The Comedic Adventures of a Boy Named maar

I arrived at the Comedy Zone just after the sign-up time of 7 o'clock, an hour before the start of the show. I quickly found who I needed to talk to: a gorgeous female employee of the club (I'm digging this place already), whose name I forget. I was, um, "distracted". This chick had those huge, blue, "I can make you do whatever I want you to do" eyes, and probably had a body somewhere below them...I'm not sure. Anyway, I got done with signing up and headed to the pisser, which is the first thing I like to check out in a new place. After finishing up in there, the organizer called for all the performers to follow him to the back room. We drew tickets to determine what order we went up in, and Mr.Organizer goes over the format.

We're going to be doing four minute sets, with a solid warning light at three minutes and a flashing "finish up" light at four. He asked us to "please keep it as clean as possible," causing a murmured "shit!" to slowly work its way around the room, bringing numerous notepads and pens out and leading to many a striken joke. I quickly ascertained that not only was I the only person here doing comedy for the first time, but also the first one doing comedy at this club for the first time. Oh, and it's a competition, with first place being hosting priviledges for certain weekend events. Couple all that with the fact that I'm having to amend or remove completely most of my prepared material to meet the decency standard, and you arrive at a very nervous maar, baby.

The organizer introduced the host, who was dressed and looked strangely like that doctor on the show House. They went over how the introductions would work, and left us to our own devices. Several comics left out immediately, but some of us stayed behind and introduced ourselves.

One guy caught my attention rather quickly. His name was John; he looked like a German stoner...and talked like a German stoner. But what really struck me as odd, and annoyed the hell out of me, was his laugh. It wasn't a real laugh, it was like he blew out a puff of air and then said the words "ha ha." Nice guy, but somebody should beat the shit out of him...just to teach him to laugh like a normal fucking human being.

Another guy stood up and introduced himself, his name was Ron and looked remarkably like what I would expect Ron White to look like in about 20 years. This guy was somewhere in his 60's I think, maybe 70's, and I think he said he worked in government. Again, nice guy, but he deserves to be raped by a large rubber dick for working for the government. Fortunately, knowing how the government works, I won't have to wait long for that to happen.

Brandon, who looked like one of those school shooters, then introduced himself. I have nothing negative to say about him, because there's a chance he might read this, and I'm not pissing off any homicidal maniacs.

With still quite a bit of time to kill, we all just sat around and did what you would expect a room full of comics to do: tell jokes. Also some delightfully insightful statements were made, such as the fact that in New Jersey, "Tits" is used as a nickname. Wonderful! Now, when I'm charged with sexual harassment, I can merely say it's a cultural misunderstanding.

With about 15 minutes left before show time, we all made our way out to the main room and grabbed a table. Almost immediately our waitress, another very attractive lady...though less to my taste, came over. Since none of us wanted anything just yet, she opted to flirt with the group. Turns out she also works as a burlesque dancer at a fairly artsy club nearby. She regaled us with stories of her job, and of certain people met in the course of said job, ending with a story about a man who had gone to one of the burlesque shows and gone home with one of the performers.

The next day the man came into the comedy club, I believe she said, and said, "that was a man!" Turns out this club, which as I mentioned is artsy, does not only female burlesque, but also drag burlesque shows. This guy somehow managed to miss the "girls with their own poles" part of the show description.

After several incredulous "how do you miss that?!?" comments, directed both to the description and the act itself, and a rather extended explanation by one of the guys as to why you should "always, always, ALWAYS, eat the pussy!" our sexy waitress informed us that she had run out of stories and left us to our own devices though not before she invited us all to come see her show sometime.

Jokes, discussions of the venue and of famous comedians and their bits ensued. In the end, we all agreed it's a good thing Dane Cook is now an actor, because nobody wants to hear him do any of those same goddamn bits again! It's always nice when a group of people can come to an accord.

Show time came around and the room filled up with people. It was a nice turnout, lots of folks showing up to be entertained by people who don't really know what they're doing...like a political rally. Our waitress returned to take our drink orders, but flatly refused to participate in the on-stage action, swearing "I'm not funny!" despite our vehement objections. Women, man, can't live with 'em; can't tell them that since they work at a place known for doing drag shows you don't believe their claim to be female and will be unable to do so until you have examined the equipment for yourself.

Our host took the stage and did his short gig. He was pretty hit and miss, but had good charisma in the role. He explained how the judging would proceed to the audience and went over the names of all the participants. It was only at that point that I realized there were 16 of us involved; a great turnout considering the relative small size of the scene around here. With those details out of the way, the lights were killed and we got to it.

Ron went first, because honestly we didn't think he would be able to stay awake past 9 o'clock. He had decent presence and lackluster, stiff, material in my opinion, but he connected well with the mostly middle aged audience and managed to get a good rappoport with them. I guess he wasn't lying about being in government...

Following Ron we had Sky, an interesting fellow who elected to pay $3.25 for a bottled beer when he could have gotten a comparably sized draft for $1. I try not to judge, but I'd call that a bad decision. Sky attempted audience participation, but wasn't able to connect too well. His material was pretty good, imo, but his on-stage voice had a very annoying whine at the end of his words that I think severely hampered his delivery. Funny guy, but maybe he should write a book instead.

Most of the next few comedians are a blur, and I don't remember their names, unfortunately. It's not that they weren't funny, it's just that I was pre-occupied. I do remember a few portions of a few sets, though.

One comedian, who was FAT, I mean, F-A-T! bowled over the crowd well with his food oriented set. His material wasn't all that good, but his delivery was impeccable. You could tell he enjoyed what he was talking about, just like a fat kid loves...oh, I can't even make that joke, it's too easy.

Another dude did an entire set on the joys and perils of masturbation, ending his set with the inspiring phrase: "A wise man once said, 'if you want something done right, do it yourself!'" The host understandably avoided shaking his hand after the set.

We even had an asian comedian who performed a song espousing the joys of setting the company which just fired you on fire, which was played to the tune of Garth Brooks' "The Dance." An asian dude playing a country song in front of a bunch of yuppies, ain't America great?

Eventually it was my turn. The king of funny, Ramsey, at lucky number seven. My only real concern the whole night had been to not forget my lines and to not go over time, which strongly affected my delivery. I achieved both of my goals, getting all of my bits out smoothly and on time, but I was unable to make any connection with the audience. Even though this severely hampered my presence, the strength of my material still elicted constant laughs, just as one would expect from the comedy genius that is me.

Following myself, the real powerhouses took the stage, much to my satisfaction.

Sean, a comedian from Miami whom I had talked with before the show, destroyed the crowd. He hit all cylinders with a well-balanced routine which hit at both the yuppie majority and the student minority present, easily showing himself as the best comic involved.

Most of the later comedians have escaped my memory. They were funny, but I was spending most of the time during their sets going over my material, making changes and so forth.

The last performer was the only person involved who was just completely unfunny. His entire routine revolved around explaining to us why Jason Vorhees is the greatest character ever. I think he thought he had inserted punchlines in the act, but nobody was laughing. Nobody was heckling, either, since you don't heckle a crazy looking mother fucker that's going off about how great a murderer is. Unless you're desperately in need of a railroad spike to round out your ensemble.

Finally the vote tally came in, and the winners were announced. Even though the voting was only supposed to go through third place, five places were recognized. It wasn't mentioned whether this was the result of a three-way tie or just a case of typical Florida ballot counting.

Ron took fifth place, confirming his connection with the yuppies. Perhaps he used his political clout to pad his numbers and stuff the box. Fat boy took fourth place, signaling to the fact that a large subset of the audience was similarly sit-up challenged. A very funny man named Brock took third place. His material was rather banal, but his delivery was understated and hilarious. Chase, a comedian with an up-front "in your face" attitude (he did his entire act almost standing on the front table of the audience, and I don't think he blinked even once), took second. Sean took first, as I mentioned, garnering him the right to act as host for weekend shows, an award well deserved.

With the comedy over with, karaoke started. And since I had no desire to listen to yuppies sing 40 year old songs that they STILL don't know the words to, I dashed off.

I can't tell you how exhilirating it is to get up in front of people and make them laugh. Especially if you're an attention whore such as myself. I can't wait to do it again.

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it. Don't forget to leave a comment.

-<3, maar