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

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.

Six Months of Open Mic

I've just recently surpassed the six month mark of doing open mic stand up comedy. When I started back in March, I told myself that I just wanted to give it a shot, and do it consistently for at least six months. Well, here I am, and in danger of being too immodest, I'm doing a lot better at it than I imagined. My delivery has improved ten fold, and my confidence on stage has really started to shine through. 

I think my greatest asset has been recording my shows (typically just audio) and reviewing them relentlessly. If something doesn't work, I typically blame it on my delivery and not on the crowd. For a while, if something didn't work, I would comment afterwords on how the crowd just wasn't into it. However, as I've done this more and more, I've brought the worst crowds out of a funk and had them laughing again, so I now try to avoid that excuse. Instead, I just meticulously go over my material, picking it apart and trying out new premises, punchlines, and transitions. 

I'm still making plenty of rookie mistakes, and my jokes still sometimes fall flat on their face the first time I tell them, but it happens less and less. I'm still learning and improving each time I go up, and soon, I think I will have moved up from noobie to novice. 

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.

Repeating Jokes ad infinitum

I understand that in the world of professional comedy, a comedian will typically have a set routine that they do night after night as they tour around. The jokes are well tested and proven to be funny nearly every time. You can't really expect anything else from them; it's not like we would be surprised to find out that a musician plays the same songs for their shows. A joke is much like a song, it's carefully crafted to produce a response, and timing, rhythm and tempo are just as important in comedy as it is in music.

For my purposes, however, it's a little painful. I'm not touring the country, I'm playing the same venue week after week. And it's not like we're pumping through audiences, either. The most likely audience for me is an audience of other comedians, they were there last week and will probably be there next week. My thoughts are to at least have enough material so that you're not repeating anything more than once out of four times at a given venue. Even then, I still think you should re-write it, tweak it, or add something that's going to make it funnier. Until I tell a joke that has people rolling on the floor the entire time, I'm pretty sure I'm not done with it yet.

That brings me to the flip side of the coin, which is listening to the same jokes from fellow comedians week after week. It's painful, annoying, and these aren't getting any funnier with age. You should of course try it out a few times since the mood of a given audience on a given night shouldn't be the final word on what's funny and what isn't. However, my thoughts are that if you're going to tell the same joke over and over in exactly the same way, it better be comedy gold. If it ain't, then keep working on it for your own sake and the sake of the audience. If it is, then put it in your back pocket for a while and try out new stuff. That's what we're all up on stage for anyway. Not to tell the same joke a hundred times until you find the right audience, but to tell it in a hundred different ways until you finally tell it just right.

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.

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.