Hecklers

For anyone who doesn't realize it, I just want to set the record straight. Unless they ask a question directly to you, anyone who talks during a comedian's set is a heckler. It doesn't matter what the person says, it's a heckle. Even if you think you're helping, you're not. And this is what gets me, is that people actually feel like they can just shout something at someone on stage. No one would heckle an actor in a play, or a speaker doing a speech, so why do people feel entitled to say something to a comedian? 

I haven't gotten heckled on stage. The BrainWash has an unspoken rule that, no matter how bad the comedian, nobody heckles. Now, the problem with the BrainWash is that people will still carry on and talk as if no one is on stage, but that's just an open mic, and you have to deal with it. However, in all the time I've been there, I've only heard someone make an audible comment about the comedian while on stage once or twice, which is impressive considering how bad they can be. 

The reason I was thinking about it was because a comedian I was supposed to see at the Punchline (John Caparulo) ended up cancelling. Instead of calling off the night, they brought on a fairly well known local comedian who I had been intending to see, but hadn't made the effort yet. His name is Joe Klocek. When I went onto YouTube to check him out, this was the first video I found: "Heckler vs. Comedian Joe Klocek"

It was the most brilliant handling of a heckler that I've ever seen. It was a tremendously dangerous move, but executed flawlessly. I then continued to watch about 2 hours of comedians dealing with hecklers, some more successful than others. What I found was that the best scenario is to respond directly and cruelly to the heckler with a couple of comments. One comment isn't usually effective enough, and if handled well, it becomes a joke and should be drawn out for a few lines. However, too much attention and you risk getting completely off track. I've been taking a few notes on the ones I particularly like, but I get the feeling that it's one of those abilities that, unfortunately, only come with practice.

ps. Joe was brilliant, and it's apparently his style to do a lot of crowd interaction. I highly recommend seeing him if you get the chance.

My Obama Set

So, although I've still been doing my weekly set at the Brainwash, I've neglected blogging these past couple weeks so that I could devote more attention to the fact that our country is asserting it's will to progress past these hellish 8 years that we've (surprisingly) endured.

Recently, I have been toying with the idea of doing my 5 minute sets on a single topic. If you look at your comedy albums (we all have a few, don't we?), they are broken up like a music album: 5-10 minute chunks, all with a clever name that alludes to either the premise or the punchline. Very rarely will you ever see an hour-long show filled with one liners or single laugh jokes. Instead, they are crafted stories that have many punchlines, ideally stacking one laugh on top of another until the crowd is rolling in their seats.

This is tough to do. Really tough. Especially for a short set, since if the joke isn't going the way you want it to, it's that much harder to bail and get to the next one. Nonetheless, open mics are made for screwing up and learning, so I've been pushing forward in acquiring this necessary skill. My set last Thursday was, easily enough, all Obama. Having one main topic made transitions easy and seamless, and there was plenty of material to go around.

It came off well, and I would say that I got as many laughs as I normally do so I was pretty happy with the experience. I probably won't do that every week, though. The thing I'm most afraid of is having too many jokes that seem forced because I'm constraining the subject matter. Instead, I'm looking through my current jokes and trying to group them together when I can. I then try to jot down a few more ideas, funny or not, that relate to it and see if anything comes to mind. It's going okay, but I've also been trying to evolve and improve my best material. I've managed to combine the two activities by taking my best jokes, partnering them with related jokes, and hoping that a couple of great ones will help carry the rest. We'll see how that goes.

Back in the Mix

So, I recently tried entering the Butterfinger Comedy Showdown, with no success. Granted, I'm new at this and really shouldn't have the audicity to think that I could already win comedy competitions, however this one was different. This one was poorly marketed. It was only open to submissions for a month, and by week two there was still only one submission... and it sucked. The caveat for the submission was that it had to somehow reference Butterfinger, but according to the rules, it couldn't mention any other brands... or any people, real or fake... or insult anyone... or be more than a minute long. 

With my hands tied, I tried to give it a shot since the prize was a trip to LA for an appearance at the Comedy Store, where you competed with one other winner for a spot at the Just For Laughs festival in Montreal, which is huge. In any case, you can see my video submissions here and here. Granted, not my best work, and it didn't help that you could hear the cook in the background and that this was an absolutely dead night at the BrainWash, no one was laughing at anyone. It was painful, and I felt a little like a corporate sell out whore, but I still think I did better than a few people that made it into the top five, namely, the stupid bitch listed under elham.jazab. I'm not sure if she was picked for demographics or what, but she really did suck.

In any case, I then went on a vacation for a little over a week, and so bottom line was that I hadn't told any good new material for a few weeks. I went up last Thursday, however, and killed, so I'm pretty glad to not be doing comedy for anyone but me once again. This upcoming Monday I have another part in the Club Deluxe showcase, which I'm very excited about. Last time I appeared, I literally brought over 20 people, which was pretty substantial considering that this was the first time I had been up there and that there were only a little less than 30 people in the entire place. Nonetheless, as I've noted, I was less than ecstatic over my last performance, so this one I'm bringing my A-game. I'm only bringing stuff that I've tested a few times before and on which my timing is about as good as it's going to get. We'll see how it goes, wish me luck.

Open Mic Comedy in San Francisco

This isn't the first list of San Francisco Open Mic venues out there, but it's up-to-date, which is more than you can say about most of the lists you'll find. Also, this will be San Francisco only. If you want to know about Open Mic elsewhere, then start your own damn blog.

ps. I'm only listing the one's I've been to, or know are legit. Please leave a comment if you know of one that is definitely going on as of Fall '08.

MONDAY

Club Deluxe
Comedy Showcase until 11, open mic afterwards

1511 Haight St (at Ashbury)

(415) 829-7061

Host: Al Gonzales

Sea Biscuit Cafe
Time unknown
3815 Noriega Street (at 45th Ave)
(415) 661-3784

Host: Sal Calanni

TUESDAY

Annie's Social Club

7-9 (SIGN-UP 6:30)
917 Folsom Street (at 5th St)

(415) 974-1585

Hosts: Jeff Cleary & Chad Lehrman

Grant & Green

10pm

1371 Grant Ave (at Green)

(415) 693-9565

Host: Ben Feldman

THURSDAY

BrainWash Cafe & Laundromat

7-Whenever (Sign up at 6:30 )
1122 Folsom (at 7th St)

(415) 861-3663

Host: Tony Sparks

The Usual Suspects Cafe
7pm-8pm
450 Broadway St (at Montgomery)
(415) 641-1717
Host: Danny Dechi

FRIDAY

The Usual Suspects Cafe
7pm-8pm
450 Broadway St (at Montgomery)
(415) 641-1717
Host: Danny Dechi

SATURDAY

Café International

Comedy Showcase 4th Saturday of the month
508 Haight St (@ Fillmore)

(415) 552-7390

Farley's Coffee
Second Saturday of every month, 7:15pm
1315 18th St. (at Texas)
Host: Liz Grant

The Usual Suspects Cafe
7pm-8pm
450 Broadway St (at Montgomery)
(415) 641-1717
Host: Danny Dechi

SUNDAY
Punchline Comedy Club

8pm

444 Battery St (at Clay)

(415) 397-7573

If you live outside of San Francisco, you can try to weed through the lists provided by www.SFStandup.com and www.BayAreaOpenMics.com. If you don't live in San Francisco, then why did you read through this entire post?

iPods, Sports, Tooth Fairy, Pennies

I did this routine on July 24th, 2008. My friend with the camera, unfortunately, had to sit toward the back of the cafe, so half of the video I'm blocked out of view by people standing in line at the cafe. This gives a pretty good sense, if nothing else, of the things you have to put up with at the BrainWash. Often, you can barely hear me over the rumble of the 'audience.'

Although you can hear the laughter of the audience in the back, I actually couldn't hear it up front so couldn't respond to the timing. From what I was seeing on stage, I was bombing. There was an elderly couple right in front of me that I lost right around the time I mentioned Christianity, and they just frowned at me the rest of the time. The lady in the corner to the left of the screen was crazy and laughed obnoxiously loud at seemingly random points throughout the night. She appears to be uninterested in what I had to say.

Since I was getting no love from the front of the room and couldn't hear anyone in the back, I was sure it was going horribly. In retrospect, it was probably my best performance to date, which was too bad because I was psyching myself out with the lack of laughter, and got a little nervous toward the end. But that's open mic. Plow through it first, analyze it later. Let me know what you think!

What the Hell am I Doing?

I got into Stand Up Comedy not because I thought that I was naturally funny or gifted, but rather because I thought I was funnier than 75% of the people I saw on stage at open mic night. Now, I know that "I suck less than those guys" is a bad reason to start doing anything, (although surprisingly not a bad way to run a political campaign), but it turns out I was half-decent and well on my way to becoming tolerable to listen to.

I started the process by just scratching down a short note whenever I thought of something funny, and then coming back to flesh out the joke when I had the time. ***Quick tip, that doesn't work so well because who the hell carries around a pen and paper. Shortly after starting that, I now just draft and save a text message to myself.*** Once I had a decent amount of material, I practiced it a couple times and signed myself up for the open mic at BrainWash Cafe, down in the SoMa district in San Francisco.

I should say a little something about my beloved BrainWash cafe. It's got... well... it's got character, let's say that. It's a laundromat/ cafe/ bar/ cultural hub of the SoMa district. They have an open mic something just about every night of the week, from poetry to music to what they're best known for: open mic stand up comedy, every Thursday from 7pm-11pm. Now, the laundromat is slightly separated from the sitting area, so it's not like you're talking over the dryer, however that doesn't mean it's the ideal place to find an attentive audience. BrainWash is open mic in the dirtiest, truest sense of the word. When I say open mic, I mean open to anyone, and sure enough, anyone does sign up. On top of that, there is a large segment of the audience who are just waiting for their laundry or grabbing a coffee, and they have no problem carrying on their own conversation while you're on stage. By stage, of course, I'm talking about the 2 foot by 2 foot platform raised 6 inches off the ground on which stands a lanky, hobbled together mic stand and all-too-often a wholly unfunny human being.

If you can manage to grab the attention of these patrons, you better be funny or else they'll turn their head right back to where it was, and do a spectacular job at ignoring you. This isn't a place to coddle new talent, it's a place to kick it's ass and make it want to quit. Now, I would like to think that I rocked the house the first time I got up there, but the honest truth was that I completely lost my cool. I've done public speaking for years, often in front of audiences in the hundreds, and maintained a strong speaking persona. The first time I got on that puny little fart of a stage, in front of a dozen people at best, I was nervous, I spoke too fast, and any concept of timing or interaction was thrown through the window. 

The next time was better, and the next time better still. I've been going at it weekly for a few months, and each time on stage is an improvment. I'm getting into the world of the Comedy Showcase, which is the next step after open mics, and I've already been seeing some sucess there. I don't necessarily plan on leaving everything I'm doing now to devote my life to comedy. I'm fortunate to have a job that I enjoy, pays well, and I'm good at. However, I'm also fortunate to live in San Francisco, which provides more than enough opportunity for a young comic to have fun and play around in the the scene. I'm not real sure what I'm doing or when I'll stop, but I'm having fun for now so I'll just leave it at that.