March Madness 6 - Owl & Thistle

This is going to be a short one, and late, I'm sorry the week just kind of ended this way. Thursday night I performed at the Owl & Thistle's comedy night. This room has been running for over a year. It's a nice road room in the heart of downtown Seattle, and it pays its host, feature, and headliner a little. Not much, but better than free. It was originally started by Nick McCord, and then given over to my friend Brett Hamil, who's been running it ever since. It used to be packaged with a free open mic on Monday's that for a time, I was in charge of. "In charge of" meant that I was the only one that cared to make a list and tell people when it was time to get off stage.

This is one of those rooms that for the first 30 minutes you have to bludgeon the audience into accepting the fact that there is going to be comedy for the next two hours and no, we're not going to turn the UW game back on. Always a great start to a show. It's usually a great place to take people if their being cocky about their act, as this place, along with Pegasus Pizza in Kirkland, tends to eat those people alive. Oh, and if you think you're ready to feature, try Tulalip Casino in Marysville (another story for another time).

I did my 20 minutes after watching the first couple comedians get sucked into the black hole that was the table of drunk soccer fans. I was concerned, but not overly concerned, that they were going to destroy my set. I did something I don't usually do, which is yell at the audience (read: that table) to shut up and listen or kindly move themselves to the other room. At that point, they stopped laughing at any of my jokes, but they were quit. Did my set of nerd jokes again, which is getting crisper each time I tell them, and generally had an ok time.

I get a break from comedy for a couple of nights, which I really need. My next appearance will be the open mic at Laughs this week. I hope to have some new stuff prepared for that as apposed to working on stuff I've already written. We'll see how Sunday and Monday treat me in that regard.