[dc]O[/dc]n Sunday evening, I took a stab at stand-up comedy. I told some jokes, in front of a live crowd. Yes, it was my first attempt at stand up comedy. As I wrote before, my friend Melik asked me to join the fun. He puts on the monthly Church of Comedy event at the Sir Pizza Grand Cafe in Old Town, here in Lansing.
With a microphone and everything.
Was I nervous? Sure. But, I prepared. I did my research and found that about 400 words is the recommended amount for five minutes of stand up (although I could have written a bit more, I think). I wrote up my words, and practiced, practiced, practiced.
Overall, I’m happy with how I did. I got plenty of laughs, but I screwed up a couple of times by going ‘off script’ – not that going off script is bad, I just stumbled to fill the gaps. The more I do stand up, the better I’ll get.
I didn’t memorize my routine word for word, or even recite it as such. I had the key points remembered, along with a few of my favorite jokes and just kept going. Writing the routine out ahead of time helped because I had a beginning, middle, and end. (Trivia: I started things off with the opossum joke from this week’s comic).
