Going To Miss The Woodland's

Quoting Russell Peters, “You don’t choose comedy, it chooses you.”   As I continue to work through the 10,000 hour process, I get more addicted every day.  I just have to figure out how to make a living doing something else, while concentrating all my energy and efforts on getting better for the next five years.  With the Christmas season in full gear I have already started thinking about my objectives for the coming year.  I believe great strides will be attained in my ability to make people laugh, if I continue to concentrate on being myself on stage and working harder at writing jokes than Jerry Corley, and  I don’t know anybody that does that!  Jerry Corley is the founder of the Stand Up Comedy Clinic with 30 years experience in the comedy industry, and he still writes jokes for three hours a day, every day.  About the only writing I do currently for that amount of time each day is responding to the craziness on Facebook and Twitter.  My time will be better spent this coming year.  I hope the Woodland’s don’t miss me.

I last enjoyed an open mic at the Grand Avenue Pizza Company 1031 Grand Ave. Phoenix;  Leslie Barton is working hard at putting together great nights for guests and mic-ers.  It’s an open air event every Tuesday at 9:00; two comedians open the show with 20 minute sets and then 5 minute sets for the ‘Show Up Go Up” portion of the show.  Tonight Jason Hill “killed it” for about 35 minutes because the other opener stayed home as a result of the light rain that was falling at show time.  I’m not sure what “killing it” is, and I don’t even like the phrase, and not even sure that can be accomplished in a backyard at a pizza store. What I do know is that Jason Hill is insightful and hilarious, and tonight was no exception.  He’s the only local comedian that my wife quotes, which makes me wonder.

 

My set went well, I love the outdoors, hunting, fishing, and comedy.  I got caught not knowing it was an open air venue, but I had an old hunting coat in the trunk of the ’96 Le Baron.  It gave me a good intro to “The Nuge” a joke in my current set about the time Ted Nugent tried to give me a little pep talk to take better care of myself, but he really just told me I was a fat ass.  I also got a smile when the host reminded those who showed up “just to riff” that they needed to write some material before coming back.  Most everyone was enjoying a slice of pizza, and I joined them.  The crust was soft, hand tossed style and topped well, a slice and a bottle of soda for less than $6.00, a value for downtown.

Later, I joined promoter Bobby ”DJ Mellow B” Johnson and host Steve Jenkins for their every other Wednesday night open mic at Native Grill, Mesa.  It’s basically a home game for me, a quick trip following improv rehearsal with the Outliars Comedy Club.   The list of scheduled mic-ers was short so we all enjoyed 10 minute spots.  The crowd was smaller than any of the previous shows these past two months.  Hopefully it was just a holiday lull and not that we haven’t been making them laugh enough.  This show gets a little edgier than most, even for a late night bar mic.  I think most of the mic-ers enjoy this, but sometimes I think we have to remember we aren’t there to entertain ourselves.  I was the last mic-er of the night to perform my ten minute set.  I revisited a favorite of mine “Brushes with Greatness,” a joke that isn’t in my set currently to fill in my ten minutes.

“Brushes with Greatness”   I’ve had a few brushes with greatness in my life and two of them have occurred in the Men’s room.  The first time was when singer, song writer, actor Tom Waits was next to me at a small club in Chicago prior to a show.  That was the easy one, I kept focused on the task in hand, and we had a little chit chat on the way out.  The second time, I was taking a leak when “Fezzik” from the Princess Bride movie, “The 8^th Wonder of the World”, the WWF’s greatest champion all 7’4” 500lbs. growing every day Andre the Giant strolls up to the two urinals next to me.   All I can say about this encounter, is I haven’t been able to buy any 5 lbs. pork loins since.

With no further, recent brushes with greatness to attest to, I was able to perform two shows at the Outliars Comedy Club-Awautukee over the weekend.  I’m fortunate on these shows that I’m given the opportunity to perform a five minute stand up set and perform with the Outliars.  Dave Thurston had the laugh of the weekend with a scene on how Santa Claus has branded a holiday, while the turkey and the bunny are just the faces of the other two big holidays.  Dave is the director and lead instructor of the Outliars, who shares the knowledge and insight he learned while training in Chicago at Second City.  I had a few good laughs during the improv portion on Friday, and my cronies got a laugh out of me when I shared with the audience that “I’m a dreamer without a lot of ambition.”  I think that may be how you end starting a comedy career at the age of 55.