August 24, 2013

The Rejects of Standup In The Black

Last night we did The Rejects of Standup again at The Dark Room Theater in SF. We got 29 people so we were pretty stoked. It was a special show for Johnny Squires’ 45th birthday, so it was also successful in that he managed to turn 45 during the show. Johnny emceed. Then we had Kristee Ono, Andrew Roberts, Chris Schiappacasse, Duat Mai (a former Reject member), me, Robert Berry, Sweet Gail, and some lady that walked in named Susanna did 4 minutes too. Did I forget anybody?

For my set I asked what they wanted to do. Sweet Gail said argue. I asked about what. No one knew so then I suggested Batfleck: the casting of Ben Affleck as Batman. I figured most people would argue against, so I offered to argue for, which is actually my real position on the matter. I think Ben Affleck is probably the best actor out there right now to play Batman. Truth and troll bait in one sentence. I said maybe the idea was to piss off Christian Bale enough that he would reprise the role. But they didn’t really want to argue after all, and finally said they wanted to laugh. I told a bunch of jokes which mostly went over pretty well, even my new slavery/Hollywood joke, which got total silence on the part where it can get a great laugh, but then I managed to salvage it somehow by going into more depth with the part about Brad Pitt jerking off on the hay bale.

We’ve made money on shows before, but I think this is the first time we made money on a show that we had to rent a theater for. I was feeling pretty happy about it, but then on the way home I started getting the “they won’t let me work at a comedy club” blues again. I think it actually might make a good blues song. Lyrics like “I did a show at a bar the other night, my friends and peers thought I had the set of the night. But they all work at The Punchline, and they all work at Laugh’s Unlimited, and they also work at Tommy T’s, and Rooster T Feathers too. But they won’t let me. That’s why I got the can’t work at comedy club blues.” I know I put the names of the clubs. Some might think I’m trying to call out the clubs for not booking me. I’m not. I get why they won’t. That’s the situation. I’m funny, but I don’t fit their mold so they won’t book me, and I want to figure out a way to get them to book me anyway. I don’t see anything wrong with making that public. I may have the blues and have difficulty really understanding what the issue is keeping them from booking me, but I understand they’re just trying to run a business and I don’t have any ill thoughts about them or the people that run them. I just have the can’t work at a comedy club blues.

And though no one reached for my crotch last night, a tiny dog snuck into the green room and put it’s face all over Schiappacasse’s crotch.

Here’s my set from the show: http://youtu.be/1yYXvWZrOlw