Where the Hell Was I?: 20050430

Charlie's Standup Comedy Journal

April 30, 2005: A Whole Half-Hour of Hilarity (Or Something)

Twenty-eight minutes and twenty-seven seconds, people. Twenty-eight! And twenty-seven! I shit you not!

So, here it is -- in some ways, the pinnacle of my short comedy career-so-far. It may not have been the show where I got the biggest laughs, or played to the biggest crowd, or left the joint feeling the best. But it sure as hell was the longest show I've done to date -- and size matters, from what I'm told. Am I right, ladies? And did I mention -- twenty-fricking-eight! Slip that in your nest and incubate it, baby.

For those who don't know -- but are still thirsting for knowledge -- Agawam is out in Westachusetts, just past Springfield. So it was nice to be able to ramble on for half an hour, after driving to Conn-fricking-ecticut and New 'Are we there yet?' Hampshire for shorter stage stints. On the other hand, considering I'd done exactly two sets longer than ten minutes ever, it was also a bit nerve-wracking. Did I have thirty minutes of material? Could I stand in one place for a whole half-hour? Would my fly stay up? Would people drift off en masse by the end? I had no idea.

In the end, the answers were, respectively, 'yep, pretty close', 'amazingly, yes', 'so far as you know', and 'not to the best of my knowledge'. And there were a few friendly, familiar faces in the crowd -- including my gorgeous and supportive wife; thanks, hon! -- so it was a pretty fucking awesome night all the way around.

One teeny thing, though. Assuming anyone ever would want to, and actually manages to download this clip, they'll soon see that I'm a leetle, eetsy-beetsy teeny speck on the tape. My wife and friends were sitting near the back of the fairly large room, and my wife was sweet enough to work the camcorder, so you folks can sit through the same ridiculous bullshit I put the live crowd through. Bitchin', eh?

But I fear I've neglected to train my spunky spouse in the ways of the 'zoom' feature on the camera. And from that distance, it's a bit tough to tell anything about the visual portion of the show -- hell, it could be any comic up there, just from seeing the tape.

(Well, okay, probably not anyone. I'd like to think that even from fifty paces away, you could distinguish me from Louie Anderson. Or Roseanne. Or Chris Rock, for that matter -- although I did get all 'street' and shit in this set. No, really. 'Street'. Quotes and all; watch for yourself. I wouldn't play you like that, dog.)

Anyway, I'm pretty damned happy with this show. Sure, the crowd was a bit sparse, and the host showed up late -- which led to the bartender bringing me onstage as the first comic of the night with this ringing endorsement:

'Hey... we're starting now. This first guy's been doing comedy for a while, and he's from Boston, and he told me he's pretty good. Here's Charlie.'

See, now, first of all, that's just not gonna get the crowd all lubed up and ready to laugh. And secondly, I did not tell him that I was 'pretty good'. 'Pretty nervous', maybe. 'Pretty drunk', possibly. 'Pretty in pink'... well, he was kind of cute. And I don't like to brag, but red really is my color. Don't be jealous.)

So, I got a few laughs, and had some fun, and made it through a whole half hour without doing any brand new material, or stuff that I'm really starting to hate. Sure, maybe audiences hate some of the stuff I did... but I don't hate it (yet), so hopefully I sold them on it eventually. And now I'm actually looking forward to my next long show, whenever I might happen to score another one. It's good to have a big fat twenty-eight or so under your belt, folks -- and that's whether your fly stays up or not. The key is to get that first big show out of the way. Whew!

Download Clip of 04/30/05 Set --
Goodfellaz, Agawam, MA (28 minutes, 27 seconds):