open mic 9

Venue: Newmarket Hotel
Date: 15 November 2010

I am not an expert in standup comedy. I can really only speak about how I feel about specific jokes and gigs - anything more than that is out of my expertise. That said, tonight was not good. I wouldn't hesitate to call it the worst gig I ever did the entirety of this blog.

So I've been seeing a lot of progress in my own comedy and I got a little cocky. I thought that I wasn't some kid that's only done this 8 or 9 times, I was a veteran who'd been doing this on and off for four years. I'd even watched the performances from the USC stand-up comedy club and thought that I was better then all of them. Not that I was an expert, but that I was clearly one step above them. I'm sure they've all been doing more open mics than I have, and I'm sure that if I were in that room, that the responses I'd be getting were about the same as theirs, maybe less maybe more.

There's a tendency to believe the audience laughs loudest for you. When you're on stage and rocking faces, you believe that your laughter is louder, longer and more frequent than it is for anyone else. That's just basic psychology, and there's nothing you can really do to change that.

This gig, I could do no right. My jokes and off-the-cuff material were all met with silence. I backpedaled, backpedaled on my backpedalling, and eventually just threw in the towel. I resigned myself to defeat before I'd even told 3 of my better jokes. Maybe it was my mindset. Maybe I'd just gotten arrogant. I thought that I was something I wasn't, and it bit me in the ass.

So let's try this again. Hi, I'm Nick Klaus, and I'm new at this. I don't really have much of a clue what I'm doing. After 500 open mics, maybe I'll have a bit of a clue. Maybe I'll know even less.