I'm Pretty Sure I Didn't Suck...

I watched the movie "Funny People" right before I made that last post and apparently when referring to stand-up comedy, the real pros use the term "going up." Hence my brilliant usage of insider terms.

So I "went up" at the Brew House on Wednesday. It was a pretty small crowd, but we're attributing that to the Fourth of July weekend that we've all just recovered from. It was mainly made up of the other comedians who were performing that night, which gave the whole thing an interesting, work-shop kind of feeling.

Okay so, self-assessment of performance Wednesday night:

My stand-up comedy at the moment reminds me of when I first started auditioning for musicals. I would walk out of the room and it was like I had just blacked out for the past two and a half minutes. I dimly remembered placing a binder full of sheet music on top of a piano, and then it was all just a blur. And once it's over I have absolutely no idea if I was good or not, all I know is I'm not having rocks thrown at me by outraged spectators.

It didn't help that it was a quiet crowd. I mean, obviously. If there's only ten people, you don't want to be the jackass who laughs the loudest, so small crowds tend to be quieter. But I was totally doing that "comedian talks too loud because they anticipate that they'll have to talk over riotous laughter that it not there" thing.

I still get very nervous. So I just power through it like a speech at my cousin's wedding and then get off stage as fast as possible.

The other comics performing at this thing had a lot more experience than I do, and they were all very relaxed, and you could see that they were really absorbing the reaction that the audience was having to their jokes. That's what I have to work on, I think. Really being there in the moment.

And being funny.

Reactions from others:

Jesse told me any time I wanted to do the show, to just let him know. So that's a sign that I did not blow. Was "Friended" on Facebook by two of the other comedians, so also a good sign. And when another of the comics was leaving, he said "good set" to me. And when I sat through a twenty-minute train wreck that (lucky me) came right before I went on at my first stand-up gig, I did not say "good set" to her when leaving the venue.

I said, "get home safe."

In other words, "I hope you're not jumped on the way to the Subway by one of the people who just paid ten dollars and bought a minimum of two drinks to have you suck a portion of their soul out through their eyeballs."

So I think we can count last Wednesday, if not as a victory, then as a positive step in the direction of success.

Go me.

In other news, spent Saturday morning shooting a small role in the latest film of director Louis Levy, with whom I did "Slice of Life" last year.

Still having trouble with my website, but I finally swallowed my pride and asked for directions at the nearest gas station (aka: Emailed the tech support team) so hopefully it'll be back on track before I'm reduced to joining AngelFire.

Old school.