I did a show last night deep in the heart of Brooklyn, at a retaurant/bar called The 5 Spot, just a few blocks from Bed-Sty. It was the second show I'd ever done in an "urban" room. The first one I did as a newbie, and was an unmitigated disaster.
I walked 15 blocks from the C train to the bar, during which I called my mom...here's a snippet of that conversation...
(It's 9:00 and we're 5 minutes into conversation)
Mom - So, where are you?
Me - Walking to a club.
Mom - Oh, you have a show?
Me - Yeah
Mom - Where, at the Gotham?
Me - No, this place in Brooklyn.
Mom - (after ten seconds of silence) - Oh, Harris, at this time at night, you're walking through Brooklyn?
Me - (looking up) Why me?!?
(Edit: This morning, my mom called me to make sure I got home)
ANYWAY, I got there.
Not sayin' the place was scary, but whenever the MC took the stage, she brought her purse with her.
When the show started at 9:30, there wasn't any audience, just comics, which was fine with me.... bombing in front of comics wouldn't bother me as much. People did slowly filter in, and by the time I went on (4th), there were about 25 audience members.
The first comic, Becky Ciletti, really funny, but she has this thing where she asks the audience questions before each bit, like, "You guys have jobs?" or "You guys date?" and then goes into her jokes about said topics - Normally, it's really funny...but when the crowd is all black, it sounded vaguely racist, which was funny in itself.
Admittedly, I was nervous (never a good thing as the audience can smell that).
Before going up, buddy and soon-to-be-famous comic, Josh Homer, who went up after me, gave me some advice, "You just gotta have confidence... and energy."
The odd thing was that two of the three comics before me were white too. It gave me a perfect opening joke..."This show's the opposite of an NBA game... the crowd's black but the performers are white." Got a good laugh, and I was off....
All in all, I did okay, most of my jokes got a decent chuckle from at least one person (prolly comics), and more importantly, I did it in an urban room, which shows my confidence level has grown.
Of course, I'll know I'm really good when I don't say things like, "...and more importantly, I did it in an urban room, which shows my confidence level has grown."
Rock On,
Aitch
p.s. thanks for the ride to the train Josh!
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5 comments:
"urban" rooms will eat you up if you don't believe in your jokes. Crowd works helps too, lots of crowd work. For some reason "urban" rooms love for you to make fun of them.
the show was front heavy with white folks, I guess the booker wanted to keep that 70s southern thing going and make sure the white people got up and out first (so you cna get home safe). Actually it's a great neighborhood. I rent there, but if I had $2 million I'd buy a home (a two floor apartment across the street from me just sold for $1.4 mil)
hey josh homer,
yeah, it was a great neighborhorhood...I especially liked the woman squatting on the street to take a crap.
rock on,
aitch
technically we don't know if it was a crap or a pee.
both.
hey woman squatting on the street said,
...and there ya go.
rock on,
aitch
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