Jack FM contest at Parlor

I was racking my brain trying to figure out how to put together a "clean" 3 minute set for the Jack FM contest. I planned to dedicate some part of the afternoon to it, but then i took a 4 hour nap. Got to the venue and worked on a list of jokes, solidified it, and then found out that their idea of "clean" was just no F-bombs or other dirty words. Decided to save the fisting jokes anyway, and did Wutang (abridged) / I see fists / amish scifi / jews for jesus / circumcised mormons / naughty republican. Thats a lot of jewish material. I was up 31st, and was in and out of the room, trying to nail down and remember my jokes and segues in the proper order. Because of this, I didnt really get to see too many of the other comics, but from what I saw, nobody was getting great crowd reaction. Then I went up there and killed it.

I really like the lighting at parlor. The stage is lit enough to put the focus on the comedian and see him/her clearly, but its also possible to see the people in the audience from the stage. I love being able to see people react to the jokes; its so much more like being funny in real life, and you feed off of that energy.

Other comics have been telling me this (especially Billy): you start off nice and clean and friendly and self-effacing and you build up good will. Then at the end you hit them with the dirtier stuff and they dont feel bad about it because they already like you. Thats how it went tonight. I added a couple nice elements to pre-existing jokes. On the circumcising mormons I added: Id just drive around with a shovel, looking at those "Im a mormon" signs, thinking "yeah, youre a mormon now. Wait till I get to you". On naughty republican, the line "how whitebread do you need to be before I look like a rebellious sexual choice?" always gets a big laugh, so I added: "thanks for agreeing that im sexually uninteresting". Very much a Myq Kaplan style tag.

I had two people come up to me to compliment me on my tuesday Jai Thai set, which I didnt even think was very good. I debuted the pinata joke, which got very little response, but im pretty sure that joke is a winner and im going to keep working on it.

Take a topic 1: carrots

Im taking clean, non-humorous topics, going to wikipedia, and writing as many jokes as possible. The first is carrots. Some of these jokes arent that great, but im not censoring too much. I may just post the next topic as a response to this post.

1) Carrots contain vitamin D, which helps prevent depression. Thats why bugs bunny is always so fucking chipper, even though elmer fudd is trying to kill him [ok, looks like i made the first part up]

2) Do you think that carrots are mad at oranges for getting to be the color? Why arent oranges carrot?

3) There are purple, yellow, white and even red carrots, but you never see or hear about them due to the inherent racism in the system.

4) The domestic carrot has been selectively bred for its greatly enlarged and more palatable, less woody-textured edible taproot. How come its ok to breed carrots to be delicious, but when I try to do it with people...

5) If you eat too many carrots, your skin will turn orange. This is how they made oompaloompas before spray tan was invented

6) Some ancient peoples used to refer to carrots as "devils-plague". None of these people were good christians. Its hard to be frightened of hell when you think theyre going to torture you with carrots for eternity

7) The city of Holtville, California, promotes itself as "Carrot Capital of the World". The title is almost entirely ceremonial. There is no real carrot-power in holtville.

8) Carrots can be stored for several months in the refrigerator or over winter in moist sand in a cool place. If its easier for you to get moist sand in a cool place than a refrigerator, then just go ahead and eat the carrot.

9) Almost half of the worlds carrots are produced by the chinese, which isnt surprising, because they are assholes.


I think #s 4, 5 and 7 are the best, but none is particularly hilarious. Its fun to just write though. On a total side note: I want to work on incorporating a hilarious segue or topic change into a set.

I almost forgot

these have to be the worst blog post titles ever. Some guy did a bit today where you kept expecting him to say something, but he just never got there, and it built this pressure that was hilarious. So im going to try and work that into a joke. That and misdirection.

I love PROK

probably the best open mic in seattle. Cozy room, no bright lights in your eyes. Always at least half a dozen humans (non-comics). The host said that he was going to rate everybody as a Nicolas Cage movie, and I was rated as Face Off, which is... high praise.

I started with the following. "A friend of mine just posted about a car accident on face book. He said that the car is totaled, but he is completely fine. Im not sure that the "like" button is nuanced enough for this situation, it could be taken the wrong way". Then I did wutang / fists / martin luther / naughty republican / Amish Sci Fi / smoking. I think smoking is totally great, although it very much reminds me of the Louis CK bit about his ankle at the doctor.

gonna just post this now so as not to let it evaporate

catching up

Apparently the well has run dry in terms of writing new material. I must say, Ive been rather distracted this past week.

tuesday was jai thai. I tried match.com, got heckled out of it. Did some stuff with the hecklers, then martin luther, amish scifi, and the matrix

wednesday was TCC, not really sure what i did. I know martin luther was in there cause it didnt really go. Oh! Thats right, I did I see fists, and then led into fisting. That was fun. Also did amish scifi and a gazillion callbacks

Thursday was TCU, and a horrible small crowd. Everyone ahead of my bombed. I did wutang/fists/amish scifi/juggalos/be the change/ and circumcising mormons.

Next wednesday im gonna try the JACK FM contest at parlor, so I need to develop a clean 3 minute set. My plan is wutang (without the word fuck) / fists / naughty republican / amish scifi / juggalos / predator. Im gonna try it out at PROK tonight, nothing new, oh well.

Terrorist fist jabs of love

Did Bump List at Benders for the first night and crushed. Crowd was great. Im enjoying the challenge of placing at least one callback in each set. Tonight, I did two. Nigel Larsen was up before me and did a joke about people telling him he doesnt sound like hes from NY, so I did my "you look like a stand up comic from NY" for the first time. At the beginning of the show, the hosts kept saying something about "white titties" so I did the "I see fists" joke, and then ended it by saying "I dont see white titties; I just see titties. I judge titties by the content of their character, like Martin Luther King taught us".

Then I launched from fists into the fisting material, which got a great reaction. I lost myself a bit on remembering it, but it still killed. So, to recap. Comic in NY / I see fists / fisting.

well, so much for that

i had a long post written out, and then this page got refreshed and it disappeared. Heres what ive been thinking about. There are a lot of different elements to being "funny" onstage. Im gonna call them humor, wit, and funniness. Maybe funniness could be changed to presentation. And i could subcategorize these all day. The point is that some people are just naturally funny. Funny looking, likable, funny physically, good timing, charimsatic. And the simple fact is, im not that funny. I have very little of those previous things going for me.

I am somewhat humorous. I can craft a joke pretty well. I have an instinct for when a subject is going to be funny somehow, and then i can go back and try to find whats funny about it. Honestly, im nothing special in this department. My strongest area has to be the wit. By wit i mean quick ability to react humorously and honestly to a situation. This is what i have going for me. Im inclined to test it out with crowd work, improv, and just throwing myself in dangerous comedic situations and seeing if i drown. I might not be ready for this yet, but its something im gonna start testing out soon. Ill try to work on getting funnier too.

crushed

Show went great. I talked shop with a comic for a few minutes before, and learned a bit more about local open mics. Did the jokes I was planning on, plus predator and a couple of little riffs on other comics. Timing was good, crowd reaction was good. There was a girl kind of drunkenly yelling earlier on in the night, and i was looking forward to intereacting with her, but she left. Looking forward to performing with Tom tomorrow.

Scary car: a raccoon in a wedding dress

Tonight will probably be tacoma comedy club. Last week went well. I did wutang/juggalos/gang signs/pizza, and it went over great. Tonight im planning on doing: i see fists (20)/naughty republican (45)/ jews for jesus (20) / dead mormons (20)/circumcision law (60). Thats 2:45 which seems about right for a 3 minute set. If the crowd is really interactive i may try: how much herpes (45) again. If the guy fucks up my name again, I may just try and do the whole set on my name, but that stuff isnt really ready yet. I have maybe 105 seconds on that, assuming I can remember it all.

Perhaps a hack

Showed up an hour early for the Jai Thai show by accident, so i wandered down to the crescent where another open mic was going on. They let me just wander up without signing up ahead of time. I tried a mix of old and new stuff. One joke went particularly well: I lead off by saying "How much herpes... is the right amount of herpes to have?" and this guy yells "None!" and I say, "Some people say none. I say, stop yelling your answer in the middle of my joke." Adlibs, bitches! I got 'em.

I told the transvestite prostitute story; it got laughs in places, but it still needs a better ending. The phrase "lady-penis" isnt as funny as id hoped. I came up with a joke in between the two shows: I hooked up with a girl in oregon last year, and afterwards she rolled over, looked me deep in the eye, and said "if my dad only knew that i just had sex with a jewish democrat". Now how whitebread do you need to be before i represent a rebellious sexual choice? I think that joke can work, i just need to work on it a bit more.

Tried the joke about tourettes at a clan rally and it completely failed. Told the joke about getting beaten up by both races in high school and it got a big laugh. Very pleased about that. I also told the To Catch a Predator joke because i wanted to add something to it about pedophiles being like pokemon. This comic who I think is hilarious comes up to me after the show, and I think hes about to tell me how funny I was. He says, you know that to catch a predator joke? That was on robot chicken, its the same almost word for word. Fuck. I go and look it up, and it isnt even CLOSE to the same. There ARE a couple videos on youtube of someone making the same general joke, but they go in vaguely different directions with it.

Make those fuckers laugh

OK. From now on this is a blog about my attempts at stand up comedy. Ive been at this for just over a month now. Ive done about a dozen open mics. Its rough. Im still nervous on the stage. I dont interact with the crowd enough. I dont make use of the space. I dont incorporate those theatrical elements that i see working so well for other people. Thats the bad stuff. I think my material is good; im putting a lot of time and energy into thinking about jokes. Im getting laughs; maybe not as many as I would like, but theyre there. Im able to come up with new material much quicker than most of the other comics. I can usually riff off of stuff that other comics do or say.

Tomorrow is the tuesday open mic at Jai Thai. Last week didnt go so well. On the one hand, I know that these are open mics, and that this is the place where im supposed to get the kinks out and fuck up. On the other hand, I dont want the other comics (who comprise 80% of an open mic audience) to write me off. There are several comics who I know are going to be awful every time and who I simply tune out when theyre on stage. I dont want people doing that to me.

Here are the rough beginnings of the jokes im working on today:

-I got beaten up equally by black kids and white kids in high school. I dont see race, I just see fists

-Jesse's doctor broke the news to him that he wont be able to jazzercise ever again with his bad ankles

-Pedophiles are like pokemon. Youve gotta catch em all, and theyre both trying to appeal to that same age demographic

I also want to tell the story about the guy looking for the transvestite prostitutes. I just need to settle on an ending that works and gets me out of the story on a funny note.

Gonna make an effort to shmooze a bit more and to be a bit more relaxed on stage. Hopefully ill break a leg.