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.
is that? is that a Mt Dew?! (not freecycled, right?)
I cannot stop the sugary goodness…just cut back.
By: Stephanie of Stopbouncing on July 3, 2009
at 12:33 pm
Great stuff! Sounds liked you nailed it. No pun intended with regards to the porn.
I really had my hand on the “pulse” of the moment?
By: Run DMT on July 3, 2009
at 12:37 pm
Holy sheep shit, Batman! You started with a gift from the comedy gawds right off the bat. Played off what they’d just heard. Excellent worked going topical/real world. You reached into what they probably experienced. Well, outside the porn. Great work with the area.
Well, that’s about all you can say about three minutes.
Other than, great set. Good poise. Last minute changes and a hellish trip didn’t phase you. You made an impression.
Great work, Steve.
That said, don’t be so hard on yourself, post mortem. You did an awesome job talking your way, in a pretty relaxed manner, for three minutes down an uncharted road.
Yes, you could have stayed in the car and done three minutes of self-dating alone, but you took it to a natural conclusion and moved on. You covered quite a bit in three minutes.
You also took from it a valuable lesson: club owers lie. So now you tighten up the bits you have here (all of them can be three minutes) and you’ll have 3-4 three minute bits.
That will service you for the 3, 5, 7, 9 minute sets you’ll probably run into. It’ll also help you as you build longer material for the future.
All in all, 2 for 2.
Excellent work, M.
Thank you…I over analize everything else….this shouldn’t be different. But for me to say that I am pleased is a positive thing for me…I am glad it was recorded…I felt horribly when I stepped of the stage…and apologized to the people that came to see me. Not so bad now…I was glad I kept things relatively slow…and ended it where I did.
By: boundandgags on July 3, 2009
at 12:41 pm
Did you stay for the other sets?
All 26.
By: boundandgags on July 3, 2009
at 12:52 pm
And how were they? How to do fit in? Standouts? Best bits? Did you learn from anyone (other than yourself)?
I really learned a ton from the others. The more natural someone looked and felt up there the funnier they were…really. Making fun of yourself…works…but not if you go too far…people can tell when you are stretching the truth too far and it really isn’ believable…those that identified with the audience got a better reaction…the audience was about 70-80 people and 75% males. There were five women comics (two good, three bad)…of the 20 men, 10 of them were decent and five of them (the experienced ones were very smooth and funny) could probably pull of 20 minute sets easily. I would lump myself in the second five…rookies that were genuinely funny “people”, but needed some work.
My prepared material, if I would have used it, would not have identified with the crowd…I could tell. I could have shortened one one my three stories and squeezed in in there, but it would have been for me and not for the audience…and they are the ones paying the fee at the door.
That was the thing I learned last night…and that good “tags” work too…
By: boundandgags on July 3, 2009
at 1:08 pm
Way to go with the flow! I give you so much credit for doing this. It takes guts to get up in front of people, let alone do that and make them laugh.
I think the important part about going up on stage like that is your expectations…I was just going up there to entertain people. A set like that like funny even if someone bombs…it is very relaxed and the set is watched by a bunch of people that have been in the same position. There was a weird feeling of a “brotherhood” in the room…”sisterhood” too…
By: Lori on July 3, 2009
at 3:05 pm
Congratulations! It’s funny how people usually underestimate themselves. You did well this time and with more practice you’ll be even more funnier I’m sure… I hate traffic, sometimes I think we’d get to our destination faster if we walk!
Normally, I would’ve been pissed about the traffic, but I knew when I was sitting there that this was going to be my “opening”…
By: ladyk on July 3, 2009
at 11:43 pm
I wish you had the video on here! From what you’ve written you are every bit as funny as I knew you’d be. You’ve got cahones, man. I could never get up there and do that.
You’ll have to see me when I come into town…
By: Dingo on July 4, 2009
at 3:28 am
I’ve been meaning to write about this – will follow up with an email.
By: Kimmothy on July 5, 2009
at 10:33 am
I thought of this last night, if you’re going to do three minute sets there over, let’s say, the next year, don’t repeat a set. Think about it. You went with the freshest material possible the other night so why not build yourself 10-20 three minute sets and, at the end of a year, you’ll have a full 30 minute set.
Just another idea that popped into my head for no particular reason.
I can’t see EVER repeating a set there…and if you think that I don’t already have a set already ready to go…you are sadly mistaken. This stage appearance already has me thinking in three minute increments…it is a better way to plan things and I have a ton of stuff to draw from…already a step ahead of you…
I think that working out a “set a week” is something that will be good…knowing that some of them will just be garbage…but i think that is the evolution process. I worked too long on my other material anyway…over prepared and it would have looked awkward up there…
By: boundandgags on July 5, 2009
at 12:41 pm
Sounds like you had a good time and learned a lot. Good for you for getting up there. And good luck on preparing for the next set.
At least I am in the race now.
By: Seattledad on July 5, 2009
at 5:35 pm
That is AWESOME! Even though it wasn’t what you had planned, you winged it and it sounded to me like you did a great job. So HUGE congrats on getting up there and DOING IT! You said you wanted to do it and you did and you now have plans for the next time,having learned some things. I’m so proud of you!
I learned much more this time than the other one. I think it was watching so many others “work” was the key…I’ll be there next month too…hopefully not stuck in traffic.
By: Fragrant Liar on July 5, 2009
at 11:33 pm
You’re a natural. It can only get better from here.
Thank you…
By: territerri on July 6, 2009
at 1:57 pm
Way to go! You are a brave soul. I loved the tall mic and the juice box. You had ‘em in your hand from the beginning. Bravo.
Hubby and I had to do extensive psychological testing for our adoption process and when it was all said and done, the psychologist summed me up by saying that I am a risk taker. Ok, I laughed in her face, involuntarily. I will never bungee jump, sky dive, solo air glide, etc. I asked her how she came up with that and she said because I get on stages and talk to people. I guess 75% of people think that is terrifying, and since I don’t, I’m the risk taker. Whatever.
Welcome to the risk takers club.
Yeah…I am going to try to keep my feet on the ground…or on a stage. Those are pretty safe “risks” to take. I would like to look into the psychology of getting in front of people compared to individual relationships, which I struggle with…
By: rixgal on July 6, 2009
at 10:08 pm