Date: 19 June 2011
Venue 705 lounge, Hermosa Beach
topics covered: the joys of secondhand smoke, becoming my father, some unnecessary self-deprecation.
What things make an audience want to attend an open mic? Not comics mind you, but actual human beings who come to be entertained by comedy coming out of the mouth of another live human. In other words, an audience that will pay attention. I think two factors apply: the venue and the way the open mic is run and managed.
A good venue isn't necessarily a comedy club, but the idea of a dedicated space just for people who want to see the open mic helps a lot. Where the room is just 'the restaurant, with a stage in one corner', people who are just there to eat get roped in mostly against their will. Those people are bodies, but they aren't your audience.
The other factor is the organization behind the open mic. I've seen lottery-style open mics, I've seen sign up (sometimes weeks) in advance, I've seen open mics where the set list is mostly a merit-based system where people who are either regulars, or are bringing in lots of people get preference, but newer people have a decent chance of some of the shorter sets. One approach isn't necessarily better than the others, but merit-based lists produce the higher-quality shows for the audience. Some system which keeps comics from doing their five minutes and skiving off afterwards is always good.
What I've noticed is that the attention span of an audience is about 2 hours. Going longer can work if there's a hierarchy or some other idea that the comics going on later are better. The longer an open mic goes on, the more likely that people are going to check out because they just can't be bothered to pay attention.
So this is all a precursor to the ultimate point I'm trying to make about my performance on this night: I did badly, but it wasn't entirely my fault. I'd allocate it at about 1/3 me 2/3 the room. I'm not saying that this is a bad room, I'm saying that after almost three hours, a room that was good spoiled like milk.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
open mic 32
Date: 19 June 2011
Venue: Tribal cafe
Once upon a Sunday recent While I performed, barely decent.
Using many a quaint and curious notion before many folks
While I sat in my chair after bummed out by the lack of laughter
suddenly there came a tapper, tapping me with several pokes
Tis a good mate Timo I uttered, tapping me with several pokes.
Quoth the Timo: no new jokes.
Venue: Tribal cafe
Once upon a Sunday recent While I performed, barely decent.
Using many a quaint and curious notion before many folks
While I sat in my chair after bummed out by the lack of laughter
suddenly there came a tapper, tapping me with several pokes
Tis a good mate Timo I uttered, tapping me with several pokes.
Quoth the Timo: no new jokes.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
open mic 31
Date 17 June 2011
Venue: Hollywood Hotel
Topics covered: Google vs My Father, Unpaid internships and Twitter fights.
The big question: did I bomb?
No.
I didn't exactly rock the mic like a vandal as the esteemed Mr. Ice would say, but I got out some good jokes. Not necessarily the ones I'd planned on telling, mind you.
There is a little cocky voice inside you that says that you can totally just wing it and talk about whatever comes in to your mind without any preparation at all. Ironically, it takes a LOT of preparation to get to that point.
What happened was I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to say. I started on it, the got sidetracked and took a journey into unfamiliar territory. Some of it was older jokes I'd performed before, some of it was jokes I'd written ages before but never performed and some of it was complete gibberish or garbage. Listening to the performance, there were times when I didn't even finish clauses before moving on to the next idea. I knew where I was going, but I can't say for certain the audience did.
Not to deny the sudden spark of insight that comes when your brain is forced to throw words out your mouth quickly. What happens is your brain suddenly kicks into "okay, I can work with this" and the chunks of words become whole sentences. Over time it slowly strings together as the jokes get longer and the lines start to congregate together. One joke becomes a series of jokes. The upshot is I now have an ending to the unpaid internships bit that works.
I think I'm getting into a good place. I'm going to stick to some older material, now that it's a little more flushed out. Talking it out helps more than anything because my innate nonfluency and mild-to-moderate ADD can produce some pretty cool stuff. I'll see what my brain comes up with next.
Venue: Hollywood Hotel
Topics covered: Google vs My Father, Unpaid internships and Twitter fights.
The big question: did I bomb?
No.
I didn't exactly rock the mic like a vandal as the esteemed Mr. Ice would say, but I got out some good jokes. Not necessarily the ones I'd planned on telling, mind you.
There is a little cocky voice inside you that says that you can totally just wing it and talk about whatever comes in to your mind without any preparation at all. Ironically, it takes a LOT of preparation to get to that point.
What happened was I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to say. I started on it, the got sidetracked and took a journey into unfamiliar territory. Some of it was older jokes I'd performed before, some of it was jokes I'd written ages before but never performed and some of it was complete gibberish or garbage. Listening to the performance, there were times when I didn't even finish clauses before moving on to the next idea. I knew where I was going, but I can't say for certain the audience did.
Not to deny the sudden spark of insight that comes when your brain is forced to throw words out your mouth quickly. What happens is your brain suddenly kicks into "okay, I can work with this" and the chunks of words become whole sentences. Over time it slowly strings together as the jokes get longer and the lines start to congregate together. One joke becomes a series of jokes. The upshot is I now have an ending to the unpaid internships bit that works.
I think I'm getting into a good place. I'm going to stick to some older material, now that it's a little more flushed out. Talking it out helps more than anything because my innate nonfluency and mild-to-moderate ADD can produce some pretty cool stuff. I'll see what my brain comes up with next.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
open mic 30
Date: 15 June, 2011
Venue: The Spot Cafe
The big 3-0. The dirty thirty. The new 20. This isn't a big milestone, but it has a lot of names because the number 30 has a really good PR team. Not good enough to get it a gig on Sesame Street, but better than a lot of other numbers in the past 25 range.
It did not go well. I'm okay with that. I present now some signs that you're going to bomb.
-You're on late during a really long show.
-You're telling brand-spanking-new material without a lot of practice.
-The brand-new material relies heavily on remembering it verbatim.
You can see where I went wrong. I've accidentally bought a car, I got my current job because I applied to it on a whim and I went to my college of choice because I kinda liked a song by the band Fleetwood Mac. I've accidentally stumbled through my life, somehow managing to hit a lot of the major achievement points along the way. I now know what the guy who invented drifting feels like. It really looks like comedy requires effort.
So, I'm gonna put in effort. Not just thinking effort. Saying effort. Performing effort. Writing effort. And because I'm publicly telling people this, I'm gonna look like an idiot if I don't. The next open mic is Friday. I'm gonna be in my top form and I'm going to be super prepared.
Venue: The Spot Cafe
The big 3-0. The dirty thirty. The new 20. This isn't a big milestone, but it has a lot of names because the number 30 has a really good PR team. Not good enough to get it a gig on Sesame Street, but better than a lot of other numbers in the past 25 range.
It did not go well. I'm okay with that. I present now some signs that you're going to bomb.
-You're on late during a really long show.
-You're telling brand-spanking-new material without a lot of practice.
-The brand-new material relies heavily on remembering it verbatim.
You can see where I went wrong. I've accidentally bought a car, I got my current job because I applied to it on a whim and I went to my college of choice because I kinda liked a song by the band Fleetwood Mac. I've accidentally stumbled through my life, somehow managing to hit a lot of the major achievement points along the way. I now know what the guy who invented drifting feels like. It really looks like comedy requires effort.
So, I'm gonna put in effort. Not just thinking effort. Saying effort. Performing effort. Writing effort. And because I'm publicly telling people this, I'm gonna look like an idiot if I don't. The next open mic is Friday. I'm gonna be in my top form and I'm going to be super prepared.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
open mic 29
Date: 10 June, 2011
Venue: Hollywood Hotel
Stasis: The state of being where you are neither moving forward nor backwards. It can be because that next peak is hard to get to, or it can be because the forces surrounding you are making it hard to progress. It doesn't feel good to be in this place, even if it's a good place to be. Always wanting more is a good thing. Even if perfectionism is bad, the drive to keep improving every time is laudable. Noble, even.
That said, my new material didn't go over as well as I'd hoped. This is usually the case. But it's good to learn that because I'd rather have 5 minutes of material I know needs work than to have 5 minutes of material that I think works, but doesn't.
The good news is that everytime there's a bad set, you feel disappointment, so you get into that "if only I'd said ______" mode. That mode is incredibly generative for new ideas. Did I come up with some good new material? We'll find out.
Venue: Hollywood Hotel
Stasis: The state of being where you are neither moving forward nor backwards. It can be because that next peak is hard to get to, or it can be because the forces surrounding you are making it hard to progress. It doesn't feel good to be in this place, even if it's a good place to be. Always wanting more is a good thing. Even if perfectionism is bad, the drive to keep improving every time is laudable. Noble, even.
That said, my new material didn't go over as well as I'd hoped. This is usually the case. But it's good to learn that because I'd rather have 5 minutes of material I know needs work than to have 5 minutes of material that I think works, but doesn't.
The good news is that everytime there's a bad set, you feel disappointment, so you get into that "if only I'd said ______" mode. That mode is incredibly generative for new ideas. Did I come up with some good new material? We'll find out.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
open mic 28
Date 1 June 2011
Venue: the spot cafe.
I'll keep this post short because my set was also short. I claimed 5 but only used 3-ish minutes. I'm okay with that because I really only had about 1 minute's worth of stuff to say. The entire set had one good new joke I'll use later, and some old-ish material that I'll keep in because it works. I think the key is talking about how I don't really know things.
And the fact of the matter is, I don't actually know things. I blog because it's cathartic and helps me track my progress. And I'm obsessed with the idea of progress and of keeping track of things because I'm a bit OCD like that.
People tell me I'm smart. I guess I believe it because I did well academically. I did well in high school too, as long as it didn't involve talking to girls. The thing is, I don't feel smart. I feel more like a bullshitter and I guess I'm pretty good at being a bullshitter. But I worry that someone will point out that I've been faking it all along. "You! You wear glasses but you can't actually do smart-people things. You just listen to NPR and don't exercise. He's an imposter!" and then I'll have to go live in a cave or something.
Venue: the spot cafe.
I'll keep this post short because my set was also short. I claimed 5 but only used 3-ish minutes. I'm okay with that because I really only had about 1 minute's worth of stuff to say. The entire set had one good new joke I'll use later, and some old-ish material that I'll keep in because it works. I think the key is talking about how I don't really know things.
And the fact of the matter is, I don't actually know things. I blog because it's cathartic and helps me track my progress. And I'm obsessed with the idea of progress and of keeping track of things because I'm a bit OCD like that.
People tell me I'm smart. I guess I believe it because I did well academically. I did well in high school too, as long as it didn't involve talking to girls. The thing is, I don't feel smart. I feel more like a bullshitter and I guess I'm pretty good at being a bullshitter. But I worry that someone will point out that I've been faking it all along. "You! You wear glasses but you can't actually do smart-people things. You just listen to NPR and don't exercise. He's an imposter!" and then I'll have to go live in a cave or something.
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