take that as a compliment, as I’ve been either there or 4^th in all 3 of my open mic nights. I also had friends to entertain, as Leigh and Craig continued to prove their awesomeness by surprising me by coming down. Jenn also had 3 coworker friends of hers come with her. I also had two fellow cast members and the two directors from our upcoming Fringe Festival Show – Logic, Luck and Love – show up. Not only was I responsible for my story tonight, but I was representing our show and needed to market before, during and after my performance. Almost decided to increase to the Four Beers and a shot of Jack Rule, but thought better of it.

Once the show started, I had my 5 note cards out in the corner of the bar and was half listening and half studying. The way I had practiced my story, it was originally 9 minutes and I needed to cut it down to 7. I managed to get it down to 7:45 before I added the ending I wanted. So I had to trim more and so on until I had done it successfully in 6:45 – or 7:45 depending on my smoothness and bullshitting and such. So I had decisions to make that I was going to have to do on the fly, because I really wanted to make sure to hit my ending bit, which I had just written the night before, but was convinced would be a great closer.

The first act was a guy named Mike who jumped out of the gate with a story of how he never thought he’d be a cat person but now he is. My ears perked up. Holy crap. We were telling the same damn story. And he was doing it first and going to steal all my thunder. And more importantly, my jokes. He danced around a lot of the lines I had and actually had bits in his that I had cut out of mine, but our streams never completely crossed. At least not enough to kill Gozer or a like creature. But he was funny. Which is actually better for me as a performer that goes after him, because he gets the crowd warmed up and on their heels and in the laughing position. But I’m still secretly jealous of him and his laughers and the lines that I didn’t think of to put in my story that he did. But oh well, back to the note cards.

The next three performers were a little bit of a blur. I heard some laughter and thankfully not much about cats in there. I had actually originally misread the lineup and thought I was 6^th, forgetting to include Amy, our lovely hostess, deep into her own Three Beer Rule. So when Adam was announced and I knew him to be the guy right before me, I had a decision to make. Was I going to chug this beer, knowing I needed it to complete the Three Beer Rule, or just leave well enough alone, as I already felt that I was crossing the threshold of uncomfortably drunk? Well, it’s not called the Three Beer Recommendation. Bottoms up. “Next coming to our stage…”

to be continued...

The Cicada Monologues 2

This here is the rough draft of a story that I was going to tell at the Speakeasy next week, but aborted it in favor of a story about my cat. I believe I made the correct decision, but here it is. UNCUT!

The Cicada Monologues 2

First of all, let me preface this by saying that I'm probably more proud of this than I should be.

The Spring of 2004 was a very Dustin life-altering couple of months. I had just broken up with the most serious girlfriend I ever had, who promptly moved back to Canada. I took that as I sign she wasn’t interested in getting back together. I was also 29 staring 30 in the face and desperately trying to find a life partner before my resale value got shot to shit. Everyone knows that once you turn 30, you turn invisible to college chicks. Amidst this time of panic and desperation came an event that only happens once every 17 years… the emergence of the cicadas, the most dedicated and least organized animals on the planet.

These cicadas come out of the ground every 17 years, fly around, have sex, lay eggs and die. These eggs then nurture in the ground for 17 years. No more, no less. And nobody knows why. OK, I don’t know why. But that’s dedication to incubation. And because they spend 17 years in an egg underground and only get a two week vacation to fly around and have carefree cicada sex before they die, they have no idea what they’re doing. I'd say they were out in swarms, but I don't really think they could form a swarm. When I think of swarms, I think of organized schools of creatures moving together as one. These guys aren't nearly as organized, which makes them more annoying, but less likely to be the leading role in a FOX made-for-TV horror movie. The way the news portrayed them leading up to their emergence, I thought they were supposed to blanket the sky and cars were going to skid on patches of cicadas on the road, but they are very harmless creatures. They don’t bite or sting. They really only just get in the way, look icky and occasionally dive bomb you in the head and fly away and then fly back and do the same thing more out of incompetence than disrespect. The only thing they could do together was their damn morocco rattlesnake song which was always disproportionally louder than it should be for their size. This was especially annoying for people who slept with their windows open.

But what was even more annoying was driving with your windows open. One day, I was coming to a stop sign at the bottom of a hill. At this point, my brakes were so shot, I could feel the drum solo from Bonzo's Montreaux playing in the wheel well when I tried to stop, so I felt no need to put further wear and tear on my car just to dignify federal law. This stop sign also just happened to be right next to an extremely high cicada traffic area. As I was stopping that day, I noticed that the trajectory of one of those icky fuckers was aimed straight at my window. I thought about skidding to a stop or swerving, but then I thought that was a slight overreaction, so I just ignored the cicada flight path in hopes that it would bank left or something. I'm not going to let these ignorant fuckers dictate how I stop at a stop sign. So I stopped and sure enough the bastard took a B-line for my head and kamikaze dive-bombed into my car. I reacted like a little 3rd grade schoolgirl flailing my arms wildly in an epileptic fit of "get it off!" like it was an active firecracker. I managed to lose the cicada in the car and to this day, haven’t found any signs of it. So I likely still have a dead suffocated or heat-stroked cicada somewhere in my car. And maybe I'll have about 500 more of them in my car in 2021. That would probably shoot the resale value to shit.

Anyway, toward the end of the spring of the cicada, a few friends of mine threw a cicada party. I thought that it was just a regular party called "The Cicada Party" to kinda justify having a party for those people who need a better reason than getting drunk and passing out on a floor covered in potato chips and salsa. So I later heard through the grapevine that there would actually be a live cicada eating contest. The gag reflex you're probably all feeling right now was my first reaction also. And if that sentence disgusted you, you may want to leave now. Because it was more than just a live cicada eating contest that made this a cicada party. I showed up and they had old bay cicadas, chocolate covered cicadas and cicadas in taco meat with taco shells and all the fixins. They had posterboard up for anybody who tried the different kinds to write their name down. And in this particular setting, people were impressed by these sort of accomplishments. I later realized that these accomplishments were not met with the same respect and reverence at work. One coworker gagged so much, he started to sweat.

So anyway, these posters were up there just begging for people with low self-esteem struggling to fit in to shove a dirty chocolate covered insect down their throat to earn a spot up on the wall of fame. And so I did. And then some hot chick convinced me to eat an old bay one. They really do taste like shrimp, by the way. But so does everything you douse in old bay. I had thought about signing the poster below it which would have entered me into the live cicada eating contest, but not after seeing the tupperware container full of them sitting outside. If you were even close to on the fence about eating a live cicada, seeing about 100 crawling around each other in a see-though plastic hell was enough to turn you vegan. It was something out of an Indiana Jones movie. And so I played flip cup. And then I played beer pong. And I don't remember specifically, but I probably played asshole too. At some point, I was swayed by either peer pressure, large amounts of alcohol, or a curiosity of my own competitive limitations when it came to winning something, and I registered for the live cicada eating contest. I believe my decision was heavily swayed by the hot chick I was following around for the better part of two hours saying “why not?” She’s right. Why the hell not? After all, this is a Cicada Party. And what better way to impress this hot chick than to enter the premiere event at this party? And if she was to be my savior, I had but a precious few months before I turned invisible to her. And so I made my move.

This was actually an impressively structured contest, with several rounds which increased in both required dexterity and unyielding disgust as the contest progressed. Honestly, I knew that nobody would give me a shot as I can barely do a lemon drop without gagging, but I knew my mind over matter reflex would trump the gag reflex to at least earn me a ride to the second round. I suppose it's also possible that I just don't give enough of a shit about my body to care what I eat. At any rate, I got to the second round. I thankfully remembered a buddy of mine told me that if you pinched their wings together, it rendered them harmless. Leave it to a brown belt in aikido to teach a submission hold on a cicada. Before I had realized it, I was eating cicadas like they were jello. Crunchy, squirming jello that flaps its wings for a half second, but jello nonetheless. The field was narrowed from 24 down to 12 down to 4 and now down to 2 and I was still in the running for champion of an event which only one hour earlier almost made me need to shower for even thinking about it. I had made it to the final round, which combined agility with cicada eating. I was possessed at this point. I could have probably eaten a squirrel if somebody handed it to me. I glanced over at the hot chick who I had already started dating in my very unhealthy mind. She was no longer watching. She was on the phone with her boyfriend. How this hadn’t come up in over 3 hours of conversation is still a mystery to me. But I had come this far and developed such a large fan base, I didn’t need any additional motivation. After completing the two rounds of beer pong and flip cup and live cicada eating, I came out a second ahead some other dude. This marked several firsts in my life. It was the first eating contest I had ever won, it was the first cicada-related activity I had ever participated in, and it was the first time I ran sprinting to the bathroom to puke and had absolutely no desire to. That was weird. I expected to feel a whole lot worse after eating what turned out to be about 24 cicadas. Nothing. I decided not to look at my bowel movements for a week just in case, but other than that, I had no ill effects at all.

I obviously didn’t get the girl that night, but I did learn something about myself. I can do some fucked up shit if I tell myself I’m gonna do it. And I’ll bet you can too. It took the perfect storm of a hot chick, a panic attack and a live cicada eating contest for me to figure it out, but it didn’t have to. Challenge yourself. You may surprise yourself. After all, I am known in certain circles as the Lord of the Cicadas, at least until the summer of 2021.

Video - The Bridgeport Experience (Speakeasy Open Mic)

Dustin Fisher tells a true story at SpeakeasyDC's open mic from SpeakeasyDC on Vimeo.

This is by far not my best outing. I was trying to play a character and at least I've decided that it's better to be funny than true to a character on stage this day. Also, if you haven't read the following, they are about this performance. Feel free to read them and share in my on-stage pain.

• Inside the Head of a Writer
  
• Inside the Head of a Performer - Part 1
  
• Inside the Head of a Performer - Part 2

Still Standing Right Here...

Inside the Head of a Performer – Part 2

Inside the Head of a Performer – Part 2

…continued from before

(Ed note: I know I’ve been asking you to do a lot recently: read some other article first, come see my show, make love out of nothing at all, but I REALLY think it’s a good idea for you to read “Inside the Head of a Performer – Part 1” first. Stop me if I’m out of line here, but if I were you, I’d do that. And then if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with. But that’s just me.)

So my name was called and I was on my way up to the stage. There was a small amount of panic that I would forget my opening line and start telling the Sucker for Love story that I had spent all weekend doing with great success. But I was prepared. Amy was hosting the show and tried to adjust the mic stand to my height when I got up there. Dead air during this phase is not uncommon during story-telling and I don’t know exactly why. In stand-up, about 15% of the crowd would have gone to the bathroom if we took more than 5 seconds to adjust the mic stand. The goal is to start your set before the applause stops to avoid any dead air. It’s just accepted here. And so she started to try to adjust it. I helped and took even longer, knowing that I was just going to take it out of the stand once I was done adjusting it. Sure enough, the crowd laughed. I should have made a bigger joke of that than I did. Truth is that I needed it to be at the right height for later, so I didn’t want to make a joke out of it. But they didn’t know that. I guess I can’t think of everything.

So I already knew that I wasn’t as “in the moment” as I usually am before I had even said a word. Hopefully I would be able to get in the moment soon or just let my material do the work. My first joke was one blatantly stolen from Bill Cosby, but one I threaded throughout my story, so I kinda needed it. And it DID NOT get the laughter I had thought it would. It was simply “I didn’t go out at night a lot as a child… because that’s when the monsters come out.” I didn’t expect to hit that out of the park, but I was hoping for more than nothing, which is close to what I got. This was not off to a great start.

I had the inside knowledge that they forgot the bell that night. Which means that there was nothing to interrupt me if I went long. I had practiced and my story came in around 7:15 without applause breaks and crowd pandering. So I had the option to leave everything in had I needed to, though I’m not exactly out to abuse the time I was given. I decided to take out a joke in the beginning anyway because I wanted to get to Dominoes faster. I think that may have been a mistake. See, I really like to start out with a bang or two to get the crowd on my side. I believe it’s more important to have a good opener than a good closer for this reason. I think I may have relied too much on the 2 minutes I had already done to death to carry the rest of the 7 minutes.

The basic set-up is that I was working at my parent’s video store, Bridgeport Video, busting my ass all day in a small town that my family was well-known in. I spent most of the first 2.5 minutes painting a picture of Bridgeport. There were a few jokes sprinkled in there that all fell a lot flatter than I had planned. I was shocked up on stage. It’s a good thing I’m a consummate professional now because those duds would have seriously affected my ability to continue a few years ago. I also had the Dominoes scene to look forward to. Additionally, this genre isn’t like the quick pace of stand-up which needs to continue punch after punch. You can lie back for a little while and draw the audience in. When I watch the version of the Dominoes Pizza story that I told online at a Comedy Showcase at the Funny Bone in Kentucky, you can tell I rush through a lot of the set-up because of the impatient nature of that genre. I didn’t need to be as impatient here.

So I battled my way to my first true test. Shortly after I try to open the locked doors of Dominoes and get shunned by their workers, I start on a tirade “Do these Noids not know who the hell I am?” I then speak about my adolescent football prowess and a specific game in which we defeated the King of Prussia Indians with only 12 guys and poor Georgey Lattanze (good Italian name) fell on every play because he couldn’t afford cleats. This went on for literally an entire minute I believe. And I got angrier with every line. And I landed it perfectly! I hit every line and escalated my anger as necessary. And I hit my final line and quite honestly expected an applause break for the tirade I had just gone on. Instead, I got a couple claps. Fuck.

Then I got into the scene. This is the scene that would save me. It’s a great story to begin with, and there are some great hard-hitting lines in it too. (Ed note: this story actually happened to his dad, so most of the lines in it are complete bullshit, but the gist of it is accurate. Unless of course his dad was making it up) So I started. And it went decently. Not as well as I normally do with a Speakeasy crowd and not even as well as I do with that story at a stand-up crowd, which is much tougher to please. But I stayed with my character the entire time, growing with anger. “Well, what’s your fucking address?! Order it to yourself just outside” and “Sir, please don’t call out pizza technicians ‘doughboys.’ They work very hard…” hit the crowd the most. I maintained that anger until I hung up the phone on the manager “Well, your pizza sucks and you’re a dick.” I also thought there would be an applause break there too. Nothing. Just a couple polite laughs from friends I had in the crowd. What the hell? Was I really that wrong about this? Apparently.

Then came a part of the act that I had never tried to pull off before. I needed to put the mic back in the stand during my story. I know it sounds really trivial to those of you who haven’t ever done this before, but remembering what to say and trying to add flavor is tough enough. Try to do that while rubbing your tummy and things can get forgotten. And I was worried that when people saw me put the microphone back in the stand they’d think I was done. But I wasn’t. And I did a decent job of continuing my story while reaching back for the mic stand, which I placed behind me, rather than off to the side. I usually like to have the mic stand off to the side to hang onto with my left hand like a safety net. But it obstructs view from one side and confines you to one spot with the microphone in one hand. Also, the Speakeasy stand is tilted, which makes it difficult to handle without screwing it up.

So the microphone is placed back in the stand as I tell the audience that I did get a pizza that night. And I did it in time to gesture with my next line, which sent me back into another 30-45 second rant that would end my show. But during the rant, I took a Bridgeport Video hat out of my back pocket and put it on my head as I raved of the Ma & Pa stores and how they rule the blue collar town of Bridgeport and they should take the Corporate Chains and send them back to King of Communist Prussia. Again, this wasn’t met with the same amount of fervor I had anticipated, but it was at least enough to get people to clap on the way out. I left the stage, hat still on, and as I was getting back to my seat, Amy said something about the Ma & Pa stores that reinforced my point. I then chanted “USA! USA! USA!” which I secretly wanted to do on stage but never felt like the crowd was in it enough to pander to them. But at least I got to go back to my seat and relax for the rest of the show and catch up on my beer intake.

Once I got back to my seat, I was jokingly offered a card from a therapist. This was the greatest compliment I could receive as an actor. I must have really conveyed my anger well up there. And later Jen brought up the fact that I may have been too good of an actor up there. She thinks the crowd really thought I was pissed off, rather than jokingly pissed. So somehow I managed to pull off what I feel like was the greatest acting job of my stage career and it worked to my disadvantage. But though the crowd didn’t react the way I thought they would, I still feel pretty positive about the performance. I had really only agreed to it as a challenge, knowing that I was doing the Sucker for Love show so close to it. I was helping out Stephanie with her marketing while she was off establishing Western Union (See? That would be funny if you read “Inside the Head of a Writer.” Maybe).

I’m still upset that I didn’t get the crowd going as much as I should have and I wish I had thought about it a little longer, but I’m still pleased with my performance. I should also say that I know people who are tough on themselves and also people who think they’re much better than they are. I like to think I’m pretty practical in my assessments of myself. I guess I was due to come back down to earth after I kicked so much Sucker for Love ass the previous weekend.

Inside the Head of a Performer – Part 1

Inside the Head of a Performer – Part 1

(Ed note: If you haven’t read “Inside the Head of a Writer,” you should do that now. Well, far be it for me to tell you how you should be spending your time, but this will make much more sense if you do.)

I had only really finished writing this piece the day before I was to go on stage. And not only was there a lot of new stuff in it, but also a lot of acting on my part. This was not a normal part of my act. The Sucker for Love performance, awesome as it was, was still just me telling a story. I had to emphasize words and gesture at points, but I wasn’t inventing a different character the way I was with this Dominoes Pizza Story. And not on a day’s notice either.

When I perform, there are two things I break my preparation down into. Memorization and stage presence. If I have everything memorized, but don’t have character behind it – it can lose sometimes as much as half or more of the desired effect. This is why I like to break things down into bullet points rather than fully-composed sentences when writing for the stage. Again, this is just my style. The theory is that I’ll be thinking less about the exact phrasing and more about what words I feel at the moment to get my bullet point across. It enables me to be more in the moment with the audience. That’s the theory. It usually helps me strike a decent balance, but it can backfire to the point of botching jokes and forgetting my place in the act or story. And that is a singly terrifying thing, especially in the very linear form of story-telling. It’s not like stand-up where I can just grab at another bit from my arsenal if I get lost. I’m stuck with this story. And I’m up on stage alone. No team to help if I miss a tackle. It’s more like running up to a hurdle in a track meet and forgetting how to jump over it.

This specific story was going to require a lot of memorization in order to play out my character. There were two specific points in which I needed to come across as irritated to get the act to work. I had planned rants in there that veered intentionally off-topic. If I stumbled on them, I felt like the desired effect would be lost. So I concentrated on those two parts before I went on stage, practicing in the bathroom, which I had never done before. I go over material before every performance, but mostly just to make sure I have all the bullets in chronological order. I leave the rest up to future Dustin to figure out when he’s on stage. This time, I wanted to be on point. I didn’t even have my 3 beers as usual.

See, I have a 3-beer rule when performing. No more, no less. Any less and I get nervous and don’t feel as in the moment. Any more and I forget shit. I decided to forgo alcohol after the first one last Wednesday. I was willing to use my confidence from the Sucker for Love show to try to calm my nerves. Besides, I had killer material. This should be easy. As long as I don’t fuck up the lines or the delivery.

I was scheduled to go up 4th, batting cleanup. I liked that position. Earlier and I don’t know that Jen would even be there yet and later would probably weigh on my nerves and also undo all the bathroom cramming before the show (Ed note: the “bathroom cramming” he’s referring to is likely not the same bathroom cramming that will appear in the google image search if the SafeSearch feature is turned off). Jennifer Howe and Katie Kelly went up first and second and I wanted to see their sets (Ed note: their “sets” is probably exactly what google image search thinks it is). Because I was mentally preparing though, I didn’t get to see much of Julie Kraut’s, but I heard lots of laughter, which is good. See in comedy, unlike rhythm gymnastics, it’s good to follow somebody who just got the crowd laughing. Laughter is contagious and once people have been put into that mindset, it’s easier to get them laughing again, whereas in rhythm gymnastics, all you can do is cry about never making it as a real gymnast.

…to be continued

Inside the Head of a Writer

Inside the Head of a Writer

(Ed note: This was originally titled “Inside the Head of a Performer,” but Dustin went a little too long about writing the damn thing. He does that. You should hear him leave a voice message. JEEZ! Anyway, that will probably follow this soon enough. In the meantime, enjoy.)

Let me start by saying that I am an extreme amateur and anything you read should be with that caveat. You are not going inside the mind of Steve Martin or Steve Carrel. Or even Steve from Blue’s Clues. I will probably never make it big as a performer of any sort and that’s fine with me. It’s just nice to have a creative outlet that will likely reach more people than this does (Hi Tom. And Cheryl. And Jen when I make you read it).

Last night was another Speakeasy Performance, and this one was coming on the heels of last weekend’s Sucker for Love show. That was an ensemble performance that I was paid for and last night was another open mic. What I mean by “ensemble” insofar as you need to know, it means I was picked to do that show because they like me – whereas almost anyone could sign up for the open mic, as evident by the drunk guy who tried to pretend he was stoned (or vice versa if you like). So I had put all my time and energy into making sure that was as great a show as possible, so after it was over on Sunday, I breathed a sigh of relief on Monday and woke up Tuesday to the tune of “Crap! That other thing is tomorrow!”

Thankfully, I had chosen to do a story which I had told many times before. It’s the Dominos Pizza Story. I know that story like the palm of my hand (hehe). BUT, the part that I know is only about 2 minutes long. The spot was supposed to be 7 minutes. So I wasn’t out of the woods yet. My selection of the story was a little different than usual. Originally, I had convinced Meatwad into doing his story about getting kicked out of the bar, which I thought would have been awesome. But when he punked out, Stephanie (from the Speakeasy) offered me the spot to fill in for the Meatman. Stephanie is what I call my stage coach, because not only does she coach my stories that I’ll be telling on the stage, but she also used to bring people back and forth from Philly to New York in the 1700s in a covered wagon.

The theme was “After Hours: Stories about things that happen at night,” which encompasses everything I’ve ever done. Rather than having a pre-determined story and going to Stephanie with that in mind, I pitched 3 ideas to her of things I’d already written since I knew I’d have little time to focus on this with that Sucker for Love Show in the rear view. They were the Dominoes Pizza Story (which won), the Cicada Party and a Brick Street compilation culminating in Paul getting taken to the police station across the street. Well, she liked the pizza story. Now I just had to figure out how to frame it to have something to do with the night.

I tried at first to make it seem like the night was scary and play up the concept of fear. That watered down the story like a happy hour long island ice tea. Stephanie suggested I try to take more of a customer service angle before she headed out to California for the gold rush. This was a better fit with the Dominos Pizza part, but not the theme. But at this point, I didn’t care. This eventually led to the frame it currently sits in: the difference between Corporate America and the Ma and Pa stores and their relation to my hometown of Bridgeport, PA.

Somewhere along the line, I decided it would be fun to try to play up the angle of my irritation. This involved the inclusion of a couple well placed rants, which would intentionally veer from the topic to other things that angered me to indicate my level of irritation. So what I’ve basically done at this point, is I’ve taken the Dominoes Pizza story – one of the easiest lay-ups already in my comedic story-telling format – and I’ve made it into the most complicated performance I’ve possibly ever given. And on only one day’s preparation. Dustin Fisher, Comedy Masochist.


Still Standing Right Here...

QOTD credits: Derek Hills – ("or vice versa if you like")