Tonight, I hit up the 6B Lounge in downtown Boston.  I signed up, and immediately went through my pre-game routine, which involves pacing the area adjacent to the venue, and mumbling my act to myself.  It’s one of the few times homeless people don’t approach me for money.  After half an hour of this, I went back inside and made friends with the other comic that was there.  He’s been doing stand up for two years now, and told me he didn’t really see results until “six months ago.”  I don’t know what “results” means, but he won a $1000 dollar comedy competition a little over 3 months ago, so he’s a funny guy.

He went up first, and that’s when I realized what a shitty place this was for comedy.  There was a large Irish family celebrating a birthday, and it was three dollar beer night.  The comedian fought for their attention and won it, unfortunately, because they began yelling drunken “witticisms” in response to his jokes.  The guy used his veteran prowess to fight through a tough crowd, though, and came out alright.  Then it was my turn. 

As usual no one really cared about my first few jokes.  One them involves the phrase, “Will you have sex with me?”  Which a bar patron was kind enough to ask back at me.  As usual, it was a dude.  I’m proud of myself though, because I looked him in the eye, held back my nervousness, and uttered, “Maybe if you bought me a couple of drinks first.”  The Irishmen laughed, and I had magically won their 10 second attention spans, so I bombarded them with two whole jokes in a row, one of which lead to a very unexpected result. 

I got my first big laugh!  I’m fantastically excited!  In fact, I was so excited in the moment, I forgot the rest of my act!  As I floundered on stage, I lost the crowd.  “I lost where I was going with this,” I proclaimed, and a woman was supportive enough to say, “I lost where you were going to.” So the whole thing didn’t go as planned, but then again, it hasn’t yet.  Either way, in comedy you gotta appreciate each little success.