I’m Officially Funny

Check it:

I did a comedy set last week, and it was a transcendent experience.  For it was the first taste of success I’ve had on the stage.  The set was not just merely “funny”, it was, dare I say… hilayyyyyyrious.  I’m sure of this because I recorded the audio footage on my phone and I’ve heard it.  I find you have to listen back to your comedy sets because it almost never went the way you remembered it. 

But one thing that I do remember very vividly, and did indeed happen in actuality, was having to tell a joke OVER the burgeoning giggling coming from the crowd, trying not to get distracted.  And I was only halfway through the joke!  I had UNDER estimated how funny the joke would be, and thus was met with resistance, in the form of a walloping audience, in finishing the joke.

The joke, if you read my last blog, was the one about wanting to put the homeless in an underground city.  I’m going to share that clip with you now.  There’s some visuals you won’t be seeing, but don’t worry about that.  Listen to the reaction:

After my set, I got a fist bump from the host.  The host, another Irish-American, has been hosting these things for years so the acknowledgement delivered me some small satisfaction.

But then came the next comedian, a Finish guy who had moved to LA to become an actor… and he was not shy in mentioning his failure to land any significant acting roles.  That’s when he looked at me in the audience, right in the middle of his bit, and he asks me, “What roles do you go for?”

“I’m… not an actor.”

“Oh, you could be.  You look like Brad Pitt.”

Wow!  How flattering.  The guy continued to pepper me with praise in the middle of his set.  Just for… looking the way that I did?  It was embarrassing, and I could imagine I was blushing, but it all added to my feelings of self-worth.

And then a guy I chatted up BEFORE the show, a comedian of 5 years, got up a little after that, and in the middle of HIS bit he said that I was funny.  “I knew you were funny when I met you.”  He froze then looked at me.  “But then you got up on stage…” (implying that I was funny-looking or something.) 

We talked after the show and he was like, “no really, I meant what I said.  You really were funny.”  It was very high praise coming from someone who has been doing this for years, professionally.

In the middle of this conversation, a little Jewish chick came up, the last comedian of the night, and she was like, “Ya know, you seemed really gay when you were up on stage… but you don’t seem gay right now.”

I was like, “Thanks…?”  (I actually get this one a lot: the “OMG you aren’t gay?”)

So with the fact that I garnered genuine laughs, and got respect from my comedian peers, I think it’s gotten to the point where I’ve finally broken through.  Where I get how to be funny, on stage, in front of an audience.  It’s a different approach then merely telling a funny story to your boys; it requires patience, confidence, and knowing how to use silence effectively.  And that last one is a toughie.  I’m not very good at being “silent”.  But that’s all changed now.  

Now, that I’m officially funny.