The Night Before

During my freshman year in college, I went to see my pledge brother's cousin, Cary Schwartz, do stand-up comedy at an open mic night in Austin at this place on 6th street called the Velveeta Lounge.

I remember the night in great detail. Cary was funny - he wasn't polished (he is probably much better now, if he's still doing stand-up), but he definitely had some good ideas. I was proud of him. But that's not what I remember most.

What I recall most vividly about that night is not Cary's performance, but how bad everyone else was. Bad probably isn't a strong enough word. To say they were bad would be to call World War II a minor skirmish. They were dreadful. One after the other, the performers (I can't bring myself to call them comedians) came to the mic and bombed in every way possible - they were crude, they made bad puns, they had set-ups with no punchlines, they had punchlines with no punchlines. It was awful.

And yet, for some reason, I was riveted. I remember going home that night to my dorm room and thinking, for the first time, that I might really like to try that someday. I have no idea why their failure made me think I could do it, but somehow it did.

That winter break my family and I went on a cruise, and I spent a lot of my free time writing my first attempts at comedy*.

*I have that document somewhere, but the only bit I can remember offhand was about the airplane's black box, if you can believe it. So original, right? What's the deal with those things anyway? It was basically a bit about how I think it's funny when after a plane crash they always hold off on any analysis until they see what was recorded on the black box - like the pilots are going to have some really calm, rational explanation of everything that went wrong. Isn't it probably just a pair of pilots screaming, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH, WE'RE GOING TO DIE!!!" Hilarious**.

**I love how I pretend that I was naive to think that bit was funny back then. I still think that's funny.

After college I moved to Boston, and I fully intended to take that first step into the world of stand-up comedy. I had a do-nothing job running a Prometric testing center, serving as a glorified test proctor (glorified? Who am I kidding?) for 40 hours a week. With tons of time to kill, I continued to write out the bits that came to my mind - but I never got on stage. Not that year in Boston, not the year after in Syracuse, and not in the 6 years since in Atlanta.

This became a pattern. I would write something I thought was funny, come up with enough material to take a crack at an open mic, but when push came to shove I always found an excuse not to do it. Rinse, lather, and repeat, for the last 8 years.

I was talking to a friend today about what has kept me off the stage, and while I think there are a variety of reasons (can you say procrastination?), there is one in particular that I've always felt a little, well, funny about.

I find it incredibly embarassing to tell people I'm interested in doing stand-up. I think it's because by saying I do (or want to do) stand-up, what I am basically telling people is, "I am very funny."

This seems like a pretty arrogant statement. "Look at me! Not only am I hilarious, but people should spend money to see and hear my hilarity in person! PAY ATTENTION TO ME!" It makes me feel incredibly self conscious.

And yet, at the same time, I love to make people laugh. I have given many a rehearsal dinner toast over the years, and every time one goes over well it feels like...well, I don't think I write well enough to describe the feeling, but as Snoop Dogg would say, it's the shiz-nit.

All of which brings me to the advent of this blog and the reason I am sitting on my couch writing this out tonight.

Tomorrow night, after several years of false starts, I will finally make my stand-up comedy debut at an open mic night at the Laughing Skull Lounge in Atlanta.

What finally pushed me over the edge? I have no idea. A few weeks ago I started to think about the upcoming summer, and that maybe I should take up a hobby of some kind, and I guess it finally just clicked. It was time.

I went back through my notes, trying to discern what if anything that I'd ever written was even remotely funny, and put together a set. I've practiced some - I don't really know how to practice without feeling like a complete a-hole, but I've written out exactly what I think I'm going to say and said it into a dictaphone to play back how it sounds (it sounds stupid).

I have no idea how it will go over. I truly believe the stuff I have is funny material, but I know there is more to making an audience laugh than that. It's about timing. It's about inflection. It's about letting the spaces in between the words be as funny as the words themselves. I know all about comedy and what makes it good or bad, and yet armed with that knowledge I still have no idea whether I'm going to kill or bomb tomorrow night. For some reason it feels like there can be no middle ground.

No matter what, I do think it will be interesting, and a great experience, and who knows where it could lead. I know there is a part of me that will be proud just for giving it the ol' college try, but a larger part of me thinks moral victories are for sissies and wants a definitive answer, either now or sometime in the near future, to the question I've been pondering ever since that first night back in Austin. Can I hang?

I don't know what will come of tomorrow night, nor do I know what this blog will beget. But after thinking about comedy for over a decade now, I wanted to put my thoughts on the process down on paper (so to speak), if for no one else's amusement than for my own. It could lead nowhere (like most blogs I've started), or maybe this will be the one that sticks.

Either way, I'm ready to get this show on the road...