Last night Chris and I went to Bojangles here in Seabrook. We had earlier seen a sign out front reading: Wednesday Comedy Night. Chris likes to do some stand up every now and then. - here's a sample... I think he's really funny and so do a lot of people. He hasn't told jokes on stage in a LONG time - probably not since two summers ago. But he's coming up with some new material now. We had the best time last night and I laughed so much my sides hurt.
I recently listened to two Steve Martin books on my iPod to and from work - The Pleasure of My Company and Born Standing Up. In Born Standing Up, Martin relates how he got involved in comedy in the first place. He goes through ten years of his life doing stand up and the process involved with refining his act. So much of what he said made sense just because I have this experience of having seen Chris refine his act, labor over new material, repeating his jokes again and again to find just the right tone and inflection. It makes you appreciate what is funny even more.
So, what is funny? something shocking? something nasty? a little of both? the fact that it's someone you know on stage? I think things are funny that I can relate to. But I have to say I don't find a lot of female comedians funny. I can relate to periods, giving birth, dealing with men, and all the material about shopping with skinny friends but I don't find it funny. I don't want to go to a comedy show and laugh at jokes about women having periods. I also don't want to laugh at male comics joking about how they use women. The funniest joke I heard last night was so visual that you would have had to be there to get it about a cheap strip club in PoDunk Texas where the stripper was in a wheelchair. Now I can't relate to that at all - having never been to a strip club and not being a stripper. But I laughed my ass off. The other funny guy just did puns and looked like Peter from The Family Guy.
There was no sign up list like in other open mic nights. You have to talk to this short little Mexican dude in a suit who MCed the night. He did a brief interview of Chris and told him he'd be on the bill for next Wednesday. I'm really looking forward to hearing what Chris comes up with for next week and seeing him on stage. I'll be video taping so listen for my laugh on the video once it gets posted to youtube with the rest of his videos.
I'm sleepy and it's time for bed.
Sweet dreams.
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coming up with funny things is always difficult. When I'm not being pressured I can come up with jokes off the top of my head that always make you laugh, but most of the time those jokes are situations based (like the cheesy eggs at IHOP - the ones with all the yokes?). It's funny, but on stage you don't want to set up a joke too much, you want to take a topic and dissect it until you've examined each and every potentially funny thing. Then you pair it down to make it into a bit.
After watching all my comedy videos with you last night it was really cool to see how bits like sleep and jew-porn evolved as I told them again and again.
I'm nervous about next week - I want to come up with some funny material and that's not always easy.
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