Another Post! Holy Christopher!

This is mostly a video post.  I did well at ImprovBoston last night, although I didn’t quite stick the landing:

Back From Hibernation!

Enough of you have been kind enough to point out my lack of posting to get my juices going for it again.  As an update, I’ve performed close to 60 times since January 3rd, and continue to improve as you’ll notice in the video below.  I’m also no longer going to Belgium, sadly, as my shoulder has ceased to exist.  My retirement press conference will be tomorrow morning as I shed  a single tear into a bowl of honey nut cherrios.   Don’t feel sorry for me though, because I have lots of things to look forward to here in the good ol’ US of A:  taxes, a foot of snow, and my new job at Bertucci’s!  

On the non-sarcastic bright side, I recently was involved with a Comedy Roast of people I vaguely know, and the host gave me this stunning review, “Of all the comics that have done stand up for less than a year, I thought yours was the funniest.”  Which is the best way to say, “Of all the comics that aren’t funny, you sucked the least.”  I’ll take what I can get.  This video is not from that night, but enjoy it anyway:

Getting Hit On

Picking it up from the last post, after the King’s Battle of the Bands last week, I was hit on by a British Airlines flight attendant.  She was about 30 and pretty cute.  As I walked off-stage from my last set, she stopped me from her seat at the bar.   She did this by placing her hand under my right pectoral and saying, “Hey, you were great.”  To be honest, I don’t know which surprised me more, that she was hitting on me or that she liked my jokes.  I thanked her, and this dialogue followed:

Her:  “How long have you been doing this?”

Me:  “Almost 3 months.”

Her:  “Wow!  Well, you sing really well.”

Me:  “…I didn’t sing.”

Her: “You aren’t the drummer?”

Me:  “None of the drummers sang…”

As reality slapped me back to the ground, I was about to leave when she grabbed me by the bicep and added, “Wait.  I’m sorry, I’m drunk and it’s my birthday.”  I looked at her for a second, replied, “Happy Birthday!” and sat down next to her.  In my experience of female sexual innuendo, “I’m drunk and it’s my birthday,” is definitely close to a woman’s mating call.  A man’s mating call, on the other hand, occurs when he’s with a woman, and words are coming out of his mouth.  “So, where are you from?”  is probably the most used, and least successful of these.

Anyhoo, the flight attendant then gives me her glass of pinot gregio, and tells me, “You better catch up.”  It would have been rude to not comply.  As I’m gulping her wine down, a 35 year-old muscular guy with a shaved head comes up to her, points at me, and exclaims, “Sherry!  He’s too young for you!”  She leans over to me and says, “This is my brother.”   I start to get up, not entirely because I’m a pussy, but also because I’m not dumb enough to fight for some random cougar in a bar.  As I get up, the guy extends his hands like he’s going to choke me, and says again, “He’s too young!  Despite his great thighs!” and uses his hands to caress my left thigh.  

Shocked, I just stared at him for a second, and he asks me, “You’ve got a nice chest too.  You aren’t gay are you?”  To which I responded, “Not that I know of…”  Christ.  I knew I was awkward when flirting with women, but apparently it’s the same with men too.  He had a follow-up for me as well:

Him: “How old are you?”

Me:  “23.”

Him: “You’re not old enough to know yet.”

Me:  ”Well, I’m pretty sure I’m not gay, but I’ll let you know if anything changes.”

And then I made my awkward escape. I’ve also been hit on by two other men this week, including a homeless man.  I’ll save those stories for another day.

Guerrilla Comedy

“It has to start somewhere
It has to start sometime
What better place than here
What better time than now
All hell cant stop us now”

I really love Rage Against the Machine right now.  Lyrics, music, meaning, I find them fascinating.  The above lyrics are from their song “Guerrilla Radio,” and (here comes the segue) I recently did some guerrilla comedy. 

King’s Back Bay had a battle of the bands instead of their usual open mic this Wednesday, and I made the battle.  There were 9 bands, then another comedian, a beat boxer, and me.  Us three non-groups performed for 4-6 minutes in between bands, in front of the stage, while the musical groups exchanged and set up equipment.  Sometimes, the bands would leave their instrument cases in front of the stage, and I would have to traverse them as the departing band grabbed their things from where I was performing, walking around and also just bumping into me.  “Lights out, guerrilla comedy!”  Awesome experience though.

Overall, I did about 16 minutes of material.  This is the hardest venue I do for comedy and strangely, my favorite.  No one is there to see comedy to begin with.  The audience isn’t even there to pay attention to the performers, because you can have conversations and still listen to music.  Comedy cannot exist without a silent, attentive audience to build tension with, so I not only have to tell the jokes well, but I have to get them to pay attention, all while avoiding the bodies flying randomly around me.  

My first set was about the economy.  It went over alright, but nothing spectacular.  For the second set, there were maybe 7 people in an audience of 70 paying attention to begin.  My second set was on dating and had some funny bits.  At one point I have a punch line where I jump up and down and yell, “I’m having sex!” in a celebratory manner.  This garnered no new audience members, astounding me.  Generally if I saw someone jumping and yelling that they were engaging in intercourse, I’d take a peek.  Maybe that’s just me.  I got the attention of one girl at a table that I particularly wanted to get, but couldn’t convince her to maker the table pay attention.  After my second set, a lot of people told me I was brave, and that King’s was a tuff venue for comedy.  When you take the candy coating off of those words, it means, “Man, you got balls humiliating yourself in front of all these people!”

I came out determined in my final set.  I cut down my set ups as much as possible and had saved my most rehearsed stuff for last.  As I dodged the musicians I even made a comment that I was doing guerrilla comedy, and likened it to being in Vietnam.  Before I could say this was actually nothing like Vietnam, the woman closest to me yelled out, “Too soon!”  But I think people were just impressed that I was still trying, and most everyone paid attention and I even got a few laughs from people.  I was completely drained afterward, and a lot of people shook my hand.  I’m pretty sure it was just in pity, but maybe I did better than I thought.

Then I got hit on by an English flight attendant, but that’s a story for another post.

Two Jobs

So I’ve been hired twice in the last week, which is simultaneously a cause for celebration, and a cause for me to die a little inside .   I was hoping to survive strictly on acting, comedy, and Harvard Business School studies.  I’ve been able to pay for everything except rent so far, which is pretty good for a guy with no acting experience or job when he moved here. 

The first job I’ve been offered is to work for Boston Sports Clubs as an apprentice trainer, which I’d probably take if I weren’t (most likely) leaving for Belgium in March.  I’d basically be working for minimum wage for no reason, since in their program the first few months are used to build a client base.  So I’ve accepted a job at Greenpeace. 

I’m interested to see how long I last there.  When I walked in to the ”office,” I thought I had entered a worm hole to my kindergarten baby sitter’s house.  God awful acryllic murals decorated the walls, with images such as a polar bear exclaiming in a thought bubble, “Be like me, don’t buy Exxon-Mobile!”  Yeah, even actor/comedians make more money than polar bears, so don’t give me financial advice, ok?  Then there’s a whale, a picture of the earth, and an ominous skeleton with blood oozing from its mouth, pouring toxic waste towards the whale!  I was in a group interview and even cracked a joke, “I just realized the skeleton over there, the one with the dollar sign on its skull pouring  toxic sludge on the whale, is VOMITING BLOOD!”  No one even reacted!  It was like that was a perfectly acceptable representation of what greenpeace was fighting!  Bullshit!  I don’t care how terrible people are, they’re still people, and you make more headway when you treat them as such. 

I don’t know if I can exist in an office with people lacking awareness or irony about their jobs.  I mean, our job is to ask people to donate money towards fighting for the environment while standing directly next to the homeless.  It’s ironic, and I think greenpeace does good work, but I’m not going to last long if they can’t appreciate irony.  Anyway, this has been my hopeful message of the day, and I hope my optimism reaches out and touches you in all the right places.  All of them.

My Life

I’ve been trying to get a job recently, and it hasn’t been nearly as successful as I hoped.  I was doing alright stemming my negative cash flow until this month.  Dinner theater was my expected main source of income for November, but I only acted the one time.  This may or may not be because my casting director may or may not be holding a grudge against me for something I may or may not be vague about, because she may or may not read my blog.  All I know is I haven’t gotten the Christmas script for two weeks now, so I may or may not be working there anymore.  I have no idea.  Ah, the life of an actor!

I’ve decided this is going to be a bitter sarcastic post.  I’m usually quite upbeat, but the job market has got me down.  I figured my neuroscience degree would be worth something, and I was right:  when I tell people I’m a comic, it’s worth a good laugh.   Then there’s the past employment.  ”Shaw’s Janitor” doesn’t exactly jump off the old resume, so I spiced it up.  I was the only one stupid enough to take the position, so I call myself the Head Maintenance Technician, where I occasionally helped with customer service (directing people to the Bush’s Baked Beans) and engaged in grocery transport facilitation (bagging).  If only there was a job were I could bullshit and condescend to people.  On second thought, I don’t like politics.  Although I did apply to be a mental health worker for the government, a job I’m overqualified for according to their requirements.  Haven’t heard from them.  I’ve applied to numerous Administrative Assistant positions, but apparently neuro kids are too stupid to do office work.  Maybe they’re right, for a solid six weeks I was too stupid to be a food server at a sports bar.  I finally got the hang of it though.  All this rejection is making me stress eat.  Which is ironic, because I have an interview for a nutrition and wellness coaching position tomorrow.  I also applied for an apprentice personal trainer position, but again, the combination of neuroscience, working three years in a college training room, and a life of athletic experience has yet to help me.  Thanksgiving was awesome.

Anyway, I’m making progress towards my next 6 minutes of stand up.  I’m trying to create jokes that are more meaningful to me than my bicycle interfering with my sex life, if that’s possible.  It’s hard though.  I tried to do a series of jokes of how Cosmo magazine was ruining orgasms for women, with stories like “Cosmo Total Body Sex: How to make your man quvier from head to toe” and “What he’s thinking when he sees your o-face.”  These are the types of articles that make women self-conscious in bed, making it harder to orgasm.  I tried to convey the rediculousness of these stories, but it wasn’t funny until I made a joke implying my dick was one fifth of my body weight.  The best joke told by any comedian that night was when this gay Iranian guy described, in minute detail, the state of a showering man’s uneven balls.  Bill Hicks was right, people love dick jokes.  Now, Bostonians are not dolts, despite what they try to make people think, so I’m hoping to improve to the point where I can make meaningful concepts funny.  I’ve only been doing this for 10 weeks, so I’ll get there.  Rant complete.

Tom Becomes a Mass. Murderer.

That’s right everyone, I killed last night!  I opened for “Sketch Haus” at ImprovBoston again and had my best set ever in the history of the two months I’ve been doing this.  Yes, after two months of hard work, I can create laughter for almost 7 minutes.  And here is the proof:

My First Gig as an Opener!

I opened for Sketch Haus last Friday, ImprovBoston’s house sketch comedy show.  This was my first stand up performance that was not an open mic.  I got the gig the Tuesday before, when I got a mass email requesting an opening act for Sketch Haus.  A contact email was given if anyone was interested.  Lo and behold, the contact was a good friend from the puppet reality show I had acted in earlier.  The same man who took me out for un-sensational Tibetan food and talked comedy with me when I was first started out.  Small world.  Come to think of it, I’ve been blessed with 3 men and magically one woman, who were all bosses of mine and took me out to dinner.  Apparently I give off that likable, “God I feel bad for him, he looks hungry,” kind of vibe.

So I contacted my friend and locked up 7-10 minutes of stand up at the beginning of the show.  Soon, I came to the realization that I only had 4 minutes of material people usually laughed at, and about a minute and a half of that I fucked up a quarter of the time.  So I had 3 days to double that.  The next day I woke up with a fever.  Damn you microbes!!!  But I wanted this, so I typed 3 pages of new crap, and I say crap because most of what I write is shit.  Joke writing is about pinching off a bunch of ideas, and finding the pieces of comedy corn within them.  That’s why it has taken me 2 months to get people to laugh for 4 solid minutes. 

That night, I went to two separate open mics, wearing 4 shirts to compensate for my fevered body temperature.  Both went ok, and I restructured my material for the next night.  Thursday I performed at this death open mic at a Howard Johnson’s, or as known on the street, a HoJo.  About 7 comics tested their luck, and the only person to get a laugh was a woman who joked about her vagina breathing fire.  Oh, HoJo.  So I got a nice kick in the balls before my first real gig ever.  That’s good, no one can not laugh at a man getting kicked in the nuts.  That link is random, but my life is about entertainment now.

Fast forward to Friday night.  Still relatively sick, I restructured my act again, and substituted some material I had made up THAT DAY for a chunk that wasn’t working often enough.  I blame the illness.  Just to give you a teaser for my act, the new piece was inspired when I farted and it smelled like pumpkin.  Deep stuff there.  Again,  I refuse to take responsibility for my actions.  If I do that the terrorists win.

So my time came to do my thing, and there were two people in the audience.  The show members decided to wait for more people, and the host asked me politely, “Do you want to wait and do a little less than 10 minutes.”  “Ahh…sure.  I mean I was so looking forward to the complete 10 minutes, but I’ll do my part.”  “Oh no,” she says, “You can do the whole thing if you want.”  God, I’m an idiot.  My nerves must have masked my sarcasm.  “No, these people didn’t come to see me, it’s fine,” I replied.  Never take responsibility for actions, that only leads to learning and growth.

Finally, I was introduced, talked at the audience for a nervous five minutes and thirty seconds, and exited on an “aww…”  As bad as it sounds, it actually went pretty well.  You can view it here, and I’m working on obtaining a copy for myself.  I’m opening again this Friday, so if you’re in the area feel free to drop by.

My First (Community) Television Appearance

Here is my segment exclusively, which was co-written with another Boston writer named Jenny Z. The first, say, two minutes is pretty much my painful battle with literacy, but things get rolling in the second half.

Technical Difficulties and Being A Community Television Superstar

My computer got owned two weeks ago.  I kept hoping that if I turned it off long enough, the anti-virus pixies would enter my window in the night and do a system restore.  Sadly, this never happened, no matter how hard I clapped my hands.  $200 dollars later, I am finally reconnected to the glorious series of tubes, and I only have to run Spy Bot twice a day.  But aside from these CPU complications, the last two weeks have been superior.

I did my first performance on BNN!  The piece was co-written by myself and a female castmate, and let me tell ya, I read that teleprompter with all the grace and cunning of a sixth grader with an aide.  I was so nervous, I’m fairly positive I tapped my entire right leg for the length of the piece.  But I finally loosened up after carefully navigativing a risky joke, and it was a blast.  What started shakily ended with some solid laughs.  You can see the podcast on BNN website, where you can either watch the whole episode, or skip the first third to get to me!  As soon as my segment’s on youtube, I’ll put that link up. 

I also had my first show at the Mystery Cafe on November 1st, where I played the lead role in Major League Murder.  I’ll write about that next.