The best 15 minute I have ever done! You might have seen an email on the SFComedy group from Phyllis Dantzler about needing some comedians for a gig. This was that gig. It took place in an aerial dance studio. The show is hosted by a wonderfully over-the-top comedy guru named on his card as Mr. Fun. The studio is a shoe-free zone. It's funny, I haven't performed barefoot since I did The Luggage Store a few years ago. The audience was partly on cushions on the floor and partly in folding chairs. They were mostly what I had imagined for a show in a dance studio in Berkeley. However, they never flinched at the politically incorrect stuff we comedians threw at them. This was in fact the first audience that ever laughed at the setup for my freethrow joke, which I always thought was funnier than the punchline. Every joke hit its mark and I had an amazing amount of fun. I was worried about filling fifteen minutes but it flew by. After what I thought was five minutes I looked at the clock to see that I'd already done thirteen. Cool.
The only thing that went wrong was my damn notes. I didn't put my set together till I got there because I wanted to see what the audience was like. Then I changed the lineup a few times during the show. So at a few points I was unsure where to go next and I pulled out my notes. It was bad. I have to be not so anal about what bit comes out when. It's all good. Having fun and letting it flow is more important than "getting the set right."
Sometimes I'm not too bright. I always make these elaborate plans for my life which never work out. However, I always end up better off than I could have planned. I've been dealing for quite a while on how to get everything out of life that I wanted. I decided a while ago that it was not possible and I've been planning unsatisfying compromises. While I wasn't paying attention, all the pieces slid into place. Everything I want is do-able. It isn't going to be easy, but damn it's gonna be fun.
I wrote a bio for myself tonight. You can see it on my new comedy resume page. Just click my smiling face in the upper-left corner of the screen. When I finished I reread it and realized that I had written a bio that actually made me want to see me perform. I've always had trouble promoting myself. I've had a few successes but they've always seemed like flukes to me. Like I was really just in the right place at the right time. Now I write this bio bragging about myself and I don't feel embarrassed by what it says. I don't fell like I'm exaggerating. I actually think I'm a good comedian. The self-esteem stuff is weird.
Mixed results tonight. I was trying to revive some older material and it did not go over very well. The last few minutes I did newer sure-hit material and got the audience back. I spent time tonight watching the other comedians, especially the material that didn't work well. Then I compared my stuff that didn't work. I'm looking for some pattern of what doesn't work. Maybe I should concentrate on what does work. It's funny, because I have bits that always work, and I have bits that have never worked well, but I can't tell you why one works over the other.
I get it. I know what makes my bits funny. I've known for a while that the routines that I've written recently are much funnier than my older stuff. For a while I just thought through experience I was getting better at writing bits. Partly true, but mostly it's crossover from my fiction writing work. What I did today was list out all my routines and apply three metrics to them; Emotional content, physical content and intellectual content. The stronger a bit is in all three, the funnier it is. This was difficult because some of my favorite bits did poorly in all three. Most bits are strong in one or two areas. For example; My Trinity Broadcasting network routine scores highly in all three areas. This is the bit has never failed with any audience.
So does this mean that I can now write all my bits to be invincible? Of course not. Each bit as it's created develops organically. I can't inflict physical content on a bit that has none. Attempting to do so would lead to formulaic writing that would not engage the audience. I've been looking at old set lists and it seems the most successful are like a roller coaster of fluctuating content. As chaos theory teaches us, it's the flaws and fluctuations that make the atoms dance.
I've been thinking about what I wrote the other day. I think I was a bit off. The analysis I'm doing doesn't really test the quality of the bit. It tests the factors that make a bit enjoyable for me to do. In the end it works out to the same thing. Me doing the bits the audience will enjoy. If I don't enjoy doing a bit, then the audience will not enjoy hearing it.
Dan Dion reception show. Great pictures of great comedians on the walls. I've had a few headshots done, but nothing as nice as anything this man has done. My set went OK, but I wasn't all into it. I was trying too hard and not just letting myself have fun. I was thinking too much about how I had to get out of there and hurry over to the Brainwash to do a set there. That said, they laughed at all the big punchlines.
Two sets in one night. Wee! This one went better than the first. I was much more relaxed. After watching a couple of the other comedians I didn't expect much from the audience, so I committed myself to having fun. It worked. I had a ball and the audience joined in. Got some great laughs and three non-comics came up to me afterward to tell me how funny I was. It's the same with my short story and novel writing. I just have to learn to relax and have fun and not think about anything outside the moment.
Pretty good set. I tried out a few changes to some routines I haven't done in a while. I made a mistake on my choice of open jokes. It wasn't strong enough to win over the crowd. The following bits pulled them in nicely though. I need a stronger closing line to the slinky joke.
WEEEE!!!!! I had sooo much fun. The audience was great. I was way up. Nearly every punchline hit big. After the set several audience members came up to me to tell me how much they enjoyed my set. One woman said four times, "you're crazy." I did cut the laughs short a few times because I was trying to get through the whole set in five minutes. I don't think it hurt the set any, but in a longer set I'd be able to let the laughter flow. Also, after my set I was informed that Jerry Seinfeld has a bit very similar to my cable tv joke about 500 channels with nothing on. I don't know who did it first, but since Jerry is the big star I've rewritten my bit. I actually like the revised bit better.
The best comedy show two people ever saw. Yes, two paying customers for a two hour comedy show. They were however the best audience of two I have ever seen. I believe it's my fault though. I video-taped my set. Something about me trying to videotape a set is cursed. It never works out. Last night was the best 12 minutes I have on tape, but when you are performing for just two people you do things on stage you wouldn't do in a normal set. This may not come across very well on the tape. It looks unprofessional to me. The set itself went well. I got laughs from the audience and the other comedians. Had fun, that's what's important.