open mic

alright, so tonight i went and performed stand up comedy at 'the laugh factory' in hollywood. yes, i just re-read that sentence and it looks and is correct. towards the beginning of the summer i was talking with someone and i cant remember even how it came up, but i silently made a goal to try stand up comedy once. i think the main motivation behind it was viewing the situation as the ultimate public speaking challenge. i enjoy public speaking. i feel comfortable speaking in public. i am by no means a master at it. ive been very humbled in law school with my public speaking abilities, but i am taking classes that are making me improve my skills. but comedy? thats just a different realm. do i think im funny? no. not really. i think i have my moments. but i think everyone has their moments. and i think most of my moments come around people that i know and with which i feel very comfortable. which is very different than standing on a stage and speaking to complete strangers and trying to get them to laugh. which is why it seemed like such a challenge and for whatever reason, i wanted to try it. it was also an opportunity to step out of my comfort zone and do something different. and makes for a good blog post right?

so i went to the laugh factory. same place where michael richards (a.k.a. kramer) blew up a few months ago. i actually tried to go last week but i missed sign ups. they only take the first 15 people that show up. so this week i ditched out on international law, and headed up to hollywood and got my name on the list. i think it was at that point that it really donned on me that this was actually going to happen. i called my friend dave to let him know about it. i even invited him. i figured that if i train wrecked it would be fun to have someone to laugh about it with. fortunately he couldnt make it.

so the attendance was sparse. it was essentially just the people performing and a few random friends and some guys that performed for longer sets after we were done. we all got 3 minutes each. which is actually pretty short. i thought i was going to get around 5-10 minutes so i had prepared more stuff, but i had to cut it down. so i only spoke about blind people and car commercials. it really wasnt that bad. it went rather quickly, mainly because i knew what i was going to say. did anyone laugh? sure. some. there were also cricket moments. it wasnt really much of a crowd (not that i know what a good comedy crowd is) because it was basically just performing for each other. but after the show, the owner of the laugh factory sat down individually with each of us and gave us a critique and told us what he thought of our short act. and that was really cool to hear what he had to say. not that i am looking to make a career out of this, but since it was hard to gauge how i did based on the tiny crowd, ill just use his opinion as an indication of how i did.

however, if you ever have a chance, go to an open mic comedy night. especially one of these. all of us performers received 4 free tickets to invite friends. if you can ever get a free ticket, go. its $20 otherwise, and thats probably not worth it, but there is a great mix of good and unintentional comedy. i think that i felt alright about my performance because there were so many train wrecks. one of those, 'im not quite sure how i did, but i know i wasnt as bad as that guy.' actually, it was downright unbearable at times. i found myself laughing at how ridiculous some people were. its hard to even explain. there were 13 of us. probably 7 were just bad. and 5 of those 7 were real bad. one guy i think could have been funny in his own setting - it had to be 'g' rated, which they informed us of as we sat down, so he had to alter much of his act and i think he had potential if he was with an audience that enjoyed listening to a guy swear a lot. i dont really, but you could tell that he had potential with those types. then there were 4 that were legitimate and good. and then there was me.

but i really cant explain about those other 7. i dont know what they were thinking. are people just walking down the street and they see a comedy club and they walk in and try and perform? its as though they didnt even think about it beforehand or didnt prepare a thing. here was one of my favorite 'jokes:'

'so its been hot the past few days. real hot. i like walk outside, and im like, man...im hot.'

(pause)

(waits for laughter)

(still no laughter until i realize that we just heard a punchline which makes me start to laugh)

anyways, im really not trying to make fun of these guys. its not easy getting up there. so i really do commend and respect them for that. i guess that we just approach things differently. i had things planned in my head since early july and was running over them all day today. these guys have another approach. not sure what it is, but its unique to them im sure.

so in the end im glad i did it. will i do it again? honestly, i would like to do a longer set. nothing too long, maybe 5-10 minutes and thats only because i had prepared more stuff that i would like to say at least once on stage. and maybe if there is a next time around i wont be so secretive about it and ill inform people if they are interested in watching some sub par comedy.