Where the Battle of Algiers rages on ...Rick's Cafe Americain

My spot at the New York Comedy Club was the result of my past success getting people to come to bringer shows. My reward was that I didn’t need to bring anyone last night, so I didn’t beg people to come and see me. Before I did my set, I spoke with Buddy, the producer of the audition night and last night’s show. The sad short version of our conversation is that the road bookers weren’t interested. The longer, not-nearly-as-sad version includes their actual notes on my performance:

Booker 1: funny ... clever ... potential ... if you haven’t seen Spider-Man, you’re lost in his act
Booker 2: good presence ... funny ... potential ... introductions are too long

Modest, but as far as I’m concerned, fucking awesome. I’ve been doing this for, generously, six months. Really only five, since I didn’t perform at all in between the Funny Jew/Laywer contests in early June and the Funny Jew finals in July. And, frankly, I think the guy is wrong about Spider-Man. The super hero is a guy with spider-like powers and a secret identity. Are the concepts so abstract that you need the movie to take you through them? As for the other guy, my introductions ARE too long. He didn’t tell me anything that Zinester and Brother of Ugarte don’t already tell me after almost every set. The key words up there are “potential” and “funny”.

The comments on the other comics made me feel even better: not funny ... no potential ... absolutely no potential ... TERRIBLE ... (a comment that so clearly identified a specific comic that I can’t repeat it here) ... NO potential. They were tough critics. And they liked my stuff, even though they don’t think I’m ready. Pretty cool.

The other reviews came from the audience (of around 16 people). They were not as positive. The set started poorly when I was introduced, more or less, as a nobody. I’m sure Kurt didn’t mean it to come out that way, but the standard intro for new comics performing in the regular show sounds like This next guy is as awkward as a newborn foal. We are trying to nurture him, but admit that he might suck. Please stay for the next comic even if he totally eats it. Not really confidence-inspiring. Then, to show what a nobody I am, he called me to the stage as “Christopher Star” and I had to correct him*. It didn’t pick up much from there. I blew the intro to my joke about my (former) job and had to wing my A.M. New York joke because I forgot the paper at home (the theatricality of using the prop helps the joke). I also mucked around with some other joke formulations, making them worse and tried a new joke that I didn’t take the time to write out completely. I even underperformed the Spider-Man close. The result was a tepid audience response.

That said, it wasn’t horrible. At least a few people laughed at every joke, everyone laughed at the cheap jokes and one guy was laughing at all of the smart stuff. I have the perspective to know that the poor response was mostly my fault, but in retrospect maybe a riff on last week’s Rumsfeld press conference wasn’t the best idea when it became clear that 99% of the audience don’t know who Donald Rumsfeld is. Or that we are at war. (Don’t ever blame the audience. -ed. I’m not blaming the audience. Telling the joke was my fault and I admit that I didn’t tell it particularly well. Does that mean I can’t judge the audience?). Looking at the positive, the audience seemed to like me personally, even though I was having a bad set. They were waiting for a joke to be told right so they could laugh and when I managed to not blow the Spider-Man jokes, they laughed hard.

Lessons learned: Keep on plugging away. Tighten up the intros. Write the jokes completely before you get on stage. Remember to bring your one and only prop. And make sure the emcee knows your name.

* Brother of Ugarte can be heard on tape audibly laughing at the screw-up. He will pay dearly for reacting with laughter instead of outrage.

Wednesday, December 1. No comedy. Only poker. A recap should be posted soon, but will probably be delayed until after this week’s game at The Churchwarden’s and a possible appearance at A.M.

Thursday, December 2. Michael Martin, one of the regulars the Above Malibu poker tournament, clued me in to a Thursday night show at R Bar in Williamsburg, where he and his boyfriend Carter tend bar. I wasn’t sure if it was a booked show or an open mic, but he told me that he could get the host, Brian Finkelstein, to put me on. This was exceedingly kind, as he had never heard me do stand-up; he was risking his reputation on the poker table chatter of an almost-stranger.  I thought the show started at 10, but I arrived at 9:45 to find the show had already begun. I recognized a lot of comics in the room: Liam McEneany, Ritch Duncan, Victor Vornado - all quality comics with substantially more experience than me. Brian told me that he may or may not be able to put me on; there wasn’t much of a crowd and there were a lot of comics scheduled. Strangely, that didn’t stop me from telling Brother of Ugarte to come straight from a late night at work to meet me at the bar. He agreed to come. As soon as I hung up, I hoped that the rest of the comics would be good enough to justify his trip in case I didn’t get to perform. They were. It was a uniformly good group of comics and, as the last scheduled comic was performing, I got the good news that my patience would be rewarded.

I didn’t know how long I was going to get, so I just decided to tell jokes until the crowd got hostile. I opened with a bit about my current working conditions and segued into a riff on something in that day’s paper. The work joke was a refined version of a joke that died when I adlibbed it at an open mic - a little bit of thought made it much better. The riff on the news was great and it is a staple of my set now. I did some election-related material that has better legs than I expected. It turns out that proper packaging can keep material fresh. This message brought to you by Ziploc. My Spider-Man stuff remains strong for the same reason. Acting on a suggestion from asphnxma, I don’t make any reference to the Spider-Man movies, and instead tie the joke to the character. The joke works better (and is tighter) as a result. The Spider-Man joke went over well also. In fact, the whole set killed. I did far better than I expected to, considering the size of the crowd and the proportion of comics to civilians.

Particularly gratifying: Ritch and Brian congratulating me on the set after the show. Mark Sam Rosenthal taking my info so he could book me for his monthly show at Apocalypse Lounge (probably in February). Carter, hanging at the end of the bar with BOU, audibly laughing a lot on my tape of the show. Hanging out with Carter, Michael and BOU after the show, drinking Guinness and Manhattans made with Carter’s own hand-made infused bourbons. A very good night.

Friday, December 3 Also a night off. I hosted a get-together for the contributors to the latest issue of Stay Free! A reader screened part of his amazing collection of pre-MTV music films for the contributor party. I mention this because Stay Free! is having a fundraiser at Southpaw in January with these film clips as the centerpiece. I can’t recommend enough that you come. The videos are amazing. Supporting independent media is a worthwhile cause. The woman I love runs the damn magazine. I’ll give you more reasons if you want them.

Saturday, December 4 On my way out the door at Sven Wechsler to be the second comic. Her play ended earlier than I thought it would, so by the time I got there with Zinester and BOU the play was long over and the burlesque was about to begin, so we were just slotted into the burlesque show. Sven was the first to go. He died a slow, lingering death on stage. (Don’t take my word for it, read his version of events.) I performed a few slots later. The crowd warmed to me a little more than they did to him, but it was still a very tough room. Sven and I commisserated for a little while after I got off stage and then he split. Zinester, BOU and I split shortly thereafter. No reason to hang around the crash site.

Wednesday, December 8. I begged people to come to this show at New York Comedy Club. I needed five people to get the stage time, and I wasn’t sure that I was going to make the quota. Fortunately I have good friends. In the final accounting, 8 people saw me audition in front of a couple of guys who book comics for clubs in Upstate New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I thought I had a very solid set. I’ll find out what they thought when I go back to the club tonight for a guest spot in a non-bringer show. Fingers crossed.

Thursday, December 9. The debut of Dubious Prospect, my new open mic at Ripple was something less than a smashing success. Only two comics - Rachael Parenta and Rob Apuzzo - showed up. I waited for more comics to show, and by the time I decided to just start the show, the captive audience escaped. Well, except for two firemen who wouldn’t shut up during my set. Or Rachael’s set. Or Rob’s set. Rob was the only one of us who handled it properly. He also had the good fortune to have some more people come into the bar, so he had some audience to play to. I hope that it goes better for all of us next week.

That’s about it, except to mention that Blaine Perry came through and I am going to be performing at Jack Dempsey’s on January 7. Don’t worry, I’ll remind you. See you tonight, I hope.

Yeah, Sam, you heard me. Whatcha gonna do?

The open mic scene in New York is a strange and beautiful thing. There are so many comics that on every night of the week, there is a comedy open mic going on every night of the week. The upside is a lot of places to play. The downside is that getting good stage time is still a crapshoot because so many other people show up at the mics.

On Monday I went straight from work to Chinatown to do a six minute set at Yello on Mulberry Street. I got there early, and signed up eighth. Eighth isn’t very good; audiences usually start flagging after six comics, and a mic like Yello (which starts at ~7PM) has very little audience to speak of anyway. I didn’t go eighth, though. I forgot that the host of the room gives priority to people that email him in advance to let him know that they are coming. So I went 14th. I felt like a dog at an animal shelter. Every time the emcee stood up to introduce the next act I thought “Pick me! Pick me! You’ll love me if you will just pick me!!!” By the time comic number 11 hit the stage all I could think was “Fuck it. I’ve been in the pound too long. Just kill me, OK?” The night was going to be really long.

The emcee, after doing a full set up front, kept doing almost two minutes between the comics. Getting longer.

There was also a “headliner.” A guy who has done Conan, among other glamour credits. He did 15 fucking minutes. Ugh. I don’t want to see Chris Rock show up and do 15 minutes when I’m at an open mic and I certainly didn’t want to see impressions of - seriously - Laurel & Hardy, John Candy and Jackie Gleason. And the night just got longer.

I followed a woman that was more performance artist than stand-up comic (her act involved a lot of shreiking and overpronunciation of her own name “Squeeeeer!") and - in a serious open mic felony - she went over by a full two minutes. By the time she was done I was ready to strangle her with my bare hands, even if the entire killing was taken out of my stage time. Longer still.

I finally got up and just died. The crowd had dwindled to the four comatose comics that still had to perform plus the emcee and the booker. I got some laughs from two people who hand’t seen me before, but it was a wasted experience. I didn’t feel like jinxing new material, so I didn’t do any of the stuff I wanted to test and half-assing the old stuff isn’t worth the amount of time I spent waiting. The night perked up a little when the woman who followed me decided to perform her set shirtless (but not braless) so the stragglers would pay attention. I stuck around.

By the time I left Yello it was 9PM. Bowery Poetry Club has an open mic that starts at 10, so I hoofed it across town. (Yes, you read that right. I walked. Seriously.) I got there in plenty of time, went around the corner to grab a burger at Great Jones Cafe and was still one of the first people to toss my name into the hat. It was pulled out roughly 40th! If I waited, I would get to do a four minute set at 2:15 in the morning. Maybe. It was possible that I wouldn’t get on at all before the show closed at 2:30. I stuck around long enough to see Rick Shapiro do an uncomfortable improv bit that involved using the word “nigger” 100 times in seven minutes. It was horrid. It was like watching that stupid “Dead Nigger Storage” scene in Pulp Fiction, which I am sure QT wrote strictly to say “nigger” in Samuel Jackson’s face without getting the shit pounded out of him. It was a thrill to then to see Victor Vornado get up and slam them for the pseudo-intellectual-oh-so-meta-ironic-bullshit that sketches like that spring from. I waited to see Jessy Delfino do a few profane songs because I had heard good things (which were true) and then I left. At 11:30.

To recap: I watched over three hours of comedy and half-assed a six minute set. Not a good night.

Tuesday I went back to Alligator Lounge in Williamsburg. The Alligator is a great room because the bar is full on Tuesdays and they just announce the free comedy show in the back room, which usually draws six to ten people. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it really makes a huge difference. Again I ended up at the bottom of the list. Frustratingly, this was largely becuase early-arriving comics signed up their friends, so I had to follow people who came later than I did. Still, the beginning of the show ended up being a bad place to be. We had an audience of three - and none of them were willing to laugh. Fortunately, the comic two ahead of me was so painful, they left… and were replaced by three guys that laughed at ANYTHING. So, despite the wait, I actually had a pretty good set. Nice to have a night that isn’t a total loss.

It is now after 4AM and I have to get some sleep. Plus, this is really way too long already. I’ll post the rest of my week tomorrow. I know that you can’t wait.