This is an open mic in a hotel bar
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R0_vORvDH8
1m09s I tried tightening my dogs joke to go straight into the better part, I think the key is starting with “it bothers me that” because I’ve previously tried going straight to “we love our dogs but not enough…” and it hasn’t gotten any response
2m32s I love when people block the camera
2m45s I didn’t have enough time to go through all my Russian stuff, so this wasn’t setup right
3m05s And the punch lines didn’t work as well because of it
3m38s The prison and cigar-o parts need to be taken out
3m58s Someone said “this is a real stage”
4m11s That was mean but funny, and true
4m32s It will be strong if I say “I guess I’ll date you for another week” instead of “we”
4m44s Not a bad suggestion to add “Igor loves this” to the end of that joke
5m28s This is a bad habit to think aloud about what I’m gonna do, but luckily I only do this at open mics
Overall: The first couple of minutes went very well and it was all material that I’ve been reworking. Some of the later stuff didn’t work as well and will be taken out or rewritten. I’m in the process of culling a lot of my jokes and only doing ones that really work, so there’s a lot of experimentation going on from show to show.
Hi Ben,
I’m enjoying your critiques. I usually watch every 10th one or so. Great to see jokes develop over time. It would be good to see an article outlining your “lessons learned” from performing so frequently.
Keep up the good work,
Andy
Hi Andy,
Thanks for checking out my videos and leaving a comment.
Can you be a little more specific about your article idea of “lessons learned?” Do you mean overall lessons I’ve learned from critiquing myself so much, or just from performing so often, or something else?
Cheers,
Ben