The Aristocrats, Robin Williams, and Easter Comedy

I have the day off from work so I sit down to watch the Aristocrats. I can only take this for a few minutes, but I can see why we comics like this joke. It is purgative improvisation. It's letting our hair down while still performing. It's vomiting out all that expectation we put upon ourselves for the audience. A performance artist is obligated to be free on stage after all the preparation that goes into it. It's the teenager in us.

I then turn to Robin Williams live on Broadway. This fatherly looking guy has a foul mouth. This guy is talented, funny, and I adore him, but this show sucks! It's the gift of success in comedy. Good comedy comes from true feedback. As an unknown comic I am only the worth of my jokes. If my joke is funny, people laugh, otherwise I get bored stares. Known comics or celebrities don't get that honest feedback. No wonder comics peak with their first great headline set. The rest of the career is on the coattails of that initial break.

In the middle of all this DVD-watching I get called for a set at the local San Francisco comedy club. I was going to try out at an open mic and a scheduled set in a club is always much better.

At 8PM I show up at the club. It is Thursday before Easter and it is jinxed. Everyone's waiting for the resurrection. On top of that it is Spring Break. The Feds are not helping, Monday is tax day. Even with free tickets, only 2 people show up to see the show. There are 5 comics in the green room. The show is canceled.

Since my family is out of town and time is not a constraint, I decide to explore more of the San Francisco Comedy world. I walk over to the "Little Theater" two blocks away. I have never been to this room and on the way I pass a young comic. He tells me not to waste my time going there. They only have two people in the audience.

I go anyway. The Little Theater is LITTLE. It barely holds a stage. The audience is cramped into a single row between the stage and the wall. The stage is nice. It is wide and decorated with plastic flowers on the black background curtain.

There are only 2 people in the audience, and at least 5 comics. It makes for a weird setting. I decline to perform and sit down to watch.

With this intimate environment, the comics talk to the audience. The two members are fun and involved. I change my mind and sign up to go on.

It is fun being on stage even with 2 people. I realize that all the comics I perform with are fun and have interesting things to say. Especially today the comics don't feel the pressure of performance and some don't even do comedy but talk about their experiences.

The 2 audience members are enjoying it, so who cares.

The Indian Private Party

Tapan (the Indian Comedian) asks if I am up for doing a birthday gig for an Indian family. They will pay. I have never worked with Tapan before but I have heard he is very funny and I want to work with him. I am a little weary of Indian birthday gigs in restaurants. I did one last year and had kids screaming around the stage the entire time. On top of that I had to follow a belly dancer! Guess who the audience remembered. The consolation was the money.

Tapan is persuasive and the money is good, so I agree to make the trip down to Milpitas, CA. My poor Ford Focus! The entire way down it rains and I get lost, but I finally find the small plaza in Milpitas that has been taken over by Indian restaurants and shops. The shopping plaza concept is great, you can setup little India, little Italy, little China in plazas. Commercial segregation and variety. Such is America.

In little India the audience is all Indian, but very attentive. There are kids but they are either listening or playing with their balloons. My routine is supposed to be PG, so I strip out every single sex joke. There is a baby poo joke, and I leave that in.

The show is a blast. I set it up well and then Tapan takes it home. Afterwards some of the audience talks to us. I collect my paycheck and drive home, satisfied!

I reflect back and realize that if I write for the Indian audience, my experience in America is a Goldmine. It's because I have the same viewpoint as they do. When an American comic makes fun of an Indian accent and people laugh, it's because they share an experience of the Indian accent. But I can't go to an American audience and make fun of an American accent. There is no shared experience. With an Indian audience, sky's the limit.

Finally the Mock is humming

Last night we ran a packed room, 3 weekends in a row. The comics were great. Even the ones who didn' t have a great set were entertaining. We have gone 4 months with sizeable shows every Saturday. Some days it is standing room only. Some days we turn away an audience because we are packed. The Mock has momentum, and it is humming. Mr. Robin Williams we are ready for you to come by.

It wasn't always like this...
I have been hosting the Mock Comedy Cafe since October 2005. My first night of hosting was a disaster. The Mock is a barebones facility, small stage, small room, no mic! Provided the comics are good, it is the audience that makes it a great show. The audience had already been declining before I took over. The show was barked in(meaning getting people to come in off the street for free) by a comic, Mr. Ass. Since Mr. Ass barked in a free audience to the show, Mr. Ass did whatever he liked, whether the audience liked it or not. Mr. Ass called the audience "bitches." Mr. Ass got in the face of audiences. Mr. Ass dropped his pants. Since it was a free audience, they didn't give a hoot.

I tried to leave Mr. Ass out of the show one night. He stood aside and said "Go ahead, give it a shot, I am the one who barks in the audience, you won't have a show." He was right. So I put Mr. Ass back into the show.

Over the next two months, I set about figuring out the advertising end of things for the local market. I walked around distributing flyers. I went to different neighborhoods and put up posters. I gave out coupons. It came to nothing. I went online: Craigslist, SFStation, The SF Guardian, The SF Weekly, Zvents, Backpages, Evite. Citysearch would have been great, but they wanted big moolah. I got a handful of reservations.

I was beginning to rely upon Mr. Ass until one day he called to inform that he could not come down to bark the show, that he wished me well, that he cared about the room, and that he'll be back in the New Year.

That night I had my first full show. The online engines were finally cranking. Once an ad is in "the bit universe" of the Internet, it shows up everywhere. Sometimes in the strangest places. One of my ads showed up on a community cooking website! I had finally found the advertising sauce for the room. Advertise widely, advertise true, deliver the promise. It was the right time for the divorce with Mr. Ass.

Mr. Ass still comes by and does his set once in a while. Now he is actually funny.