The Mad Swede Brew Ha Ha
What do you do when it’s 100F+ in Los Angeles, and it’s your birthday weekend? You fly up to Boise, where it’s also 100F+, and you find out at the last minute there’s an open mic that assigns slots ahead of time. You get on the alternate list and learn that somebody didn’t show up, or they cancelled, and there’s a three minute slot available. You cut your practiced bit to the bone to get it down to what you think might be three minutes, then you pee a lot from all that water and nerves, and you wait your turn through some outrageously funny comedy. Don’t be thinking Boise is some sort of comic backwater. It’s not. These comics are funny, and polished, and nice people. I ditched my winning opener out of fear I wouldn’t get through what I needed to get through. It looked good on paper, not so good in the flesh. And they had the air cranked up to where it was no more than 54F in that room. Shivering and lack of preparation were my fuel, but the direction my bit was headed was south.
Being new at something is a challenge. To stick with it requires time and effort, a willingness to keep rolling through the bombs along the way. A bad night in public can be devastating if you're not committed to your cause. I don't have to be a comic. I've got plenty besides comedy on my plate. But there's a comic inside of me, and I can hear its voice bringing down the house as it rattles the prison bars inside my head. How do I get that inner voice out there? By getting in front of people whenever I can, by practicing, something I self-destructively avoid. I feel dumb talking to myself out loud. Fifteen minutes a day, Penny reminds me. Easier to beat myself up after a bad night.
No, not going to do that. I'll confess my comedic sins to my coach, Corey. I'll take my lumps and move on, and I'll keep coming back to fight another day. Did you know this funny business could be so brutal? I'm sure it's even worse as you yank on the chain of success.
As we emerged from the Mad Swede’s Brew Hall, it was 10pm and still light out. Unfamiliar with this town, I turned the wrong way down a one way street. A traffic cop stopped and set me straight. It was one of those weird, narrow, downtown streets with angled parking. The cars were angled as if I were headed the right way. Penny knew I wasn't. I should've listened to her.
In comedy, driving the wrong way down a one way street is what's known as misdirection. It's an essential ingredient of the successful comic. In real life, misdirection is known as a head on. In real life, if you're lucky, nobody gets hurt. In comedy, if you're lucky, nobody gets caught.
Bottom line, I survived a bad night, and here I am, alive and awake at 4:30am, getting to tell you about it. When's the last time you headed the wrong way down a one way street and lived to die another day?
