How you know your friends love you

My ladies came out last weekend to Cambridge and we had weekend Lady Dinner at a restaurant in Porter Square. Then everyone came to my comedy show. Isn't that awesome!

My pal Jennifer Adams blogged about it here.

The previous weekend Trevor and Nancy came out to see me. A different day last week, Trevor's son Jason and his lady came out as well.

It feels so nice to be surrounded by the love of my friends during this crazy month.

If you want to come out for a show, please consider ordering your tickets in advance at The Comedy Studio Web site. Shows sell out quickly there. It's a small room, and if you arrive just a minute after the show sells out, you're out of luck - unless you buy in advance! Don't drive all the way to Cambridge to be turned away at the door.

Video from Jan. 10

Jokes about Scott, the economy and Grandpa with the new extra tagline.

I did the same set three nights in a row

I did the same set three nights in a row and tried to make it more succinct each time. I started with stuff about Scott, did my grandfather jokes in the middle with my jokes about being a fattie at the end. I always end with those jokes, but I'm not sure about whether that's a crutch or not. I think it's a valuable summation, but I think this coming week I'm going to work on ending on different jokes and seeing how it goes. I'll upload another clip or two this week.

I've been focusing on not backing off jokes and just letting them sit out there, moving on without addressing the silence, and it's uncomfortable, but I think it makes the set better and tighter. And I think that's the point.

Saturday night's set

It looks a little stretched out. If anyone knows how to fix that, e-mail me. I'm kind of proud of myself for figuring out this YouTube thing myself. I feel like the smartest girl here, except for the part where about a billion other people have also navigated the YouTube upload function successfully.

Comic-in-residence: Day five

Day five: Thursday, January 8, 2008

Tonight's show was hosted by Zach Sherwin, a.k.a. MC Mr. Napkins, who is an excellent comic rapper. This sounds like it wouldn't be funny, but he's hilarious. Please visit his MySpace page and listen to his track about sphygmomanometers. It will change your mind. (Note: If you listen at work, you maybe want to put on your headphones since he drops a big MF right in the middle.)

I paid special attention tonight to not backing off jokes when they don't get any response from people and I didn't back off any jokes that I'm aware of, I just barrelled ahead.

I have to give mad props to my pal Nancy, who in a condolence note said something about No-legs having had a good run and I thought, "Can I use this?" And it turns out I can! So I added a tag to the joke, where I say, "He was 88 when he died. He had a long run." I tried it tonight and there was dead silence, so I just stood there and waited and it washed over the audience like a warm bath. There are a number of parts to that joke that I will never be able to tell again what with them being very rude parts, but I am really happy that I'm able to salvage some of it and write new parts.

When Zach got back up after my set, he said that he hadn't heard about No-legs and said something along the lines of, "Gosh, I've been hearing about your grandfather for so long, I almost feel like he was someone in my extended family."

I guess he kind of was, since we're all members of each other's extended families.

I was watching the video of me telling some of my nerd jokes about Scott and I noticed I got a better reaction in one set when I described my own nerdy behavior first before I started making fun of Scott's. So I tried the jokes again tonight and included the critique of my own behavior first and I think it turned out pretty great. I'll get the video at the end of the week and watch it early next week to decide for certain.

I'm really enjoying the part where I'm having a chance to actually make friendly-friends with so many comics I've been just passing in the night for so long. I think half of glory and fun of the comedy is all the great friends I've made so far. I'm on my way to making even more.

I really love the comedy.

Comic-in-residence: Day four

Day four: Wednesday, January 7, 2008

It was Scott's big 4-0, so I was planning to do my Scott jokes, Husqvarna and all the rest. My economic stimulus package joke is a real crowd favorite, and it's partially about him, so I planned to do that as well. I wrote a few new jokes about career separates. I keep getting mixed results with those jokes, so I've been tweaking them and tweaking them.

If you've been to a Studio show more than once, you may have noticed a pattern, which is that the music directly before the show is the same every time. Rick starts playing a mix of popular tunes as soon as the doors open, but then right before the show, he plays Edwin Starr's "War" and then the beginning strains of "Dirty Water" and then the show is on.

Last night, halfway through "War", Rick Jenkins comes up to me all casual and friendly-like and asks, "Hey, you wanna host tonight?"

He's a sly debbil, that Rick Jenkins. He surely knew he was going to ask me to host long before he actually asked me, but he asked me to host about one minute before I was going to have to host. I think it was a test.

And I think I passed. I ended up doing most of my current strongest jokes, sprinkled in a few new ones, and overall had a great time. I think one of my biggest anxieties while I was actually in the middle of it is that I had to introduce people I didn't know, and I couldn't figure out who they were to talk with them before actually introducing them. It worked out okay, though. I don't think I mangled any names or gave anyone too crappy an intro.

We hung out at the bar on the first floor after the show was over and talked to Rick and the gang. It seems Rick's biggest criticism of my style is that I back off my jokes when it seems the audience isn't responding. He reminded me that sometimes an audience is amused but not laughing and when I start backing off it confuses them because they didn't notice that anything was the matter. He said that when you're doing a big show and 100 people say, "Ha!" it sounds much louder than a smaller show and 12 people saying "Ha!", but the 12 people aren't enjoying the joke any less.

Good point. I knew this month-long project would turn me into a better comic just by virtue of getting up and performing every single night. I think Rick's criticism, however, may be even more valuable. I hope I can break myself of the backing-off habit.

More later.

Comic-in-Residence: Days one, two and three

Day one, Friday, January 2:
Upon my taking the stage, a lady heckled me with a shouted, "Easthampton!" as I was greeting the audience.

I replied, "Do we know each other?"

She said, "I saw you in Easthampton!"

My material went over great. I got lots of laughs and left feeling basically like a king.

Day two, Saturday, January 3:
This was the day of the funeral and I was feeling pretty glum. I tried my Grandpa No-legs jokes and included that he had just died and that I had given the eulogy for him that morning. I built up the tension so much that the room was totally quiet. When I gave the punchline, the crowd went completely bonkers. Even so, in the middle, I thought I might cry a little bit. It took all my power not to cry. The rest of my set went really well.

After the show, I was surrounded by people who wanted to talk to me. I was surrounded by one group who wanted their photo with me, and I was game. I posed with my posing smile face (you know the one). They went on and on about how great I am and how funny they thought I was, and right in the middle of it, one of the young men took my hand and said, "I'm so sorry about your grandfather." And I nearly lost it.

Another couple wanted to talk to me. They waited for the larger group to be done. When they came up to tell me how funny I am, the man in the couple said, "My father is a comedian and I see a lot of comedians and I don't usually think that women are funny, but I think you're hilarious!" What a weird compliment. I said thank you, of course, but I didn't even know what to make of it.

Even so, I left feeling like HBO should reserve a spot for my special.

Day three, Sunday, January 4:
We took a wrong exit and ended up driving around in circles for more than an hour, so by the time we got to the Studio, I was ready for bed. Scott and I bickered in the car needlessly due to us both being totally frazzled from being lost. We were at one intersection where I said, "Which way am I supposed to turn." He replied, "East. Go east!" But I didn't know where we were and there were no signs indicating direction, so I replied, "I am trying to drive a car!" That might not sound that bad, but if you had been in the car and heard the tension, you might just open the door and roll out into traffic to get away from it.

I tried a bunch of new material and I apparently wasn't doing it with confidence because the audience totally didn't come with me. After, Rick Jenkins told me that I have to fake confidence when I don't have it and I can't rely on such crutches as, "Well, this isn't going over." to make the audience laugh and try to win them back over. And he's right. But I left feeling pretty crappy about everything and ready to fall instantly asleep. Unfortunatly, I can't really fall asleep in cars, so I didn't get to sleep until we were back home.

Here's to this week. When I get my DVD from last week's show, I'll try to post Friday and Saturday's sets for your perusal if I can figure out the YouTube.