A Gig in a proper club...

last night I did the Funnybone out in Easton in columbus. I'd avoided doing it because I had a cob on about corporate gigs. The funnybone reminded me of the chicken in a bastard circuit back home. I say reminded, I just didn't bother checking it out. Go there last night, great gig. Really cool setup, and very supportive of new comics in a way I never saw back in England. I mean back in London we were all mates, but the fall was as much fun to watch as the rise. I sat there at one point and thought "wow the bloke running it, Rick, is really helping these new acts out, and they all want each other to do well. Am I in Brigadoon?"

No major deaths, except for a woman who I thought was doing a drunk act. She was in fact pissed as arseholes and led the room down into an ever growing abyss,which culminated in her talking about living alone with her cats. Very rarely do you see a whole room of people nodding their heads sagely, all mouthing, "I knew. I knew that."

My gig went well. I over ran my time (5 minutes) by about a minute and a half. I haven't done a 5 minute gig in years. Its a completely different discipline. It usually takes me 5 minutes to say hello. I spent most of my time messing about with the crowd, then remembered I was supposed to tell jokes. Got some in. We recorded it, you can check it out on the web page once I've tried and failed to get it on, and then sat back while Beth does it in 10 seconds.

American audiences are a lot less aggressive than English audiences. I got my training in the London "Get off you're shit! " battlegrounds. Watching the audience watch the acts last night, I saw, amazed, that they were willing them to do well. Even when cat woman did her pissed pied piper to comedy hell, they just sat politely and waited for her spasms to pass. I am in Brigadoon.

So in order to stop tossing about when I go back in 2 weeks to the funnybone I'm doing themes and trying to stick to them. The first one is winter wonderland. Come along, enjoy the evening, make sure I get on (I need 5 people saying they are there for me), and run a sweepstake to see how long it takes me to come off script. Last night it was instantly.