Where Sam doesn't play anymore ...Rick's Cafe Americain

I have to start once again by thanking the folks at Coconuts. They took a phone call from a mystery guy, claiming to be “a comic from New York” and, without hearing a single joke, threw him on stage. An additional thank you to Frankie Cramer, who hosted the Wednedsay open mic and, on the basis of a seven minute set that received silence, booked me for the Thursday and Sunday shows. And after a 10 minute set on Thursday that got intermittent laughs, he offered me 20 minutes for Sunday. His confidence in me and my material is much appreciated. As a final bonus, he comped the cover charge for all of my friends for all three shows.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get 20 minutes on Sunday. The reason is probably a combination of “Frankie not remembering that he offered me 20 minutes,” “another out-of-town comic asked for a guest spot,” and “I didn’t remind him that he offered me 20 minutes.” Whatever the reason, I went to the stage expecting to do 20 minutes and I planned out my set accordingly.

20 minutes is about the far end of what I feel comfortable doing. If I had to, I could probably cobble together a half-hour, but I’d be doing some bits that I don’t really perform anymore or unrefined, underwritten material. Even 20 minutes required pulling some stuff out of the time capsule. I opened with a joke that I had been telling as part of my political set, but since it usually starts with a kinda cheap joke implying that dating high school kids is cool here in Florida, I needed a new intro for it to perform it in St. Pete. Fortunately, Frankie gave me something to riff off of in his set. Whew! I hadn’t worked out a solid opening joke until twenty seconds before I was introduced. On the postive side, it is hard to forget a joke that you write as you are walking to the stage.

The set went well. I opened with one of the first jokes I ever performed (Is she jewish?) because it segued nicely into a riff on my visit to Florida to spend Christmas with Zinester’s family. This turned into my best set of the week. All of my jokes connected: dating, relationship, Christmas in Florida, politics, crappy jobs - the audience was with me for all of it. I messed up a joke about riding a bicycle because I tried to work in a little audience conversation with a guy from Bay Ridge, but as I was boldly venturing into talking to the audience, I forgot that the Brooklyn reference isn’t until the middle of the joke. A little self-effacing joke and I was back on track.

For the first time I did some political material. Frankie’s intro implies that the St. Pete Beach audience is usually red-meat conservative, so I was wary of telling my liberal stuff. On Sunday, though, there was a decent contingent of blue staters in the audience (thanks again to Frankie for his information gathering audience work), so I felt that I could get political without the crowd turning on me. I didn’t do the most aggressive anti-Republican stuff because, well, even with people from the Northeast, St. Pete Beach doesn’t transform into New York City. And - surprise! - a riff on Rumsfeld’s town hall meeting in Kuwait probably got me my biggest laugh of the night.

And then I got the light. I still hadn’t gotten to Spider Man or some new jokes that grew out of conversations that I had with Zinester’s brother and sister-in-law and I had to bail out into a joke that would fit into the minute I had left. When I checked my recorder after the show I realized why I hadn’t gotten to anything: I was cut back to 10 minutes. Booooo! Particularly when I heard the guy that I was cut back for: he was hacky and horrible and I escaped most of his set by taking off for the bathroom after I heard his opening joke.

Ken Reed was back again, and I got to speak to him for a while before the show and during Frankie’s set. He is a good guy. Also, as it turns out, a Democrat. He performed at party fundraisers in Florida during election season, and took my cue to tell some political stuff. Playing off of my own reluctance to do political jokes, he said I’m going to tell this one for Charles. He was worried that he couldn’t tell political jokes here in Florida. You can, Charles, you just have to tell them slower. That was exactly the sort of joke I figured would get the audience pissed off at my New York ass, but since he is a local he got away with it.

The political joke he decided to do started like a Bush-malaprop bit (subliminable, etc.), but his punchline was original enough to save the joke from its hacky premise. His stage presence and audience rapport are great, but I have to say that he would benefit from the competition in New York. Some of his intros are too long and some of his best jokes would be even better if they were tighter. He is probably at the top of the Florida scene and finds it easy to get booked, so nobody is pushing him to tighten the jokes that audiences are already laughing at. There is something to be said for big ponds also.

Uncle Dow Thomas headlined again, but Zinester’s friends had to turn in and, to be honest, I didn’t want to watch his set for the third time in five days.

I am coming back to Florida in February and Frankie told me to make sure that I call. Coconuts is going to be my home away from home. Man, I love that place.