Creating a Comic » Creating a Comic

The Most Hipster Granola Couple Ever (Royal Lounge Olympia Stand-up, part 1/2)

CJ — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 01:18:12 +0000

Partying sorority girls do something clever that a lot of us should emulate, is an actual sentence that I just typed. It’s true, though: when they go fratting they’ll bring a cheap digital camera,¹ and make a point of taking periodic snapshots in order to memorialize the carefree fun of being young, blackout drunk, and surrounded by rich handsome rapists.

Even for those of us who lack the glowing, pulsating, infectious crotch colonies of a pledge sister, it’s nice to have a photographic record of where we’ve been and what/who we’ve done.

For example, on Tuesday I was at the Royal Lounge Comedy Night down in Washington state’s capital city, Olympia.² I’m grateful to MC Manus and other impromptu praghotographers who helped me memorialize some fun that I had already forgotten about the very next day.

The first was my triumphant discovery of The Evergreen State College Most Granola Hipster Couple Ever. Behold…

HIM: Long-haul trucker, or irony-drenched undergrad?

HER: Getting slightly more of my personal attention

I enjoy talking to people after comedy shows because I can usually get away with saying some pretty outrageous shit, as long as I immediately play it off with “Ha ha, joking! Comedy guy!” This one was taken after a frank observation about their collective grooming:

All I said was that if they look down during sex, it must look like
the banging together of two giant tumbleweeds

Good times. So try to bring a cheap camera to your shows, is my point. I’ll bolster it soon with part 2, from that gig, once I’ve figured out which photos won’t irrevocably damage the lives of everyone involved.

Why not just use a phone? Because your phone is actually important and shouldn’t get beer dumped on it or be grabbed and passed around by strangers for an hour. I’m talking about cameras, btw, not sorority girls.
Olympia is the state of Washington capital city, and that’s capital with an “a”. It contains the government’s capitol building, which is capitol with an “o.” The reason for this is that English is a fucking mess.

Headliners Go Home

CJ — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:00:53 +0000

Want to see a show by a successful national headliner who used to be a struggling local comic? Check the local comedy show calendars during the winter holidays. The comics who originally hailed from somewhere nearby may have moved on to LA, New York, or “the road” — but they still have family in the area, and will often come home to visit during the holidays.

And what could be more fun, for a conquering hero’s holiday homecoming, than to book the prime comedy clubs and venues in their old stomping grounds?¹ These are typically some of the best-attended, highest-quality comedy shows of the year, and are a lot of fun for the local comics who get booked in the opener slots.

There’s a catch, though: the seasonal influx of national headliners temporarily swells the local talent pool, so everyone who’s not a national headliner gets temporarily bumped down a rung. In practice this means that the regional headliners get bumped down to feature gigs; features are bumped to host and MC work, and the local host/MCs… well, we go back to the open mics.

Oh yeah, that’s another thing about the holiday season: the open mics also tend to be really, really crowded.

The holidays aren’t all bleak bookings and bump lists, though; yes, stage time and bookings are scarcer than usual, but they also offer a number of great opportunities to meet, watch, and learn from professional comedians. This type of off-stage socializing can be tremendously valuable, even more so than the stage time.²

Of course, booking this type of “working vacation” is also smart calendar management — and good business. This is one of the reasons they’re a successful headliner!
And remember, you can still have a productive open mic experience even when you don’t get to perform.

The remarkable power of “Yes!”

CJ — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 17:02:02 +0000

When my friend Andrew asked if I wanted come to his last-minute feature gig this weekend, my first instinct was to say no. I was exhausted from work and not really in the mood for a long drive to Tacoma. But the fact that it had been so long since we caught up tipped the scales toward a grudging “yes.”

Soon after we arrived, the headliner generously offered me the chance to do some time on stage. It was completely unexpected, and I had many reasons to politely decline: I was unprepared, out of practice, and still wearing my out-of-place work clothes.

But something inside has changed of late, and I found myself saying yes to performing, too.

It was soon time for me to go up, and the audience was nice and warm after a strong opening set by the host. I opened with a few improvised tags to his set, which got a big response from the audience and ensured smooth sailing for the rest of my time. My delivery was a bit rusty, but I was confident and loose and it went pretty well.

The bar’s owner was genuinely complimentary afterward, and promised that I’d be back to host one of the shows in the near future – a paid gig.

And that’s the power of “yes!” — a new and unexpected opportunity came along simply because I said yes a few times, when saying no would’ve been more easy, safe — and lazy.

I also owe many thanks to Andrew for the generosity of his asking in the first place, though I’m concerned that this post may undo years of work in getting him to understand that no means no.