Great Success!

Hey everyone... it's about 2 AM and I have to be up at 6:45 to go to work. I just finished my first show and then went out drinking to celebrate with everyone, so I'm just a little tipsy. And I can tell you that the evening was fantastic. I think the final tally was 18 performers doing 5 minutes. The MC was local comic Dan Bingham and Joey closed the show with a quick set. Everyone gave their best and the crowd reaction was more than positive. Personally, I'm very happy with my work and got some great comments from people throughout the night.

I must say, any doubts I had about giving an honest effort to be successful have been obliterated. There were cameras around and hopefully I'll be posting my set soon. Maybe it's the beer talking, but I am actually a little eager to show it off.

That closes the book on the Comedy Course by Joey Elias. From here on out, it's all me. I'll be posting a retrospect on the whole thing within the next couple days. All I know is, this ends the first chapter and the rest of the book is Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style. So really, who the hell knows. First of all, I gotta get some sleep.

Week 4: Part Deux

...and now, the exciting conclusion!

But first, a couple notes that I forgot to mention about the last workshop.

- During the break I joined in on a conversation. Someone had a bit about being afraid of heights and said "The only people who aren't afraid of heights are Native Americans and blind people." I didn't quite get the reference to natives and a few other people apparently didn't either. He said that he thought it was common knowledge but natives are rarely afraid of heights. He has friends in construction and many of the high rise workers that have to walk beams while building skyscrapers are native. Someone backed him up and said that they have an innate ability to find a center of balance. I still don't know whether to believe it. Interesting, nonetheless.

- The guy who was afraid of heights also happened to be a professionally ranked pool player. He was just down in Philadelphia for a tournament. I definitely have to play him once, just to see how good he is. I used to be good, but haven't played in forever. It'll be fun when he demolishes me.

So I went down to Comedyworks to see the Best Open Micers and Joey perform. The show started an hour earlier, so I actually missed most of the amateurs. However I did catch the last four and they were all very, very different from each other. Bonus: Ali Hassan, the guy I saw perform on Friday, was MC'ing! Good stuff.

First I saw was a guy who really kinda sucked, if I'm gonna be honest. The only joke of his I can remember was that a good way to pick up girls is to start talking to them and then let out a silent fart (seriously) before saying "Awww gross, I think someone farted... let's go back to my place and watch the beginning of Titanic..." Ugh.

Next up was someone who is apparently in the workshop, although I can only vaguely remember her from the first week. She had a very good impression of her father from Barbados, most of her five minutes was about growing up with him. I liked it.

Third was a musical act. I'd describe the guy as Jason Schwartzman-esque. Had a nice outfit with suspenders and a tie. Sharp looking fellow. He had a keyboard up on stage and said "Have you ever been in a relationship you knew was bad for you? But you kept going back? That's what this song is about. It's called Chinatown." As an admirer of musical comedy, I really enjoyed the song. Very clever, a little catchy, hit all his notes. Very well done.

Last of the amateurs was some big dude who basically yelled and stomped around his entire set, which was a real shame because his jokes were great. If I didn't feel like I was being assaulted, it would have been hilarious.

A comic by the name of Heidi Foss also performed. She's written for "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" (It's a Canadian satire news show, think The Daily Show but with four anchors and it's been on for at least 15 years now. Very popular up here.) and I'd seen her perform once before. Her whole set is deadpan one-liners. I have a very soft spot for deadpan and one-liners so I love her stuff. I'd also love to show a clip of her but I can't seem to find one. You know what they say, if it ain't on YouTube, it doesn't exist.

Joey Elias took the stage last and stayed true to his claim of "Don't learn from me on stage. I'm a terrible example of what I'm teaching you." Don't get me wrong, he's great, but he's much more of a storyteller than a joke teller. He's just very comfortable on stage and basically goes with whatever's on his mind. Or maybe it's just that he's been doing this for 15 years and he's gotten really good at it. Either way, he's a natural on stage and it was fun seeing him perform after getting to know him.

After Joey performed it was announced that Andrea, the girl in my class, had won the competition. She now gets an opening slot on a weekend show. I really thought the Chinatown guy shoulda won, but I was happy for her. It also gave me a sense of "If she can do it, then I can do it!" if that makes any sense.

Here's a clip of Joey Elias to finish it off. It's barely even funny, but it's the only thing he's got on YouTube. I'll tell him he might wanna get on that.

Field trip!

I hadn't been out to see a show since I've started taking the class and last night I didn't have any plans, so at the last minute I decided to head down to Comedyworks for the 11 PM show. My brother joined me, which was good news for the comics, since when we're together we laugh at pretty much everything, no matter how inappropriate.

When we got there and headed up to the room, the guy at the door sat us right in front because I was wearing my Expos hat. He thought that would be an excellent topic of conversation and good for a few jokes. Oh, Montreal Expos... never taken seriously, even in death.

I honestly didn't catch the MC's name, something like Ron Beaudry, but that's not right. (Edited 5/7/09: His name was Ron Vaudry. I saw him headlining the same place about a week ago) He was decent, but the crowd really wasn't into him. Even the people he was chatting up didn't appreciate him making fun of them. Get with the program people.

The first act was Christophe Davidson. I'd actually seen him MC twice at another club and had basically heard his entire set before. He's started getting weekend gigs so I assume he's climbing the local ladder. Personally, it was interesting to see him six or seven months later performing the same material, but clearly better. Looked more comfortable on state, the timing was a little tighter, added some good lines to a few jokes. Proof that practice does make perfect, which was comforting to see. It's good to know that if I suck right away there is hope.



Number two was Ali Hassan. He had a pretty high energy set and was very funny. Probably got the most laughs out of the audience than anybody on stage. One of my favourite jokes of the night was his about vegetarians. I'll do my best here, but it's not word for word and I'm sure some humour will be lost: "Vegetarianism is fine, I don't like it but cool, whatever. I just hate all those people who say they're vegetarian but eat fish and chicken. No! That's not vegetarian! That's like saying you're a heterosexual and you only like vagina... but yeah... you'll also have some cock."

Sadly, I can't seem to find any Ali Hassan on YouTube. There's a Indian comedian by the same name with tonnes of stuff on there, don't be fooled by imitations!

The headliner of the evening was Joe DeRosa. I know I've seen him before but I couldn't think of where, probably a Comedy Network special or something. Now, I'm not sure what happened, but the audience did not respond to a lot of his jokes. Maybe it was because it was past midnight, maybe he was just a little too angry, maybe it was because he had a bit centered around yelling out "Fuck Jesus!" but whatever the case at least half the people there were not very amused by him. Sitting front and center was a couple, and the girl was not only not laughing, but looked upset at her boyfriend for the first 5 minutes of the set. Like she was personally insulted by Joe before he even got started and by her boyfriend for bringing her there. Towards the end of his set, he started heckling the crowd. Then it just became open contempt for the room. But in a good way, he wasn't ruffled at all, he was rolling with it. About ten of us were loving it and cracking up, myself and my brother included.

And then, the coup de grace. While he was openly admitting to us that he was searching for a closer he said "I get depressed. Anyone else here get depressed? That happen to them?" only to be met with dead silence. He made a little more fun of us and then he noticed someone with his head down, sleeping, out like a light. My brother and I had been laughing at this for a couple minutes by now. He started riffing on him and the room ate it up. It culminated with a line like "You know how I said was depressed? If you could take a picture of my soul, that's basically what it would look like." It probably got his loudest laughs of the night and as soon as the applause died down I said "There's your closer!" and he replied "That's nice. It's good when some guy is telling me I should just get off the stage." He kept going another minute or two, successfully milking the situation a little more and then said goodnight.



It was a very nice evening of comedy, even if nobody picked on my Expos hat. As far as learning goes, I have now seen a solid progression out of another local comic and been witness to someone who took a bad crowd and turned it around without losing his cool. It was very professional actually.

Tomorrow is another class and I've got a couple jokes that I hope will go over well. Stay tuned for a full report!

And at this point, it's probably worth saying that if there are any loyal readers out there, go on and spread the word. Tell your friends! Let's get that comments section going! Feedback is fun!