Month: March 2009

This is my regular weekday place in Washington, DC. This was the most crowded it’s ever been on a weekday, there was a group of 20 middle aged employees from North Dakota and another 6 or 8 audience members. 

0m29s I should’ve stepped to the front of the stage before delivering my first punch line, not after. 

0m56s I should’ve turned to the woman who repeated “tennis” when delivering my next line. 

1m47s Final evidence that I have to say “I’m looking at you” before the “huge tubes” line. 

2m05s I love how the guy kept saying “yup” and I kept echoing him. 

2m35s The bigger the group I pick on for this, the bigger the laugh. It seems that big groups in general enjoy being made fun of. 

2m41s I’m trying something a pro comic told me about. He said the closer people are, the easier it is to get laughs. So I tried moving 4 girls and a guy that were far back to the front row.

3m18s Two of the four girls followed the guy to the front row for my set, but went back to their seats right after. 

3m35s I could definitely smile here without losing anything from my act. 

4m40s I should’ve said “I can tell who has kids in here” since all the older people laughed. 

5m18s I need to remember the word order right here, as I turned a premise into a punch line by mistake. 

5m22s If you can’t hear it, the woman said “That’s not how we do it in North Dakota” 

5m45s I’m not sure if “Marry Her” needs to stay part of the joke. Especially if they laugh at the previous line. 

6m04s This makes for two times in the past 4 performances that I’ve ended a set by calling out how a joke failed (or didn’t do as well as it usually does). I should save the “I like how you wanna laugh, but you’re like ‘I can’t laugh at this, this is terrible’” line for the many other times this will be applicable. 

6m07s Say my name while looking the audience, not while turning to the mic stand. 

Overall: I think this was a pretty solid set. I’m glad my backwards relationship joke is coming along (although it still needs some tightening). I was also pleased with being able to get some of the audience members to trust me and move up front.

This is the regular Sunday open mic that I go to. It was back to normal this week with no real audience members in attendance.

0m48s I got some feedback that many people couldn’t identify with why someone would refer to you as “A Ben Rosenfeld”. I’ve heard this happen during meetings at my day job, where someone in management will say “we need “a Debbie Smith” in that department.” I need to think of a way to universalize this (maybe a good act out) or to cut it. 

0m51s The guy I’m addressing showed up halfway into the open mic, wasn’t a comic but started providing incoherent feedback to each and every comic. It fit in well with a joke I wanted to do anyway. 

1m02s There’s no way “when he was high” should be at the end of the sentence.

1m14s I really like saying “laugh it up” when people have yet to laugh. 

2m19s I need to pause for two seconds after “who I want to drink with after the show” before I accuse the audience of being teetotalers. 

2m49s I meant it, I don’t think I’ll be doing the normal joke again. At least not anywhere close to how it currently goes. 

3m09s I think this is really a one liner joke and I shouldn’t insult the audience for no reason, especially if they laugh. I might try this as an interactive joke, where I get a girl to describe her boyfriend and then do the joke. 

3m46s This is a true story. The girlfriend and I haven’t listened to music while hooking up since the take the money and run incident. 

Overall: This is a mic to figure out what new jokes are worth trying out in front of real audience. Not hot by traditional standards is a keeper. The Tom Collins and Normal jokes should probably be retired, and the take the money and run needs a little bit of a rewrite.

This is the same night as the previous critique but the late show. There was around 14 people in the audience and the two comics before me killed so I thought I’d knock it out of the park too. Turns out stand up comedy can also be spelled  “d-i-s-a-p-p-o-i-n-t-m-e-n-t.”

0m04s My intro is much better when the MC pauses between “he’s adorable” and “and then he opens his mouth” instead of flying through it at a million miles an hour. It’s easier to do well when the crowd is laughing at your jokes before you’re even on stage.

0m14s I have to smile at the audience for a  few seconds before I open my mouth or else it looks really forced and the tension doesn’t build right. 

0m41s That’s one of the biggest laughs the blind people line has ever gotten. 

1m05s My tone was too mean and I think I lost the crowd here. 

1m11s If I didn’t lose them before, I definitely lost them now. 

1m20s The return of the word stumbler! 

1m46s And the crowd is back. For now anyway. I did an extra long hold on the invisible balls, it seems to get a better laugh. 

2m09s I think they didn’t laugh because I came off as mean earlier, so I can’t get away with as much. 

2m41s Three straight punch lines where I can hear crickets. I may have started to rush my jokes when the laughs weren’t coming as quick as I expected. 

2m52s There are people in the seats after all. 

2m54s After I said “no situation ever warrants someone saying: that takes tits” a woman in the audience retorted with “Stripping.” 

3m04s That wasn’t a ten second dramatic pause, that was ten seconds of the wheels in my head turning. 

3m06s The wheels still work. 

3m24s That’s the weirdest laugh sound I’ve ever heard myself make. 

3m39s I need a slightly longer pause after “that takes”. 

3m55s This punch line isn’t getting as solid of a laugh as the other two. Maybe I should try a twist and say “then you got huge balls” instead. 

4m40s I can’t act out my way of a paper bag, at least if it was stuck in a ceiling fan. I need to work on doing bigger motions. 

4m51s Change the word “boobie trap” to “bomb”. I noted this in my previous performance critique but didn’t watch it until after I did both sets. 

4m55s Change “for your first date you’re in one” to “for your first date, you’re in it” 

5m11s I need to fix the children – psychopath comparison. 

5m21s The stumbler meets a punch line but still gets a laugh. Maybe I’ll try talking even slower. 

6m42s I’ll end on anything as long as there’s a laugh, even if it’s the words “shit I cant end on this”.

Overall: I had a terrible set. Especially in comparison with the two comics before me and the guy that came after me. Yes I got laughs, but it was nowhere near the amount it could’ve been. As soon as I got off stage I started trying to analyze what went wrong, how I could fix it and wishing I could get up for the same crowd a second time to do it better. I think it was 3 things: 1) I didn’t interact with the crowd enough and this crowd really loved when the comics were just improving with them and not doing material 2) When I interacted with the crowd I was a little too mean and 3) I wasn’t conversational enough in my delivery.

This is the same place I usually bark at. This was a crowd of 6 people: 4 girls who were great and laughing at almost everything and a couple in their 50’s or 60’s. The wife was laughing but the husband was tough. Of course, being mental like most comics are, I was more concerned about getting the one guy to laugh than I enjoyed everyone else laughing.

0m20s I didn’t smile enough before opening my mouth. 

0m46s My tone isn’t as soft as it was in my last performance critique. It sounds like I’m speaking at the audience instead of to the audience. 

1m07s I guess I’m not the only one that loves attention. 

2m21s They crowd was laughing, so I started laughing. You can’t hear the laughter but I swear it happened. 

2m47s A good example of the benefits of calling out the moment especially when you mess up a joke. 

4m22s I’ve done this third punch line with and without throwing in the “I’m looking at you” bit, and it gets a much better response with it. 

4m38s All that background noise is when the door to the waiting room opens. I’ve gotten much better at waiting for it to close before I deliver a punch line, but I still hate how it messes up my timing. 

5m06s That was the only laugh I got from the guy the whole set, but I got a laugh. 

5m33s My facial expression has a smile, it should be more shocked. 

Overall: Decent set, the group of four girls was laughing at most of the bits. I still stumble over words at times, and I haven’t quite figured out why that happens or how I can ensure it doesn’t happen.