Monday, March 5, 2007

Day 4: No One Puts Baby in a Corner 3/4/07

You know when you have the perfect comeback to something someone said to you 20 minutes later... comedy can be like that.

Once again hit the Comedy Underground open mic. Cathy mentioned that there was an open mic at Mainstage Comedy, then she said "See you there." Hell. Fucks. No. I'm just starting to break even on nerves with all of this, there's no fucking WAY I'm going to put shit in front of her until it is GOLD. I hope that's not too far away. (Addendum: I found out that "See you there was from the forwarded email, not Cathy. Oh well.)

It was dead when we got to CU tonight. Joe (asshole) came again as well as my friend Paul who put together a set who also brought a friend. There weren't a lot of people who came in until 5 minutes before we started when a crowd of biker/hipsters (read: hipsters) came in for someone's birthday. This was the first time there was more audience than comics which made for a good vibe. Even though Paul and I signed up relatively early we were thrown onto the end of the list (seeing a trend here... it's who you know).

Everybody made reference to or played to the birthday girl/crowd. I decided at a certain point to throw out my set and try to riff off of her. The emcee at the top of the show made a Dirty Dancing reference (the title of this entry specifically) and said it was a Dirty Dancing theme night, so when I went up ('bout an hour and a half after the joke was made), I serenaded the birthday girl with "I, had, the time of my life..." and then went to talk to her. She was cool and rolled with it and I had fun doing it. (I asked her why the fuck she'd spend her birthday at an open mic, "Hey, I want to get all of my friends together and feel awkward and uncomfortable for about 2 hours") Her friends seemed to respond to it well as well. By the time I was done with her I was at my 1 minute warning so I just threw in a short bit I though up a few days ago. It went well BUUUUUUUUT what I SHOULD'VE done is realized that this crowd was perfect for my cocaine bit 'cause they were exactly the hipsters the bit was designed after... it would've fucking KILLED on top of the fact I could reference them directly. It would've been the perfect fusion of audience riffing and prepared material. I will kick myself for awhile for that one.

My buddy Paul went up who is a really funny guy as it is. To my knowledge this was his first open mic and he decided to do it two days ago. He had a lot of personality on stage and his set was 1 part great shit that landed, 1 part stuff that needed work, and 1 part the most awkward, uncomfortable over the top dick jokes I've seen yet. If it was just that it could've been very painful, but coupled with the fact that he was landing stuff it had kind of a bonus power behind it, kind of like "Oh he's a funny guy, but why is he doing that? Is it bad or deliberate?" I was dying personally.

I feel good that open mics are becoming a regular thing for me. My goal is twice a week and I think if I keep on that and keep working the material I've got, it wont be long before I have a good set to put up. Now I just have to figure out how to get a fucking show. It occurred to me that I have no idea. I figure I just keep slinging the open mics until someone asks me. My fear is that I'll have to fall into some social click to do that, which I'm not very good at. I like the friends I have and I'm not really into kissing people's butts. I don't think it has to come to that, it's just a paranoia I have.

I wonder if you're out there. I wonder if you are reading this. If you are I hope you enjoy it. It's good for me but I want it to be entertaining for you too. Who can tell?

Lesson: Know your audience and use your material accordingly.

Backup lesson: Being huddled up in a corner using the microphone in reference to autofelatio is a tough sell, use with caution (big thanks to Paul for that lesson).

9 comments:

17Linda said...

Jake. I had to get a blog sight to comment. And I think I did it. Im 17Linda............ I think haha. So well see if this goes thru.......

17Linda said...

It did....... yea! Im loving reading this. You are so Awsome. How exciting. Id love to see you. Love Mommy

Unknown said...

jake, i'm fucking impressed. one of my friends here in lala land has landed several handfuls of shows in nevada and all over california, and he just started a myspaceCOMEDY page where he can list where hes putting up bits/shows, that would work even to show where you're going to open mic so people can come check your ass out. My friends name is Jimmy and if you go to my myspace you'll see one of his profiles is jimmy dean COMEDY (or something obvious like that) he might be good to talk to. I have much more to say but I'm deliriously sleepy so I'll just say fucking rad. rad. fuck. keep it up!

Anonymous said...

I am behind the times. Where is this open mike? Where is this underground comedy? Is it in a hole underground?
I went to an open comedy mike night in Chicago one night. It was horribly painful. I think of all mediums (media?) (Medea?) stand up comedy has got to be the most unforgiving. Well, that and improv. Because it is so very obvious when you suck. The crowd can turn on you in a second. And they will throw flatware at you. Anyway, at this open mike in Chicago this guy did a very unfunny bit where he put some stage blood in his mouth and let it dribble slowly out (up to that point I was with him) and then went on and on about the 'pussy piranha.' Apparently it was a fish with lots of sharp teeth living inside a vagina. Interesting, perhaps. But not funny. Maybe it was the delivery. Margaret Cho could have made that very funny indeed.
I will have to come and see you perform. And throw rose petals at you. But you have to promise to come and see Captain Smartypants, or you will suck.
Jake is the man.

Anonymous said...

I am so happy you're doing this. You're brilliant and you've been making us laugh for years. I will be up in Seattle at least once this summer and I will come see your show.

Anonymous said...

You have the energy of a nuclear reactor.
Why wouldn't you put that untapped energy toward your dream.
If you have a dream don't let anyone take it from you. Live it out, if you can see your self doing comedy, than you can and will do it!

ROCKO~

tucker said...

not only will you have to kiss ass to make it, you will have to suck dick as well. you can start with mine, big fella...

here's hoping women start to run comedy clubs at some point in the near future.

keep it up.

Cathy Sorbo said...

Actually, the "see you there" part was in the original post from the Mainstage bulletin I copy and pasted into your email ... maybe you should do a different open mic (but not Giggles) so you don't get too addicted to The Underground ... also, I don't think you need that apostrophe in the word "puts" ....

Jake said...

The tragedy is how much I hate dumb little fuckups like that. Oh well, all's been corrected.