THE STAND-UP

The Call

Tonight is a big night for me. Joe Fellipo, a promoter who books stand-up comics in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Florida, is coming to watch me perform. Earlier this afternoon, he called me out of the blue and said, "I’ve heard a lot about you, I want to check out your act to see if we can book you for some feature spots." Translation: if Joe likes what he sees tonight, I will finally start doing paid gigs in places where the audience is not comprised solely of other amateur comics and society’s undesirables. We're not talking The Comedy Store or the Apollo, but places that will at least pay me enough to cover my travel expenses and bar tab.

The Story

Every Tuesday night for nine months I’ve paid my dues at the club. I show up at 9 o' clock sharp, wait patiently do my time, and I never leave early. The event is an open mike comedy showcase, a chance for aspiring stand-ups to culture their talent or realize their lack of it. Truth be told, I have witnessed some "comics" so devoid of charisma and so utterly talentless that I would have preferred to listen to a drunken Asian businessman singing karaoke. Still, when they left the stage, I applauded them for having the guts to take the stage in front of total strangers and take a chance.

I am by nature reclusive. I watch a lot of television because I prefer the world of absent suffering and guaranteed happy endings to the real one. I do not date because every girl I meet arrives with too much baggage, wears out her welcome and won't leave until she is dragged out by the cops. I keep abreast of news and current events, but I do it from the comfort and safety of my abode; I want to read the statistics, not become one. So what is it about the club that makes me leave the solace and safety of my room? Because I feel a sense of belonging that has eluded me my whole life. The club is a place where I don't have to worry about being slapped with a sexual harassment lawsuit when I have one beer to many and ask Christine the waitress to marry me - again. In the club, I am somebody. I am one of a handful of regular performers who in our tiny, insignificant world are as esteemed as the Knights of the Round Table. We sit sequestered from the audience in a section of the room we self-indulgently designated "The Comics Corner," and in our minds, fame and fortune are only minutes away. So what is it about stand-up that makes me return week after week when I should be devoting my time and energy to a "real job?" Because I feel a sense of recognized accomplishment that I have never felt at any of the umpteen jobs that I have had in the past. When I do well on-stage I get laughter, instant gratification for a job well done. When I kill on-stage I get laughter followed by an applause break, the equivalent of getting my own "employee of the month" parking space.

Comedy is to me what drugs and television are to others, stress relief and escape from the quiet desperation of every day life. In the club shit makes sense. Why does it happen? Because it happens. Events that alter the course of history amount to little more than a month's worth of comic fodder. At the club, pretenses are left at the door like coats on a rack. Issues like racism, sexism and homophobia are discussed with brutal honesty. And people laugh, because really, what the hell else can they do about it?

My dream is to one day be renowned for my nihilistic, comedic diatribes. I will be twice as irreverent as anyone in the public eye has ever been before, and I will bring down scathing indictments on capitalism, organized religion, the sacrament of marriage, and any other institution that society holds dear. I want to tear down the walls that societies, governments and churches have erected to dictate our actions, control our minds, and delude us into believing that we are anything more than soulless carbon-based life forms. And I want to do it all in a manner that leaves the audience in stitches. Why? Because the person I am today is all that remains of a hopelessly idealistic youth who woke one day to find himself in the real world without the benefit of an education from the school of hard knocks.

The Show

I begin by putting the microphone to my mouth and delivering my opening one-line zinger. Instead of laughter, the audience responds with a hostile chorus of, "The microphone is not on." I never imagined a minuscule ON/OFF switch could look so daunting. The tiny lever feels like a mammoth circuit breaker as I flip it. At last, my boyish, nasal voice fills the room. I fire off my jokes like I’m dealing cards in Vegas, but the audience responds as if I was eulogizing Mother Theresa. Even my joke about Ted Kennedy driving the school bus (the crowning jewel of my routine) bombs like the Enola Gay. Although my material is well rehearsed, tonight it sounds as coherent as Mohammed Ali reciting Shakespeare. Halfway through my set the mike dies on me, along with the joke I was telling. Although I am able to resuscitate the microphone, the joke is DOA. A minute later the microphone loses consciousness again, this time mid-punch line. Judging by the crowd's reaction, I would say that watching an adult stifling profanity and suppressing a temper tantrum is the funniest bit they have seen yet, at least from me.

When my set is over, I trudge back to my seat like a man condemned. The audience is only slightly more generous with their applause than they were with their laughter. The sound of a few hands reluctantly clapping seems distant. I collapse into my chair. Jose and Aaron, two comics sharing my table, whisper obligatory consolations that fall on deaf ears. I steal glimpses of Joe, but avoid making eye contact. I want to approach him and explain how the room was dead, how the same bit killed last week, and how I have so much more dynamite material I would like for him to hear, but I do none of these things. Instead, I wallow in the quicksand of self-pity. I can almost hear the zombie-like voices of my parents chanting, "Get an education so you will have something to fall back on," and just for a moment I consider rushing home, deflowering my virgin schoolbooks and making an eleventh hour attempt to save this semester's grades. I remember my father making it clear to me from early on that as long as the decisions I made coincided with the decisions he felt were best, my status as a pampered son would not be threatened. I remember my mother's assurances that I was destined for middle-class mediocrity so it was imperative that I make every effort to fulfill that prophecy. And for the first 22 years of my life that is exactly what I did. And while my brain became bloated with superfluous textbook knowledge, my dreams atrophied ‘til I looked to the future with the enthusiasm of a death row inmate. No longer. For the first time in my life I am making decisions based on what I stand to gain, not what I stand to lose. They may turn out to be the wrong decisions, but they will be my wrong decisions.

I pop out of my seat like a champagne cork. I march towards Joe determined to redeem my reputation but find only an empty chair where he was just sitting. Surveying the room, I look towards the doors just in time to catch a glimpse of his glossy bald spot leaving the room. Joe Felippo, the same man who had shaken my hand not an hour earlier didn't bother to say good-bye. I give chase. I circumvent patrons, tables and clusters of chairs as quickly as possible, catching up with him just outside the doors. He looks uncomfortable and unaccustomed to being put on the spot. Before he even has a chance to utter a single facetious pleasantry, I look him in the eyes, extend my hand and say, "Thanks for coming' out." That’s it, no excuses, no disclaimers and no supplication. Without waiting for a response I disappear into the club again. C'est La Vie.

They say, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." I buy that. There have been scores of times after dying unmercifully in the spotlight when I wanted to run off the stage and into oblivion, but I didn't. Instead I continued paying my dues and I’m a better comic and a better man for it. I didn't start doing this for Joe, my parents or anybody else. I did it for myself and I will continue doing it for myself. It has taken me 22 years to find myself, so what if it takes the world another 22 to find me? One day I'm gonna be somebody BIG, but until that day comes you know where to find me.