Open Mic 021

Today, I reached the highest point of my comedy career.  That is, I performed on the 11th floor of a building tonight, and my previous high was 2nd floor.  I wasn’t planning on going today, but due to my wife being at her friend’s house and me already having had my packed lunch for dinner, I had to get myself out there, and headed off to Stark Reality Open Mic.

This was my first open mic that wasn’t exclusively comedy, as it welcomed open mikers of all types.  But the acts were all comics and musicians in about equal numbers, plus one tap dancer.  I’ve avoided these types of mics before because I assumed that there would be all musicians and I would be one of the few comics.  However, today I realized the benefit of performing at such a show, as the crowd wasn’t full of people working on their own jokes who watches bad comedy 7 nights a week.  Almost as good as a real show audience, I would say.

On an unrelated note, I did surprisingly well tonight.  I did the same jokes I did last time, but the laughs were strong tonight, as opposed to complete silence.  I’m still trying to figure out why that is.  Comedy is such a fickle beast.  Or like a box of chocolates.  I guess my goal is to come up with jokes that are guaranteed to get laughs all the time.

One guy sitting next to me was also a comic, and he asked me for my e-mail address.  I saw him asking for the same from a musician.  What he plans to do with those e-mail addresses, I guess I’ll find out.

There was also another Asian comic tonight.  He lost me in five seconds when he pointed at me, saying “I’m glad my twin is still here” and followed it up with a joke involving Asian accent.  Rest of his set was quite lame, but there were a couple of decent jokes in there.

After the show, as I walked on to Port Authority, I passed by Charlie O’s and peeked into the back room, where the open mic is usually held.  Whoa, a full crowd?  What’s going on?  I went in, met a comedian I just saw at Stark Reality, and found out it was a real show with real audience.  I saw the girl who runs the open mic and she told me she can put me on a show like this if I come to her open mic.  Hmm… is it that easy?  And am I ready?  Whatever the case may be, the lesson learned is that I need to get out there more, meet more people, and make connections.  Open mics should be something I do on the side, not the only thing.