A (slightly) new approach...

I'm going on stage at Club Deluxe tonight as part of their Monday night showcase. It's my third time appearing in their showcase, and although my sets there have gotten increasingly better, I'm hoping to make this performance significantly better than the rest. I'm not only pulling out some of my best jokes, I also carefully trimmed back the premise of each and isolated the punchline, keeping the least amount of premise necessary. This will allow me to tell more jokes, and use the momentum to keep the crowd going. Besides, I'm learning that if part of a premise can be removed without hurting the joke, then it's not really a premise at all, it's unfunny fluff.

At some point, I'll want to re-extend these jokes, as a few of them have become only a shade longer than a one-liner. However, for tonight, my goal is to get at least a couple eruptions of laughter without killing the mood with an interminable build-up. I'll be sure to update you on how it goes.

Tonight's Headliner at Club Deluxe: Edwin San Juan

Better, but a long way to go.

So, I went on stage at Club Deluxe last Monday as part of their comedy showcase. My jokes went okay, they got some laughs, but they only revealed to me how amateur I still am. The comedians who came after me had tight sets that got laugh after laugh. Mine got a few chuckles, but I just couldn't keep the crowd at the feverish pitch that comedians strive for. Granted, I'm still new at this whole thing, but it really put in perspective where I'm at in my development. On the other hand, going on stage before so many comedians who are between my level and the level of a professional is really helping me understand where I need to go next. 

In my set on Monday, I brought out some of my best jokes, and many of them went okay, but they really didn't get the response I was hoping for. It could be that my timing is still off, or that I'm not building enough tension before the releasing punchline. Either way, I took away a slightly better understanding of what makes them funny or unfunny than when I walked in. For example, I botched the punchline of the Tupperware joke by literally one word, and it made all the difference. And for some reason my Sports joke drew as much sympathy as laughs (notice the "awww"). I'm still digesting the lessons of that night, but it at least went well enough that the host personally mentioned to me how much I've been improving and that he was still happy that I was able to bring in a small crowd of drinking, cover-paying customers.  :P

Here it is, let me know what you think.

My First Showcase

Last night I performed in the comedy showcase for Club Deluxe. It was the first time I've ever been chosen to go on stage. Up until last night, it had been only open mics, and the only qualification for getting on stage was showing up. Of course, Club Deluxe may not be the talent gatekeeper for all of San Francisco, but it was a small step in a good direction, and it felt pretty damn good.

The show was decent, not my best, but decent. I had been sick as hell the two days before and my fever had broken literally the night before the show. Whether that was an excuse for my timing being off is questionable, but it was surely a contributing factor. Another factor may have been that I had a huge group of friends arrive, which was both reassuring and slightly frightening. 

I don't know what it was, but the jokes just felt a little off. The pauses weren't long enough. The punchlines weren't punchy enough. The set just didn't come off quite as I had imagined. There were a lot of chuckles, but not a lot of big laughs. Don't get me wrong, it could have gone worse, and I was certainly better than at least half the other people that got up there, but all I can do is learn through obsessively replaying the video and then do better next time. 

There was one drunk, obnoxious girl in the audience who spoke throughout the entire showcase at normal volume or above, and she had been made fun of by multiple comics but just hadn't learned her lesson because she talked throughout my first joke. You'll see me take a quick dig at her right before my second bit, and I'm still debating whether it was the right move. In any case, share your thoughts about the performance if you have any. 

Sports, Blacking Out, Tupperware, Beard, Muni

This was my performance at Club Deluxe on September 1st. It was an open mic competition of sorts, not one that gave away money, but the "winners" would be asked back to be a part of future comedy showcases. They hold a 1 hour showcase every Monday night at 9pm right before the headlining comedian, and then do a true open mic after the headliner.

Sure enough, my performance was good enough to be asked back! I'm actually going back on stage next Monday, the 22nd. Sal Calanni is the headliner, and it's a $5 cover (though I'm pretty sure the showcase comedians don't get paid), but I'm just excited to have an attentive audience who actually has to pay to see me!

You'll see that I repeated the sports joke from the last video I posted, but I tried to slow it down and milk the timing a little better. I only brought material that I had tried out before, but I hadn't done any of these jokes for a month before, so they had some time to marinate. I'm sure I'll do a post soon on people who repeat their jokes too often, but suffice to say that I wasn't going to take a chance on brand new material on this night.

All five jokes seemed to go over really well. It's amazing to see the difference in audience reaction when you have a group of people who are actually listening to you. I really felt good after this performance, and I learned a lot from it. I'm sure I'll post a video of my upcoming performance, and we'll see if I was actually able to do some things better next time. Any thoughts you might have on the delivery or content would be appreciated.

Bill Burr - Self Awareness on Stage

I saw Bill Burr at the Punchline last weekend. It was a truly great show. I had heard about him before, and think I've seen some clips of him on Comedy Central, but his stage persona really came out during his performance. I'm not sure how far (or close) it is to his normal self, but on stage he's a thin, mildly psychotic, conspiratorial stress-ball who looks like he's about to snap. His trademark line, and it worked every time, is "let's bring this back mainstream," and it typically comes out after a line or two about how the banking system is legalized loan sharking or how the world is controlled by only a few families. Not that I disagree with him or anything, but they aren't exactly "golden material" topics. Nonetheless, the awkward silence during which the audience contemplated and tried to digest his reality-tweaking comments were broken with bursts of laughter with his comment, and he would move immediately into lighter subjects.

It's not uncommon for a comedian to have a line they fall back to when they're not getting laughs. Usually, it's something like "didn't like that one so much, did ya?" or some self-referential comment like that. It breaks the audience out of their dislike for their joke, and makes them laugh at the fact that the comedian is "ok" with it. However, it's typically reserved for jokes that don't work. Bill Burr just uses his line almost to pull himself back into it as much as his audience. It's not that he tells a joke that doesn't work, he just goes with his material and sometimes gets lost in the weeds. "Let's bring this back mainstream" eases the audience's tension because because it shows that he's comfortable with his own awkwardness.

No comedian is going to be flawless, and having a way to bring yourself out of a hole is always a good idea. It won't save you if you're bombing, but if you can sense that you're losing the audience with a subject, it's a good way to transition into something completely different. I don't have a collection of phrases like his that I'm in love with, I just use something like "not so much?" More often than not, I just power through the joke and get to the next one. Hell, I'll only be on stage for 5 minutes, he's got to be there for an hour.

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!