Open mic experiences

[KevinLee]

I've gone up twice after horrible bombings.
The first time went great I watched them and noticed that the PA wasn't very good so I spoke louder and the audience paid attention.

The second time I bombed too. At first I blamed the audience but looking back it was a pretty weak set and I kept looking at my notes almost the whole time.

Always blame the audience. It's the first rule of comedy.

If the people before you bomb just get on stage and make fun of them. The audience will loosen up and laugh again because they don't like people who are not funny. If the comedian you make fun gets upset, just laugh in his face about the irony.

[charles]

I did my first one, and it was excruciating. I got some folks to laugh mainly the comics still man it felt an infant being tossed into woods surrounded by bears.

[MAACP]

Here's a couple questions:

Is it really a good idea to put your best jokes as your opener and closer? As of now, I have about 1 powerful joke. I like it in the middle to beginning, so I can float a bit on a cloud of happiness and sunshine for the next few jokes, but would ending on it be a better move?

I think closing with your best joke is good for being more memorable, but if you are doing open mikes, i'm guessing the point is that you're trying to better yourself as a comedian. In which case, I'd say just put it wherever you want (within the flow of the set). If putting that joke in the middle gives you those few moments of happiness, it could relax you and help you get more out of your other jokes. In which case, the confidence it gives you is more valuable than having the audience remember you, which is a good thing but not necessarily the goal at this stage in the game.

That being said, I am not a comedian and am only basing this on comedy nerd experience, not actual stage experience.

[JayP7]

My philosophy (so far that is, i haven't done too too many) has been to pretty much set up my set around trying new stuff. First joke is something simple, usually about myself (name or something) that i'm sure is funny enough, just to make sure i get those first laughs. Then i generally do my new stuff. If i'm doing a whole bit i'll usually start off with something reliable that's related to the subject just to buy me some leeway. Pretty much wash, rinse repeat from there til i'm out.

If i feel like it i'll end with my favorite joke, but honestly i don't feel it's all that important at this point.

I say if it's short, do it to buy yourself some leeway with the audience. Otherwise don't do it unless you're still working on it, or you have something to add to it.

[JayP7]

And also when's the last time you saw a comedian do (I mean i guess you can't account for HIM OR HER thinking it's their best) their best joke last?

I thinks it's a solid idea, that most people have, but i almost NEVER see a real comedian with a half-hour to hour set end on what i thought was their best note. Just something I think is interesting.

[Gene George]

And also when's the last time you saw a comedian do (I mean i guess you can't account for HIM OR HER thinking it's their best) their best joke last?

I thinks it's a solid idea, that most people have, but i almost NEVER see a real comedian with a half-hour to hour set end on what i thought was their best note. Just something I think is interesting.

I've seen quite a few try to "end on a laugh" which means pulling out their "better" material. Does that count?

[CaptainBreakfast]

To semi-quote mike birbiglia:

"For the first five years of doing stand up, you have to go up on stage and bomb over and over, and each time you get off stage, you go : 'That went pretty well!' "

Thoughts on this quote?

[Gene George]

To semi-quote mike birbiglia:

"For the first five years of doing stand up, you have to go up on stage and bomb over and over, and each time you get off stage, you go : 'That went pretty well!' "

Thoughts on this quote?

This topic has been a big one lately amongst the comics pro, semi-pro, and amateur that I hang out with. In LA it is tough to get an open mic in a room where you can really see if you're bombing at all. Everything usually feels like you're tanking no matter what. It's a numbing sensation and the longer I do it and hear people talking about it the more I realize how hard it is to make it at LA open mics and make them productive for anything other than practicing amplifying your voice.

That being said a certain amount of confidence that you are funny and have worthwhile things to say is necessary to do comedy at all, Birbiglia is correct in that sense.

[ErikNielsen]

To semi-quote mike birbiglia:

"For the first five years of doing stand up, you have to go up on stage and bomb over and over, and each time you get off stage, you go : 'That went pretty well!' "

Thoughts on this quote?

I can't guess what part of this is Birbiglia and what part is paraphrase, but five years is generally way too long. It's true there's a learning curve -- ideally, as you master one level of comedy, you move up to the next one, and you have to develop there. (Once you can consistently kill at a 7-minute distance, you start doing 15-20 minute sets, and maybe struggle; from there, you move on to the 30-minute set and master that; etc.)

But bombing -- REAL bombing -- is not a regular part of any experienced comedian's life. I mean, sure, nobody always kills. But when I hear "bombing", I don't think of a set with good patches and bad patches. I think of dead silence or open hostility from the crowd. Maybe the occasional awkward laugh, but not more than that.

And the fact is, once you have a solid 7 minutes, there's no real excuse for doing that more than VERY occasionally -- even if you're stretching to 15-20 for the first time, half of that 15-20 should be your 7 minutes of tested material. And half of your first 30 is the 15-20 you were killing with as a host. Etc., etc. And how long does it take someone until they have a strong 7 minutes? Not more than a year or two, usually. Frequently less.

The only time I could see a comic bombing who has reliable material -- barring some kind of fluke where the audience just hates them -- is if they're testing out all-new material, and none of it happens to work, and they're not anchoring their set with stuff they know works. Which I guess is an option for an open mic, but in front of an actual audience, continuing to do new material after it's become apparent the crowd hates it is a pretty unprofessional approach. Bring in the stuff that works; salvage the show for the next act.

(To be honest, I'd advocate the same approach at an open mic -- bringing the momentum up improves the open mic's quality, you get some practice thinking on the fly and salvaging a set that's going badly, and as for the new material, do you really want it taking that kind of damage? You're not going to learn anything about it at an open mic where nothing's working, and it's going to hurt your confidence in the new stuff.)

To be honest, I don't know a lot about Birbiglia's history. I know he started out in Boston, and while he left before I got there, I never heard any stories about him being particularly unreliable when he started performing. And Boston doesn't really have an analogue to Los Angeles' network of horrific open mics; new Boston comics generally get sufficient chances to perform before receptive audiences. So I would assume he didn't bomb for five years starting out, and I don't know why exactly he'd paint the first five years of stand-up as a cycle of repeated failure.

I mean, you can just take out the years thing and say "when you bomb, you should tell yourself you killed". That's a matter of motivation -- if it keeps you productive, that's your thing, and good for you. Other people don't work that way; they have to criticize themselves in order to get better, either because that's what drives them, or because lying to themselves upsets them. (Anyway, the guy who's always going on about how he killed is an annoying guy to be around, especially if you just saw him not kill.) But I feel like, even if you bomb and say you killed on a day-to-day basis, you occasionally have to take a step back, and figure out if you really ARE killing. Because keeping yourself motivated doesn't do much if your act isn't improving and the people still don't laugh.

[Gene George]

Because keeping yourself motivated doesn't do much if your act isn't improving and the people still don't laugh.

Amen. In my fantasy world, a guardian angel (who for some reason looks like Joe Wagner) comes down to tell that to people who need to stop comedy. He says it gently, and if they do it again, nut-punches them.

I think the only way to improve is to audit yourself. Tape as much as you can in front of as "real" an audience. In the moment things never seem like they do on cold hard video or audio tape. You might hear laughs you didn't know you got because of the blood pounding in your ears from an embarassing "Rihanna needs a beating" joke. The tapes will tell you what happened up there.

[ErikNielsen]

Yeah... of course there are ways. If you can use tapes, that's definitely a good option; myself, I can't generally bring myself to watch/listen to them. (And anyway, they never get the crowd noise right.) Another popular pastime is overanalyzing things; this works best if you have a good memory and like to think too much. But I don't know -- the important thing is to find a balance between feeling despair and deluding yourself.

Which is, incidentally, another thing it's easier to do in Boston (and presumably other smaller cities); because there are fewer comics, and local shows cover a wider range of experience/name recognition, everyone pretty much knows each other. Also, because stand-ups mostly just do stand-up, you don't have a situation where a comic's standing in the community is radically altered by his acting roles, or his Internet videos, or his presence in a sketch comedy group. (Or, for that matter, the fact that he has an agent.) The end result is a fairly clear hierarchy which generally does a pretty good job of assigning acts to levels. (With some flukes, as always.) Which has its drawbacks -- for example, seniority is a bigger factor than it probably should be -- but it's a lot easier to know your standing in the community, and doing good work will generally pay dividends sooner rather than later.

I wouldn't say anyone "needs to stop comedy", necessarily -- well, anyone who's trying, and not making things worse for everyone else. There are definitely people who I look at, and I wonder what they're hoping to get out of it. But things fall into place. I guess my point was mostly to scale back that "five years" thing, which of course works both ways -- people who haven't made any progress thinking, "well, it's okay, I've only been performing for three years, so I've got two more to go!", but also people contemplating doing comedy and thinking, "I'm not going to go up there and bomb for half a decade just to get to the point where things start going well." Because if you had told me starting out that everyone bombs for five years, and I had believed it, I never would've bothered to start. (Also, if I had had to start in Los Angeles.)

[Alex Mac]

Both would be nice; for a Tuesday Night.

Didn't even notice this comment so I'm a little behind on the reply. Don't want to argue but I think this comes down to a fundamental difference in what were think the role of a comedian should be. I see no reason to prostitute your persona and your tone in order to adhere to some kind of systematized approach to your art. Comedy is organic for a reason and preexisting expectations on how things are done should be encouraged, I think.

To semi-quote mike birbiglia:

"For the first five years of doing stand up, you have to go up on stage and bomb over and over, and each time you get off stage, you go : 'That went pretty well!' "

Thoughts on this quote?

I think it is simply speaking to the learning process. I don't think it is about self delusion (although many could take it that way) but more about self confidence. The biggest thing any new comedian can learn is how to keep their cool even when bombing. If anything, I think the quote is about how to get to that confidence, even if in the relative scheme of things you are bombing. If you can suck it up, examine what did go well, and learn from it, you will be able to grow as a performer and comedian. Your act will respond accordingly.

[Phil]

One thing my recent tape of my second performance just made me realize - I broke the classic rule of, "If there's something wrong with you, you must address it before the show can go on"

I'm an American living in Finland. Even though Finns speak excellent English, especially the young, educated types who'd come to a comedy show in Helsinki, I didn't once mention anything about my background or anything. The whole time people must have been wondering, "Who the fuck is this guy? Why isn't this in Finnish? What's he doing here?" etc... (they were thinking this in Finnish of course)

So for my upcoming third gig, I'll be sure to start off with a few jokes about my background, let's see if that helps...

[Phil]

Gene, when you gonna show us some of your tapes!?

[Gene George]

Gene, when you gonna show us some of your tapes!?

When I release my DVD or my Comedy Central Special drops, look for it summer 2015.

I'm with Erik as I have a hard time watching my sets on tape good or bad. I do watch them and I gratefully collect them from venues when offered, and some of the shows I've done either stream video or tape but I honestly don't view them as anything but "in house" training materials.

That is not to say I don't have great admiration for people who do show their work.

I've been going through a bit of an existential crisis with comedy and LA open mics in general. Not enough to question whether or not I want to do comedy, I do and love it. More along the lines of "how can I get more out of the venues and experiences offered."

[Phil]

When I release my DVD or my Comedy Central Special drops, look for it summer 2015.

Just curious - Why not put them on YouTube? Market them a bit, create some fans for yourself?

[Gene George]

I think the amount of "u r teh ghey" comments I'd get on you tube would outweigh any benefit. I'd consider having a footage party at my house with my peers, where people bring their reels and we have a laugh. Honestly, my open mics are in no way worthy of posting anywhere and my booked show performances aren't far behind.

I look at it like this: If a famous chef made a cake using cake mix, orange juice, trix, bologna and dog food when he was 6 do I really want to try it out to see what it's like? I'm just not good enough yet and I know it.

[drieux]

I completely agree with Gene. At this point there's no reason to post up sets from open mics onto YouTube, because more than likely it'll get viewed a few dozen times and the one or two comments you'd get will be nothing but anonymous douchetrolls telling you how fat, gay, retarded or fatgaytarded you are.

I still think recording and listening/watching your sets is a solid move, but save video postings for really good sets or short, specific bits that really kill. There's enough video on the web of random idiots "responding" to crap like anybody cares about their opinion of the newest Grey's Anatomy episode, or douchebags giving advice on how you should do standup.

I win 100 irony points!

[Gene George]

I completely agree with Gene. At this point there's no reason to post up sets from open mics onto YouTube, because more than likely it'll get viewed a few dozen times and the one or two comments you'd get will be nothing but anonymous douchetrolls telling you how fat, gay, retarded or fatgaytarded you are.

I still think recording and listening/watching your sets is a solid move, but save video postings for really good sets or short, specific bits that really kill. There's enough video on the web of random idiots "responding" to crap like anybody cares about their opinion of the newest Grey's Anatomy episode, or douchebags giving advice on how you should do standup.

I win 100 irony points!

I am so very fatgaytarded in my last video and I did a Grey's Anatomy joke.

Check and mate Monsieur Harmon. The irony, she is all mine.

[ASR]

I'm gonna' pitch in and say that in today's society, there's a huge opportunity to market yourself with the internet.

I agree with the points made by Gene and Drieux and it's definitely hard to market yourself when you don't think you're good enough to show it off yet, so I think a lot of it is knowing exactly when to start doing so.

If you time it right, and select good clips and bits to upload, maybe start a blog or a site or even a fan page on Facebook to let people know where you'll be performing... that can be a huge help and boost right when you need it. But we have to be patient before we get to that point.