Business

It's been four months since I last wrote which is indicative of a very busy schedule or extreme lassitude, so I'll just say I've been busy. In reality, I have been very, very busy with comedy; not just the joke writing and performing, but marketing, marketing, marketing. This is not a business where you can sit back and expect that people will contact you and offer you shows on a silver platter, replete with hotel, transportation money and a fee for services rendered. Facebook and LinkedIn have become essential for spreading the word that I am ready, willing and able to stand on a stage and let pithy platitudes and profanity trickle from my mouth.  I also go to open mics regularly, not just to practice, but to meet people and offer them  spots on my Funny First Tuesday at Tusk booked mic if I think that they are good and if they may be helpful to me in return. I also try to give spots to people who may be fairly new to comedy, but whom I think are serious minded and willing to work hard to get ahead.  Funny First Tuesday is booked into April now and I don't have the time to bother with one-track mind dick jokers unless they're hilarious.

I may be coming across as high-minded, which is not surprising, since I had thirty years to cultivate becoming obnoxious in two different states and sometimes Pennsylvania. My object, though, is to convey that comedy is no different from any other business endeavor: you have to work unbelievably hard and prove to yourself and others that you are worthy of their time and attention. The only differences are that it takes much, much longer to make a living doing comedy than practicing law, for example, and the bookers mostly don't have a vested interest in your success because you are a dime in a dozen. There are other reasons too, but if I were to take on bookers, I might as well take comedic cyanide and put us all out of my misery.  In fairness, the ones I with whom I've had contact so far have been nothing but generous and helpful, but I've heard enough horror stories to make me wary about upon whom I wish to bestow my unparalleled talent, begging and pleading.

So, I continue on this path, making contacts and connections, slowly nurturing my two-year old endeavor with loving caresses and every once in awhile, when I feel like throwing the baby against the wall (please don't call DYFS), I tell myself that I wanted this and I still do, badly.

I Once Was Lost

Last I left you, faithful readers, I had five toes over the comedy cliff and the wind was at my back. If you follow my website at www.joanweisblattcomedy.com, you will see that I pulled myself back from the precipice and have 9 shows scheduled for September and the beginning of October. So, what happened? I started exercising again and eating better, but that is only part of it.  I talked to two successful and experienced comedians about what was, in my mind, a failure to connect sufficiently with the audience. They talked about the organic relationship between comic and audience, the exchange of energy, flow, relaxation and authenticity. I listened, I heard it, but I still didn't get it. Relaxation and cracking jokes on stage in front of an audience are, by all appearances, opposite. I was trying to be authentic and, in fact, felt very much like myself on stage. The flow of energy piece I didn't understand at all. Then something happened.
A few days ago, I went to an open mic and while politely sitting in the audience,  a would-be comic, from the stage, called me an asshole. Now the day hadn't started out great as it was and I could have acted my age and ignored it, but when I got up on stage, I ripped him another one of those body parts to which he had referred earlier. The audience dug it and he left. I then went on to do my material, slowly unfolding with some preternatural confidence that was new to me. And then I got it. Suddenly, I understood the flow, the energy, the relaxation, the authenticity and realized that I need someone to call me an asshole before every performance. Truly, I found a place on stage where I don't remember having been before and knew it was good. It came from not trying so hard, letting the audience do some of the work, and having the material speak for itself
I have no delusions that my comic golf swing is fixed and I'm going on to win The Masters. I did hit the   ball solidly, however, and heard a ping.  

Finger on the Pulse

When I left work, I left behind a life of discipline. I knew when I had to get up, where I had to be at a certain time and when it was time to go home. For the first year following my retirement, I managed to keep some regimentation in my life; I went to yoga three mornings a week, exercised four to five times a week, ate well-rounded meals which I cooked, tutored my ESL student once a week and went to mics twice a week. It has been a little more than a year and a half since my retirement and for the last six months I've lost all sense of regimentation:  I stopped doing yoga because it was too early in the morning, I cut my exercise to once a week, started to eat lots of meals out consisting of fatty foods at all hours of the day and night, continued to see my ESL student once a week and started to do more comedy shows and fewer mics. My sleeping pattern is a bad pattern ; I get up in the late morning, nap in the afternoon and toss and turn once I fall asleep, waking up intermittently throughout the night.

What happened? From what I can tell, the stakes have gone up and it's taking its toll. Now that I've been a comedian for a year and a half, I put more pressure on myself to get better all the time. I constantly have my finger on my comedic pulse to see if I'm improving, standing still or slipping backwards. I think I'm doing all of the above, but  on average I'm improving slowly. I'm getting to do more shows, but the expectations of me and those that I put on myself are high. The bigger question is this:  is possible to lead a happy and healthy life over the long haul and also be a comedian? What I observe in others is not encouraging. I see a lot of drinking and french fry eating. I see people starve themselves before they get on stage and eat like they're about to be executed once they get off. I see a lot of beer guts and bulging thighs. And I see a lot of this in myself; I don't drink beer, but my thighs are rubbing together like two sumo wrestlers. During the first year of retirement I managed to lose 20 pounds and in the last six months have gained back more than half of them. And then there's Facebook. All comedians are on Facebook. That's where we see who is playing where and whether we can play there too.  When I started using Facebook, it was fun. It's not fun anymore. It's worse than a cigarette addiction. See what comedians are doing. Respond to funny posts. Write funny posts. See who responds to my funny posts. Check it. Check it again. And again.

 So, what's the answer? I keep making promises to myself to cook more, eat better, exercise regularly and not nap and I break the promises before you can say pastrami on rye with Russian dressing, cole slaw and a half-sour pickle. I managed to check Facebook once in the morning and once at night, but that also fell by the boards. I started comedy for fun and it's still fun for the most part, but I have to find some balance or I'm going to be funny, but fat and unhappy.

A Work in Progress

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.

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.