Category: Comedy

When I originally started doing critiques, I was able to keep up in almost real time. In the past 10 days, I’ve fallen pretty behind, so here’s my new plan:

• I’m going to batch post all my performances once or twice a week. I write most of the critiques Thursday night, so I’ll post on Fridays. 
• This will allow me to post real articles about stand up as well, as trying to post one article a day about my performances has been messing up my real writing, which I think is more interesting than watching me tell similar jokes post after post.

Hopefully this doesn’t offend or overly disappoint anyone. Also, if you have other suggestions about topics you’d lke me to cover, please let me know. I have a list of about 7-8 that people have already request. (I read and take note of each comment on the site.)

Have a laughter filled weekend,

Ben

This was the later show in the same room as above. There was a loud gathering at the bar area of the club which is right outside the door, so every time the door would open, everyone would get distracted, including me.

1m13s Kill “She’s looking mighty delicious.” 

1m37s You can hear the people being loud. 

2m00s I’m trying to shout over the loud people at the bar at this point. It’s making me go faster than usual because you can hear them if it’s quiet. 

2m54s There was no reason to say “Let that roll around” for that punch line. 

5m08s I love how the door only opens when I’m hitting a punch line. Watching this again reminded me how annoyed I was after the set. 

5m41s Get rid of “the girl who talks about herself non stop” part of the joke. 

5m52s Look up at my hand when doing that arc motion. 

6m42s The lone highlight of this set was pausing long enough to draw out a laugh. 

Overall: The advice I got afterwards was that in these situations (where lots of noise occurs), try to time my punch lines to when the door opens. I don’t think this is a good set to use to evaluate which jokes are funny and which aren’t.

This is me back at the place in NYC where I freeze my balls off in Times Square for 3 hours in exchange for time. I was extra cold tonight and still warming up when I got onstage.

0m04s The emcee  is supposed to pretend to be everyone’s best friend, or at least that they’re funny. He’s not supposed to put doubt about the comic’s ability into the audience’s mind. 

0m14s It’s supposed to be “He’s adorable… and then he opens his mouth.” Not “until he…” 

0m52s It’s time to bury the management consultant joke. 

1m06s It’s time to bury the executive assistant joke. 

1m14s I should try writing more about food servers turned waiters, or using it somewhere else. 

3m31s Good save when nobody laughed at the “assume they’re death.” 

3m46s I think I can rework the premise of this joke to be shorter, “People say getting on stage takes balls. Nobody ever says, that takes tits.” 

4m15s I need to come up with a better example of “Huge Tubes”, or figure out what kind of audiences I can do this joke with. This joke gets the most inconsistent laughs. 

5m22s I’m slowly learning that longer pauses cause a second round of laughter. 

5m33s After keep it going for your host, I should’ve said “I don’t know if he’s funny. I hope he’s not sucking.”

Overall: I got big laughs in 3 or 4 places but had too many dead spots. I ended strong though.

This was my Washington, DC debut. This is an open mic but it usually tends to draw an audience.

0m06s The seven audience members in the crowd came to watch one comic who was being made fun of for being in an orange sweater. 

0m18s Making a joke about also being in an orange sweater and calling out how I’m before their friend seemed funny to me before I got up there because I try to call out any weird dynamic in the room. It clearly failed. 

0m29s The look I gave got one of the girls to apologize. I need to muscle train that look. 

0m47s Be more outraged. “Exactly! Fucking no one!” 

0m51s Try continuing with “That’s cause everyone’s standards drop the closer…” instead of “My favorite part of New Year’s is watching everyone’s standards…” 

1m13s The “she’s looking mighty delcious” doesn’t seem to be getting the laughs I thought it would. 

1m33s This was a good save after they didn’t laugh at “even willing to go home with my own girlfriend”. 

1m47s This would sound better as “You hate your dog. Even people who love their dogs don’t love them enough to…” 

2m26s Do more of a Mr. Moviefone voice for “Puppies for Yuppies”. 

2m35s Don’t go through puberty on stage. 

4m03s The guy and the girl sitting next to each other turned to look at the other one. I wish I had better crowd work skills here. 

4m14s I should’ve kept digging into why they’re in each other’s facebook profiles but weren’t together on new years. 

6m28s Way for me to start stumbling over words after killing. I usually know what joke I’m doing next before I finish delivering a joke, this time I didn’t think about it until after I finished the previous joke, hence the stumble. 

7m12s Figure out the DC’s equivalent of New Jersey. Perhaps “or the cops left me to fend for myself in North East DC” will work? Anyone from DC care to chime in?

Overall: I started out week, then did great in the middle, then screwed up the last joke by not knowing the local ins and outs.