My First Time (doing stand-up comedy)

They say that a master of a profession makes that profession look extremely easy. The night I performed stand-up comedy for the first time,

I made that profession look so so very very hard. To even call my performance that night comedy would be a stretch.

The best thing about doing stand up is that you don’t find out that you’re not funny until after you brutally bombed yourself out of all senses of self respect or confidence. If I had to sum up my experience in one sentence, It was like I was talking to a highly determined 5th grade class that was just told to play the quiet game. I remember that night as if it happened just a few minutes ago.

My palms were sweating Niagara Falls, my heart was shamelessly dubstepping the ribs out of my chest, and my right leg was a bona fide vibrator. But don’t let this cool composed stoic exterior fool you, it may come as a surprise, but on the inside,

I was freaking out.

I wasn’t even on the stage when my first joke bombed. When I arrived, despite my full well knowing that in a few minutes I would be walking on stage with the brightest spotlight shining on my bare face…I didn’t want anyone to know it was me up there. So my genius buttcrack decided to sign up for the open mic under a fake name. Now this wasn’t any ordinary fake name, I saw this as an opportunity to show that I am extremely funny, an opportunity to show that I have an advanced sense of humor for someone my age, something witty and nuanced and extremely funny, so I went with: Hugh Jboe-Nuhr

Retrospectively I should have gauged my majority-boomer-audience and done some more introspection on that name because it in fact wasn’t extremely funny, but rather just caused mild confusion, at best, amongst the crowd. One of the first things I heard once the name was called was someone whispering “what do you think the country of origin is”.

My second joke didn’t do much better and essentially sums up the rest of the 5 minute set.

When I got to the stage, I introduced myself, shakily held my card up, and read the first line:

“Sometimes I talk with muscle memory and I am very non-confrontational, so I can barely interpret what people are saying but I say something anyways, and 10% of the time it works great, but that still leaves the other 90%.

For instance, this one time some girl I didn’t really like told me that she had a crush on me, and so I looked her dead in the eyes and told her ‘oh no thanks, I prefer men.’”

…

Nothing. Silence. Zilch. You could literally hear the Earth rotating.

I mean I get that it wasn’t the best joke, but not even a cough from the audience?? To say this audience was dead would be an understatement. They were deceased and decomposing.

Encountering the silence, I then decided that it was wise to do some ad libbing, something to further explain the joke, so I went a little wild, a little off script, and said “but I DON'T prefer men..”

Nothing. Silence. Zilch. You could hear the darkness.

Needless to say I left that building with significantly darker and wetter pants than I came in with.

I am happy to say now that this only happens every other month. Stand up comedy is weird, in the sense that even though you bomb you still come back and do it over and over, finishing every time with slightly damper pants.