Mic 35 Go with the Flow

Mic 35 Go with the Flow 

Venue: 5 O’ Clock

Host: Big Rich Greene, Bek  and  Tyrone Gaines 

Show: Monday Night Wrong

Set Time:  5 Minute

I went to the 5 O’Clock to record my set tonight with the intent on seeing what lands and what doesn’t.  I have a couple of things booked over the next couple months and I want the material to be in a good place. The vibe is always good here.  Fun, frockling, walk up music, a trio of funny hosts and a true comeradery amongst comics.  It is a good room for feedback and support and since it is tough to tell what is really getting laughs and what might be getting sympathy, while your on stage, recording is a good idea and the 5 O’clock is a good place.

A white suburban woman with street cred got a laugh.

You know, I am a white suburban women, salf aware.  I have been white and suburban for all of the time, I have been through all the courses.  But I am from that generation that grew up unsupervised and drank from a hose so I am white suburban with some street cred. 

Getting an adult male from a vending machine got a laugh.

I recently had to go to the East Cleveland Police Department and I asked if I needed to bring anything with me and they said an adult male.  Like white women have these in vending machins.  We do. 

Being married 32 got a round of applause and saying I like him — got the biggest laugh of the night.

I have been married 32 tears. 

I like him. 

I am cataloging good lines in the attempt to marry them into small 5–10 minute sets. Sets that are gracious enough to accept other material but confident enough to stand on their own. Like a funny platform I can stand on or jump off as I need. 

If you watch comedians you see it — Eddie Murphy and the ice cream man can resurface and it always fits. He uses it to describe being poor, being a kid, what his neighborhood was like, everytime playing off of the nostalgia of icecream, the joy it brings, and howit connects all of us.  As I look for my own ice cream I find myself sticking with lines about myself and my family dynamic. It is my core and so I guess all things, including humor, will spring from that.

There are days as I write this blog, spend a couple hours writing material, reviewing tape — that I feel like I am doggie paddling toward something I can’t see in the middle of the ocean. Then I get on stage and the ground is so firm, so solid, so anchoring that I am not sure why the feeling of almost drowning in the abyss is there the rest of the time. I work well in the angst. But when I have an audience, when I see they are going to get on the bus and take the trip with me, I am in charge, focused and determined to make the trip enjoyable. 

But as I get here to Mic 35, more than a third of the way through my committed 99 mics, I see that I am doing less flailing in the water and more floating, letting the ideas and jokes take me where they want instead of forcing them into a narrative.

If I am in fact, funnier at your kitchen counter than I am on stage, then I need to bring the counter with me wherever I go.