Opening the Velv

I opened the Velv again this weekend. Feel pretty darn good about it.

MCed the open mike Thursday. Opened with a brand new speech, where I basically roasted the Velveeta Room. It's a shithole, but it's our shithole. Ended with the battle cry, Viva Velveeta and a toast. Did a couple quick one-liners, then off to the open mike. But the very fact I opened with something new was something I usually cower away from.

Headliner was Chris Mata -- great crowd work. Carey Moore featured.

Friday night, early show was pretty good. "Spanky" did a guest spot -- reminded me of JoJo in his delivery. Hecklers late. Carey didn't like her show. She bounced back late.

Saturday night early show, the crowd was nothing less than magnificent. Laughed at everything. Late show, they were completely devoid of energy. All the comics -- Carey, Spanky and I -- were weirded out by the intense lack of energy. Chris, by utilizing crowd work, rescued the crowd and ended up having quite a good show. It made me realize that I really want to learn crowd work. It's a tool I'd like to have in my belt for when I need it.

Spanky had a joke about showing up to an old folks home dressed as the grim reaper. I have a very similar joke about doing the same at the Race for the Cure. We had three shows together. The first one was forgivable, as I hadn't heard Spanky's set. Then, he left before the late show, and I forgot all about it. Early show Saturday, I did my set again, heard him do his bit, realized the redundancy, but didn't write anything down. Late show Saturday I did the same damn bit. It's confusing, because I think of the bit as Keep Austin Weird, not Grim Reaper, so when I'm picking jokes to tell they're not indexed by punchline. Ergo, three out of three times we had the redundancy.

Since I audio recorded both my sets Saturday night, I noticed the early show was short. Near seven minutes instead of ten. Not a big deal with Shane Hebert doing an unexpected guest spot. I made adjustments for the late show, though, and finished very close to ten. Maybe I'm getting through my jokes faster now.

Most importantly, I pulled out some new material Saturday night. It actually worked about as well as the old stuff. I am inspired to continue writing. Also, I used to have guideline of never pulling out new stuff in a paid show that hasn't already worked at an open mike. I think I'm ready to ditch that guideline. Open mikes are moving me toward simple one-liners, but my writing wants to progress to more complicated rants. I think I'm going to let it.

I had recorded both shows from Saturday night. I had the impression that the late show really sucked, but the recording suggests otherwise. While you could definitely sense the lack of energy, you can also hear the energy pick up during my set, so that when I leave, they're in a pretty good spot. Long story short, I think I did an admirable job in difficult circumstances.

Next stop, I want to learn crowd work. It's going to be difficult. I'm going to suck at it for several Velveeta open mikes. I'm going to accidentally hurt people's feelings. But I want that tool, pretty bad.