BoxenBlog

My worst show ever.

The following is a post I wrote for a thread on the “Stage Time” forum of the comedy website A Special Thing.  The thread is entitled “Worst Show Ever”: 

Let me preface this story by relating the weird way I fell into stand-up: A little over 4 years ago, I went on an internet date with a woman who worked in the entertainment biz. We didn’t hit it off romantically, but she was very cool. As it turns out, she booked and hosted a weekly show at a notable LA club. She thought I was funny- funny enough to ask me to do her show. Bear in mind that I’d never done stand-up before, let alone written a joke. Being naive and stupid, I said yes. Then I went home and wrote some jokes. I did not test the material at any open mikes. I thought that “this would be easy”. Remember- naive and stupid.

Flash forward a couple of weeks: I show up at the club. Turns out the show I’m booked on is a big Christmas event, and the club is packed. And the lineup has some amazing comedians that many of you here on AST know and love. The booker has me up going up before the headliner, a very funny, well-respected comic.

As the night progresses, I watch the other comedians- all of whom are experienced and funny, to one degree or another. Unlike me, they KNOW WHAT THEY’RE DOING. And it dawns on me: I’m in way over my head. Finally, I get intro’d, and go on stage. Immediately, crushing stage fright sets in. No stand-up experience, and now I’m doing comedy to an audience of 200 people. 200 people watching me read jokes off of type-written notes! Looking back, I don’t even think they were jokes- more like representations of what I thought a comedian’s jokes should be (with a lot of poop references). The entire set I get silence.

Here’s the best part: My stage fright is so bad that I have an out-of-body experience and literally LOSE TRACK of space and time- to the point where I don’t see the red light flashing in the back. I go 5 MINUTES over my time. At a big club. Finally, the host walks on stage, takes me by the hand, and leads me off. She must’ve seen the deer-in-the-headlights look in my eyes and said “oh god, what have I done”. When I get off, the sound guy yells at me for going way over the light (rightfully so, btw). The other comics can’t even look me in the eye. I was so spooked by the experience that I went to a liquor store and bought a fifth of Jameson’s. I had to drink the entire bottle just to get to sleep that night.

Funny thing: over 4 years later, none of the comics I did that show with remember what happened. Several of them are now friends of mine that I do shows with on a regular basis. Apparently, in comedy, people forget quickly. Thank god.

  1. scottbox posted this