I went to the Open Mic at the Ram's Head in Annapolis on Friday. I am excited about them doing regular comedy shows there. It's less then 10 miles from my house, and it's a fantastic venue. The guy who runs the show, Jacob, is a really nice guy and a big fan of comedy. I am appreciative that he is doing this, and I believe the show overall was very successful. However, there are some things that I would do differently. I hope this comes off as constructive.
First off, the comics were required to pay $8 to get in. Why? I honestly don't care about $8 (or $16 in my case since my wife came), but what does $8 do? Why bilk another $8 from the ''talent''? All it does is discourage ''real'' comics from performing. We are already giving our time and talents to this club for free. Now we have to pay for that privilege. It seems tacky at best, disrespectful at worst.
Secondly, limit the performers. A show is successful if everyone enjoys themselves, but their willingness to return is almost as important. A comedy show shouldn't be longer than 2 hours, and that's if people are laughing. There were 4 or 5 professional comics on the show. They should go on spots 3-7. There is no reason to have a closer on the show. You don't really ''close'' a 3-hour show. If you want to have a paid spot, that's fine, put that person up 5th and let them do 20 minutes. I actually wasn't there when Rob Maher closed the show, but I can imagine that people were so punchy from what they had seen that they probably could barely distinguish Rob from the drivel that they had been exposed to for the previous hour.
Finally, control your audience. If there is table talk, someone from the venue needs to politely go over and ask them to stop talking. If there are hecklers, let them know that behavior is unacceptable and if they continue, remove them. There is a misconception that comics can shut people up with their rapier wit and clever insults. There was a person heckling throughout the entire show. He was probably the most vocal during my set. I actually had a comic come up to me and say, ''I wish he'd done that to me!''
You do?
Responding to a heckler is easy. Getting them to shut up is impossible. If you embarrass them, do you think they'll say, ''Wow, you sure showed me!'' and keep quiet for the remainder of the show? Of course not; they will try and respond. If you embarrass them again, guess what? They will respond again. If they were rational or civil they wouldn't be yelling out to begin with. Usually, they are drunk and this makes it even more difficult to quiet them down.
I was forced to respond to this heckler three times. The third time I got an applause break. Unfortunately this reaction stemmed from an audience that was tense and wanting to lash out. This audience hated the heckler, and this was their way of letting him know. You know what happened during the very next joke? You guessed it, he yelled out again. It is the venue's job to control him. They failed to do so, and it affected the show. I am hopeful they will learn from this and make sure it doesn't happen again.
I went to see Rory Scovel this Saturday at the Baltimore Comedy Factory.
I'm imaging that Rory will also blog about this, but he will not be able to accurately explain what happened during the 11:00 show and maintain even a modicum of humility. It was, as succinctly as I can say it, the greatest performance of spontaneous comedy I have ever seen in my life. I watched the 9:00 show, and before the next show Rory asked me, ''What did you think of my new jokes?'' My response was, ''Which ones were new?'' It should have been, ''Who cares?'' The fact that he bothers to sit down and write jokes is almost pointless.
I'll do my best recreating what happened, but it will be hard. It came completely from the moment and it was brilliant. Rory does this thing where he says something and follows it by saying, ''Wouldn't it be funny if . . .'' and he creates his own bizarre response or a reaction from someone in the audience. In about the first 3 minutes of his set, Rory was having a conversation with someone who was sitting to the left of the stage. Honestly, I don't remember what was involved in their exchange, but I'm sure it had something to do with where he (the audience member) was sitting. Then Rory said, ''Wouldn't it be funny if you just put your chair on the stage and sat up here the rest of the show?'' What happened during the next twenty five minutes, again, was one of the most amazing performances I have ever seen at any level. Every thing that happened on that stage after that moment was a tapestry woven between Rory, the audience and Joe, the random guy that decided to sit on the stage. I won't give specifics about what was said or done because it won't translate, but I promise you that 50% of that audience thought it was staged. I doubt they believed that anyone could ring that much funny out of having a guy sit next to him on stage. I was blown away by what I saw, and I hope the audience appreciated what they were a part of. Probably not.
I will be heading to Atlantic City this weekend for my friend Mike's
bachelor party. I am most looking forward to playing poker with my
friend Tim who usually dumps a couple of hundred to me before leaving
the table in disgust.
I have spoken about Tim's proficiency at the poker
table in a previous blog, but in AC it becomes about so much more
than
his horrible play.
When I am playing poker in a casino, and I have friends at the table, we really don't try and take each other's money. If I am in a hand with no one other than one of them, we usually check through until someone makes a hand. But not Tim. Case in point: last time we went to Atlantic City Tim and I were playing $1/$2 no limit hold 'em at the Taj. We were involved in a hand where I was the 3rd person to act and I raised 4x the big blind with AsKs. Tim was sitting to my left and immediately called, and we had one other player also call. The flop comes Qs 4s 2h. The guy I don't know is the first to act, and he makes a pot-sized bet which is about $30. I raise to $90 hoping to take down the $60 already in the pot and willing to play it drawing to the best hand if someone comes over the top of that bet. Of course, Tim immediately moves all in - he's got about $200 in front of him. The other player folds. There's really no decision for me to make. There's $350 dollars in the pot, I only have to spend $110 to call and even if he has the best possible hand at this point (QQ), at worst I am 30% to win the hand and I have to invest about that amount. However, knowing Tim, he has overvalued two pair, but more likely top pair and in that case I am in great shape. Also, I figure if I'm gonna go broke I might as well give it to a friend.
Guess what he has...
Jh3h
You read that correctly.