It has been quite a long time since I last wrote because life is moving faster than I can document it. My show at Tusk Restaurant is in full swing and I've hosted two events there so far with a great audience turnout and response. I've learned to work around the problems associated with having my own room including restaurant management, lighting and publicity. So far, the horror stories about getting comedians to show up on time or show up at all haven't materialized. It still amazes me how far comedians will travel for stage time, far from home and uncompensated. I do it too so I don't know why I'm so surprised.
This has been a period of tremendous growth in my comedy development. I've been at it for a year and a half. In comedy years, I'm still a toddler, but I'm pushing myself to learn to hop, skip and jump in this race against the clock. I haven't done this alone. I've been fortunate enough to befriend a number of experienced comedians who are happy to give me feedback and I've been taping myself religiously since it was suggested that this is an indispensable tool for getting better. As I've mentioned before, I'm averse to this process, but I'm forcing myself to do it so it becomes routine. The biggest problem is that there's no arguing with the camera. It's a lot easier to tell a friend that you remember a situation quite differently and if you argue forcefully and with conviction you may win your friend over. The camera picture may be small and grainy, but it's a picture of me with the sound of my voice. (Breathing slowly and rhythmically into paper bag).
Some of the comments that I've been integrating are that my joke set ups are too long, I look down between jokes, I recap my punchlines to fill space, my voice is monotonous, I smile too much and I smell bad (I take issue with the first five. Actually, the person who said that smelled a lot worse than I did. No matter.) All of these alterations aside, I'm a comic genius and my mother has no problem agreeing with me.
So, I got rid of the "and, uhs" I heard on the video and I'm working to get rid of these other impediments while trying to write punchy material that will make people laugh instead of look at me
with mild amusement and frank appreciation. Last night, I featured at two shows at the Stress Factory, did 15 minutes at each and got respectable reviews on both. I realized, though, that making these changes is simply not enough. This became most evident once Joe Matarese, the headliner, took the stand, I mean came to the podium, I mean took the stage. He took a polite audience and whipped them into a frenzy....for 55 minutes. He did this twice; once with a middle aged audience and once with a twenty something audience. He created magic in the same way that Andre Watts does on the piano or Clapton does when he plays the guitar. Obviously, there is God-given talent here, but we don't see the years and years of practice, the stumbles, the disappointments, the long, boring set ups or the weak punchlines. We only hear the gorgeous music.
I have no idea whether I have the talent to be a Joe Matarese in 20 years, although I know for sure that
Andre Watts and Eric Clapton will never be impressed with my rendition of Chopsticks no matter how hard I press those pedals. I just want to keep on keeping on, taking risks, getting good advice and improving with age and experience.
