What the HELL Did I just Sit Through?

If you don’t know already, one of my dreams is to do stand-up.  I won’t get into how many people have said “YOU BETTER DO IT OR ELSEEEEEEEE” to me (I wrote it letter for letter), but if they think they’re coming to see my first show after telling me that, they would be wrong.  I told them I would invite them, but the last thing I need is to hear a bunch of people shouting “You better do the joke about….” throughout my show. YOU PEOPLE BETTER ENJOY SITTING AT HOME ‘CAUSE THAT’S WHERE YOU’RE GONNA BE WHEN I’M ON STAGE!

I was at a free “stand-up comedy” show a couple of days ago, and the reason I put it in quotes was ‘cause people were standing up there but I didn’t hear a lot of comedy. With some people, I literally couldn’t hear a lot ‘cause the microphone wasn’t working the whole night, and some people thought they were just supposed to be talking loud enough for only themselves to hear.  With others…I was tempted to go up there and snatch the mike from them. I was sitting close to the front, and I didn’t even have enough energy to muster a fake laugh with them.

DID THEY ONLY PRACTICE THEIR STAND-UP ROUTINE IN FRONT OF THEIR BARBIE DOLLS?  There were only guys up there, but they were so not funny they must’ve gone to the store to get Barbie Dolls just to practice their act in front of.  Surely, no human heard their act before I did.  

Out of the few comedians that performed, two were genuinely funny.  Two out of like six.  I get that it’s free, but I didn’t drive to a town that I don’t feel safe in at that hour of the night to have less emotion on my face than a pile of stones.  I came to laugh!  If you’re familiar with New Jersey, you probably have some ideas in your head of what town I could be talking about. If your first guess was Newark, you would be wrong.

I came to eat dinner there, but I was pissed at how pissed the waiter was at my inability to choose what I wanted from the menu in less than .05 seconds.  He kept coming over to me, and after 5 times of my saying “give me another couple of minutes” he snatched the menu away from me and never returned.  You, Mr. Waiter, will definitely be in my stand-up act, and I’m GONNA INVITE YOU TO IT AND MAKE SURE YOU GET A FRONT ROW SEAT!

Let’s get to the star of the show.  It’s a general rule in stand-up comedy that the last guy to perform is usually the best of the lot.  Or at least that’s what I’ve gathered from watching a lot of comedy in my lifetime.  But, ladies and gents, this show broke all the rules.  The last guy who performed could barely be heard, and when I did hear him all I heard was how we’re all made of stardust and 10 to the power of 10 is awesome.  And then he said something which killed the mood even more:

“I know what I’m saying isn’t funny.”

Dude, where did you think you were invited to?  Did you not hear the word “comedy” in a conversation you had with someone about where you would be performing?  Stardust is great and s*** (I’m assuming it is), but everyone in the comedy world knows you never ever ever talk about it on a night of comedy. 

I think this guy was giving us a speech he had written in high school or something.  The teacher probably gave him an “F,” on it, so he wanted our opinion on it to see if he deserved the “F.”  He was all serious and s*** up there as he was talking about some glorious stardust.  The owner of the club was pissed at the guy, and I was pissed at the owner for inviting this guy.  I was also still pissed at the waiter for taking my menu, and what the hell, I was pissed at the doors to the restaurant for not stopping me from coming in to this Mc Donald’s Happy Meal show.

After the show, two guys came up to me and asked me for a quarter for beer.  I knew someone might stop me for money, so I put a dollar in my pocket as I was leaving the comedy show.  For some reason, I must’ve looked really petrified to one of the guys ’cause he said “calm down” a couple of times.  I threw the dollar in the air at them, and then ran in the other direction.  I just bought new shoes the day before, and I’ll be damned if one of them decided to step on them!