Ending

This is it. My final blog post of the summer. For full effect, you can listen to these songs while you read the post. Here and here.

That's better. This morning I awoke and hung out for the last time downstairs. At around 11 we started the final clean-up and packing effort. It culminated with the baking of cookies (from a mix...) to welcome the guys back. We headed out around 12:30 and had an uneventful ride home, though there was a touch of traffic. We also listened to Rush Limbaugh ironically. Nice. And then, upon my arrival home, my Dale summer was over.

Overall, I think I am pleased with the comedy aspect of my summer. The comedy class, though not as great as the reviews made it out to be, was certainly a nice way to jump-start my comedy career. The performance, however, definitely spoiled me. Even a show at school might not be for that many people, even at its most successful. So in DC I did 24 performances in the about eight weeks after my class, which works out to about three performances a week. But I was definitely too skittish in the beginning, I should have just dived in at the beginning. But once I got into my groove, I was out four to five nights a week, which is about what I anticipated.

I don't think I realized how much of a constraint performing would be to writing. I definitely could have written more material, but then it would have just sat on my computer. Either that, or I would have been tempted to do new material each night and would have never worked on my old stuff. So I definitely thought I would be spending more time writing than I actually was. Maybe that's the benefit of writing sketches or things like that. But then you have to film them. So, it's tough. In retrospect, I wish I had taken some sort of random job at a comedy club in town. Even just calling people to remind them of reservations. I certainly had the time, and I could have made connections and even filled in for a comedian who was stuck in traffic. And then Seinfeld's agent would have seen me. And then I would have made it big. When I realized I had more free time than expected it was already too late. Oh well.

I definitely think that DC was the right place for me. I don't know about the NYC scene, but I can't imagine it would have been nearly as easy to get stage time. I never had to get places super early to sign up, I never had to bring people with me. It was also nice to have the same comedians on the circuit so I could at least form a marginal relationship with them. It was really a core group of 10-15 comics, and they all knew each other, they were all friends. Perhaps I'll hunt some of these guys down on facebook and keep marginally in touch. And make them give me an internship at their government contractors next summer.

So where do I go from here? Back to school. Where there will almost certainly be a stand-up club. I'm not sure exactly how I want it to function, but I want it to exist. I want to get a stand-up culture on campus for people who would not have pursued it otherwise. I want there to at least one or two shows a year where everyone makes their friends come and we perform for a large number of people. I want to keep getting better. As for further down the road, I don't want comedy to dictate what I do next summer. But I will certainly give it some weight if I'm deciding between jobs/internships in NYC and DC. When the time comes, I'll see how much it actually factors in.

So that's it. I am home for two more weeks, just hanging out, seeing family and whoever hasn't already left for college. I am glad to have found something that I can continue indefinitely and that I can bring back to school with me. And I'm glad it is something with basically only one goal: to make others laugh. What could be better?

Packing

Today was basically a day of preparing to leave. After TPIR, we spent the afternoon cleaning and getting the house in presentable shape. We cleaned the whole kitchen and the bathrooms and had to deal with a lot of random items no one lad claim to. We got it done though, so all we have to do tomorrow is a final vacuum and a final counter wipe down, then load the car and go. Other than that, as detailed in the other post, no show tonight, but I'm OK with that.

Tomorrow, when my summer experience is truly over, I'll discuss the comedy side. Tonight, I'll discuss the non-comedy things. First, the five non-comedic goals I set.

Explore DC - Not fantastic, but decent. I hit most of the things on the mall and did the Capitol Building thing. So I accomplished what most people in a week's vacation. I didn't see any of the food/nightlife/etc, but I was not particularly interested in that.

Learn basic piano skills- I think this went well. I got through the lesson book I have and can play pretty much all of the songs in it. I can play most songs with a simple right hand melody and left hand chords. If it's more complicated, I can take some time and get close, especially if the key is easy.

Beat Ocarina of Time - I did this as well as Majora's Mask. Nice.

Arrange a song for PUB - This just did not happen. One of these days...

Blog about my summer - This went well. I blogged about every day and only missed blogging one night. I don't know exactly how large my readership is, but it's greater than zero, so that's something.

Overall, I am happy with my non-comedy summer. The housing itself was perfectly adequate. I only wish I realized that a fifteen minute walk to the metro was much longer than it looked on Google maps. I would have preferred less ants and bugs, but other than that, it was exactly what I needed. The company was nice too, a nice cast of characters. But all really nice guys, hopefully our paths will cross again. I ate well, cooking for myself, ordering in maybe four times and eating out maybe six or seven. Four of five goals seems pretty good too.

Hope to be out no later than one tomorrow, trekking through the storms on the way home.

Performance the Twenty-Sixth?

Was, unfortunately, not tonight. A month ago I e-mailed the host to get on the show, saying that I was 95% sure I'd be in town, to put me on, and I'd let him know for sure later. I realized yesterday that I had not received a pre-show e-mail, so I contacted him. He responded saying he never heard from me and figured I had already left town and that the show was full, so he'd e-mail if he heard from someone who could not make it. There was no such e-mail. I think that I'm like 60-40 in the right, since if he assumed I was out of town, why not just e-mail, and I'm pretty sure I originally made it seem like I was coming. Then again, I should have followed through with my original e-mail. So just a misunderstanding. It was...understandable?

But, that's OK. I think last night was a much more appropriate final performance. I even had a final thank-you speech, at which point the movie could freeze frame and roll credits. And I'm not grumbling because the misunderstanding was reasonable on both ends.

So, the question is now, where and when will performance the twenty-sixth be? I'm not quite sure yet, but hopefully it will be soon and somewhere on Princeton's campus. Maybe Whitman Theater, or one of the black-boxes? We shall see. But I am pleased to say that it is indeed in sight.

Thanking

Another unexciting morning. The usual TPIR and such. Kabeer was home today, so we just hung out in the afternoon. We made a trek to McDonald's where Kabeer got the new Angus 1/3 pounder. I took enough money for an item on the dollar menu and ended up getting a sweet tea. It tasted like iced tea with an extra helping of corn syrup. Not too delicious. The I picked my things for tonight, ate some leftovers, and headed out for my final Comedy Spot show.

Tonight went decently. It was not terribly crowded, so the show was moving along. There were some regulars who weren't there. I went towards the end, but not that far along so there was still a decent crowd. My set went decently, definitely some things worth keeping. Whatever that means at this point. At the end of my time I thanked people and shared a minute summary of my comedic time this summer. They seemed appreciative and entertained, as I feel like I had the same experience the first two months as everyone else had.

The other comics were okay. Noteworthy was that there were two other young male comedians. One was very nervous and awkward and not funny. I think it was his first time. Hopefully he'll stick with it. He reminds me of me when I was a young comedian. Another had apparently been on the scene before but was away from the summer. He came back and was off his game, but seemed like he was normally funny. So, although I had the under 20 male spot locked up this summer, there were others on the scene.

Tomorrow is a day of cleaning and packing. Then hopefully my final show, provided the host returns my e-mail. We shall see.

Performance the Twenty-fifth

Tonight, Comedy Spot. My sixth and final performance at this lovely venue. This is where the largest faction of comedians I know hang out, so hopefully I leave them wanting more.

Joking

Pretty uneventful day. The attempts to clear out the fridge and pantry continue. As does watching TPIR. Other than that, not much to report during the day. I worked on my stuff a bit, rewrote some things, changed some things around. I have a fair amount of material that right now is at a pretty good place, it needs some practice before I make any major changes. Unfortunately, I have only two more shows, so I don't know what will become of those jokes. For dinner we threw some things on the grill, tasted good, some leftovers for tomorrow.

I headed out for my final gig at Listrani's. It was a strange night. It was mostly comedians, most of whom I'd never seen before. Two audience members wandered in to see one of their friends, but that was about in. No one was particularly good, but they all seemed to be doing it for their first or second time. My set was pretty good. People were laughing at most of it, I felt pretty at ease. I talked to some of the audience/comedians after the show and they seemed pretty positive. It seemed pretty genuine, which was nice. I thanked the one guy who had been hosting most of the time since I had been going.

Two more days, two more shows, then I'm shipping out. Hopefully the next two days and shows will be solid.

Performance the Twenty-fourth

Tonight, again at Listrani's. My final of eight performances here. This is where I saw my first open-mic. Not too much ridiculousness last night, hopefully there will be more tonight? Maybe. Also, I think Kabeer and Sam are coming, so we'll see what they think.

Edit: No Sam and Kabeer. Just me, flying solo.

Regimenting

Today was a pretty typical day. Up around the usual time, hung out and TPIR in the morning. In the afternoon I sent some e-mails and updated my resume, which was strangely amusing. I also got an e-mail from the Maury show asking to be in the audience. Which is funny, both because I have some Maury jokes and because they just found my e-mail address on the band website. Then I wrote some jokes, mostly reworking of the things from yesterday, but a few new ones. Nothing spectacular, but I think it went well.

After watching the usual sports talk shows yak about Brett Favre (grumble), I made some chili. I successfully finished the ground beef, the tomatoes, my onions, and my beans. A nice kinda toss everything in the pan. I made a lot, but the house-mates ate some and I'll have some tomorrow. Then, after a quick storm passed through, I left for my gig.

Tonight's show was just another day at the audience. The show had about seven comedians, which was a nice size, the whole show ran about 80 minutes. I went second to last, but that was not terribly late, so it was fine. I thought most of my stuff went well, and I got a decent sense of what worked. It's funny how some things I thought would be hilarious do poorly and other off the cuff remarks do well. Such is the art form. But I've definitely gotten more comfortable. I was talking to a new guy who said he liked to go first, otherwise he would just be anxious as the others went. I feel like I used to be like that, just worrying about my stuff, going over it in my head. But that is the case no longer. I can just listen and then get into joke-telling mode when it is my turn to go. Also of note, a very loud table of guys up front, who kept calling out things in very heavy accents. Why do people feel the need to talk? And if you're going to talk, don't sit in the front. Grumble.

Today was my last day alone in the house. Sam has off tomorrow, Kabeer on Thursday, and both on Friday. So the average day in the house, to some extent, is over. But it's not that different when people are home. My final week presses onward.

Performance the Twenty-third

Tonight, Listrani's. Let's see what hijinks our favorite comedian will be up to tonight. And as shady as this place is, I think I will end up doing eight sets there, the most of any place. So, there is some connection. If I ever make it to stardom, I think I will return there and just walk in and do some time. Someday, someday...

Talking

Oh no! I fell asleep watching TV and in my tired state forgot to blog. So a few hours late, but here we go.

I slept in a little more than usual. Nice. Then watched TPIR, as usual. In an effort to clear out the fridge and freezer I made a meatloaf. It was delicious. I decided that today I was going to write new material. So I just wandered around on the first floor talking to myself. It was more productive than sitting down to write. I'm glad no one else was home though, that would have been a little strange. So I just jotted down what I had been saying and then picked some things to make jokes out of. Then I made the jokes out of them and made a set out of them.

Although you're never supposed to do all new stuff, I did it anyway. Tonight's show was fairly mundane. Some of my things did well, others did not. I'll take another look at them and see what's worth keeping, what's worth changing, and what's worth ditching. I definitely felt comfortable tonight, though, which is good. It's becoming less and less of a performance and more and more of a friendly chat. Or at least that's how it feels. Nothing unusual from the other comedians tonight.

So, the last week. Not much out of the ordinary this week. I'll be performing every night this week, probably. Tuesday and Wednesday at the shady restaurant in Arlington, Thursday at the Comedy Spot, and Friday in Cleveland Park. Friday during the day will be a clean the house day, then I'm shipping out sometime midday on Saturday.

Performance the Twenty-second

Tonight, 11th Street Lounge in Clarendon/Arlington. My last gig here. I will bid it a tearful goodbye in slow motion.

Brunching

My dad came by this morning. After a brief tour of the house, we went to the Lincoln Memorial and then the Vietnam Memorial nearby. I guess it was worth checking out, just to see, but I've never been terribly fascinated by monuments. But it was an experience. Then we made our way to the Blue Duck Tavern for brunch. Boy, was it delicious. I had short rib hash topped a poached egg and horseradish sauce. Mmm. And other delicious things were consumed, overall pretty delicious.

After being dropped off, I spent the rest of the day doing very little. Hanging out, watching Tiger Woods blow it, raiding the fridge for dinner. Not much going on. We watched more Little League. Some of the kids are ridiculous, both in talent and in size. So that's amusing.

Looking ahead, I have one week left, then I'm leaving on Saturday. I hope to get out every night this week, which should be good. I feel like it's a bit strange just because I have no real goal at this point. I guess to be funny, but should I be working on old stuff or trying new things? Should I try some things I haven't done, like crowd work or winging it or things? I'm not exactly sure. Maybe I'll just do whatever I'll enjoy the most. We shall see.

Performance the Twenty-first

It was tonight! Hooray fairly useless information. It was hot there. Really hot, have I mentioned that? Also, I had to look up if the F in first was capitalized. I'm glad I checked.

Sweating

Hmmm. I can't really recall much of what happened during the day. Most of it was uneventful, that's for sure. We did watch of lot of the Little League World Series (well, the regional finals. Not technically the LLWS, but still good). It's always amusing, though it makes me nostalgic for my playing days. Le sigh. I think I also fell asleep at some point. The nap was nice.

In the late afternoon I rehearsed my act a bit, but I had done these jokes all week, so I knew them pretty well. Then I headed out. My Dad came down for weekend, so we had dinner out near the show at a decent Italian restaurant. Then we went to the show. The crowd looked decent to start out with. Then we noticed that the AC was not on. And it started getting hotter. And hotter. And hotter. It was really hot.

I think this worked against me, as after about five comedians, everyone was too hot to laugh. Lucky for me, I was about number ten. And the crowd was not really my demographic, few college-aged people. So, the jokes that had worked well the previous nights did not go over as well. Not terribly, but just not great. A very luke-warm reception. Just not my night, for many reasons. Oh well. After all the comedians went and the show was going on two hours (about 1/2 hour too long, I think), the top three vote getters were finally announced, and I was not among them. I don't know if I was one of the three funniest, but I don't think the top three funniest won. I noticed that two of the people went pretty early, before the heat set in. Really, it was hot. I hate blaming my not superior performance on the situations, but things were working against me. No one got huge laughs tonight, it was just not a mood for laughter. Oh well.

One more week, hopefully I'll be out every night during the week. After I post I'm going to the freezer. I hope the freezer pops are frozen...

Pausing

Took a little bit of a "break" today from my hectic schedule. So I did almost nothing today, hooray! In the morning I stumbled across Die Hard just as it was starting. It never fails to entertain. I had to sacrifice the first half of TPIR to see the end, but after Die Hard was over I caught the end of TPIR. Then I drove Pat to the Megabus pick-up location on the other side of town. And then there were four.

In the afternoon I moved my things into my final sleeping zone of the summer. This one is possibly the best in the house though, so much like in the comedy world, I'm climbing my way up the ladder. I played some piano, but I fear I am outgrowing the Level 1 books I have. Not that I can sight read them all, but I feel like I could tackle all of them fairly easily, so playing slightly different patterns is not optimal. So I will just play a bit each day and then get the next level books when I get home. I worked on my act for tomorrow for a bit, I think I've picked exactly what I'm going to do. Tomorrow I'll practice and hopefully be without notes for the show.

Not much else happened. I ended up taking someone's futon back to GW for them. Because she came to pick it up from here...in a taxi. Hmm. Oh, and an epilogue to the video I posted the other day. I think this one is actually funnier.

Bonus Review from Movie Reviews with Angelo's Mom - watch more funny videos

Hopefully next time you read this I'll be a contest winner! We shall see.

Practicing

A usual morning. A bit of sad news, I finished my FMWs, so I'll be surviving for the next week without them. Watched TPIR, the usual. I played some piano today, then worked on my stuff. I had to trim it down to what I want to use on Saturday. I ended up being a bit over, but I decided to just take that with me to the show and go from there.

After dinner and such I left for the show. There was a lot of traffic, which is strange because I left around 6:45. I also found out that one of the sources to traffic was rubbernecking, which is really annoying. Just drive past, don't look! Gah. So I got there and signed up and talked a little and then waited.

As usual, the show went pretty long and I went near the end. There were a few newish people there who ranged in quality. Then the usual people did their usual things. I finally went up towards the end and I think I did pretty well. Considering there were maybe twelve people in total in the audience, the fact that there was moderately consistent laughter was encouraging. I really like this material and I feel comfortable presenting it. So hopefully the people Saturday night will agree with me and I will be crowned champion of the boat-themed restaurant in College Park, MD, which pretty much means you've made it.

Pat leaves tomorrow which means I'll be yoinking his room, with a big bed an TV. I'll be spending the last week here in style. Nice!

Performance the Twentieth

Twenty?! That's a lot. Nice. It's my usual Thursday gig at The Comedy Spot at the Ballston Mall. We'll see if the comedians have anything interesting to say tonight. We'll also see if the comedian I advised last night makes the trip.

Performance the Nineteenth

This was last night. I was going to write this post yesterday, but I wanted to be 100% sure before mentioning it. So yep, this was last night. With lots of swearing and ranting.

Reversing

So you know how yesterday was full of grumbling? Today was the opposite. Nice. In the morning I decided to call AAA since I may as well take advantage of my membership. The guy was going to jump it but then tested the battery which was apparently on the verge of dying, so he gave me a new one. He also offered to help me make extra money by burning CDs and DVDs for him. I smiled and nodded, and he forgot to give me his number, so I do not think I have found another business venture.

The day itself was uneventful. Did some errands, wrote some e-mails, watched/slept through a USA soccer loss. After dinner and such, I headed out for my gig, take two. This time the car started and everything! What a luxury.

I arrived around 8:30 and there were only three comedians on the list, non of whom I recognized. That meant our favorite ridiculous, bizarre comic had to host, even though he had to "do radio" in forty minutes. That poor, poor radio station. So, as the host he did about twenty minutes, which isn't that ridiculous with only three comedians. What was ridiculous was how he picked on a woman in the front row and made jokes about how she was in the army (she was) and had PTSD. Really, you're going to joke about that? Really? So after yelling at them to be quiet and escalating his yells to swearing and legitimate anger, he told them he'd pay for their dinner if they'd shut up and leave. So they did. Thanks for losing some of my audience, host!

Anyway, he left to do radio. The other two comedians were decent. I went second and I think did really well. I had pretty much as much time as I wanted, so I tested out maybe 10-12 minutes of material that I'll chop down to 6-7 for tomorrow and Saturday. The crowd, once they got over the original onslaught, was fairly favorable. So I think they gave good information as to what works. I felt really at ease tonight, maybe it's because I knew that no matter how bad I looked, I would be remembered more favorably than others. So woo. I was asked to close the show, which means to get up and say thanks for coming. I think I did a pretty good job.

After the show I talked to one of the comedians who had his first performance tonight. I gave him some advice about shows to do and websites to visit. I'm glad I can pay it forward as others did for me. I also felt super important and established, but hey, I'll pat myself on the back. So a much better day. Nice.

Grumbling

A usual morning. TPIR and FMW. My milk apparently went bad, so I had to mooch some other milk, which was whole milk. Man, that stuff is ridiculous. In the afternoon I cooked my eggplant before it went bad. After a bit of errands in the afternoon, I started putting my set together. I was trying to pick my best 6-7 minutes to do for the contest.

It was encouraging to go through and pick all of the things that I think worked. I would say that all of my items under consideration, maybe my B+ stuff and better (that's on my grading scale, not real comedy's....), probably totals to almost 15 minutes. So that's a solid amount to start with. And that's just a look through, I'm sure there are other good jokes I'm missing. But I picked and chose and ended up with what I thought was my best stuff.

After dinner and hanging, I got ready to go. And I got in my car and turned the key. Hmmm, that's odd. Nothing is happening. Upon further inspection, I had left one of the ceiling lights on. Which is silly, because I don't recall using that light. And in car design critique, I think it would make sense to have all lights turn off automatically after fifteen minutes. Who uses those while the engine is off for more than fifteen minutes? Grumble. So, AP was gone, so I couldn't jump it, and the metro would not have gotten me there on time. So I had to grumblingly return inside. Grumble. We will jump it tomorrow (and when I say we, I mean Pat because he knows how to do it and I don't and would probably explode the cars.)

The only thing making it slightly OK is that I had forgotten this place also had an open-mic on Wednesday that I usually skipped since I did it on Tuesdays. So I will go tomorrow. And perhaps I will go next Wednesday as well. So that means now I'll be doing seven or eight shows in ten days. Bedtime, we'll try this again tomorrow.

Unveiling

Not much happened today. But all the will be dwarfed by the unveiling of the greatest moment in film since color. No, perhaps even more. It was really hot today. And though any work I would do would be indoors, I still used it as an excuse not to work. So FMW and TPIR, then a nap. I'm not going to dignify the rest of my day with much of a description. We did BBQ some hamburgers, which were pretty good.

Anyway, the moment you've all been waiting for. This movie currently has a grand total of 70 views on funnyordie.com, with 3 funny votes and 4 die votes. I don't want to spoil the surprise, but I would clear the floor nearby, because you will most certainly be rofling. There is at least one, maybe two more videos coming, so stay tuned.

Movie Reviews with Angelo's Mom - watch more funny videos

Tomorrow I start my busiest stretch, other than the one week I had gigs Monday through Friday. I have a show tomorrow, Thursday, Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and then my last show on Friday. Quite a home stretch run. In that time I also might do another film, along with packing and getting the house in presentable condition. So after a lazy day today, a busy next twelve days.

Baking

It was hot today. Really hot. Which compounded the annoyances a bit. I have a limited recollection of what went on in the morning/early afternoon, though I know FMWs were there earlier and a sandwich was there later. Then around two I left to meet a friend I had worked with last summer.

Our plan was to go to the Holocaust Museum. And we did. Except when we got there, we were frustrated to find out that you needed passes to get to most/all of the exhibits. That seems silly to me. I looked at the website and it said that admission was free and open to the public, and in retrospect only later down the page mentioned passes. I feel like once I see that it's open and that admission is free, I can expect to be able to walk in and see a large portion of the exhibits. Grumble. So we saw some things, but not much. Instead we went to the art galleries nearby, which we pleasant but nothing special. Then we walked to Chinatown and ate some noodle soup and pork buns.

In the evening I came home and the AC was on! Hooray for coldness. We postponed the burger cookout for tomorrow. Anyway, since I thought of these but will never use them in a show, I share two jokes with you now:

Have you seen the movie about the search for a teenage fish who runs away from home because no one understands him? It's called Finding Emo.

and

Who was the world's first prop comedian? TriCarrotTops!

Groan all you want, I think they are funny.

Filming

Not much happened in the morning. I watched The Dark Knight because it was on and is always entertaining. No TPIR as it is the weekend, but that does not preclude FMW, so I of course enjoyed them. At about one I left for my movie-ing adventure.

The man I'm working with, Angleo, is a regular theater director/producer type person looking to get into short comedy film making. He apparently thought I was funny and offered me the opportunity to be in his films. So I arrived, and his first plan was to film me in the typical driving in a car documentary style, but to have me ramble. So we did this for a while with some of his prompting. I swear I have no idea how this will be funny, but he says he sees the story in the footage, so I'll see what he can do. And of course I will share the video when done, so everyone can enjoy it.

The next plan was for me to conduct a pseud0-interview with his mother about movies she has recently seen and to elicit hilarious responses. It was not terribly difficult, as his mother was kinda ridiculous but in a nice way. Again, I don't know how this will be funny to anyone but those of us involved, but again we will see. So, let's let the man work his magic and we'll see what happens.

Then I came home and we headed to a Tapas restaurant in the downtown-ish area. It was decent but a tad overpriced. Not to mention I ate "lunch" about three hours before, so what made me full was not a full meal. Then I came home and hung out. Now we are watching SNL, which is not particularly funny. It has gone downhill. I give it until Weekend Update, then its bedtime.

Lapsing

After lying in bed, listening to a podcast for ten minutes, I realized I forgot to blog! Oh no. So as I am already in blog mode, this will be quick and pretty boring.

I woke up later, around 10, then TPIR and FMW. Then Sam and I went to have lunch with Brian, our friend from high school. Except I didn't eat anything because I'm on a temporary campaign against eating out, especially things like sandwiches. But we chatted, it was nice. Nothing else really happened today. I made plans with the guy who I had mentioned wanted me to act. So I'm heading out to Arlington tomorrow to film a sketch or something. I'm not exactly sure what. But it should be interesting, a chance to expand my comedic base. I had a meatloaf sandwich for dinner, which was delicious.

It is weird that I have only two weeks left. And with two more house members leaving next weekend, the final week will be strange. But I'm glad that though my summer of comedy is ending, plans are in the work for plenty more comedy to come. I'm excited to see what I can make of it while at school.

Producing

I again woke up too early. Grumble. With no Zelda to play, I don't know how I will spend my mornings. I really wish I could spend them sleeping. Perhaps tomorrow I will make more of an effort to go back to sleep. I know, my life is challenging. So I putzed around, then TPIR and FMW. In the afternoon I was really productive. Woo.

I started by writing some new jokes. I was happy with the way they came out. They were not just me saying "oh, this is funny." I actually wrote jokes. With punchlines to some extent. And a hint of story. Then I took a break to play piano. I finished with a moderate degree of competency the first Piano for Adults book. I don't have the second, so I'll just look through the easy song books I have. Then I wrote a little more a put together my set for tonight. It was a lot of new stuff, including the things I wrote today, and some stuff I'd only done once or twice before. After dinner/PTI/shower etc, I headed out.

There were a ton of comedians there tonight. More than twenty, which is a huge number. It started late, as always, but people were there at 7:30, it definitely could have stared one time. But everyone I had met pretty much was there. One comic complimented the set I had done on Monday, which was nice. Woo compliments. Then the show started, and I waited. And waited. And waited. Comedy is much longer when you're waiting to go up but don't know when it will be. And though I understand that I'm usually last because I'm the new guy, it's still annoying to wait around, but that's how it goes. So eventually I went around 9:55. The room, which was once 20 comics and maybe 10-15 audience members, was down to maybe 5 comics and 7-8 audience members. Still though, I was pleased. I made them laugh more than any of the few people before or after me. Even the new material did well, which is encouraging.

I feel like the pseduo-climax of my summer will be a contest at EJs Landing (the boat restaurant) that I'm in next Saturday. I think the comedians are just based on whoever signs up, but a contest is a contest. So between now and then I'll need to figure out my best six minutes. I have I think only two shows, so this weekend I'll probably put together what I want the set to be, do it twice, and then perform in the big contest. Sounds like a plan.

Performance the Eighteenth

Tonight, Comedy Spot in the Ballston Mall. Because nothing says stand-up comedy like the fourth floor of a mall in the suburbs. Well, maybe the corner of an Italian restaurant in the suburbs. Or the basement of a small bar near the zoo.

Aspiring

I keep waking up too early. But that was fine, since I spend most of the morning beating Majora's Mask! Hooray. I admit, I got a bit antsy towards the end and cheated a little, but who's counting? Some of the masks require far too intimate a knowledge of the world in which it takes place. The ending was a tad anticlimactic though, as Link just kinda peaced out. Hmm. Then TPIR and FMW. In the afternoon I sent welcoming e-mails to me 'zees. I tried to personalize them, or at least not have them say exactly the same thing, though the information was mostly the same.

I decided to watch the movie Comedian which my dad had given me. It's the parallel stories of two comedians writing new material. One is an up and coming NYC comedian, the other is Jerry Seinfeld. Seinfeld ditched all his old stuff and set out to write entirely new material for an hour special. The movie was interesting, but it really clarified how hard it really is to write good material. Seinfeld, a man who knows his funny, needed at least six months to write an hour of material. And remember, during these six months he could walk into any comedy club anywhere and do as much material as he wanted. They would show him driving from club to club on a Saturday night in New York doing different sets. That is a luxury few have. So with the best of circumstances, it took him six months. What does that mean for me, five years for an hour? Something along those lines. It's utterly absurd.

For dinner I made my first solo attempt at meatloaf, and man was it delicious. I'm a big fan, perhaps even a bigger fan of the follow-up meatloaf sandwiches. Then we hung out and watched The Core, perhaps one of the more ridiculous movies I've seen.

Not a busy comedy day, but I think the movie was important. I could tell that Seinfeld loved writing and telling jokes. He has to, because if he wanted to he could do no more comedy and sleep on shredded piles of hundred dollar bills. I need to be as motivated as he is, and hopefully I am getting there.

Opening

Another standard day. I woke up far too early, yet still managed not to be productive until around noon. MM and FMW and TPIR yet again. I did some laundry and was surprised by the effectiveness of hanging clothes out to dry. Still though, with four guys living in this house normally throughout the year, I feel like a decent dryer would be a sound investment. In un-comedy related news I was sent my list of advisees today, so I checked them out a little and will send them e-mails tomorrow.

I wanted to write some new material today, and did, but not as much as I would have wanted. Oh well, I still wrote some new stuff. I also think I had a dream that I wrote a joke about the term zesting, and how maybe it would seem like a more manly thing to do if it were called skinning a lemon. But then I decided that was strange, though I am glad that I am dreaming in joke form. My other joke dream has not been terribly successful though, so maybe I should scrap this one. After dinner and things I headed out for my usual Tuesday gig.

As the summer has gone on my arrival time has gotten later and later. I arrived at 8:35 for the 8:30 show and there were five or six other comedians there. I opened the show, which means I went first after the host. That was in no way a strategic decision, but it was nice to go first. I got to get the crowd into it. I did OK, nothing special. I did do a fair amount of new material, and more than none of it worked, so that's a plus. The crowd tonight though was not really my target audience. I know this for sure because they laughed at the not funny comedian at this place that I have described before. So if he is funny to them, I doubt I will be.

I've started to become less of a fan of self-depreciating humor. There are only so many times I can laugh at how their career is stagnant as they perform in a dominoes knock off. Or how they curse their life for doing this as their hobby. The audience usually laughs because it's so ridiculous, but they are cheap laughs. People should just do their material, and if it's actually good it will get some form of laughter. Just my feelings.

Performance the Seventeenth

A prime performance, if you ask me. Not because it was extraordinary, because seventeen is prime. It was tonight at the shady restaurant thing I do on Tuesdays.

Evaluating

Let me see. Nothing terribly out of the ordinary during the day. There was a semi-harried clean-up effort on the notice that the landlord was coming to visit. We even had to cut down the plant that had grown in from outside and was taking over the wall behind the TV. Alas, it is in a better place. Some other cleaning, some hanging, a nap, the usual.

I had a gig tonight at the 11th Street Lounge in Clarendon/Arlington. I arrived around 7:40 and was of course one of the first people there. People definitely know who I am now, which is good. I at last met the person in charge of the room with whom I'd been corresponding. He was nothing like the mental image I had in my head. We all migrated downstairs to the basement where the show is held. There were a couple people there trying comedy for their first time, so they brought their friends as is standard. Soon he will realize that his next shows will be in basements and mediocre restaurants with none of his friends. But it's nice for everyone, and it's a small room, so it looked full.

My set was OK. I feel like I've almost become consistent, which is good. Not consistently hilarious, which would be awesome, but consistent in that no show is really a huge hit or miss, just another day at the office. I imagine this is how it must be for all of the other guys, who do four minutes of old material, two minutes of new material, keep thirty seconds of that, and head home. So maybe I'm becoming more like a regular? That would be nice. Tonight also confirmed that the crowd has a huge impact on material. One comedian I'd heard many times before, who writes in a very Mitch Hedberg, one-liner, witty observation style, did much worse than usual. The crowd tonight wanted people who were loud and over the top. Not exactly my persona, but I tried to work with that. After my set I was given a card by the guy who runs the room that said "Talk slower" and "Pause for punches" on it. I shall make note of them.

I'll now respond to some answers/discussion of the things I've been talking about. One art-form that two people have said is magic. I agree the comparison works on many fronts. It is certainly not cultivated in schools or thought of as a legitimate career path. There are certainly stars, but there is no clear path to stardom. I take a few issues though. First, I think the stardom level is smaller. There are some magicians at the top, like Penn and Teller, David Blaine, Cris Angel, but I think you're hard pressed to hear people talking about a young, up and coming magician. Or maybe I hang out in the wrong crowd. The other issue is that I feel it's much easier to practice magic. You can do it in front of the mirror, for one, and see if the card in your other hand is visible. You can also test it on the same person multiple times, because they will tell you if it gets better. These two methods do not hold up for comedy as much.

The other answer I think I liked the best is from Blythe's lovely comment, which is movie-making. There are definitely star directors, as well as stars at all levels, those known in certain crowds. There is definitely no path to stardom, as the best director could make a movie and put it on youtube and no one would see it. It is not cultivated in schools a whole bunch, though I would argue more than comedy. That might just be because it sounds good for a school to brag about it's film class where everyone gets their own camcorder or what not. So, it works. The only issue I take is that, although it is hard to get started, I'm pretty sure many schools offer film studies/film making majors. So you can spend an undergraduate career honing your skills, as you can with many other visual arts. But for now movie-making gets the prize. And maybe we need to start pushing movie making in our schools. Just as comedy works on creativity, originality, writing, speaking, confidence, and many other things, film making would help with creativity as well, communication, working with others, editing, and other skills. So maybe teaching through unconventional methods is the answer to our educational problems. Take that Chicago Math!

Performance the Sixteenth

Tonight at the 11th Street Lounge. It's an open-mic, except someone apparently stole the microphone, so it's open mic-less. And you have to sign up in advance, so it's not really open. Nonetheless, I'll be performing there!

Nothing

The title not being a verb is symbolic of how little I did today. I trouble even to recount most of it. There was a lot of sleeping and napping and the like. I did watch the Next Food Network Star finale, which I had been looking forward to. I won't share my thoughts for fear of spoiling it. So, not much happened today. I have a performance tomorrow, that should be nice.

In response to my post two days ago, I received only one possibly answer, which was poker. I think it works on some levels. There are definitely big names and no clear path to stardom. However, it doesn't work entirely. First, the option of cultivating it is not really there if it is illegal to do under twenty-one. And playing not for money is entirely different. So, no hope of bringing poker into our schools. The second thing is, unlike almost all other things, anyone with enough money can enter poker's most prestigious tournament. The best poker player in the world that no one knows about could enter the World Series of Poker, win, and become a star. There is nothing like that for comedy. If the world's funniest yet undiscovered comedian performed at any of the places I perform, at least in the short term all that would happen is they would get laughs. No one from Comedy Central would book them, the audience would just head home and note that one comedian did particularly well.

So, I'll still take answers, or hear criticisms of my evaluation of comedy.

Performance the Fifteenth

Last night, on a boat!

Sailing

Another lazy weekend day. Some friends of Kabeer's and AP's crashed here last night, so I awoke to people sleeping all over the house. Then I watched them rush to get dressed before they headed out to a show. Not much happened in the afternoon. Laziness, perhaps. I put together my routine and then headed out to E.J.'s Landing.

This show is up there for the strangest I've done. The show was in a nautical themed restaurant in a Comfort Inn in College Park, MD, aka the place where people stay for the night when they're visiting UM. There were a large number of people there just to see one woman. They were fairly uninterested in much of what else was going on. Otherwise it was some comedians, only one of whom I'd seen before, and he ended up going first and then leaving. So an interesting crowd.

The order was out of a hat (actually, some sort of mock fishing trap I believe), and unfortunately I ended up going last. The comedians before me were not particularly good. They also went too long. Even with a fairly lengthy given time of 8-10 minutes, some people went way over. If anyone out there wants to start their own open-mic comedy show, limit people's time to 6, maybe 7 minutes, and make sure everyone knows that's the time. It's annoying when you follow the rules and others just keep yakking.

My set was OK. I'm not putting a lot of value in the feedback I received, just because there was no one listening. I picked up one or two little things that I'll know to do again, but not much else. Maybe I learned that it's hard to make people laugh who don't want to laugh. Or that 2 star hotel restaurants are strange places for comedy shows. There was also a very drunk woman who kept yelling things. She seemed to believe the comedian after me could not wear purple, though I think he pulled it off fine. Anyway, I'll be back there in two weeks for a comedy contest (woo?!) so hopefully the people there will want to see comedy and laugh and such.

Pondering

No comedy today really. MM + TPIR this morning, no FMW because I was out of milk. In the afternoon I went to get gas and then went to Giant to stock up on food. With those expenditures I am pretty much at my budget for the summer. But some of the things I'm counting could definitely count otherwise, so either way I'll end up +/- maybe $100 for the summer, which is not bad at all. Nice. For dinner we made a sweet potato curry, which was delicious, but for our lack of curry powder. Still good though, and plenty of leftovers. Mmm.

Anyway, I was thinking yesterday about comedy as an art-form and/or pursuit, and I came to an interesting conclusion. It is the only thing I could come up with off the top of my head that is a nationally recognized talent that doesn't have a clear route to success. I'll explain. If you want to be a star musician, you could teach yourself and make it big. But more likely you'll start in school, do well in school, go to camps, perform in college, and become a professional. If you want to be a star athlete, you could try to walk on in college, or more likely you'd start playing in rec leagues and move up through the school teams. Same thing with other sports, acting, music, art, and everything else. There is always some sort of path. Even more obscure things like billiards have youth leagues and championships and a clear path.

But with comedy, there is no such thing. For a subject with an entire channel devoted to it, there is little cultivation at any level. Granted, one could group it with the performing arts, but starring in your high school production of Guys and Dolls is very different from performing stand-up. So where do these people come from? Some of the people in my class were actors trying to expand their abilities, but most comedians are just people who think they are funny. I'm sure this would never happen, but maybe we should start comedy at a younger age. It's much cheaper than music, or anything for that matter. You can do it with a book and a teacher who barely knows what they are doing. I think it just has a reputation as not as artful a pursuit, but there is a lot of merit.

If anyone can think of something with national stars and national recognition that is as haphazardly pursued, I would be interested to hear it.

Performance the Fourteenth

Posting this after the fact helps no one. But I do it anyway. This was the show tonight, refer to previous post for more information.

Schmoozing

I had a very lazy morning. What else is new - FMW, TPIR, MM. In the afternoon I lounged a little longer than usual, but eventually got to work. I wrote some new things that I liked, so that was productive. I played some piano for a while, I'm almost done my intro book. I went to the post office to pick up a package. I gave her my slip and she left to find it. Five minutes later I looked at my watch. Five more minutes later (for a total of ten), she came back and gave me a package. So, ten minutes. No wonder people complain the postal service is slow. For dinner I had more of my eggplant. Mmm.

Tonight was a much better night at this gig than before. I got there at about 7:15 to sign up, but apparently the order of sign-up is not the order of the show, so the earliness factor is not as important, at least not here. It started probably around 8:00, which is not bad considering. Beforehand though, I did a lot of chatting with the other comedians, which was nice. Even after just a month here people know who I am and feel free to discuss things with me. It's a nice, small-knit community, exactly as promised. I feel like in New York I could have gone the whole summer without seeing the same people twice. So I really like this community.

The show was decent. Just under two hours, better than the two and a half last week. The comedians were, as always, a mixed bag, but I think a pretty solid group. I liked my set a lot, I think it went well. I did a lot of new stuff that did well, and what didn't work I could easily see. I felt more comfortable today, maybe because I knew more people. Or maybe because I'm getting better. It was interesting to hear one comedian say before he told a joke "It's a month old, so I still count it as new." For me, new jokes I've done never or once. For him, he may have done it at least ten times. So as a really new comedian, I have a different mindset of what I'm doing. So hopefully I'll get to keep doing shows and have actually new material become my new material. That also means I'd have real material, tried and true.

Analogizing

So not much comedy to say, but a comedy discussion. First the day. MM and TPIR and FMW. Isn't it strange how every morning can be summarized with nine letters? Indeed. Sam was off today and we decided to go to the American Indian museum. Apparently the term is now American Indian, not Native American. I think we thought it was ok, but generally a disappointment. It was a small museum for the building it was in, since half was just open and two floors were gift shop and eatery. So there were really only four exhibits. Those were decent, but not exceptional, and I feel like they missed some of the interesting parts. Oh well. We returned home where I did little else for the rest of the day. I made pretty delicious eggplant parm for dinner. Other than that, nothing exciting, though I did find maybe some jokes that came up in conversation.

Anyway, I was thinking how it must seem weird for my three loyal readers to read my blog and see that I don't do very much comedy per se. So I thought I'd create an analogy. The problem with comedy is that you never really know what you have until you perform. And performances are so short, not to mention you're supposed to do some old stuff so they like your new stuff. So if I wrote five new minutes of "material" every day, I would just be frustrated since I could not try it out. The problem is that performance time is at such a premium.

To me, it's a lot like the following situation. Imagine you are learning math from a textbook. The chapter where they explain it is writing comedy, the problem sets are performing, and the feedback on problem sets is analyzing the performance. Now imagine that you can read the textbook as much as you want, but you're only allowed to do one problem a night. Well, you could read the textbook for eight hours a day, but you're not going to be learning much if you don't apply it. When you do the problem, you may know pretty much what is going, or something may trip you up, but that could depend on a misunderstanding, a misreading, you missing a concept, the problem being hard, any number of things. And the response you get is either 0, 1/2 credit, or correct. But 0 doesn't mean it was entirely wrong, you just thought about it the wrong way. 1/2 means room for improvement. But full credit doesn't mean you did it the best way. This is how I feel. I'm not going to sit and read the textbook all day, I'd just be frustrated. I wish there were constantly an audience for me to write for an hour, try out jokes, write for an hour, try out jokes. But I only get to do one problem a night, and I only learn a little bit of information about it. So, that's my analogy, hope you've enjoyed.

Leaving

I awoke this morning in my newwwww bed to the sound of my alarm? Apparently I had turned it on in the hustle and bustle of moving. So plans to go back to sleep were foiled. I came downstairs surprised to find Pat not at work. He took a vacation day that he had accrued. In the morning we just hung out, knock-off FMWs and TPIR, then MM since he was playing Starfox in the morning. In the afternoon we hung out more, watching crappy TV. Pat napped on the couch as I did some writing and working. I rehearsed a bit and played some piano. After dinner and other preparations I headed out.

For some reason I still get to this gig early. It's called for 8:30 but started at 9:15 today. I got there at about 8:20, and of course ended up waiting for this to start. I ran into the guy who had discussed with me acting in a short, and seeing him again reminded me to e-mail him. I have no idea where this will lead, but I may as well give it a shot. I talked to another guy about comedy at college, which was moderately helpful.

The show itself was weird. There was some audience, which I guess was nice, but they laughed at strange things. There were some new comedians, but some of them just did tired jokes. Also, I really don't think offensive jokes are funny. Unless they are hilarious. Let me explain - an offensive joke must be terribly clever. If I see where it is going, or the punchline is obvious, if it's a decent joke it loses points for offensiveness. I don't know why people laugh at them. Maybe they think it's funny, or maybe it's just awkward laughter. I feel like most if not all of my jokes are not offensive. I feel like the longer I keep it that way the higher my quality-ceiling stays. I hope my writing always gets creative points, regardless of its inherent humor.

My set was unremarkable. I swear I got less than 5 minutes, and I forgot a joke, I did a new joke or two, and some others I'd tried once or twice. Not bad, it was just so short and so strange that I didn't gather much information. I really wish I could get more time. It's so hard with 5 minutes. The title of the post comes from this being the first show I left before it was over. I grew tired of listening to a comedian take more than 10 minutes to do three minutes, doing "crowd work" with a guy up front who was certainly not enjoying it. This is the same comedian who discussed my career plans with me last week, my mom's favorite. Oh well. I came home and hung out, now to bed in my nice, large bed.

Performance the Thirteenth

It occurred tonight. See next blog post for more information. This was a strange one...

E-mailing

Played a lot of MM this morning. Took just about the whole 3 days at 1/2 speed time to beat the Great Bay Temple. Then I waited as Bill frantically packed and got ready for his three week trip. It's strange to think our paths may never cross again after our cohabitation. But the good news on his departure is that my living situation has improved! I've upgraded from a futon in a shared room to a real bed in my own "room" aka glorified bed hole. But it's better. Except I don't have the right sheets. Oh well, I kick them off anyway.

In the afternoon, feeling unfunny but wishing to be productive, I sent a lot of e-mails and did a lot of investigating about the stand-up club. I checked to see what needs to be done to have a club recognized. Apparently a lot, including a constitution. And also a petition of the charter members, which seems silly since I should be able to attract members, not know them already. I had a correspondence with someone in USG and someone in the Dean's office. I also sent an e-mail to a friend in Quipfire (the improv troupe) for some ideas about the comedy community and how to run a small, mostly independent organization. He gave me the name of another member of the group interested in stand-up, so I contacted him as well.

I tried to get data about tickets sold to various campus comedy events. The response was that I needed permission from ODUS to get that information. So I asked them for their permission to get their data, which I would then present...to them, for their approval. Seems very bureaucratic. But we can't have ridiculous student groups running a muck (this phrase is apparently two words...), so I guess it's necessary. I have no doubt that this club would be approved, it just needs to get done. I also sent an inquiry to the Harvard stand-up club about their operations. So tomorrow the e-mails will roll in, since everyone is always prompt with their e-mails. Right? Right? An unexciting evening, but I feel good about the headway I'm making with this. I'll prepare for and go to a performance tomorrow.

Relaxing

Nothing terribly exciting today, so I'll keep it brief. In the morning we bid farewell to our Havertown guests. In the afternoon we watched terrible movie after terrible movie, including Tremors, Armageddon, A Time to Kill, some of Eraser. Tons of movie channels lead to mildly amusing thrillers.

For dinner we finally grilled the steaks. They were pretty delicious, cooked to just about medium. Delicious. Accompanied by corn, baked beans, and sauteed onions and peppers. Mmmm. Then we just hung around as it is Bill's last night before his three-week Egyptian adventure.

This week I'll probably do 3 or 4 shows. The Monday and Friday shows are every other week, and this is the off week. Should still be a good week though, building off Friday's success.

Raining

No comedy today, but an interesting one. There were some friends of mine and Sam's from Havertown here this weekend. This morning we went down to Eastern Market, which is a farmers market/flea market/other stores. I didn't eat anything, but it looked like a nice place. Lots of fresh fruit stands and homemade jewelry for sale. We came back in the afternoon and hung out. I fell asleep on the couch for my first nap in a long time.

Around 6 we left to go to the Nationals game. After about an hour of various forms of travel we arrived and bought our tickets for only $12. We got to our seats and watched an inning and a half of baseball, when everyone was told to go underneath the concourse for protection from the rain. What followed was a three hour rain delay, during which we were given little information, and all but 3,000 of the original 20,000ish decided to leave. But we were resolute and hung in there. When play resumed about three hours later, we took our well-deserved seats right up the first base line. We saw a grand slam and a bunch of other home runs, the Nats won 13-1. Overall, a nice baseball experience. Some quality DC time today.

Redeeming

Another usual morning, chock full of acronyms. MM, TPIR, and FMW. I like it! I did some errands around the house in the afternoon, mail and e-mail related things. I entered WMGK's 3rd annual comedy competition. That required me to just send in a joke, so hopefully he'll like it. It would be cool just to get on the air. I remember listening to it a few years ago (well, I guess no more than two...) and wishing I were above 18 so I could enter. Now I can, so I hope I've made the most of it.

In the afternoon I did a lot of writing. I wrote about four minutes of new material. Not entirely new concepts, but new full jokes. I felt good about them, I was looking to redeem myself from last night's poor performance. They just felt good, I was flowing through them. I had high hopes for their hilarity level.

Also, throughout the past couple days, I've been toying with the idea of bringing stand-up to school. There was apparently a stand-up club in the early 00's, but it died out. With the improv comedy group doing well and large crowds for comics that come in, I think there would be interest in a stand-up club. I'm not imagining anything too fancy. Maybe just get together once a week to do some new material and critique, then put on a show once a semester. We could even bring in an outsider to headline. Princeton people, make sure I do this. Then come to my shows. A percentage of all proceeds go to charity. What? Zero is a percent? (Simpsons reference). But seriously, I'd like to make this happen. With all of the comedy-themed writing and performing on campus, I'm sure I could find people.

Anyway, I left around 7:45 for my performance. I found a pretty sweet parking spot. When I got there at about 8:25 for an 8:40 show there a few other comedians there. They were both about my age, one was in school, I don't know about the other. We shared stories as the newest comedians. It was interesting. I ended up going first. Well, after the host, but that's expected. I thought it went really well. Much better than last night. A lot of the new jokes worked to some degree, they're mostly all keepers. That's a good feeling, much better than when they all bombed last night. I got a nice boost of confidence. Not that I was totally bummed, but it was nice to bounce back so quickly from last night's debacle. I'm happy about that, I like this stuff too. The rest of the show was hit or miss, as always. I see more of the same faces. It's interesting. Go comedy!

Performance the Twelth

My final performance of this performance filled week will be tonight at the Uptown Tavern in Cleveland Park. This went decently last time, so hopefully it will be decent again. And hopefully I won't bomb like last night.

Waiting

Another standard morning. MM and TPIR. After lunch I watched Next Food Network Star online, but it took forever to load. So it was constantly playing for 5 seconds and then pausing for 1. Grumble. In the afternoon I analyzed some shows from this week, but I did not remember them too well. I really need to do it the day after. So that's one mental note for today. I played some piano as well, which I had not done for a while. Then I ate dinner and put my set together for tonight. I headed out at 6:45.

Tonight was a new experience. I arrived at 7:25 for a "7:30" show and signed up. The list had about eleven comedians on it at this point. As the night went on, however, it became clear that the show was not going by the list. The more well-known comedians know that they will be given time if they show up because they are good. So they come late and don't sign up. So the show ended up being like 15 people who signed up and then 10 more seasoned comedians. And lasted until about 10:30. So that was more than 2.5 hours of comedy, which is a lot for anyone.

The vibe at this place was weird. There were a lot of comedians. But only a bunch were in the room at any given time. I think for the other times they were hanging outside the room in the hallway/lobby/places bouncing jokes off each other. Which makes sense to me in some respect, since bouncing ideas off comedians is a good way to work. But the point of the open-mic is that everyone performs and then watches so everyone has an audience. So it just struck me as weird. I feel like I would never really be comfortable just rolling up an hour into a show and bursting my way on stage. But if that's expected, then maybe I would do it.

Also, before the show I was chatting with someone who had seen me a couple times and was apparently a fan. He asked if I acted, I said no, and then he gave me his card and said I should contact him about maybe being in his short internet parody type films. So we'll see if that works out. I don't really know what it would entail, but I'll send an e-mail.

I went up probably around 10. There were some comedians around, but everyone was tired and had hit their comedy quota. Or at least that's what I say to explain my particularly poor performance. I don't know what was with tonight, but I did particularly bad. Granted, I did a lot of "new" jokes. But they had worked decently last night. Maybe it's because people were drunker. But I don't really think I can blame my performance on anything but sloppiness. I did not even rehearse in front of a mirror today. I really need to be working harder and smarter. That me be cliched, but whatever. Looking at it now, there are definitely "jokes" I told that were not jokes. Funny concepts, maybe, but no setup, no punchline. Even jokes that are mostly stories require at least some sort of setup-punchline structure. I feel like I've written this a fair amount, but I frequently fall back into the trap of "everyone will laugh because I thought the story was funny." That's just not how it works. I should be able to look at every joke I tell and find a setup and a punchline.

So, I have a month left. I should be writing a few hours a day. I should be preparing heftily for each performance. I should be making use of the feedback I get from gigs. And thus, I will. In other news, my brother reported a polar bear ad on the site. So, that plan worked a little bit. OK, I will learn from this and press onward.

Performance the Eleventh

I'll be heading out in about an hour to the beautiful Ballston Commons Mall for my eleventh performance. I did this show last week and liked it, so hopefully it will go well. Notes on tonight's performance, and more, at 11. Or whenever I get around to blogging tonight.

Go-Getting

Today was the last day of touristing with my mom and uncle. After I awoke I hung out. I decided to forgo their morning of museum viewing to lounge at home. I have had my fill of museums for the time being. So whilst they toured I hung out here and watched TPIR and wrote some new jokes for tonight. They came back around 2 with some snacks from the American Indian Museum, which I had heard was delicious, and thus confirmed. Then we headed to the zoo.

The zoo was fine. We were there towards the end of the day so it was not particularly crowded, nor was it particularly hot. We saw all of the usual animals, including the pandas, who were just sitting there. They were not too active. After a full day of zooing we headed to Bistrot Du Coin, a well-reviewed French restaurant. It was pretty tasty. But it was in Dupont Circle, which meant it was full of 28 year old hip young go-getters who wear gray slacks and a blue shirt with subtle pink stripes. Or yellow shirts. Or other funky shirts that are their attempt to express themselves. I don't want to wear fancy clothes to work. But dinner was pretty delicious, so if you're ever in Dupont Circle, check it out.

The family dropped me off at my gig and headed out. I walked in and found the contact guy and signed up. Then I wandered to a nearby square (well, triangle) where I wrote and rehearsed. Then when it was getting darker and closer to 9 I headed back to the Madhatter. The guy had to tell everyone that I was under 21 but it was OK. This confused me, since it was a bar/restaurant (I think?), and I saw the bartenders checking IDs. Maybe I just don't understand how these things work.

The good thing about tonight was that there was a crowd of non-comedians. The bad thing was that they were the same young go-getters, who were moderately/barely interested in comedy so long as they were able to enjoy their coronas and group bar shots with grape liquor, vodka, sprite, and other things. I'm sort of making that up, but I heard one description that was pretty close. Still though, this was the closest crowd to I guess what would be my target audience. So it was a decent crowd. One other note - this place was ridiculously loud. Before the comedy there was music going, and with that and the large number of people in a small room, I don't know how anyone was able to hear anything. Even when the comedy started, it was still pretty loud. I felt almost as if I were talking over people.

The show was capped at 10 comedians, which was nice. It started around 9:20, and as time went on, I awaited my turn. Then the host said "Please welcome our last comedian, straight from Sierra Leone..." and I was like, ok, I don't get to go? And then he said my name. And as I got up another person grabbed the mic. The host mixed us up somehow. So I waited one more and ended up going last. I think my set went pretty well. It was pretty much all new jokes, so as long as some worked, that's all I could ask. The crowd was a tad drunk, and I was interrupted once by applause at a walk-off win by the Astros. So not the ideal situation, but I am still pleased. With these three shows I definitely have a bunch more information about what jokes I should keep in my arsenal. At the end there was a vote for favorite comedian for a prize, which I did not win or place. The winner I think is the guy who organizes the show I'm doing this Friday. So he's a guy who has been at this for a while. I took a cab home because I'm lazy and mom was treating, so that was nice. Woo comedy.

Performance the Tenth

Ooo, I'm at double digits now. Sweet. I performed tonight at the Madhatter in Dupont Circle. See next blog post for more info.

Advising

Played MM this morning for a bit until my mom and uncle showed up. Using my super connections on Capitol Hill (aka Bill), we were able to get a tour of the Capitol Building even though they were booked online. Take that, system! So we are grateful to Bill for procuring us those tickets. The tour consisted of a brief movie, then going through the rotunda and some adjacent rooms. It was shorter than expected, but I guess the rest is actual offices/chambers, so tours can't go there. We decided to wait in line to see the House in session. What looked like a short line turned into a 30 minute wait, but I think it was worth it. We heard about 10 Republicans all speak for one minute to a room of 15 people about how bad the health care bill was. It was like my comedy gigs, but they get to be on TV. I want to headline on C-SPAN. We finished our touring with an abridged perusal of the Air and Space Museum.

We planned to meet Henk,a friend of mine and my brother's from home, for dinner and my gig. I picked him up at the metro and we drove to the place where we parked and then wandered to go find a place for dinner. We found a pretty decent grill place, and I had leftovers so, nice, another meal.

This show was one of the more bizarre shows. There were a total of five other comedians and maybe 5 additional audience members. One comedian was from out of town, one I hadn't seen, and the other three I had seen. I ended up going right after the host. I liked what I did, even though I didn't have much time to prepare. It was a little strange acting out the role of my mom (not so much an impression as a caricature...kinda...) with her there, but no biggee. I don't know what it is, but there is something comforting about the mic. It's like how an instrument separates a musician from their music, but not as much. So, I prefer the mic, I think.

The bizarrity occurred when one of the comedians did crowd work. After first being advised to stick to comedy even if I was routinely booed. Then I was advised not to be a comedian lest I end up with his life. Then when it was unearthed that I went to Princeton, I was advised to go to Princeton and not be a comedian. But not to be a computer engineer, I should get a real job like a doctor or a lawyer. It was then concluded that I should try if I want...maybe, and he gave me a comedy book. So I don't know what to say to that. I think I can be a student and a comedian. It's like a student athlete, except even at Princeton more people watch the student athletes.

But, after the show, one of the audience members found me in the parking lot and said I should disregard the previous advice and do comedy. He also said he studied computer science, so that was cool. I'm glad I was funny to him. Woo.

Performance the Ninth

Tonight, at my usual Tuesday gig. I don't know if I've ever officially disclosed the name of the place. And now I shall. It's called All Star Comedy Club at Listrani's Restaurant in Arlington. Why is everything in Arlington? Let's see what my mom and uncle think of this one...

Performance the Eighth

Was tonight at the 11th Street Lounge at Arlington. Not terribly helpful information after the event. I'm not really good at posting these. But you can ask my mom, open mic comedy != Comedy Central comedy. Maybe I'll stay in school...

Hosting

Today was a jam-packed day. I even had a PB+J sandwich, so the joke I was about to make about how there was no jelly involved was in fact nullified. Drat. The morning had a lot of things going on. I was waiting for the Dell repair man, playing the Snowhead Temple in MM, and waiting for the arrival of my mom and uncle. The Dell person called at 10, was here 20 minutes later, and fixed my keyboard in 5 minutes. Apparently it is much easier to do with the right screwdriver. I beat the temple in MM and was working on the post-quests when my mom/uncle arrived.

After a brief tour of the house we walked to the Natural History Museum. Can you believe that built a whole museum just like the one in that movie? It looked so similar! It was entertaining enough. There were fossil and bugs and the Hope Diamond and the like. We spent about 2/2.5 there and then walked back to Union Station where everyone grabbed something from the food court for dinner. I had a gyro, which never fails to disappoint. Mmm.

So tonight I was performing at the 11th Street Lounge in Arlington. All of my shows are in Arlington/Clarendon/Virginia. Apparently semi-urban VA is the cool place for comedy? So I was told that roll call was at 7:30, be there by 8 to lose my spot. Of course, as I hustled to get there at 7:45, there were only five comedians there. So as we sat at the bar and waited I chatted a bit. I knew most of them from something or the other. Of the 12 or so who went tonight, I probably knew 8. It's nice to see the same faces, but the jokes get less funny as you hear them repeatedly.

Although I warned them, my mom and uncle came to the show. The audience was the comedians, them, and maybe two or three other people. And there was no microphone. And it was in a basement. So...yeah. I went towards the end which was a bit of a bummer, since at the end the crowd is tired and the comics who went earlier had already left. So when I went, the crowd previously at a max of 20 was down to 10. I didn't do very well, I messed up some of my deliveries. Just not the best night for me. But I did talk to people again, got more of a sense of what the scene is like. So otherwise it went well.

So side note: The ads reflect what I write. So there are apparently ads for breaded eggplant cutlets and crock pot recipes. And teeth whiteners? So let me try this. Bears. Polar Bears, Brown Bears, all bears. I want to learn about bears. Ads, let's see how smart you really are!

Poaching

The pattern of unproductive weekend days continued. MM this morning followed by the interesting but ultimately unexciting conclusion to the British Open. Then we went grocery shopping, partially for my own and partially for group dinner night. I got some staples, but a much cheaper trip than before since I still have some basics left over.

In the afternoon we lounged a lot. I wrote down one inspiration for a joke, though, and I think this one has legs. For dinner we attempted to make eggs benedict. I think it worked out pretty well, even though it's hard because a lot of simultaneous things need to be cooked. We had hash browns and sausage as well for a hearty breakfast for dinner. Mmm. I have lots of gigs lined up for this week. Should be fun. And posts should be more interesting.

Sitting

Somehow, weekends are always much less exciting than weekdays. This comes after my original shock that there were few gigs for me on weekends. I think this is a product of the weekend shows having better aka non open-mic comedians, and comedy not being the hip thing to do. So, with plenty of time until my next show and everyone else lazing around the house, that is what I end up doing. Oh well. There is little of note to report today. Lots of sitting. Then lying down while asleep. Then more sitting.

The only moderately interesting thing was a successful dinner, a welcome change from last night's disaster. I threw together another usual tomato, onion, pepper, spinach, and garlic sauce. But instead of using pasta, I cooked the spaghetti squash that I had. Which was delicious. There is something so enticing about the pasta-like nature of spaghetti squash. So, not an exciting day. But tomorrow's theme dinner is breakfast for dinner, so deliciousness will ensue.

Booking

I woke up early today for an unknown reason. Another Majora's Mask (henceforth referred to as MM) and TPIR morning. Leftovers from last night for lunch. I spent an hour or so looking ahead and sending e-mails and doing some scheduling. If all goes as planned I will have a gig every night this week, Monday-Friday, which would be cool. I'm still waiting on some e-mails.

The rest of the afternoon was spent trying to replace my keyboard. Long story short, it was probably easy enough to do if I had the proper screwdriver, but now I had to send for another one to come with a technician. Hopefully they will come on Monday and it will take five minutes. For now I'm getting used to typing without the cap on the A key.

For dinner I attempted to make eggplant in garlic sauce, Chinese take-out style. Due either to cooking the eggplant in too much water or improvising too many ingredients, it was pretty inedible. The eggplant absorbed a lot of water, which was garlic infused. So every bite released a delicious sip of garlic flavored tea. So I made a half hearted attempt to enjoy it and then ditched the rest. Grumble. I should just stick to eggplant parm. So not the most productive day, but it bodes well for the week ahead.

Amusing

My mornings are always the same. The only difference is whether my 12:30 meal is breakfast style or lunch style. Again with the Majora's Mask and TPIR. Then a sandwich for lunch. In the afternoon I chatted a tad with my bro. Dinner was sauteed pepper, onion, and chicken using the soy sauce packets that came with the take-out. And they wanted to throw it away. Hah!

In the afternoon I wrote some new material, mostly college related. From a purely strategic standpoint, few to none of the other comedians are currently in college, so I have ripe material that will not be similar to their things. Having different subject matter automatically sets me apart, which is nice. I ran some college things past the bro since he is of the college ilk as well. Then I practiced in the mirror a few times and headed out.

This gig was at the Comedy Spot which is in a mall. Seems like a strange place for a comedy club. There was a lot of traffic, so I was nervous that I would be late and miss my chance to sign up. Although called for 7:30, when I arrived at 7:28 there were plenty of slots left and few audience members. Though the few audience members thing stayed mostly the same. I am learning that most things run on comedy time, which means starting 15-30 minutes after the posted time. So, though I'll try to be at things early/on-time, being a tad late is not an issue.

My set went well. For mostly new material, a lot of it worked. I know college, so writing about it is easy. It was also nice that three of the civilian audience members were college students. The other comedians had their hits and misses. I've really learned to pretend like every room is full. Not only are comedians who essentially write the night off not as funny, they are wasting their time since they do not get a good read on their jokes. I'm not going to scrap anything, but if a joke makes 15 people laugh it should work on more.

On the way out I saw the same three college kids heading to their car. I chatted with them for 30 seconds, and they all agreed that I was the funniest (by no prompting of my own)! Woo! But really, they did not have to say that, so hopefully they were telling the truth. And if not, I'll pretend they did! But that, for whatever it's worth, felt good.

Performance the Seventh

Will be tonight at the Comedy Spot in the Ballston Mall in Arlington, Virginia. I have never been there nor have I had any of my e-mail inquiries returned, so I'm not exactly sure what to expect. But a bunch of other comedians have recommended it, so I'm going to check it out. It also claims to start at 7:30, which is about 1-1.5 hours earlier than most others. That might mean that it's over earlier, or that it is just longer. We shall see. More information in tonight's post.

Mtrking

The title will make sense soon enough. Today I headed to New Jersey for the bris of my new cousin Nathan Krauss. I took Amtrak to Wilmington where my dad picked me up. On the way up I ended up in business class by accident. Man, all sorts of leg room. It was nice. Perfect for a mid-morning nap.

It was a lovely event. A lot of oooing and ahhing over Nathan, along with the standard yakking and eating. It was nice that people came in from all over, I'm glad I could make it. The train ride home was not as fancy, but I was, of course, still able to nap.

While hanging out in the evening, I discovered that some of my keys were not quite right. So in an attempt to fix one key I actually broke a few. Grumble. And as the fixing continued, the more broken it became. So now my A and Q keys are pretty much broken (hence the title, without the A's). I have to press extra hard and the key caps are coming off. I grumblingly called Dell, and amazingly was able to talk to a real person in about 8 minutes, explain my problem in 2 minutes, and have a new keyboard on the way in 10 minutes. Finally, quality customer service! It should be here soon. I have to put it in myself, but she claimed it was easy, and if not they could walk me through it. Woo.

I booked two gigs today for two Saturday nights in August. One is a contest! Maybe I will win! That would be fun.

Performance the Sixth

Tonight's performance was it. See previous post for more info. I'm sure the ex post facto posts are great for those who wish to attend. But that's the thing with open mics. When I know things in advance I'll try to post in advance.

Comforting

Another standard morning. Majora's Mask and TPIR. No FMWs today though, I wasn't feeling it. I had a solid sandwich for lunch though, then snacked on some leftover chips and salsa from taco night. I also took a nap for the first time in a while. That felt good. Dinner was just things I could grab, I was not particularly hungry.

In the afternoon I did a bunch of work preparing for tonight. I was once again happy with the afternoon. Not too strenuous, but still productive, and I was able to write and refine a bit and then put together my set for tonight. I practiced in the mirror, making special note of my body language/posture/hand usage. The things that I can't really practice when waiting in the restaurant/bar/comedy lounge.

I think my gig went well tonight. A crowd of maybe 20 total, my jokes definitely got some laughs. I did some new stuff, and as always, some of it worked and some of it did not. But I like where some of it is going. I felt much more comfortable today. I felt comfortable schmoozing with the other comedians, I felt comfortable watching and not knowing when I was going up, I felt comfortable taking cues from the host. I talked to some other comedians who seemed to all like the one show, so I will probably do that. I was comfortable driving home without directions, that was was nice. I could enjoy the smooth voices of the Black Eyed Peas on the radio. Overall, a solid night.

Pioneering

A typical morning (to those of you who have this read aloud to you, not an atypical morning, a typical morning). Played some more Majora's Mask, beat the first temple, but I'm still fairly confused. Then TPIR and FMW. Then hung out with AP who takes Mondays off. I played some piano and watched Next Food Network Star. Only four people left. We watched Kid Jeopardy and felt dumb when none of us answered (questioned?) final jeopardy. But neither did the kids. So there.

Then, after ordering in from Good Danny's (We Delivery! is the claim on their menu), we were a few bites and home runs into the home run derby when the power went out. Gasp! So we went and ate outside as it was still a bit light out, and we saw that power was out for the whole block. So for about an hour and a half we were really roughing it, no lights, no computers. Like Pioneers. Except with running water. And cell phones. And take-out. After an hour inside by candlelight the power came back on, we could return to a life of being in the same room but not talking to each other. Hooray!

Did a little comedy today. I went over my show from Friday and tried to analyze how it went. I made notes on which jokes worked, noted any particularly good or bad wordings, remembered the joke I forgot. I think the analysis is pretty helpful, and hopefully I'll put it to good use in the shows this week. Of which there should be at least three. Hmm, I have to send some e-mails tomorrow. I'll make a note.

Tracking

So today also consisted of little comedy. Well, funny things happened, but I did not work on them. Today was pretty mundane. We made a partial house-outing to Giant with some wackiness. Then we watched Harry Potter while people dozed on the couch. Then we had taco night. So, since I have little else to report, I thought I'd check in with the progress of my summer.

Some of my loyal readers may recall long term goals I posted a while ago. I would like to discuss their statuses (or stati, if you prefer):

Explore DC - fairly lagging. I've been to the zoo and to the American History Museum. But the plan is to hit up a museum a week with Sam on his days off. So that will end up being about five more museums, plus any weekend outings we might make. Not great, but decnet

Learn some basic piano skills - Going well. I am about 3/4 of the way through one of my books. I can play with both hands at the same time, occasionally with slightly different rhythms, but nothing too complicated. I do not know what a reasonable place to shoot for would be, but I think I'll be satisfied with where I end up.

Beat Ocarina of Time and all of the side quests - Done. I beat the game with all of the hearts and skulltulas. There were some side quests I had no attachment to (masks, big poes), so I skipped those. This morning I started Majora's Mask, so although I won't complete all side quests, I would like to beat it.

Arrange a song for the PUB - I have no started yet. But hopefully I will soon.

Blog about my summer - This is going well. I think I've posted at least once a day. And I'm raking in the dough from the ad revenue. Not really. But maybe a little. Don't forget to patronize our generous sponsors!

The work week starts tomorrow.

Cleaning

Limited amounts of comedy today. But a large amount of productivity as the first floor of the house underwent a major cleaning operation. It was getting to everyone, so we went for it. We cleaned the whole kitchen, refrigerator and all. We took out a lot of trash and old food, cleaned the dirty dishes in the sink, washed the floor. We cleaned and vacuumed the living room and finally figured out whose dirty socks were under the sofas. And I found some change under the seat cushions, which was solid.

Other than that, people were just home today hanging out. Frosted mini wheats for lunch. Then in the afternoon I set out to get rid of some nearing bad potatoes by making a nice batch of mashed potatoes, recipe courtesy of Alton Brown. I did not have half-and-half, so I improvised a bit. They were pretty good. This house lacks a potato peeler and a potato masher, and I could not locate my garlic, so I improvised there too. Still, delicious. Not much else exciting happened today, but it was relaxing nonetheless, which was nice. And the kitchen is clean. Which is always nice. Dishes, where? I don't see any dirty dishes. There are reports that tomorrow will be taco night. Nice.

Circuiting

Today felt like the real start of my time on the DC comedy circuit. But first...Usual morning with TPIR and frosted mini wheats. I had a fairly productive afternoon, which I think is a good game plan for how my afternoons should go. I wrote a little bit and picked my stuff for tonight. Then I went through the jokes, went over how I wanted to perform them. Then I rehearsed for a while so I had the order, timing, and delivery as I wanted. I realized that I had a habit of saying "But, uhh..." between jokes, but after a self-motivational speech it seems to have gone away. I just needed to be more aware. I also played some piano and ran an errand. Whipped up some scrambled eggs for dinner. Then I headed out for my performance.

First, I really hate traffic circles. And not the New Jersey kinds, which have 3 highways clearly marked with no traffic lights. I'm talking about the DC kind, which have 7 streets coming in, an inside and an outside, poorly market streets, pedestrians all over the place. Whoever thought these were a good idea was wrong. Or designing for horse-drawn carriages. So after a few wrong turns I found my way there, arriving a tad late. I was worried about getting there on time, but when I got there at about 8:35 (for a supposedly 8:40 show), it was myself, the host, and 2 comics. He said we should go stand outside and encourage people to come inside. We made a half-hearted attempt, but it was difficult to convince people on the way home from CVS to just stop in for a two hour comedy show.

Eventually, a large number of people showed up to see Charlie, a comedian who was going for the first time. They became most of the audience, which was fine, as they were all twenty somethings with seemingly healthy appetites for alcohol. I went third. My performance was decent, probably a B performance. Some new stuff worked, some didn't. I think I have realized that there is a large correlation (and some causation, probably in both directions...some sort of differential equation) between how much laughter I cause and how much I enjoy my stage time. Which is good to know. I just need to have fun, and the laughs will come. The rest of the show had its ups and downs, everyone was decent at the worst, which was good.

The one thing I noticed tonight was the community of comics. People knew each other, recognized each other from other shows. They all know what's going on in the business, are aware that it's not the glamour that Comedy Central makes it out to be. But even with a crowd of 15 civilians and 10 comedians, there is plenty of fun to be had. So tonight was not quite that feeling of elation, but definitely one of that confident, content smile. Except for the traffic circles. I still hate them.

Touristing

I was a bit of a tourist today. After TPIR and Frosted Mini-Wheats, I wrote the earlier blog post. How meta, I'm blogging about my blogging. But still, I like what I said in that post, and hopefully I'll have some direction. Or something. Then Sam and I went to the American History Museum. We walked, a hefty 45 minute, 2.5 mile walk. Hadn't done that in a while. The museum was nice, we saw different things. Everything was arranged as a time-line of sorts, which was nifty. We saw the original ruby slippers from Wizard of Oz. Also the portrait of Stephen Colbert. Then we walked home where I finished my leftovers and hung out with people in the evening.

No responses from the four comedy related e-mails I sent yesterday, which is annoying. I just want to patronize their event, why won't they e-mail me? So I'm performing tomorrow, and then starting next week I'm just going to go to these things and see what is going on. And tomorrow I'll actually have to prepare for my show.

Inspiration

A blog post not at night or not about a performance? What the deuce? That's right loyal readers, I felt...inspired...so I'm going to write now.

When I tell people what I'm working on, I am often asked who my favorite comedians are and who I try to model myself after. Although one might expect the answer to be the same, the second group is actually a proper subset of the former. There are plenty of comedians I find funny that I could never be like. Mitch Hedberg comes to mind. His persona is a withdrawn, shy character, probably aided by his immense drug use and paranoia (am I making that up? I don't think so). He apparently did some shows with his eyes closed because of his stage fright. Another one is Demetri Martin, who gives a very unemotional, one-liner delivery. These comedians are both very funny, but their comedy is different then mine. Funny, but different.

After watching some of Comedy Central's stand up marathon this weekend, I think I've found the comedians whose style and delivery I am most similar to. Although I wish I could say I'm as funny as them, I am not, but I see the similarity in who I want to be comically and who they are.
The first is Nick Swardson. Let me present for discussion this joke, one of my favorite of his (the first part is fine, I'm referring to the milk part):

Jokes.com
Nick Swardson - Strongest Boy in the World
comedians.comedycentral.com
Joke of the Day Stand-Up Comedy Free Online Games

He's not really making a witty observation that no one has thought of (like this one from Demetri Martin: “The easiest time to add insult to injury is when you’re signing somebody’s cast.”) What Nick does is take a regular situation and just add a tiny bit of ridiculousness to make it funny. Of course he is stronger than his grandmother. That's not funny in and of itself (doesn't that phrase look ridiculous written out? Anyway...), but it has the potential for funny which Nick finds. I like that the situation he creates, while not true, is decently believable. I've listened to a fair number of comedians who try to make real situations funny but just lose the believability (My girlfriend told me to be more assertive. So I punched her in the face. Along those lines. Clearly not true. And not funny. But, I bet that would get a laugh in a lot of places.) Also important in this joke is the characters he creates. Real characters, but slightly exaggerated.

The second I would like to emulate is Brian Regan. He has a similar style, but it is certainly different. I present for discussion this joke (the first part about the books):

Jokes.com
Brian Regan - Baby Books
comedians.comedycentral.com
Joke of the Day Stand-Up Comedy Free Online Games

First, it's great how people are already laughing before the joke actually happens. Reading a book is not really a joke, strictly. But it's funny because of the slight amount of exaggeration he adds. His reading of the synopsis, also not a joke. Well, at least the first part, when you can certainly believe he is just recounting what is written. He is also echoing sentiments that I think everyone at one point has had. Who writes these books?! I know I've pondered that. He just has a more hilarious take on it that I do.

And what's great about both of these jokes, and these comedians in general? It's all clean material. No swearing, no illicit material. No stupid relationship humor, no ridiculous yelling or shouting (cough Dane Cook cough). It's just funny because it's applicable to everyone and everyone can laugh at it. There is not a hint of inappropriateness.

So, there you go. That's who I want to be like. And so I shall try...