Billion Dollar Babies

Billion Dollar Babies

Sunday, February 13, 2005-2:11 PM

Oh boy.  Last night at the Funny Farm Comedy Club club in Broadalbin, NY, two more great shows with  Jocko Alston from Canada.  The club is very supportive of their local talent, with mc Steve Adiletta from Schedectady, NY opening the shows, and two or three guest spots going up each show.

Only problem with guest spots is you're dealing with new talent.  The audience doesn't really much differentiate between open micers doing a spot just to get the stage time, and the pros who are out there doing this for a living.  This can lead to misuderstandings and inflammatory situations.  For example....

Last night a young man took the stage and was doing his set.  Mostly funny, some hit-and-miss, but all very dark material.  He happened to do a joke to the tune of he and his girlfriend talking about family planning.  She wanted 4 kids, he wanted none.  He offered the compromise number would be zero children, because even though she wanted to have 4, he wanted to kill 4.

A woman in the front row asked him out loud "Why would you do a joke like that?"  He offered no response other than to ask her her name and try to defuse the situation.  He asked her if she had been to comedy before.  She announced that she had been a year ago, but hadn't had the chance to come out because she and her husband had a baby in that time.

Here's where it gets hairy.

A woman in the middle of the room yelled out "Yeah, the one that lived!"

Now, I don't know if this was a situation where the two women knew each other, or it was just someone who was upset that a fellow audience member had to stop the show, but the first woman was pretty pissed off.  She said "Who said that?" and the whole time the show was going on, she was alternately laughing and trying to figure out who the offending party was.  It was pretty uncomfortable.

The owner, Larry, is also a comic.  He happened to be going on next.  He's new to the game, having done open mics for a couple of years.  The first line out of his mouth is "Well, I'm not going to do any of my dead baby jokes!"  I was SO glad that he was on between the kid and me, I would NOT have wanted to go on next.

Overall, I was happy with my performance the whole weekend.  I was surrounded by open mic types, and so I instinctively slipped into "teacher" mode, offering tips and suggestions here and there, nothing overpowering, but the nice thing about that is that as I would relate the basics to these guys, it allowed me to sharpen my own saw, and the late show last night, I thought I did a particularly good job of breathing some life into my show, rather than just reciting the material by rote and henceforth, took it to the next level.

Today's lesson; always offer a hand to the guys further down on the ladder, because an ill-prepared comic might one day be your opener and take your show into a danger zone you don't want to play in.  A rising tide lifts all boats.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY

PS-In case you haven't noticed, gentle reader, I've been naming my journal entries after classic rock songs, trying to choose a title that sums up the content of the entry.  It's a fun little parlor game for me, as I worked for a classic rock station for several years, and it remains my music of choice.  I'd like to offer a little contest; send me an e-mail with the artists that recorded those classic rock songs (pick any five, I'll give you the weekend off) and include your mailing address, and if you get them right, I'll send you a copy of my comedy CD.  And if you get it wrong, I'll send you two of my CD's.  Rock on!

Tetta