Getting on stage Thursday night was another step in my growing process…not as a comedian, but as a person.

For many, standing on a stage and exposing yourself to possible ridicule and embarrassment is something that they never could imagine even attempting.    I think that once you get up there the first time, it gets easier…but that just me…

There are roadblocks to every quest.

Some of them might be physical, some emotional and there can even be financial hurdles that have to be climbed in order to be at the place we need to be in our lives.

These individual quests might seem trivial to others looking in from the outside, but in our hearts and minds they are what keep us waking up each morning and attacking each day…

This year I have attained two very personal and individual goals…running my Marathon and getting on stage.   T someone that may just be stumbling on me here, these may seem like trivial things…but most of you know that inside of me, these were very important to me…and possibly necessary for my “survival.”

Running a race or performing stand-up comedy are nothing in comparison to battling cancer or losing a child and I will never claim that my “issues” are anything more that my needs for personal sanity.   There are people on this earth without jobs, battling illness and suffering from losses that make my “issues” seem like a paper cut, compared to the gaping wound they are suffering from…but I think you all understand my position.

There is a friend I have made this past year…you can check out the individual quest she is on in her life right now…

She isn’t suffering from an illness, but she is at one of those crossroad points in her life.   It is a place many of us have been before and if we would have just asked for someone to help us…things may have turned out differently.

Please…go over and visit her, check out some of her post and read her story.    

Regardless of the outcome of her endeavor, I wish her the courage to do what she needs to along with the strength to ATTACK each day and not necessarily being satisfied with thing the way they are…

Thank you.

Since I found out about a local club that did an open mic night monthly last weekend, I have been in relative panic mode to get a tight 10-12 minute set together, since that was the length of the big set that I did the last time…at a different club.

My office is 17 miles from the club and it took more than four hours to get there because of the worst set of traffic circumstances this area has seen in decades…good thing I am paranoid and left early.  I knew about the issues before I left…so I used the time to review the 10-15 minutes of material I prepared…three separate sets combined into one nice smooth set.

I struggled to get there in time and when I got to the parking lot, I changed my shirt and when I shut the van door, the keys were locked inside…

What a day.

I didn’t know how long my set was…they said they would announce it after the sign in…but I knew that three was only going to be two hours for the show.   This meant that the formula would be…

120 minutes/number of comedians = length of set

26 comedians were on the roster.   Which worked out to less than three minutes per set.   I was screwed…none of my material wasn’t going to work…I am a “story teller” and not a “joke teller”…or it isn’t, at least, what I am used to…

The show started a little after 9 pm, and I didn’t find out I was 9th, until the third comic was up.

I was going to have to improvise…the days traffic problems, a couple of new laws on the books for July 1 and the keys locked in the van were going to have to be my set…but I didn’t have anything written and “winging it” on a stage didn’t seem like a good idea…but I wasn’t running out.

My original plan was to go to the show and only watch, but since there were some people I knew coming and watching, backing out would have looked really bad…the pressure alone made me actually get up there last night.

So…my problem was that I was going up in the first 30 minutes…and I didn’t have anything solid prepared.

Comedian #8 was a 6′1″ lady…blond and probably in her mid thirties.   here set was about being single and tall with her last bit being that she is bothered when little short guys come up to her and call her a “tall drink of water…just for once, she’d like to look at one of these guys and call them her short little juice box…”

I was #9…perfect.

I walked up to the stage and the MC had the microphone in his hand…I motioned for him to put it in the stand and he did as I walked up to the stage.

The microphone stand was still set for the tall lady when I stood in front of it… which means that it was over my head.  I stood in front of it for about three seconds, looked up and shrugged my shoulders.

Looking around the stage, I found a stool and slowly carried it to the microphone.   I slowly climbed up and kneeled on the top of it…

(There is some paraphrasing in here just to clean it up…the delivery was not as smooth and seem-less as this.)

“I’m your short little juice box…”   I said.

“It is nice to be here everybody…I spend a long time coming here from (city), it took about three hours before I finally decided to turn on the traffic channel.”

This is the local traffic radio station used to inform the local travelers of info….

“This is what I heard…(Holding mic almost in mouth)…THIS IS THE (CITY) TRAFFIC NETWORK…THE INFORMATION YOU RECEIVE HERE WILL ASSIST IN YOU IN YOUR JOURNEY.”

“What they didn’t say was…YOU ARE F*UCKED…IF THIS WERE A REAL EMERGENCY…YOU WOULD BE DEAD.”

(Of course…if I had written this set instead of improvising…I could have done SOOOOOmuch more with this…this was where I really could have landed the crowd.  It got laughs, but I could have gone 30 more seconds and killed with it.)

“It took 3 1/2 to get across the tunnel from (city)…amazing.”

“So yesterday…we had a couple of new laws put into effect locally.   One is that we can no longer email or text when we drive.  The other is that we can no longer drive on the highway at less than 35 mph.”

“Today, on the way here, I traveled a total of THREE miles an hour.   I looked down at my GPS once when I was driving and I did reach a top speed of 6.5 mph.”

“The laws we didn’t get are…we can’t text on our phone…we can’t email on our phone…but the one thing they forgot…”

“We can still get PORN on our phone…”

“So…three and a half hours…I am alone in the van…who knows what comes up.”

(I really could have “set the mood better here too”… turning on some Barry White,  rubbing some pine air freshener on myself, etc…if I had to do it again…)

“It was a little embarrassing the first time…the van is a little low…people can see inside.  But, know you…after I had gone the third time after only three and a half miles, the guy next to me was doing the same thing (visual of me “rubbing one out” and nonchalantly waving to the guy. )”

‘So I finally got here and made it into the parking lot…after four and a half hours…”

“I locked the keys in the van.”

“I said ‘crap…what am I going to do?’”

“I am here…six hours away from home…but ONLY twenty miles…what the hell am I gonna do?”

(This is where I should have stuck in a call to my wife…that would have been good here…)

“But we are in downtown (bad city)…”

(This is in a really bad part of a really bad town…)

“…one block over… I found a guy(friendly neighborhood “helper” that knew exactly how to open a locked vehicle)

“All I had to agree to do was to purchase a used TV, a Wii console, that seemed VERY light…I think it was actually just the case…”

“…and a ziplock bag full of funny smelling stuff with seeds in it…”

“Thank you…”

That was the end.    I think about 17-20 of the comics there are regulars and knew how long the sets were going to be, but I definitely had the most current and up to date material.   I would have to say that half of them went up there with a notebook or cards to read from…a couple of them were actually people that go on the road and a couple that were playing there the following evening.

There is a recording of this set, but I am having trouble uploading it…I felt very, VERY bad about this until I heard the recording and actually heard some laughter…the timing was decent, but I will feel more relaxed up there next month and will have a couple of clean three minute sets prepared. 

This is also going to change the way I look at things regarding stand-up comedy…I think stuff needs to be built in these one, two and three minute increments…and then they can be put together depending on the time I have available to me…

This is a learning process…but my “coming out” party was a success…albeit a short one.

Two different photo stories here…

This first one is the guy working on his car…under a tent?     I get the whole “sun-will-kill-you” thing, but I wonder if he carries an umbrella around when he cuts the grass…

This next one is a series of four photos that I took in the span of 10 minutes…

It was very nice of  Mrs. Roper (not MY Mrs. Roper by the way) to help her daughter with the dropped ice cube tray…but the funny part is to come…

Someone must have called hubby to bring the truck because there was some good stuff there.  And of course, we all need to be reminded not “to mess with TEXAS”

This last one is the poor sap that only got out of there with a bag of clothes and an Elmo…

Kind of like Santa in July…

Good thing my wife didn’t hear about this pile of goodies.

Tuesday at midnight was my self imposed deadline for having a prepared solid, word for word 10 minute set  ready for Thursday night or I was calling it off…and after a one hour extension, I have it…minus a solid closing.

This whole thing has a “taint” theme…with two of the three stories never really being told here before.   Ten minutes for me, let me get three stories in…with a number of asides about plumbers and their propensity to date or marry strippers, smoke their breakfast and “drink” their lunch.

The stories go very smoothly, after typing them into a “script” there would be a minute of  “no funny” and that is a long time to set up a laugh…so there had to be some stuff added to each of the stories to keep things moving and not to lose the crowd…

The three main stories for the planned 10 minute set are…

1.  Plumber pretending to be a shit sprinkler.

2.  Friend of mine dropping two pieces of wet and chewed Hubba Bubba down the back of a hairy guys pants during a church service.

3.  Naked guy putting on his sock first at the gym.

All three of them have physical elements that will allow me to add or subtract time as necessary.

I am still completely convinced that I should do this.  My intention was to watch this first one and participate in the nex one.   I am sure I will not decide until I get to the club.

The biggest issues I am having is my familiarity with the additions to the stories…especially since I have only said them outloud for the first time this evening…

I am also uneasy about the possibility of a second set…like the last time I did this…I have my original material about Kelly letting me out of the house written…but we’ll see.

I just read a post from someone that talked about  spending “too much time *getting ready to get ready*”…and it might apply here too.

I did discover that the Red Notebook that  had planned for my final sets is a bad idea.   Rough ideas are better for me in written form, but this set dind’t come together until I started typing it…I could see things and move them around so much better without the distractions of all of the scribbles.

I should discuss my dependence on technology since my Blackberry is broken and I am out of touch 75% of the day, I do have to say that it is impacting everything I do…or can’t do.

My usual day is spent traveling from one construction job to the next…with only about two set appointments in the day…one in the morning and one in the afternoon.     The rest of the day is spend trying to prevent something bad from happening…or doing damage control.   

Having constant email and phone contact is the key to everything since my territory spans about 100 miles and 20 sites.

Getting that first phone call or email is VERY important.

Without my Blackberry…I am tied to a desk.     I make very few calls…maybe 10-12…I receive about 45 a day.

Those bad things are still happening, but I can get my emails from my desk, but when I drive from one site to another…which can be for over an hour…I am out of the loop.

For me, I am the one to fix problems.   No one fixes my problems…because I don’t want someone to fix my stuff.   That is my job…but I also don’t mind fixing other people’s stuff either.    When the axes start flying I always want to be the problem “fixer”.   You want to have those people around.

So, when the work day was over and I was going to make an attempt to work on my set for Thursday…there was nothing there.   I was still at the office…but alone.

I have written from there before and it usually goes well…but not yesterday.

So…after a couple of email exchanges from someone I knew, I decided to take a break and forget about everything and just have some stupid fun.

On the adgenda…

 

I hadn’t seen it before…and for other than about four scenes…it was horrible and painful to watch.    But the bathroom scene with the melted Hershey bar was funny enough for me to have to watch again…immediately.

“Oh, my God. Shit everywhere. There’s shit everywhere! Damnit! There’s shit on the windows! Oh, my God! My house is full of shit! He shit everywhere! Look what he did! He shit all over the walls! There’s shit everywhere!”

This scene was actually quite timely because it is a similar scenario to the plumber shit story that I might use Thursday…if I can get my set nailed down by the time I go to bed tonight.

Bob Saget was in this “film” and it was kind of sad to see…he is actually much funnier than I have ever seen him on TV or film…his agent should be embarrassed of the direction of his career.   From start to finish…he is a very, very funny man that has been put in horrible roles and positions…

This is a HORRIBLE movie.   But…I would probably watch it again.   If I could skip to the funny parts.    Sometimes you can get lost in a  good hearty laugh.

For me.  I think this is my draw to comedy…watching and performing.    Whether in a conference room at an office, in a living room or on a stage, allowing someone to get lost in a laugh for even 30 seconds is a powerful tool.

I enjoy the feeling of both giving and receiving that gift.

As Thursday approaches, the pending open mic night is looming and my initial thought of just watching this first week of performers and waiting for next month to get up there myself seemed kind of silly.

Saturday evening, I hashed through three different openings before I finally settled on the new found freedom that an evening out would afford me…a whole night of debauchery…added to that was my wife’s instructions about not swearing and “keeping it clean.”

For her, “keeping it clean means no talk about “poop and wieners.”

So…of course THAT is my opening…along with “some poop and wienerss”…ending with me trying to find some hookers and heroine since I am spending that night in the van anyway… as punishment for being out past dark.

And where you you go to find hookers and heroine?

Actually, bowling alleys are the best place, but in the construction world, if you are looking for debauchery…find a plumber.

Don’t look for a plumber if you are in need of a loan…find and electrician for that.

This leads right into a  plumber shitting all over himself story that is one of my personal favorites…and not just regular shit.    This was like a whole gallon of brown fluid…mixed with Whopper pieces all over a window, wall and floor of an addition we were working on together…this was bad because this was a guy I brought to the job…so I was responsible for him.

Until he started pissing out of his ass.

I haven’t been able to eat a Whopper since then.

I have about 9-10 minutes of material at that point, but need to throw in a good closing tying everything together.   I can shorten this to 5 minutes if necessary, but I have some public bathroom/shower stuff I can throw in there to extend everything…if necessary.

I plan on having about three extra bit of three minutes each once they decide how long they will have us up on stage…this way I can add or subtract bits to suit the allotted time.

I do have a lot of stuff that isn’t written yet, but the stories have been told to a tough audience…so they should be fine.

The things I still need to work on is an actual voice for my wife and another for the plumber to use during the set.    Kelly doesn’t have a “whiny” voice, but it really fits the material better.

And what guy doesn’t have a whiny-voiced impression of his own wife.

An exchange back and forth with an old acquaintance (not elderly…but someone I knew 20 years ago) reminded me of a story about Myra …my first “girlfriend.”

See, I peaked somewhere around Kindergarten…

And it went downhill from there…but it was much worse for my brother on the right…YIKES!!!!!

This is myself and my oldest a few years back for comparison…

Back to my story…

Myra had been an “item” since the first grade.  At least as much of an item as two elementary school kids could be in the late 1970’s.

After my parents divorce, we were forced to relocate schools and the time was approaching for me to leave that part of town and she was putting the heat on my…in the fifth grade to kiss…with tongues.

WHOA!  I didn’t even know what this WAS and I am not sure I even knew the “real difference” between boys and girls was at that point.

I have forgotten a lot of things in my life but this is not one of them…

I remember Joey.

Joey was the the one causing most of this angst in my life.   He was going around kissing all of the girls and had been growing in popularity week by week, while us smart and fast guys were being left behind.

I hated Joey…and I still do.

Myra informed me that Joey had wanted to kiss her…with his tongue.

I had to kiss her…or she would go with he boy that would.

One morning, I received a note in a folded up piece of paper to meet her behind the corner of the school during lunch recess…I went.

When I arrived her friend was leaving.   We talked for a minute about something like cartoons, cookies or something childlike.

Then it happened…

She kissed me…then we began to kiss each other…then there was a large hand on my shoulder and a familiar voice.

It was my grandmother.

She was a playground monitor at my school.

Myra took off running and that was the end of that story…but I was still in trouble for being busted by my grandmother.   She didn’t turn me into the principal, but to my mother.

“What was my punishment?” you ask.

I had to sit through ”THE TALK” about the “Birds and the Bees” with not just my mom…but my GRANDMOTHER too…

All Joey’s fault.

I did get another hug and kiss from Myra in front of the class on my last day of school before I moved away…but my first kiss did not turn out so well.

I have been chasing that kiss for almost 30 years…

But each time I try…I fail.

It turns out that people get pretty upset with 38 year old men trying to kiss fifth grade girls.

Now I am not allowed within 500 ft. of any public school.

I hate Joey.

It never occurred to me that not accepting open food packages from strangers was something that I needed to remind my wife…apparently I do.  

After all, this is the same person who, with my assistance, is tasked with teaching the children not to take candy from strangers.

So, this evening, after I was kicked out of my bedroom for being a piece of shit at 9 pm, my nine year old son and I made list of other things we shouldn’t accept from Free-Cycle.

The list is kind of mixed up between my idea and his…I’ll leave it to you to guess which came from him…(they are italicized)…it took us less than five minutes to come up with this list.   Since my son was involved, I had to keep it clean-ish.   Funny where it went right from the beginning…

1.   Once-used applicator tip from hemorrhoid tube

2.   Half a banana

3.   Underwear

4.  Dirty underwear

5.  Used toilet paper

6.  Opened tooth brush

7.  Opened toilet brush

8.  Rectal thermometer…barely used.

9.   A pre-chewed sandwich

10.  poop

If my audience was a bunch of nine year old boys…I would be the king of comedy.  Too bad nine year old boys don’t have any money.

In what can only be described as a shocker…my wife sent me this email which went back and forth one other time…Her words are in bold.

Mrs MTAE:  “We’re gonna run out really quickly and grab 2 Domino’s medium pizzas from a lady around the corner that I found on Free Cycle.  She bought pizzas for her kid’s party, and they had 2 leftover pizzas she doesn’t want.  We can eat them tonight.”

MTAE:  “Uh…Ew!”

Mrs. MTAE:   “Somebody else got there first.   They were flying out of town today…that’s why the couldn’t use the other 2 pizzas.  Anyway, I didn’t get them.”

MTAE:  “The prospect of “used pizza” didn’t really excite me.   But I am am hungry now… and driving around.   Could you find me a 1/2 a chalupa and 3/4 of a Mt. Dew…thirsty too.”

I really wish I could make up this stuff…I’d be on a gold mine!!!!!!

 

I found a semi-local comedy club (40 miles away) that does an open mic night every first Thursday of the month…

Thinking about it rationally, I am going to go up there for the July Open Mic and not perform…but just watch.    This is a small enough club that I think I might be able to get some regular stage time there outside of the open mic stuff.

That  will give me a night to figure out how long they let someone stay up there AND to get a feel for the stage & microphone set up…it is something I struggled with during my performance a few months ago.

I think the public bathroom/public shower stuff is still the way to go…it is my easiest material and the stuff I have worked the most.

The issue there is that most of my “shower stuff is written in the blog and not in my books.

My set up for writing is this…

Green Notebook- Rough ideas

Blue Notebook-Actual Bits…kind of like a blog post.

Red Notebook-  This one is empty and is supposed to be for finishing material and putting it into a presentable verbal form.

This should make July 2nd the visit and the performance on August 6th…one week before I make my trip up to see my family/20th class reunion.

Hold on to your hats…this could be a bumpy ride.

There is something else I have to consider here and that is my physical appearance…I kind of need a look.    Growing my hair out is probably a good idea now.  For those of you who don’t know what I look like…

I am 5′7″ and about 160 pounds.  No offense intended to the Jewish population, but I could pass for a Jew any day of the week…I might have to solicit some private advice from some of you for suggestions here.