There's going to be a comedy open mic at a bar not too far from my house. In Rural New York terms, that means I'll drive about an hour to get there.
This is a video of the material I've been working on for that open mic, which will by my first ever OFFICIAL stand up routine.
I thought that it was going to be this weekend, but it turns out, those sadistic bastards are actually having it on a Wednesday night. I learned that today. I also learned that they were going to do 5 minute spots instead of 3, so I had to add about 66% more material than I originaly had prepared.
This is one of many videos I recorded so I could time the material, and get a good idea of how it will flow. It's a pretty good representation of what I want to perform roughly 24 hours from now.
If anybody has any thoughts they want to share about it, especially any thoughts to make it funnier, I would love to hear them. If you think any jokes from my previous posts would work well in this material, I would REALLY love to hear it.
If you just want to tell me it sucks, I would actually love to hear that too... but only if you let me know within the next 24 hours.
I hope you guys like that snapshot photo! :D
▶️ 3Speak
Drives up property values, good one. I also like the part about you represent the hillbilly look. Alright, I'm less than 30 seconds in, I'll be back..
You serious about the future felon part? I wanna hear that story.
I so agree with the commercials. There's a lotta good bit right there. Commercials to satellite to TiVo which meant zero commercials. Fast forward a couple decades like we used to fast forward commercials a couple years and now there's streaming, WiFi, cable, et cetera. A gajillion fuckin channels and nothing to watch with more commercials than ever before. Backwards. At this rate, we should all have pagers and pay phones again by Friday. Alright, I'll be back..
Great fucking point. "Don't do drugs", do our drugs. There's a lot of material right there dude. Helluva point. I think you might wanna focus on that a little longer. Stretch that bit out another minute or two if you're taking recommendations. Great idea man. When you say 'involuntary movements' do you have any body language to go with that? Like a twitch or a chewing motion.. slap yourself in the eye or drop the mic on your foot. Do tell.
I was SO0o ready for swinger content when you said swing state but it didn't go there. There's a buncha jokes there, too. swing state.
Hope that helps man. I don't envy you but I admire you. Good luck. Congrats on the nuts and, if you Uber several hours south for a mic I'd love to heckle you.
I can't thank you enough, man. Out of the dozen or so people that said they would review this for me last night, you're the only one I haven't met in person, and you're the only one who actually did the homework.
The future felon part is a good story that I'll tell sometime. It all started with robbing my high school.
I could probably fill the full five minutes just with stuff about the pharmaceutical commercials, but I didn't want to go too heavy on one thing. Great advice on the body movement for the 'involuntary movements' bit. I do have an impression of Joe getting assassinated by the pop-up book. "Oh Jill, what's this, it's beautiful, let's just look and WHOAAHH... dead."
I have another short bit about useful commercials that I want to sneak in, particularly the one I posted a while ago about trying out the Carfax app, only to have it delete itself and block me after I uploaded a photo of my car. I tried to reinstall the app, and now they're threatening legal action.
I like your idea about the swinging state, definitely a bunch of jokes there, and I'm sure that among them is a wicked burn on Trump. Something that burns like the clap, or a UTI.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. If they let people take videos, I will hopefully have one to post this weekend.
My pleasure. I'm a big fan of art. I'll argue stand-up is the rawest art form of all. Whoever doesn't like that, I'm an only child with no parents anyway, nothing they think matters.
I don't know why you're holding back on the robbing your high school story. All I know is that, nothing more, nothing less, and I want more of it.
Swing state was your idea, all I did was read what you said.
Fuck'em.
It's not so much that I'm holding back, it's just a really OLD story, so digging the details out of my smoke-addled brain is a bit like digging a well in granite. I'll get after it, eventually. Perhaps I'll title the post "How to beat your first felony rap: A learning guide for kids."
Yeah, fuck'em all. The closest thing I got to critique was "...wish I could make it..."
Hopefully at least one of the feckless drunks will show up and hold the camera.
I'd appreciate being kept in the loop how the audience receives you.
I need more responsible friends and family... I REALLY wish someone had gotten it on camera. Not just me, but the whole night, which wrapped up in about an hour and a half. There were about 15 people who got up and did some kind of routine, and only two of them sucked. Weirdly, it was the guys who went right before and right after me.
My first minute killed. I had literally everyone's attention after 'gentrified by the Amish'. The incel stuff didn't do quite as well as thought it would. I had changed the punchline to "...between Tinder and promiscuity masquerading as feminism, if you're not getting laid, you're just not putting in any effort." I forgot to do "I'll bet there's an 'I screwed an incel' Instagram challenge.
The mom's basement stuff killed. I got roaring cheers for "I smoked pot, played Dungeons & Dragons, fixed my first engine, and lost my virginity in that basement, and another good round when I hit 'em with "more than once."
The 'Don't Do Drugs' bit killed. The 'involuntary movements' bit didn't do as well as I'd hoped, but I took your suggestion, and performed a few tics while I said "but we already know, if you see someone twitching, they're probably taking too many drugs." and that got everybody.
The Boeing Starliner bit did just okay. More about that later.
My original closer about Biden and the pop up book did so well, I went into some extra time and did the 'Carvana' bit, which hit just okay.
I closed with a bit about a drug that has 'life threatening infection of the perineum', which seemed to be flopping, until I told everyone what the perineum is. Drunk people always laugh at 'taint.
So all in all, it was horrible. I'm probably addicted now. I made a lot of rookie mistakes. I printed out a cheat sheet in 18pt font, so I wouldn't need my reading glasses, but I didn't account for the low level of light inside a bar, so I still couldn't see it without my reading glasses. I recovered from that pretty well, because I knew the material pretty well. Trying to see my cheat sheet without my readers caused me to make the noob mistake of moving the microphone too far away from my mouth a couple times. I speak loud enough to be heard most of the time anyway, so it wasn't too bad, but I was fucking embarrassed for me. My biggest noob mistake was not pausing long enough for applause. My friend told me afterward that people were still laughing so hard at the Biden joke, they missed the set up of my Biden opening the pop up book impression.
Things were going so well, I started actually hurrying to get a bit more in, even though I had already seen that they weren't being particularly strict about time. I kinda glad I hurried, though, because even though people loved it, even the other comedians couldn't remember the specifics of ANY of my bits at the end of the night. All they could remember was "the funny redneck with too many cars", which they're remembering from the Carvana bit, which probably did the worst out of all of them.
I probably should have just put this up as a post, damn. Nothing beats the buzz of 'fight or flight' mixed with 'IT FEELS GOOD TO BE POWERFUL!'
edit...
The Boeing Starliner bit probably would have done better if I had been going a little slower. As soon as I said 'astronaut' I could see them start drifting away a little bit, but when I said 'Boeing', about half of them had followed along well enough to get it.
Danget I don't remember the Carvana one. Glad an impromptu cerebral palsy impression went well.
I can feel your confidence, real excited for you. Congrats and all that. That type of reaction and reading your excitement makes me wanna really talk a buncha shit for not recording it.
Guess maybe I could've mentioned I didn't really feel the incel bit either but you adapted. Where is that venue again, it's like several states from me huh?
Super stoked for you, hell yeah. Gas pedal.
That part about 18 point letters, I think you got a whole bit there, too.
First time seeing your real face and I must say, you really look like a very comic person especially with the twisted beards. OMG! I've been looking for beards and it's not coming forth😂.
Your presentation is good. The event is this coming Wednesday, right??
The event was on Wednesday two days ago, and it went great! There is another one coming up on Oct. 2, and I'm already working on my new material. I'll post a 'preview' video here again, hopefully with a little more time to get feedback!
Okayyy
That's a good one.
You guys get paid for performing or it's just for fun??
Just for fun, but there were 12 comedians who showed up and performed really good sets, so I think I'm going to see if I can get us a paying gig at one of the local event centers.