My next stop was this club on the upper west side. I had never been there before (it felt like Woody Allen territory) and got so sucked into this bookstore that I almost ditched my gig. But I pulled myself away (I think I'd rather be stuck with a Martha Stewart Living then perform).
The emcee was this obnoxious blonde who rattled on for a half hour, not telling jokes, just chatting about her life, her love affair with her manager (I guess he also manages Dane Cook) and berating us for thinking we could do comedy. When her manager/lover came in she froze and hurled insults at him until he left. I guess she thought we would be impressed by all her insider cred or whatever. I thought she was kind of amusing but I was so nervous that I just wanted her off the stage, so I get up there and get it over with.
Finally she got off and this this irish dude went up. The crowd was brutally quiet (I don't think there was one person who wasn't a comic). A different emcee came up, she had some pretty good jokes, a half hour went by. I was the next person up and here comes the blonde encee again. She goes off about how she just got chewed out by her manager/lover, about how she needs to learn how keep her cool when he walks in the room. During her rant this homelss guy starts howling from the bar like a police siren. So our emcee cusses him out and after she's finished, announces my name.
My set started great. This Ryan Seacrest joke got arguably the biggest laugh of the night (I might be biased, I'm probably biased). And then...I was met with the Irish dude's brutal silence. The Justin Timberlake bit was agony (there's nothing worse then singing Justin Timberlake to a crowd of contemptous eyes).
But when I came off the stage all my fellow comics were very complementary. This one aspiring comic that I was sitting with said, "I liked the way you interjected yourself into your different characters--"
"Pay attention!" The emcee said in a whispered shout as she walked by.
Then the homeless guy howled again and all the men were called upon to usher him out. I followed the mob of chaos out into the street and went looking for that book store.
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