March Madness 4 - Comedy Underground Open Mic

I know I'm a day late with this one, but I'm going to blame all the free booze that I got at my own private after party (more on that in a second).

Last night was Monday night, and you know what that means, the world famous Comedy Underground's open mic madness. Over 30 comics in just under two hours, which translates into about 2-3 minutes of stage time. But this is the place I came to start my comedy career almost five years prior, back in the summer of 2005. (If you ask me how long I've been doing it I'll say just over four years though, cause I took a big break after three months in.) I did my three minutes (back then we got the full three), told some jokes, and then drank a lot of beer. Didn't get that drunk that night, as I had to go back to my internship in the morning, buy ya. Oh, I'm reminiscing too much, this is supposed to be about what I did LAST night.

I hadn't prepared anything for last night except one new tag, which I didn't even end up doing right when I hit the stage. So much for being on the ball. I had a mean streak in me too. I don't know why. I sort of feel like there is no humility in the craft right now, a sense of entitlement in all the open micers. I don't get too preachy about it because I used to be / am one of them, and I know that sometimes we act up, but there aren't any old timers coming down to the clubs anymore to put them/us into place. So last night I hit the stage and my first like was, "For all those open micers that think they have fans that come to see them at the open mic, you're full of shit." That is how you warm up the room, am I right? Nothing, not a laugh, not a boo, just 50 people staring at me. Fun.

Now comes the good part. As much as they probably didn't want to laugh at my next joke, they're sitting there going "who is this asshole", after my first joke, bam, laughing. By the time I told the second joke, I had them all back. It felt really great. Not because I shit on anybody, but I was able to win the audience back after saying some really caustic stuff. Those two jokes were enough to prove that I could do that, at least this once. And then I left, way before the light, just to keep the MC on her toes.

I know, I sound sound/feel like a douche writing this. That, and I've used the slash thing three times, and it's the trademark of a crappy writer that can't figure out what he wants his character to do/say. I'm not trying to be mean, honestly I was still just telling jokes and if people are going to get offended by me, they really need to get out now. I'm one of the tame ones. Besides, if any one of them came up to me and sincerely wanted honest feedback (and I think they could handle it), then they've got it. I don't care if you take all my gigs in the process, if you're better than me then it's time to write some better jokes and get funnier myself.

I love the open mic scene in Seattle and I think that everyone should continue to go to them. Respect the process, respect your self, but ya, you don't have fans at an open mic. Besides, real fans come to see you when you're featuring/headlining anyways...