Inside the Head of a Performer V: The Warm-Up – Part 2

Inside the Head of a Performer V: The Warm-Up – Part 2
Fan-Freakin-Tastic

• Inside the Head of a Performer V: The Warm-Up – Part 1

I was up last in the line-up. The four people who went before intermission got a rousing round of applause. Then all four of them left and took their friends. And the girl who went first out of the intermission flatlined the crowd like Kevin Bacon and Keifer Sutherland would have. The next two performers tried to drag them back, but it was an uphill climb. And this is what I walked (or stumbled) into.

Vijai introduced me and I jumped onto the stage and probably didn’t almost fall, but it wasn’t graceful. This was approximately when I thought “Oh shit, I shouldn’t have had that fourth beer.” Throughout the set, I could feel myself slur some words more than I likely otherwise would have, but even then I knew it wasn’t too bad. Anyway…

I opened with a line about Vijai selling sex without actually having it and asked to applaud her marketing department. “And by marketing department… I mean tits.” I didn’t feel comfortable saying “tits” and I wish I’d have said breasts. But the show must go on. I was given ten minutes of stage time and I would likely go over by a minute or two, but I knew it wasn’t a problem since I was last and we still had some time. I opened with a few one liners to try to predispose the crowd to a stand-up type of atmosphere to get a more honest reaction out of my story, which I knew was not going to be a real litmus test. But it’s the best I could do on this night to try to get the most relevant reaction I could.

See, I am trying a storytelling-proven bit in front of Aries Spears next Friday and wanted as honest a reaction as possible about whether this would convert to stand-up or not. But the truth is that I was giving a crowd predisposed to storytelling what they like. Oh well.
After opening with the Vijai stuff, I went into my Jared joke. The joke is that I wanted to get engaged, so I went to Jared. Then he sold me a Subway gift card. The premise is the bait and switch from the jewelry store to the guy from Subway. But as soon as I told everyone that I got engaged “so I did what they told me to on TV… I went to Jared,” the crowd laughed so hard at the reference that they didn’t even bother to get the punchline. That was disappointing, but a good indication that it may not be the time to try this joke in front of 1,500 people, despite the fact that I was actually engaged and it would be the best time to try it.

Next, I told a joke about being engaged and lasting through one entire football season and how “if you have a boyfriend who doesn’t like football, then he’s obviously gay and isn’t this a shitty way to fine out.” This got more groans than I had planned for, but I’m keeping it in there, though I’m a little nervous about having it so near the top of my set. See, I want to make sure just not to offend people with my set this Friday. My jokes are funny enough not to get heckled for lack of humor, but if I cross the line into offensive, I stand the risk of losing them, or at least one of them who wants to publicly display his or her displeasure.

Then I tried a bit about needing to end things with Logic because I got engaged. I knew this wasn’t going to work and I was right. This was an easy chop.

Then into the story I went. I’ve told it tons of times before and the modifications were so minor that I was able to pretty much coast through the rest of the show. I got the reaction I would hope to get from the Aries Spears crowd. There were some small parts I realized I should condense, but I felt comfortable with the bit for the most part by the end of the show. I’ll have to see how it goes over next Sunday at Hightopps to really get a gauge of whether or not it’s suitable material for that crowd.

After that bit, I ended with a bit that I really want to do on Friday despite the fact that I’ve never tried it on stage before. It’s about homophobia and I want it to be my piece that people leave the Opera House thinking “why didn’t I think of that before?” I admittedly rushed it, but it still went over very well. It was condensed to about 2 minutes and I think I’m going to keep it that way. It got two big laughs exactly where I thought it would. I don’t know if it’s the piece I want to end with, but if it gets a big enough laugh and I’m hovering around 12-13 minutes, I may just cut my set short to go out with a bang.

All in all, this was a decent experiment if I wanted to get some self-esteem going into the Aries Spears show. But what I really wanted to know is whether or not I can make this bit work in front of a stand-up crowd. On one hand, I don’t know that I really got that feedback. On the other hand, I’m now big time enough that Fan-Freakin-Tastic, the show that used to be my biggest show of the year – was now a practice show that I barely got nervous for. This is a little scary. It’s almost like I’m getting to be a professional.

Inside the Head of a Performer V: The Warm-Up – Part 1

Inside the Head of a Performer V: The Warm-Up – Part 1
Fan-Freakin-Tastic

Due to an overestimation of either how easy it is to do stand-up comedy or how funny I am, I landed a gig opening for Aries Spears at the Lyric in front of potentially 1,500 people. Because when you think of who should set up the crowd for some physical low-brow African-American humor, I am the obvious choice.

Anyway, the University’s Student Events Board asked me to open for Aries Spears on May 13th. They asked me to do “10 to 20 minutes,” probably not realizing the vast canyon separating those two units of measurement when it comes to stand-up comedy. We’ve since settled on 15 minutes, but unaffected by the time I will be on stage is the crowd I will be performing in front of. How the hell am I going to appeal to a bunch of his fans? My typical “Hey, have you thought about this?” and “How about this play on words?” is dangerous for that amount of time when the crowd expects to see a dumbed down Shaq impression.

Thankfully, when I told Vijai about the show, she jumped on the chance to help me out and found me a spot in her monthly comedy show, Fan-Freakin-Tastic. I really wanted to practice the only real physical bit that I feel comfortable with, which is the Douchebag Dance. It’s a story that is about 5-8 minutes long that I use in Logic, Luck and Love, but I’ve never tried in front of a stand-up crowd. Unfortunately for me, this crowd is already predisposed to a storytelling style of comedy, which makes them a much more forgiving and patient audience. This is normally a great thing, but not if you want some very specific and honest feedback. Oh well. You gotta play the hand that’s dealt.

First of all, I haven’t performed anywhere since our Valentine’s Day remount of Logic, Luck and Love. And that night was kind of a coming out party for me as a professional. As nervous a wreck as I ever was, about 5 minutes before showtime, a peaceful serenity came over me and I just felt like “I got this.” I never had a confidence like that on stage and I had never had a bigger show. It was almost like I was a professional.

So this night at Chief Ike’s was very similar. I felt a little nervous twice: after my first practice run-through, which I didn’t do until an hour before I was going to leave to get to the show when I realized I didn’t have this stuff memorized like I thought I did yet, and again just as I was getting up onto the stage in fear that I may have accidentally gotten myself too drunk. I stuck to the three beer rule, but it had been a while since implementation so I may have lost some of my tolerance. Plus, I drank four beers.

Dry Humor

Dry Humor

In December of 2007, I embarked on my journey as a stand-up comedian by entering a contest for $25. I told only a select group of people and brought only Kelly, because I needed at least one person to work the video camera. It so happened that I won that contest, which earned me $100 and a weekend worth of emcee gigs at the Funny Bone in the Kentucky part of Cincinnati (people who live there know what I mean). I could have cared less about the money, as I was well on the road to becoming a world-famous stand-up comic and that amount of money would be pocket change to me by October of 2010. In fact, I kept that money, with the intention to one day put it in a frame next to my double platinum comedy albums “The Last Refuge of the Incompetent” and “If Pigs Could Cry.”

It is now October of 2010 and all I can say now is that I know better. I have now quit my comedy career twice and certainly don’t expect to be world-famous ever. I have grown sour of the business while a steady job and fiancée have taken my focus away from busting my ass for that 0.01% chance of getting noticed (a story for a different day). Earlier today, I still had that $100 stowed away with the grade sheets from that first contest. It was in the form of five $20 bills. Well, the washer and dryer in our apartment complex only takes cash and I didn’t feel like going all the way across the street to the ATM only to pay an additional $4.50 for the transaction. So I decided, with mixed emotions, to finally delve into my victory stash. I vow to always keep one of those $20 bills just in case, but right now, one of those bills is responsible for the drying cycle of the clothes I will wear until my next laundry day.

So if you see me out in the next two weeks, I’d like you to do me a favor. Please compliment me on how dry my clothes are, as I’ve used my dreams to dry them. That may ease the hurt and make all the bullshit seem worthwhile. Thank you.

Busting Jerry's Cherry

Busting Jerry’s Cherry

Last night, an old childhood buddy leaped right off the pages of facebook and landed with both feet firmly planted on the stage. Anxious to get this new hobby/career of stand-up comedy started, he picked a random open mic night out of a hat from a Philly-area open mic website and found himself at Lickety Splits on South St in Philly. And before I talk about how well he did, I need to briefly mention how horrible this open mic night was, and thus, how much harder his job was going to be for his first time ever on stage.

I’ve probably been to about 10 different open mic rooms in the past few years since I started doing this myself. Jerry asked if this was one of the worst I’d ever been to. No. It is the worst. And a poorly-run open mic room is a recipe for failure. Here are just some of the factors Jerry was fighting against his first time on stage:

1. The venue: The venue was a vertical bar, 3 seats wide by about 20 deep that could probably hold about 50-60 people, half of whom couldn’t see the stage. But you take venues when you can, so that’s something he'll need to get over.
   
2. The crowd: This was not a crowd that wanted to see stand-up comedy. These were people at a bar. They were talking during people’s sets, watching football and heckling the comics. Thankfully, Jerry brought about 15 of his own people, giving himself a home-field advantage.
   
3. The time: This was supposed to start at 9:30pm, comedians were supposed to check in at 9pm. Instead, it started at 10:15 and Jerry didn’t get to go up until after midnight. People were already drunk and sober again and anyone still there had no interest in comedy except the people Jerry brought with him (at 9:30), 6 of whom I saw walk out because they couldn’t stay - understandably so - especially not even knowing where Jerry was in the lineup.
   
4. The host: This is the only room I've ever been to where there was no sign-up sheet or comedian meeting beforehand. I had barely even seen the guy (Damon) before he got on stage and started telling jokes and introducing his comedian friends. And there was no lineup of when we’d be going on and when I asked him if he even knew we were here about 4 comics into the show, he said “Yeah. I’ll get you and your buddy Joe on.” You mean Jerry? “Yeah, Jerry.” Awesome. Then Moe tried to poke him in the eyes but he blocked it with his hand. And he spent the entire night downstairs doing something more interesting to him than doing his comedy show. When he heard someone leave the stage, he’d run up the stairs to get the mic.
   
5. The click: This show wasn’t about stand-up comedy. It was a big circle jerk with the host and his buddies that perform at the Laugh House, which I'm assuming sucks. He promises to get them stage time in hopes that they’ll do the same. This isn’t about comedy, it’s a venue for them to jerk each other off. After telling us we had 3-5 minutes on stage, I watched 3 different guys do over 15 minutes each. It was unprofessional and irritating. This guy Omar did an equivalent of a comedy burnout workout, where he just kept telling jokes until less and less people were laughing until finally no one was laughing. And then a couple more until no one was paying attention. Then he said “Fuck y’all” and left. This is what I had to follow.

OK, I’ll talk about how shitty this place was in a later post because I could go on for hours (apparently). Despite all the bullshit and watching half of the crowd that he brought to the show leave, Jerry delivered. After having heard his material the day before, I was convinced that Jerry the Writer’s stuff was good enough on its own that Jerry the Performer just had to transpose it from paper to vibrations in the air successfully and it would be fine. I had a couple tips for him about the order of his material and memorization tricks, but I thought his material was certainly ready on its own. But he rushed through it like he was trying to win a contest in rehearsal. Or probably more like he was trying to get it over with. I had confidence in every part of his preparation with the one concern that he may go too fast.

Jerry finally got on the stage after several unfunny people who were competing against a crowd that was taught to not pay attention gradually over the last hour by comedians like Omar and Damon. But thankfully he had brought his own crowd. And laughter begets more laughter. He started with one of my favorite jokes of his and it was the first time in a while anyone had really laughed. The first hurdle was cleared. But he had another problem. A heckler. Not in the "You suck" sense that everyone thinks of as heckling him directly, but when he would say things like “And now women have these tattoos -” she would cut him off with “I’ll show you my tattoo.” “I suck at picking up women -” “I’ll teach ya, baby.” Jerry does not need a heckler the first time up there. It definitely messed with the timing of the tattoo joke, but thankfully didn’t derail him from his material.

It’s always been part of my stand-up comedy values to never carry a set list or cheat sheet in stage with me, though some people do that. Jerry also wanted to do it without a cheat sheet and after seeing him do battle with a heckler, I was impressed that he never got lost. His material could have been slower still, but with all these other factors working against him, it was good to see that he remembered all his material and delivered it in a manner that had people laughing. If nothing else, it was good to get the first show under his belt. You’d think that would make the next show less nerve-racking, but it doesn’t. If I had to grade him based on all factors, I’d say it was a performance worthy of an A-. He still needs to slow down the delivery, but that will come with time. Lickety Splits gets an F though, or at least Damon does. I look forward to seeing Jerry soon enough in a real club like Helium so we can see him at a place that will give him a fighting chance at getting more laughs. And he’ll notice the difference. But he’s taken a very successful step in the direction to being a stand-up comedian. Money? We won't talk about that yet.

Check out Jerry's stand-up debut on facebook.

Video - Dustin's Hotness Scale

Back at a point in time when I was funny, I did this. And this guy recorded it. And I now learned how to do what's called "embed" stuff on my website. It's only 24 seconds. Watch it, for the love of God.