Have you ever done anything on an impulse, just because you wanted to do it? Well, I did. And it involved stand up comedy.
People have told me that I have a pretty good sense of humor. I'm a funny guy with a rapid wit and an acid tongue. People at the law school think my articles for the Brief-Brief (www.ku.edu/~ bbrief) a riot, only because I make fun of the law, law school, and followers of Intelligent Design. Nothing is held back...well...some stuff is held back. If I said everything I wanted to say, it might not be suitable for publication.
When I do get on a roll, I write and say the most outlandish stuff. There is no need for me to get drunk to say crazy stuff. You know, the stuff you want to say, but you don't, only because it would be "politically incorrect." It's like the fine line between being a fool and being creative. If you can't tell the difference, you might as well throw everything you've got into it. Hey, if you do crash and burn, it will be in a blaze of glory or infamy. People will watch a person who sets themself on fire, no matter how bad the situation ends up.
So, it seemed natural that with my love of comedy, the most ideal situation came up. There was a chance, no matter how remote, for me to win a standup comedy competition. If I did win, I would advance to the finals. Winning that meant a gig at The Improv (located in KC) and being the warmup act to a famous comedian performing at KU in April. Not too bad. The only catch...it was on Friday night at 7:00 PM. I found out about it that afternoon. At best, I had oh...four, five hours to prepare something. Plus, I never performed an actual standup comedy routine before. First time ever. OK, I did perform impressions during Pub Night last year, but that was different.
There's a good thing about being a law school student. They train you welll in spouting out a bunch of stuff in little time. It's how lawyers win cases. You can always find something to say, even if you have no chance in hell to win.
So I go up. I managed to make fun of myself and got a bunch of laughs from the audience. I guess the politically incorrect jokes about Asian stereotypes do work, especially if the audience consists mainly of college students.
EXAMPLE: Everyone I know says, "I know why I'm single. It's because everyone says that I'm a nice guy. I'm so kind, intelligent, and loyal. It makes me sound like a dog. I'm not a damn dog! To add insult to injury, I take an online test and it says I'm a f****** Labrador Retriever. I hate Labrador Retrievers!They're way too chewy."
Nobody expected that one. It's a nice buildup to the "chewy" punchline. Add in some other jokes about being an Asian sellout (You know what the call an Asian who eats Minute Rice? An Uncle Bens) and being pitifully single and you've got a winner. And I pulled all of this stuff off the top of my head. Well, not really. I did think of these jokes earlier, but I never got the chance to actually perform them.
It went pretty well. I did have time management issues, which meant I went over the time limit. Hey, as I said, once I'm on a roll, I'm on a roll. I probably should have cut out the last minute or so when I rambled about law school. But other than for that, I think I held my own as a newbie. I didn't win. The top three performers got to go to the finals. I wasn't in the top three. It would have been nice to make it into the top three, but that's the way life goes. I didn't go in with the expectation of winning, but it would have been nice. Not that it really matters. I just wanted to have fun.
Not that I'll be able to perform the "politically incorrect" version of any stand up routine on Pub Night. You have to keep everything politically correct, PG or lower. Don't want to piss off the alumni or the nice people receiving the profits. Oh well. I probably can come up with not-so-offensive jokes. Or I'll just do impressions just like last year with some new ones added in. And some humor tossed in. I'm sure that Woody Allen can talk about adoption again. I guess I'll have to find some other way of feeding the stand-up comedy bug.
That's all for now.
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