TRIUMPHANT RETURN?

The show started at 9 and it was a bringer, which means you have to bring three people and they have to pay ten bucks to get in and buy two drinks. I made a deal with the club owner that since I'd just moved to New York, I'd only have to bring one person (the truth is I have a few friends that I'm sure would go see me, but would they be my friends after they dropped all that cash and had to wait until 11:30 before I got on-stage)?

So there was a good crowd (they weren't all comedians thank god) and a lot of the comedians were club regulars, so I got a glimpse of what somebody who actually makes a living doing comedy in New York looks like (some were good, some were just okay, but they were all completely comfortable being on-stage, a mind set that's rare in us open mic nighters).

So the evening was going alright. My wife was getting tanked (actually she only had one drink, but lets face it, it only takes one). Then this fat, balding dude with long black hair, a bright yellow shirt and his very own camera-man, filming his every move, gets on-stage and starts shouting at the top of his lungs about his parents and how I guess they abused him (I couldn't follow it, but at one point he was on floor screaming "YOU DON'T LOVE ME! YOU DON'T LOVE ME!" the camera an inch from his face). He said he had to shout because he's a Desert Storm veteran and had problems hearing. When the emcee flashed her cell phone at him, he started throwing what he said were hundred dollar bills into the crowd (they were actually one dollar bills, but hey I'm not gonna turn down a free dollar).

So sure enough a lot of the crowd started filing out. The next performer was a girl who sang a Mary J. Blige song(she was kind of out of place but hey she sounded pretty good). The girl that was supposed to go next cut out because she didn't want to go on after the Desert Storm veteran; this made me next.

My first jokes went across well and then...my mind went blank. But instead of panicking and jumping to the first thing that popped into my head, I took a breath and the next line came to me. It wasn't a good line (meaning it didn't get a laugh) but it put me back on course and I was able to finish my act. My Justin Timberlake thing got a nice response (which made me happy 'cus I was this close to cutting it) and over all it was a decent appearance.

The club owner came up to me afterwards and said, "Nice set. Why don't I sign you up for another one of these." I told him I'd get back with him. I don't think he even saw my set and I'm sure I'd have to come up with three people for next time. These club owners have a better racket going than those flashing pop ups that say you just won a free laptop (I fell for that one by the way, the repercussions of that mistake still haunt me).