I'm a contestant in the Giggles Laugh-Off. Matt Schmidt's also in it, and many of his sentiments are echoed by any comic who has ever been in any sort of competition.
Comics are a very different breed of performer. I don't know if the composers of classical music way the F-sharp back in Vienna rode the same largely fluctuating highs & lows that comics do. I can't imagine they did, seeing as how opiates were in high supply and legal back then. Then again, there wasn't much else for people to go see as far as theater went. Shakespeare had died hundreds of years before, so it's not like people were bastardizing his work for a sequel. If you wanted to see some live music, you hitched up the fanciest pantaloons you had, silk-stockinged your gout-aching feet, tucked a flask of Absynthe under your powdered wig, and called for a carriage to take thee to the recital hall where emotional movements of deeply layered genius rang about your ears, and everyone looked like a woman.
No matter how I do in these competitions, I have a little voice in my head that is scheming for a way to boost my performances. This time around I included three jokes that were less than 3 weeks old. During my last set on Saturday night I was pretty much forced to verbally address some dumbass in the 2nd row who couldn't figure out that she was bothering everyone. My first thought was that she was ordering a drink. But then I realized that Giggles doesn't sell a drink called a "My Daddy Didn't Give Me Enough Attention," so I gave one hot look to the chatty section.
Knock-knock!
Who's There?
Quiet down.
Quiet down, who?
QUIET DOWN, WHORE.
I attacked her clothes, her looks, her future as a woman, her reputation, all to a certain delight in my head that sat in the massage chair but had it's feet on an ottoman made of broken glass. I didn't want to take time out of my set to deal with that chick, but an instance like that requires the performer to address it. So I did. And I got a great response. The crowd was with me the whole way, and the more cutting my words, especially "You need to work things out with your dad," the louder the crowd responded.
It's in those moments that a comic is either acting, bullying, or accessing a part of their personality. Acting can be sniffed out in a heartbeat. Bullying would imply that the comic goes after the person FIRST, to draw them into the firefight because the comic has nothing to say about what is, a deeply boring and very happy world. But that part of my personality that was fed up with this drunk monkey's antics really enjoyed coming out to play. I can see why some people try to intimidate others all the time; it's very empowering to stand on a stage and have a large group voice their support of your sentiments.
That's probably also the area of my brain that would have been angered had I not been doing well in the competition. This is my 3rd comedy comp., and the overall attitude of the comics is great, which will likely help. But next week a guy will be returning to the contest, after having been tossed out last week, and he'll be overly-serious about the whole thing. When you take anything too seriously, be it yourself or your love of ferret rescue, you get dangerously close to being ridiculed. If you can't laugh at yourself, don't worry, everyone else can and will.
I'd rather be at home watching the rest of the special I started last night regarding the "Da Vinci Code"s references. It's far more interesting than listening to the wingnuts here talk about it as if they're 6th-level Freemasons. If it weren't for my co-workers, a lot of bad coffee would never get made. Overall, today, I'm really F'ing bored with this job.
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Take Me Home
My Non-Funny Blog.
Geoff Lott: Comedian, Writer, Philosoteur. I am here to amuse you, not entertain you. If not now, later. If not you, somebody else. If you can't laugh at yourself, that's just fine, too. I will do it for you.
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