HMC Open Mike night, 7/30/09

Open Mike Night last week not a total success, but was a fine learning experience.

Upon entrance to the venue, I found the place packed with loud, snockered golfers, carousing loudly and working their way up Highway 4 towards other bars and their next DUI. I bravely and dumbly set up my equipment and started my set, with darn little notice from the assemblage. After a few muddled jokes, I tardily realized that it wasn't a good night for it, and took a seat at the bar to wait it out.

If there's one thing a student of comedy is never short on, it's advice from people who don't know anything about comedy. For example, I've recently had the un-brilliant and well-meaning counsel that I should get up and perform some of Bill Cosby's material or George Carlin's, just to get people going. Granted, this was on a night that my own original material wasn't slaying the crowd, but it wasn't so bad as to resort comedic plagarism. Non-comics don't understand that this course of action is tantamount to spitting on your mother. I tried to explain that it's far better to fail with your own material than succeed with stolen material, but I guess it amounts to a cultural thing. It's like the Matrix - no one can be "told" what the Matrix is; you have to experience the relevant importance of the issue at hand before understanding it.

With that said, I did get one nugget of useful tutelage from an 80 year-old Russian barfly who otherwise tells the same stories like a reel-to-reel tape stuck on "loop." She said: "Joov got to grab dem! Dey ain't gonna listen unless joo grab dem!" And she was right.

My comedy style is dry, clever and conversational, but is not multi-dimensional, loud or intrusive. I've got very few short, punchy bits, and absolutely no setup/punch, street-joke-type material. That's just my style. However, it occurred to me even before the mummy's advice if I were to attempt to scale the attention summit that this crowd presented, some assertive, brief and ribald zingers would have been the tools to pull from the toolbox. It's a stretch for me, but hey, I can stretch. Food for thought.

Not having those particular tools at hand, I chilled out until the crowd dissipated. It was unfortunate, but I considered the venue's view: one of the larger purposes of an Open Mike Night is to gets some butts into the venue's seats on a slow night. If the place is already rolling with a crowd that isn't into it, why force amateur night on them and chase paying customers out of the joint?

The evening eventually rolled on with my comedic material and a few musicians who sat and drank in the bar for most of the two hours allotted for Open Mike Night, only to get their instruments out and start playing five minutes from the end of my available time. I let them run long through a few songs, but I had to cut it short and pack up, as I had miles to go before I slept. They grumbled disappointedly, but unlike them I couldn't indulge myself in a short drive home, loaded to the gills; Captain Killjoy had an hour drive, an equipment unload and work the next day to look forward to, so he packed up his shit and left. So be it.

HMC Open Mike Night, 7/23/09

My second night was a mixed bag.

I did about five minutes of new material, and I'd say it deserved a six out of ten. It would have went better if I'd prepared more, but it was a busy week and I didn't dedicate the time like I should've. Still, I got some good responses.

We only had one other performer, a guy named Scott, who brought an acoustic/eletric guitar. He BUSTED OUT some classic rock that had the place (all seven of us) whooping and clapping their hands. He really saved an otherwise mediocre night overall.

I really gotta step up my networking to bring out more talent, and also my rehearsal time so my delivery is smoother.

In the future, I hope to work with bars a little closer to home and more-densely populated areas. My hope is that that will make it easier to draw performers and crowds. One step at a time, though. Lots left to learn, and plenty of time to learn it.

HumorMeComedy.com's first Open Mike Night

Last week I ran an Open Mike Night at "The 19th Hole" in Avery, CA, the first time I've done so. I've performed at open mikes several times, but this was my first time being responsible for the whole thing - the equipment, the tone, the promotion. And it was a total blast.

I rushed over directly from work, set up my equipment and got started. I introduced myself and the concept open mikes in general. I did about 5 minutes of my material and it was very well received. It's true that several people in the audience were friends and acquaintances of mine, and I know that buddy-laughs are different than stranger-laughs. Still, laughs are laughs, and they sounded genuine to me. An even stronger confirmation of their legitimacy was the fact that some gags fell a bit flat - not a night of bombs by any means, but the crowd provided enough variation in response that I knew the laughter wasn't simply Pavlovian, "that's my buddy up there" giggles, generated to save my feelings.

Beyond the reception of my own material, the night started off a bit slowly. It appears that open mikes and down-to-earth performance art in general are pretty novel here, and I could sense the crowd's uncertainty as to what this production was going to look like. That's part of the reason I explained (and will continue to explain) what open mikes are about. I think it helps to get the uninitiated up to speed. But the evening rolled along, and I was proud of myself: I trod a careful line between cajoling the hesitant attendees and acknowledging the awkwardness that is natural to approaching a microphone.

Unfortunately, there are precious few (maybe none at all) aspiring comedians in this area, and no musicians saw fit to attend, either. So, talent was a little on the lean side, and our only hope for entertainment, aside from me, was to get the crowd involved. If there was one angel of mercy in this regard, it was an elderly woman named Liena. After my repeated prodding of the crowd to take a whack at it, she finally took the mike - she utterly mangled a street joke that began: "Okay, there's this eye-talian guy..."

Although it didn't end up being an ethnic slur, it sure started out like one, and this bold start from a frail old granny was ideal for breaking the ice! After her, there was a steady stream of participants; it not only provided a quantity and diversity of material, I could feel the audience become invested in the show, as their friends bought into it and supported their cohorts.

By the end of the show, everyone was loose and there was a definite buzz in the air. Even the shyest person in attendance had shuffled up to the mike to share a funnier-than-expected story about his near-death experience, falling out of a fishing boat in full gear. All my trepidation at this new experience had morphed into exhilaration as the evening was as much a success as I could have asked for. Three nights from now I get to do it all over again, and I can't wait.

I've gotta write some new material!