There was a story today about patients charging doctors for time spent in waiting rooms.
Sitting in a Urologist's waiting room, time moves so slowly you can practically HEAR it. "Dick-doc-dick-doc-dick-doc." I illustrate this by waving one hand and forearm as a metronome. Then I say, "For the reason *I* was there, however, it went like this." And then I swing it like a pendulum :)
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Saturday, July 23, 2011
2011 Happy Bush Year
I hate to get all political here, but we've had more tornadoes than in any year, more floods than in any year, and a nearly nation-wide heat wave that's killing dozens of people. Beyond that, the nation is about to go bankrupt because of (I say) the financial policies of the Bush administration.
So write back to me is you think I'm wrong in calling this the First Annual George W. Bush Killer Tornado, Torrential Flood and Incredible Heat Wave Year. Global climate change? Of course. It's only now that the planet is broken and the country is about to go to hell financially that we know to repeal the 22nd amendment and put Bush back in office. He's our hero. He didn't do anything wrong.
At least that's the nightmare I had.
So write back to me is you think I'm wrong in calling this the First Annual George W. Bush Killer Tornado, Torrential Flood and Incredible Heat Wave Year. Global climate change? Of course. It's only now that the planet is broken and the country is about to go to hell financially that we know to repeal the 22nd amendment and put Bush back in office. He's our hero. He didn't do anything wrong.
At least that's the nightmare I had.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
"Mensa, etc." What it means
Mensa is an organization for people who have scored in the top 2% on standardized intelligence tests (e.g. they scored 131 or higher on an IQ test).
Their "AG" (Annual Gathering) is a national get-together. For some reason they frown on "Convention," "Conference," or other terms for their Regional or Annual "Gatherings."
This year, the AG was held during the end of June/beginning of July in Portland, Ore.
When I posted a request in the newsgroup to be a carpooler, I said I was a comedian but could suppress my humor by hanging my head out the window all the way. The entertainment chair offered me a spot in their After Hours room on the first night and I took it. I probably did 25 or 30 minutes in 2 chunks.
Did I forget to mention I'm a member? When I was young I was very smart. These days, not so much.
More to follow.
Their "AG" (Annual Gathering) is a national get-together. For some reason they frown on "Convention," "Conference," or other terms for their Regional or Annual "Gatherings."
This year, the AG was held during the end of June/beginning of July in Portland, Ore.
When I posted a request in the newsgroup to be a carpooler, I said I was a comedian but could suppress my humor by hanging my head out the window all the way. The entertainment chair offered me a spot in their After Hours room on the first night and I took it. I probably did 25 or 30 minutes in 2 chunks.
Did I forget to mention I'm a member? When I was young I was very smart. These days, not so much.
More to follow.
Mensa Portland 2011 AG
I *may* get into a larger description of what the title means in a different post. Suffice it to say I was performing for an audience of very bright people.
As I explained to them, I could do my regular (very funny) act or material I *never* do in clubs -- material suited to and written for *them.* I got them to agree to the latter set then launched into it.
I'll talk about that worked and what didn't later.
----------------
Hello, Smart People!
It's OK to say that, right? I'm a smart people, too.
My name is Rich Orwell and for the last 3 years I've been a stand-up comedian in San Francisco.
Before we go any farther, I'd like to acknowledge somebody who's been helping people from out of town via Yahoo get ready for the Portland experience. She's also been working tirelessly putting together the entertainment we'll all enjoy tonight and on other evenings during the AG. Please put your hands together for Joanne Reisman. (She got a big hand and stood to take a bow)
Here's another one.
========================
I talked about my bad (too short) haircut. Semi-funny.
hair
einstein w/male pattern baldness
bozo the clown
attorneys can work for me pro bozo
so less eccentric
vietnamese issues
not seen for 1 year
republican => storm trooper or hitler youth not join
but that's what happened to my hair
========================
And let me say this just once. I joined last year and nobody *yet* has come to teach me the secret handshake. And it's already been a problem.
My wife & I were challenged at the door because we forgot our credentials and I *didn't* know the handshake, so we ended up saying, "Badges? We don' got to show you no thinking badges." That was a long way to go for a Treasure of the Sierra Madre punchline, wasn't it.
========================
Thinking what to say tonight, I found myself in a quandary. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Then I realized I was in a *quarry*.
My choice was to do material I do every week or what I really *want* to do, the jokes I can't perform in comedy clubs.
PERFORM
who's been to live comedy shows? rules
I won't think you're applauding ME. I'll know that's happening when you rush the stage and (ladies only, please) tear off your clothes and throw roses. Did you know Portland is famous for its roses?
Famous Portland roses gardens are in Washington park, about 2 miles away. Near the zoo.
I wrote this Portland riddle:
Q; Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: To get to the other side.
Q: Why did the horticulturist cross the roses?
A: To get to the other hybrid.
[Boos]
=====================
not an AG or an RG. (for 46 years) the only gathering I've known is
woolgathering
So I haven't spent much time around Mensans. Let me hear you if you like games, and sci fi, and movies, and TV, and Shakespeare, and history, and puns, but only really GOOD puns.
Jabba the Hut exercise program
lifestyle: athletic, active, not sedentary; sedimentary
mid-day on Saturday
Have Your Photo Taken with Star Wars Characters for a $5 Donation to Charity
walks with a limp dick
[yawns -- I think there were a lot of lick dicks in the room]
========================================
Do you know the brand of plastic sandwich bags 4 out of 5 Klingon mothers prefer? zi-PLOK. <= Read it aloud to Trekkers, with accent on the last syllable; they'll get it. Glad? Only to die in bat-tle.
[good responses]
=====================
President Truman had a sign on his desk, "The buck stops here." In the original Star Trek series, Mr. Scott, the engineer, had a sign that said, "The glottal stops here." <= typically, only linguists and speech pathologists understand this one
[nothing]
========================================
Time passing in a Urologist's waiting room.
Dick-Doc Dick-Doc -- again, swinging it DOWNwards
[liked it\
=====================
for example
ENTERTAINMENT
angelina joLIP chris brown & rihanna
[nobody got it]
ENTERTAINMENT
Sheen's girls problem w/vocab
one looked like she could cross the atlantic affixed to the hull of a moving ship like a lamprey. You can't tell my audiences "lamprey."
[so what?]
Not just for mensans
Mae West goes to the Pharmacy. "Is that a pestle in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me? *You're* embarrassed??? I am mortarfied."
[ok]
ADULT
Garbanzo beans are also called "chickpeas". The difference between garbanzo beans and mangoes is that chickpeas sitting down while mangoes standing up.
[no]
Thyroid cancer
--------------------------
Casablanca
stick neck out for nobody to stick
-------------------------------------------------
My wife hates me, I tell you.
My doctor was worried I might have cancer in my thyroid.
It turns out I'm fine, but to rule it out, I needed a biopsy.
When they stuck the needle in my neck, her voodoo doll screamed.
[ok]
=====================
PRESENTATIONS [these were bits that referred to scheduled presentations]
************************************************
Friday, July 1 9AM-10:15AM
How We are Scammed By Statistics
by Ed Zaccaro
A sigma is a "standard deviation" is a foot fetish.
A *non*-standard deviation is bestiality.
************************************************
ME / WIFE
Sunday, July 3 6:15pm
Minimizing Your Risk in the Next Apocalypse
I'm not bothered by this rapture business. This is my second marriage. I'm already enjoying the afterwife
FOOD
Sunday, July 3 10am
M-Chef SIG Meet & Greet
Bad Tapioca is Off Pudding [ok]
Did you hear about the banana
that worried about getting older?
(Distraught.) Overrot. [boos and applause]
the 1st time I heard about a grilled cheese sandwich I thought it was a *gorilla* cheese sandwich
The difference between making a grilled cheese sandwich and a gorilla cheese sandwich is that for one you have to milk the gorilla [ok]
If you order your food with
"No spit" or "Light Spit,"
You'll always get it with "Extra Spit." [ok]
************************************************
YOGA
A Yoga posture (we might learn in Ken's morning classes for the next few days) is called an "asana."
The passive-aggressive Yoga posture is the "kiss my" (asana.) [nothing]
************************************************
Sunday afternoon
The Other Down Under
Enjoy slides and stories from Marcia and Steve's trip to New Zealand
The table wine is served at the Wellington (New Zealand) Military Academy is Mutton Cadet. [nothing]
************************************************
L'CHAIM
How about the Mossad's way of dealing with Nazis, the "Kurt Waldheimlich Maneuver"? It's a lot like the Heimlich Maneuver, except you do it, holding a knife. [ok]
>>>>>> The Jewish blessing that your daughter's eyebrows don't grow together, "brooke shields" [good]
Subject: Mood check
You can tell Bipolars' moods by having them spit into a glass of water. If it sinks, they're depressed. If it floats, they're phlegm-buoyant. [very good]
>>>>>> Pure Mensa
Imitation is *not* the sincerest form of flattery. "Drooling" is. [very good]
Don't Focus on the Minutiae. Take it with a Grain of Gestalt. [good]
Epistemology leads to Epistaxis [nothing]
Movies/TV
=============
Fans of I Love Lucy might understand this story. Attila returns from a campaign of raping, pillaging and plundering. He shouts to his wife, "Hi, Homey, I'm Hun!" [ok]
=====================
Yogi Bear and friends retired from making cartoons and is performing at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland -- by the way, it's a 5 hour drive south of here. Yogi has the title role in Julius Caesar, where his last line is, "Et tu, Boo Boo?" <= Now, I do a GREAT Yogi Bear impersonation, but this dies a horrible death every time I tell it. [not]
=====================
>>>>>> I want to make a movie about the Iranian revolution but I can't find people to cast aspersions. [no]
=====================
Johnny Weissmuller was throwing a party when his agent called to tell him he'd been cast in another Tarzan movie. He announced it to those assembled, saying, "Once more unto the breechcloth dear friends. Once more." [ok]
ENTERTAINMENT
>>>>>> a ballerina walks into a barre and bruises her thigh.
oh, that couldn't happen. it must have been Natalie Portman. [no. damn!]
=====================
ADULT
>>>>>>>>>>> My wife's response the first time I wished her a good night by saying, "Sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs bite." was "We don't have bedbugs and I ALWAYS sleep tight. I do Kegels." [no. they were too old.]
ME
I take Cialis every day for E.D. The "moment was right" last week, but I slipped getting out of that damned bathtub [no. they don't watch TV)
ME
kate & william teeth
demand birth certificates. too white & too straight.
My family goes back to the Magna Carta -
1215 - now = 900 years
that's a lot of bad teeth
mine like every curry entree on an indian lunch buffet -- various shades of brown.
ETC. I whiten my teeth with Photoshop. (KILLED!)
ME
We're so poor, we're planning to cater my funeral *ourselves*. We're having my liver ground into a tasty cracker spread, "pate de fois moi." Hannibal Lecter will stop by to have it with some fava beans and a nice chi-Yan-ti. (killed)
tell you why -- David
David was what we sometimes called a "Love Child." Actually, more of a "Summer of Love" child. moved in with us. severely limiting our
decades-long lifestyle choice of in-home nudity. [good]
------------------------------------------------------
ME / WIFE
on August 1st, Ladies & Gentlemen, my wife & I will celebrate our 30th anniv.
the credit doesn't go to me or her., it goes to the pope.
Italian catholic marriages really DON't end in divorce.
It's more likely my marriage will end with a bullet to the back of my head.[p]
and that could happen [ok]
in vitro corleone ... don petri [ok]
=====================
CLEVER
The dinosaur with the largest vocabulary was the Thesaurus.
Specifically a Thesaurus named Roget. [ok]
=====================
ME / WIFE
8/1/11 was 8/1/81.
Pretty clever of her, ehh. I remember her exact words. "You forget an anniversary like 8-1-8-1, and my uncle will break your kneecaps. Very sweet. [ok]
=====================
As I explained to them, I could do my regular (very funny) act or material I *never* do in clubs -- material suited to and written for *them.* I got them to agree to the latter set then launched into it.
I'll talk about that worked and what didn't later.
----------------
Hello, Smart People!
It's OK to say that, right? I'm a smart people, too.
My name is Rich Orwell and for the last 3 years I've been a stand-up comedian in San Francisco.
Before we go any farther, I'd like to acknowledge somebody who's been helping people from out of town via Yahoo get ready for the Portland experience. She's also been working tirelessly putting together the entertainment we'll all enjoy tonight and on other evenings during the AG. Please put your hands together for Joanne Reisman. (She got a big hand and stood to take a bow)
Here's another one.
========================
I talked about my bad (too short) haircut. Semi-funny.
hair
einstein w/male pattern baldness
bozo the clown
attorneys can work for me pro bozo
so less eccentric
vietnamese issues
not seen for 1 year
republican => storm trooper or hitler youth not join
but that's what happened to my hair
========================
And let me say this just once. I joined last year and nobody *yet* has come to teach me the secret handshake. And it's already been a problem.
My wife & I were challenged at the door because we forgot our credentials and I *didn't* know the handshake, so we ended up saying, "Badges? We don' got to show you no thinking badges." That was a long way to go for a Treasure of the Sierra Madre punchline, wasn't it.
========================
Thinking what to say tonight, I found myself in a quandary. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Then I realized I was in a *quarry*.
My choice was to do material I do every week or what I really *want* to do, the jokes I can't perform in comedy clubs.
PERFORM
who's been to live comedy shows? rules
I won't think you're applauding ME. I'll know that's happening when you rush the stage and (ladies only, please) tear off your clothes and throw roses. Did you know Portland is famous for its roses?
Famous Portland roses gardens are in Washington park, about 2 miles away. Near the zoo.
I wrote this Portland riddle:
Q; Why did the chicken cross the road?
A: To get to the other side.
Q: Why did the horticulturist cross the roses?
A: To get to the other hybrid.
[Boos]
=====================
not an AG or an RG. (for 46 years) the only gathering I've known is
woolgathering
So I haven't spent much time around Mensans. Let me hear you if you like games, and sci fi, and movies, and TV, and Shakespeare, and history, and puns, but only really GOOD puns.
Jabba the Hut exercise program
lifestyle: athletic, active, not sedentary; sedimentary
mid-day on Saturday
Have Your Photo Taken with Star Wars Characters for a $5 Donation to Charity
walks with a limp dick
[yawns -- I think there were a lot of lick dicks in the room]
========================================
Do you know the brand of plastic sandwich bags 4 out of 5 Klingon mothers prefer? zi-PLOK. <= Read it aloud to Trekkers, with accent on the last syllable; they'll get it. Glad? Only to die in bat-tle.
[good responses]
=====================
President Truman had a sign on his desk, "The buck stops here." In the original Star Trek series, Mr. Scott, the engineer, had a sign that said, "The glottal stops here." <= typically, only linguists and speech pathologists understand this one
[nothing]
========================================
Time passing in a Urologist's waiting room.
Dick-Doc Dick-Doc -- again, swinging it DOWNwards
[liked it\
=====================
for example
ENTERTAINMENT
angelina joLIP chris brown & rihanna
[nobody got it]
ENTERTAINMENT
Sheen's girls problem w/vocab
one looked like she could cross the atlantic affixed to the hull of a moving ship like a lamprey. You can't tell my audiences "lamprey."
[so what?]
Not just for mensans
Mae West goes to the Pharmacy. "Is that a pestle in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me? *You're* embarrassed??? I am mortarfied."
[ok]
ADULT
Garbanzo beans are also called "chickpeas". The difference between garbanzo beans and mangoes is that chickpeas sitting down while mangoes standing up.
[no]
Thyroid cancer
--------------------------
Casablanca
stick neck out for nobody to stick
-------------------------------------------------
My wife hates me, I tell you.
My doctor was worried I might have cancer in my thyroid.
It turns out I'm fine, but to rule it out, I needed a biopsy.
When they stuck the needle in my neck, her voodoo doll screamed.
[ok]
=====================
PRESENTATIONS [these were bits that referred to scheduled presentations]
************************************************
Friday, July 1 9AM-10:15AM
How We are Scammed By Statistics
by Ed Zaccaro
A sigma is a "standard deviation" is a foot fetish.
A *non*-standard deviation is bestiality.
************************************************
ME / WIFE
Sunday, July 3 6:15pm
Minimizing Your Risk in the Next Apocalypse
I'm not bothered by this rapture business. This is my second marriage. I'm already enjoying the afterwife
FOOD
Sunday, July 3 10am
M-Chef SIG Meet & Greet
Bad Tapioca is Off Pudding [ok]
Did you hear about the banana
that worried about getting older?
(Distraught.) Overrot. [boos and applause]
the 1st time I heard about a grilled cheese sandwich I thought it was a *gorilla* cheese sandwich
The difference between making a grilled cheese sandwich and a gorilla cheese sandwich is that for one you have to milk the gorilla [ok]
If you order your food with
"No spit" or "Light Spit,"
You'll always get it with "Extra Spit." [ok]
************************************************
YOGA
A Yoga posture (we might learn in Ken's morning classes for the next few days) is called an "asana."
The passive-aggressive Yoga posture is the "kiss my" (asana.) [nothing]
************************************************
Sunday afternoon
The Other Down Under
Enjoy slides and stories from Marcia and Steve's trip to New Zealand
The table wine is served at the Wellington (New Zealand) Military Academy is Mutton Cadet. [nothing]
************************************************
L'CHAIM
How about the Mossad's way of dealing with Nazis, the "Kurt Waldheimlich Maneuver"? It's a lot like the Heimlich Maneuver, except you do it, holding a knife. [ok]
>>>>>> The Jewish blessing that your daughter's eyebrows don't grow together, "brooke shields" [good]
Subject: Mood check
You can tell Bipolars' moods by having them spit into a glass of water. If it sinks, they're depressed. If it floats, they're phlegm-buoyant. [very good]
>>>>>> Pure Mensa
Imitation is *not* the sincerest form of flattery. "Drooling" is. [very good]
Don't Focus on the Minutiae. Take it with a Grain of Gestalt. [good]
Epistemology leads to Epistaxis [nothing]
Movies/TV
=============
Fans of I Love Lucy might understand this story. Attila returns from a campaign of raping, pillaging and plundering. He shouts to his wife, "Hi, Homey, I'm Hun!" [ok]
=====================
Yogi Bear and friends retired from making cartoons and is performing at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland -- by the way, it's a 5 hour drive south of here. Yogi has the title role in Julius Caesar, where his last line is, "Et tu, Boo Boo?" <= Now, I do a GREAT Yogi Bear impersonation, but this dies a horrible death every time I tell it. [not]
=====================
>>>>>> I want to make a movie about the Iranian revolution but I can't find people to cast aspersions. [no]
=====================
Johnny Weissmuller was throwing a party when his agent called to tell him he'd been cast in another Tarzan movie. He announced it to those assembled, saying, "Once more unto the breechcloth dear friends. Once more." [ok]
ENTERTAINMENT
>>>>>> a ballerina walks into a barre and bruises her thigh.
oh, that couldn't happen. it must have been Natalie Portman. [no. damn!]
=====================
ADULT
>>>>>>>>>>> My wife's response the first time I wished her a good night by saying, "Sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs bite." was "We don't have bedbugs and I ALWAYS sleep tight. I do Kegels." [no. they were too old.]
ME
I take Cialis every day for E.D. The "moment was right" last week, but I slipped getting out of that damned bathtub [no. they don't watch TV)
ME
kate & william teeth
demand birth certificates. too white & too straight.
My family goes back to the Magna Carta -
1215 - now = 900 years
that's a lot of bad teeth
mine like every curry entree on an indian lunch buffet -- various shades of brown.
ETC. I whiten my teeth with Photoshop. (KILLED!)
ME
We're so poor, we're planning to cater my funeral *ourselves*. We're having my liver ground into a tasty cracker spread, "pate de fois moi." Hannibal Lecter will stop by to have it with some fava beans and a nice chi-Yan-ti. (killed)
tell you why -- David
David was what we sometimes called a "Love Child." Actually, more of a "Summer of Love" child. moved in with us. severely limiting our
decades-long lifestyle choice of in-home nudity. [good]
------------------------------------------------------
ME / WIFE
on August 1st, Ladies & Gentlemen, my wife & I will celebrate our 30th anniv.
the credit doesn't go to me or her., it goes to the pope.
Italian catholic marriages really DON't end in divorce.
It's more likely my marriage will end with a bullet to the back of my head.[p]
and that could happen [ok]
in vitro corleone ... don petri [ok]
=====================
CLEVER
The dinosaur with the largest vocabulary was the Thesaurus.
Specifically a Thesaurus named Roget. [ok]
=====================
ME / WIFE
8/1/11 was 8/1/81.
Pretty clever of her, ehh. I remember her exact words. "You forget an anniversary like 8-1-8-1, and my uncle will break your kneecaps. Very sweet. [ok]
=====================
At the end of the days
After my performance at the AG in Portland Thursday night (6/30/11), I wrote this. It may be the funniest thing I wrote or told during the trip.
At her 4th of July party, my neighbor had boxes of Orange Creamsicles in ice chests. I hadn't had one since I was a kid. Wow! Amazing taste and texture. It must have taken me all of 5 seconds to eat it. So I took a second one. It disappeared in no time. I reached for a third one and realized I was working my way into a diabetic coma. It didn't matter. Kids came up to me and fought to get their little mitts on the Creamsicles. I fended them off.
I had to join a 12-stick program.
At her 4th of July party, my neighbor had boxes of Orange Creamsicles in ice chests. I hadn't had one since I was a kid. Wow! Amazing taste and texture. It must have taken me all of 5 seconds to eat it. So I took a second one. It disappeared in no time. I reached for a third one and realized I was working my way into a diabetic coma. It didn't matter. Kids came up to me and fought to get their little mitts on the Creamsicles. I fended them off.
I had to join a 12-stick program.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
I Don' Got to Show You No Stickin' Badges
I hate wearing badges at conventions. Not the press-on sticky ones. Those are fine. I hate the ones I have to pin to my shirt. I'm clumsy and always end up with a nipple piercing.
I came up with a much better version of this while at the show.
Instead of saying something like, "*WE* don' got to show you no stickin' badges," I made it singular and related to security.
"I don' got to show you no thinkin' badges."
The change from stickin' to thinkin' works much better.
I came up with a much better version of this while at the show.
Instead of saying something like, "*WE* don' got to show you no stickin' badges," I made it singular and related to security.
"I don' got to show you no thinkin' badges."
The change from stickin' to thinkin' works much better.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Finding my "Voice"
I've gotten more serious about Comedy. No, there's no contradiction. Whoever said, "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard," was right. [There is, BTW, some controversy about who said it first.]
I can be very funny one-on-one or one-on-small-group in an interactive, ad lib exchange. Being glib and having a repertoire of material make for the appearance of wit. Perhaps it's not merely "the appearance" of it.
That, however, has nothing (or certainly very little) to do with being a stand-up comedian. There are the writing of material, arranging it into "sets" (short acts), and developing the stage performing skills to deliver what you write. Very different from being entertaining to somebody you've just met.
And so I'm going to spend an hour (and some hard-earned money) with a coach next month. The object of the exercise will be to identify my "voice." What is the stage persona that will work best for me? Will there be different personae for different audiences? At my age (61), the audience will have certain expectations of me. Should I be professorial?
Should I be a dirty old man? A major problem being that young people find old men talking about sex to be "creepy."
Should I build a fresh act every day based on current events? That's what late night TV show hosts do (or rather what their writers do). But I'd run into the problem that many audience members don't: 1. read newspapers, 2. watch network news, or 3. watch CNN, MSNBC or Fox News. Many actually get their news from late night comedy shows.
I could just spew out brilliant puns, but they aren't funny. Some people won't get them (and resent me for it). Others will get them and say, "He's very clever." Being clever is not the same as getting the audience to laugh.
I probably have written 20-30 minutes of autobiographical material, but I'm not sure an audience would want to hear it.
Hence my need for some guidance.
But wait, there's more.
I have a database of 200 jokes I'd written up until I took a year off to work through some major health issues. I went through them and culled out 50 I didn't think were very good. The 150 remaining gags may or may not be very good, but I can string a variety of them together into things that works.
I've been getting back on stage again now for 3 months and wrote [some number of] new gags. In the last 2 days I went through the notes I made before each performance and
pulled together a comprehensive list of them. I'll determine how many new bits there are whilst I key them into the database. I plan to bring everything when I meet my coach -- who might hate me for it :)
I might even do what I've done before: post them to this blog.
I can be very funny one-on-one or one-on-small-group in an interactive, ad lib exchange. Being glib and having a repertoire of material make for the appearance of wit. Perhaps it's not merely "the appearance" of it.
That, however, has nothing (or certainly very little) to do with being a stand-up comedian. There are the writing of material, arranging it into "sets" (short acts), and developing the stage performing skills to deliver what you write. Very different from being entertaining to somebody you've just met.
And so I'm going to spend an hour (and some hard-earned money) with a coach next month. The object of the exercise will be to identify my "voice." What is the stage persona that will work best for me? Will there be different personae for different audiences? At my age (61), the audience will have certain expectations of me. Should I be professorial?
Should I be a dirty old man? A major problem being that young people find old men talking about sex to be "creepy."
Should I build a fresh act every day based on current events? That's what late night TV show hosts do (or rather what their writers do). But I'd run into the problem that many audience members don't: 1. read newspapers, 2. watch network news, or 3. watch CNN, MSNBC or Fox News. Many actually get their news from late night comedy shows.
I could just spew out brilliant puns, but they aren't funny. Some people won't get them (and resent me for it). Others will get them and say, "He's very clever." Being clever is not the same as getting the audience to laugh.
I probably have written 20-30 minutes of autobiographical material, but I'm not sure an audience would want to hear it.
Hence my need for some guidance.
But wait, there's more.
I have a database of 200 jokes I'd written up until I took a year off to work through some major health issues. I went through them and culled out 50 I didn't think were very good. The 150 remaining gags may or may not be very good, but I can string a variety of them together into things that works.
I've been getting back on stage again now for 3 months and wrote [some number of] new gags. In the last 2 days I went through the notes I made before each performance and
pulled together a comprehensive list of them. I'll determine how many new bits there are whilst I key them into the database. I plan to bring everything when I meet my coach -- who might hate me for it :)
I might even do what I've done before: post them to this blog.
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