The Death of an Audience

This weekend I performed three shows at Tommy T's, a comedy club in Concord, CA. Yes Concord, CA, I know, my career is on FIRE! I was featuring with Rudy Moreno headlining. Rudy has been around for years and is a pretty big time comedian down in LA. He's done alot of tv work including NBC's Kingpin and a big role in an episode of The Shield on FX. The Shield is perhaps my favorite show and I own all the DVD boxsets. So I mentioned to Rudy how I remember him from the show. He didn't seem too interested in talking about it however, perhaps because he played a City Counselman who was caught getting a prostitute, oh wait that was me last weekend.

I had performed with Rudy once before at a college where I was a lowly emcee, so he hadn't seen my set before and probably didn't really remember me, which was fine. I mean I did run into the restroom and cry, but that's besides the point. Well Rudy is a really cool guy. We kicked it after each show and joked around and had some drinks. He also was impressed by my performances, but not the riverdancing I did after when the club turns into a dance club.

My homeboy, Tyson, also came along and did a guest set each show. It was his first time performing in a professional comedy show at a real comedy club. He did a nice job and it was cool seeing him pop his cherry on stage (apparently his act includes his losing his virginity on stage).

It was nice getting back on stage. I hadn't done a professional show in the last two months. Luckily I wasn't too rusty. The Friday show went pretty good. The stage was arranged differently that night due to the band that would be playing afterwards, so there wasn't much space to move around, which hindered my performance some because the crowd enjoys my pop n lockin and break dancing. At the beginnning of the show I knelt down to begin my set with a prayer to Allah and 10 minutes of meditation, (I'm known for my exciting starts) or I may have knelt down to set my water on the floor since their was no stool and as I stood up I hit my head on one of the stands on the stage. A real smooth start.

The first half of my set went well and then the alcohol kicked in and people started talking. Apparantly some people couldn't keep up with my story jokes because it requires you to listen as opposed to just watch. When people start talking you have to handle the situation appropriately so that you don't lose the crowd. Therefore I looked at the loudest talker, this fat white guy who was probably married to his cousin. I looked at him and said, "Hey!". This got his attention, which was perfect because then I shot him. I wanted to make sure I had his attention first because I didn't want to be rude and interrupt his conversation.

Well after I made an example of this guy, the crowd started listening to me again and I got them back to end the show. Afterwards I felt bad for the guy I shot and sent to the hospital. So to make up for it I bought a drink for his girl and then took her home and slept with her. Hopefully the guy will learn his lesson and have a good laugh about it after his surgery.

I had two shows Saturday night. Doing two shows in a night is tough and it made me realize that I need to start working out more, because I'm out of shape. On stage, I was sweating like a migrant worker stealing from the INS and it was a little embarassing when it started to smell like bacon. The 8 o clock show was packed and I had a career performance. Absolutely great from beginning to start. The only bad thing was when the microphone turned off, but I played it off well by panicking and wetting myself until it came back on. The 10 pm show was the toughest because I was tired and the crowd was small. But I did pretty well for the most part except for 1 or 2 jokes that fell flat on it's face. Overall, I did three really good shows and impressed the new owner of Tommy T's which is important. Plus I have a new tape out of it that I can send bookers. So it looks like my comedy is really excelling and I'm lookin forward to more featuring at more clubs.