Funny First Tuesday at Tusk

I'm a playa (no, not a beach, companeros) a player. I got my own spot, my own venue, my own mic.  I found a place close to home, Tusk Restaurant on Rt. 206 in Skillman, where the owner is willing to let me use his  party room and stage to put on a booked comedy mic. I no longer assume everyone knows what I'm talking about since I've mentioned this to several savvy people who  nodded politely and had no idea what I meant. A booked comedy mic is a practice microphone for invited comedians. Just the way lawyers practice their opening statements for their spouses and mirrors, comedians need a place to work out new material and an audience to gauge whether the material works or not. It looks like a show from the audience's perspective, but it's usually free and usually on a weeknight, an otherwise slow time for comedians. My new booked mic is called Funny First Tuesday and will take place at 8PM on the first Tuesday of every month beginning on May 1st*. I have been very fortunate so far: lots of good comics have accepted my invitation, the comedians are booked for May, June and most of July already, a big audience is expected including comics who are not performing but will be  there to support,  and the Princeton Packet interviewed me for a feature article and will photograph opening night. This is all new and very exciting. An astute and experienced comedian who has been a great help to me over the past year pulled me back to Earth. He said, the real secret to success is keeping it fresh so that it will attract an audience not just for the first, second and third mics, but for the ones that come later, after the patina has worn off. Of all of the comments, solicited and unsolicited, that I have received over the last three months the mic has been germinating, this has stuck in my mind more than anything else. Comedians want to perform; they are willing to travel great distances for stage time and they will come. However, they see the same comedians all the time at different open mics, invited mics and shows and they've heard everyone else's new, old and middle-aged material. It is inadequate to use other comedians as a gauge of the success of one's material and that is why the non-comedic audience is so important. So, I'm going to get off to a rousing start on Tuesday with a little gravitational pull that reminds me to keep it fresh so the audience will want to come on in May, 2013 as well as May, 2012.

*and the second Tuesday in July due to the holiday

Eeny, Meeny, Miney, What the Hell Should I do?

So, it's been a year and month since I graduated from Joe Matarese's comedy school and no better time to take stock of where I've been, where I am and where I'm going. I was doing a couple of open mics and booked mics a week and doing shows about every 10 days last time I wrote in November.  My pace is about the same presently, but I've added emcee to my bag of tricks which is the next logical step in the process. I've been an emcee twice now and it has a different skill set. I've also concluded that it's not as easy as it looks because it requires constant attention. Instead of sitting quietly waiting my turn  to do my 10 to 15 minutes and breathing a sigh of relief after I've performed, emceeing necessitates long term concentration, breathing life into a lifeless audience, containing rowdy guests and setting the table for the headlining act. It means that I must control the pace of the show and can't sigh that sigh until the last comic standing walks off and I wrap up the show. What's the best way to become a good emcee and get asked to emcee?  Getting my own venue where I can emcee lots of shows and practice until I can do it in my
sleep.
That brings me to the "where I'm going" issue and I have some choices. I can continue to go to open and booked mics and perform spots at local shows which sometimes require that I bring people. I know many, many comics that have been doing this for three, four or five years, honing their skills, but not taking on anything further. I can scout out a local bar or restaurant and arrange to put on shows or hold mics where I can become a competent emcee in preparation for hosting shows at local clubs. I can go into NYC or Philadelphia three to four times a week and try to convince bookers to give me five minutes on their shows, competing with thousands of 20 somethings who are trying to get those same spots. I'm a 56 year old married retiree with a contented life so I know that the last option would be too much wear and tear on me with only the slightest possibility of getting anywhere.
My plan is to continue to write, continue to perform at mics and local shows, continue to network with people who like my work and ask me to do shows and think seriously about finding a local venue and starting my own show. I'm scared to move ahead, frankly, but I don't see myself sitting still or retreating.

Let Me Consult My Notes

Videotape doesn't lie. Just ask Rick Perry.  I hate to videotape my shows; it looks pretentious, it's painful to watch afterwards and there's a third reason which I can't recall. Oops!
Videotape taught me an invaluable lesson, though. For my entire life, I've been told I walk too fast and I talk too fast. My assistant at work dubbed me Speedy. I forced myself to tape a recent show which, it turns out, was not that well received. I privately blamed the lighting, the audience, the day of the week, the month, the year and my mother for giving me life. When I went home and watched the videotape, I had an epiphany --I was talking a mile a minute and not giving the audience a chance to react before bolting into the next joke. So, I tried an experiment the next time I performed; I spoke in what seemed to me to be slow motion and which, in reality, was the way that normal people communicate with each other. I also took some time to let the audience react before moving on. It worked wonders for the next show and I was glad that I forced myself to tape the previous one.  Still, there's no use kidding myself.  The positive result of any change to one's approach is ephemeral because comedy is like a golf swing: just when you think you've got it down pat, it eludes you and you throw your club in the nearest water hazard. Worse yet, the videocamera, bless its heartless soul, is useless once it hits the drink and there's no man in silly pants to fish it out.

When in China....

Is there comedy in China? I wouldn't know because when I visited Will in China last year, we were escorted like ducklings and had very little contact with Chinese people. I didn't try to be funny in China to test it because I wasn't doing stand up at the time and never even thought of cracking a joke because I didn't want to get arrested. Will, as many of you know, is working in China this year and often sends me interesting articles about Chinese culture and politics. He sent me an article this week that appeared in the Wall Street Journal last year, coincidentally at the time that I was traveling in China. It was fascinating and reinforced for me that it was good that I did not attempt any light patter with the Chinese hoi polloi; not because I would have been executed, but because the Chinese do not understand American humor. There is a Chinese scientist turned comic who has appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres show and on David Letterman to acclaimed reviews. When he performs in China, his humor goes over like a day old fart. Apparently, the Chinese don't go for self-depracation which is a mainstay of American humor. Irony is lost on them. Misdirection leads them in the wrong direction. The author of the article noted that the Chinese do not think it's funny to make fun of someone's misfortune, even though, as Will tells it, two Chinese subway riders had a major yuck making fun of his prominent nose in Chinese in his presence until he told them, to their horror, that he understood every word they were saying about his honker.
Anyway, there is a new trend in China among the younger set which is a tip of the hat to American humor while assuaging Chinese anxiety for not understanding it. The trick is to tell a joke and explain why it's funny after you tell it. I decided to play with this concept.  I sometimes tell  a joke that I suspect Bobby, my younger son, is a black man trapped inside a white man's body: he takes African studies, he's in an all-black dance troupe, he lives in Georgia and he calls me mama. I then quip, if he holds the mayo and starts using hot sauce, I'll know for sure. If I were telling that joke in China, I would have to explain that my son likes all things black and maybe I've been wrong all along thinking he's white. Then I would have to say that black people, stereotypically, don't use mayonnaise, but pour hot sauce on their food. This is an American comedian's nightmare. If you have to explain a joke to a sea of blank, staring faces, you've lost the audience and any  explanation just makes matters worse.
These are troubled times in the United States. We owe the Chinese lots of money and their economy is soaring while ours is dwindling. That's not funny and neither are the Chinese.

Half Empty

I'm taking stock of where I've been and where I'm going. I've been performing at two or three open mics a week and doing about one performance every 10 days. This is pretty sweet for a newbie, so why aren't I happier? Sometimes I pursue gigs and sometimes gigs pursues me. I love the latter; the former not so much. The latter is an ego boost, the former produces mixed results. When you ask and they say yes, it's great. When you ask and they hem and haw, tell you that their schedule is booked for months or simply don't respond, it feels awful. This is true especially when the producers you ask are other comedians who have seen you perform. This isn't good for someone who  still recalls feeling left out at the junior high lunch table.  After all, isn't a comedy performance just another way of trying to prove your worth and gain acceptance?
I have two performances in New York City this month; one is by invitation from Joe Matarese, a headlining comedian who appears on TV and the other is a "bringer" show where anyone can perform as long as he or she can convince four paying customers to attend. If I had a dog, he could do a "bringer" show, even if he wasn't that funny.  I'm very proud that Joe wants me for the first and feel neutral about the second since I didn't do anything to earn it.  Still, on the off chance that a producer is there who may want to give me a real guest spot at another time, it's worth my while.  I just have to keep from feeling bad if it doesn't happen.
I sometimes ask myself, after working in a cut-throat profession, why I picked an activity in my retirement that puts my ego on the line every time I get up to perform or ask a producer for a spot. NFI.
But I had several people come up to me last night after a successful performance at an open mic and say all the right things to me that keep me at it. Now if I could only figure out, after 40 years,  how to keep from feeling crushed about the junior high school lunch table.

Somebody Boil Water!

It's Gettin' Light in Here