It's tonight

I am a nervous wreck. I am glad I got my work done early today, cause I sure can’t do it now. I’ve been reading interview with comedians for the past two days, who all claim that their first open mics went really well. It was only after their first one that things got bad. I figure bombing tonight is not a good precedent, but as I understand it, people basically bomb consistently for their first few months/years, so I am in good company.

My problem is I can’t commit to any of my material. One minute I think my joke is hilarious, and the next I am imagining silence after the punchline. So I substitute it for another joke of mine, which is also great until I overthink it and decide to go with the first one. Back and forth like this over most of my jokes. Also, my order is bothering me.

Basically, I could write all day about the reasons that I am not ready to do this, but it wouldn’t help a damn bit. I just gotta jump in the deep end and see if my shit floats to the top.

That, by the way, is my new favorite metaphor.

The thing I’m most excited for is the response, positive or otherwise. I’ve heard these jokes so many times in my head that I’m wondering if I even understand humor anymore. It will be nice to hear what the audience thinks, no matter how rough it feels while I’m up there.

Ok, wish me luck. I’ll report on my findings tomorrow (or tonight, if you’re lucky, theoretical-person-who-reads-this-blog)

The day before

Tomorrow I embark on my quest to become a shitty comedian.

For the past year or so, I have worked on a TV show, Elected, with my friend Matt. It was a fantastic, exhausting, debilitating, phenomenal year, and I am gladder than glad that I did it. At some point in March, however, I decided that I wanted to take a break from collaborating on my comedy and try something by myself. I also wanted to try a style of comedy with which I was inexperienced and uncomfortable. Naturally, that led me to stand-up comedy. I can’t think of a form of comedy more individualistic and demanding, which is almost the entire reason I chose it.

So at about that time, I started watching and listening to as much good stand up as possible. I bought albums by David Cross, Patton Oswalt, and Jim Gaffigan, among others, and I went to a comedy night in Boston. I also got to see Michael Showalter and Eugene Mirman perform at Lupo’s in Providence, with Leo Allen opening (Funny story: I drunkenly embarrassed myself to Michael, but Eugene was very nice and we had a good-natured conversation.). I wrote my first joke some time in April, and have written about 20 since then. About 4 of them are good. I am performing about 8 or 9 of them tomorrow (Setlist provided in list form beneath).

Basically, I am nervous, and I don’t know anyone who does stand-up, so I wanted to talk about it with the Internet. It’s not my intention to make this blog funny or clever, but rather to chronicle, right from the start, my stint as a stand-up comedian. Maybe once I get good at stand-up I will have the time to try to make other things funny. At that time this blog will be high on that list.

Here is what I think my setlist will be:

1. Not funny
2. College majors
3. Vitruvian man
4. Ice/water
5. Vodka gun
6. Burnout
7. Not racist/my bad
8. Moist
9. Fart in bed
10. In public
    

As you may be able to tell, I am going to eat it tomorrow.