Jason Roeder

“This is a tough crowd, man. All comics.” Mike was cluing me in. We were sitting so close in the unheated basement of the bar that it almost seemed illogical not to talk to each other. Mike’s choice of words puzzled me a little. If I’m a “comic,” then the cardio-kickboxers in the 6:30-7:30 class at UltraFitness are gladiators. After all, I had just paid $5 for a five-minute open-mic set, the exact placement of which would be determined by the order in which my name was drawn from a fishbowl by the host. And with all that in mind, why should this be a tough crowd? Are we really competing? If that’s the case, I should’ve just dropped in a $20 and been the headliner. I mean, I’m not going to manufacture a laugh for shamefully hack material, but you’d think beginners would want to, like, support each other.

Anyway, the audience consisted entirely of the 30—yessir, that many—open-mikers, plus a random couple that a barker had pulled in off the street. I don’t even want to think about how badly the actual show failed the pretense that was used to sell it. It was that uncomfortable. Imagine a football game in which a player was wheeled off in a cervical collar every down, except not nearly as sidesplitting.

As luck would have it, I went up 26th out of 30. This meant that by the time I took the stage, everyone had already sat through a two-hour show (on a Wednesday night), and not just a show but an awful one that couldn’t have been as bad without their stammering, half-remembered contribution. 

“How’s everyone doing tonight?”

My own five minutes went just like I practiced in my apartment that very day, meaning I got every word right and the room was silent throughout. That’s not entirely true. Certain bits worked but most were just sort of stillborn. Or maybe I just fell asleep at some point. I noticed that the comics who got more laughs all had one thing in common: humping the air motions. Big laughs for tired basement dudes.*

*(and one girl)

Posted April 30th, 2008 | Comments are open