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20040906

Charlie’s Standup Comedy Journal

September 06, 2004: Making the Connection

Ah, yes — the ‘big time’. Finally, we’ve moved on up to the east side. Pause a moment to bask in the glory, won’t

you?

Actually, it’s just another off-night, unpaid gig, just like all the others. But this one came at a

real live comedy club, where they even have national acts perform. I’ve seen Jake Johannsen there, myself — and Margaret Cho, even. Famous fucking people, we’re talking.

Of course, those people are there on Fridays and Saturdays — not Monday nights, when they’ll let any fool up

on stage. (Apparently.) Still, it’s a cool room, and it’s sort of fun to see myself in front of the same signage

that’s backed up real comedians. I could get used to that.

To top it off, the folks who came out to watch — maybe fifty or so, which is about a quarter of capacity, but

still probably more people than I’ve played to at once before — were quite nice. I even ‘took the bullet’ — that’s

‘going onstage first’ in standup parlance, for those of you not ‘in the biz’ — which is a risk because you never

know how lubed up for laughs the crowd is going to be. Trust me — like most comics, the drunker you are, the funnier I get. That’s just how it works.

Adding to the anxiety of a new room and an actual, real throng of people — and going on first, of course — is

that I didn’t actually know that I was going on first. I checked in with the booker, but not the host — hell,

until he walked onstage, I wasn’t sure who the host was — and so, no one told me what order we were going in.

Luckily, I was standing near the stage when he called my name, or it could have been really embarrassing.

(Which it almost was, anyway, because I was standing near the stage on my way to the pisser. And I had to go pretty damned badly, as I recall. So there was a fairly good chance that I would just pee myself on stage. And while it’s usually good to make the audience laugh until they pee, you really don’t want to be doing that yourself, in the middle of your act. Sort of detracts from the punchlines, as you can imagine.)

Anyway, give it a look, if you like. It may well be my last show at the Connection, so I’m glad it went pretty

well. See, soon after they booked me for this one, they started requiring the open mikers to bring ten — yes, you

read that right, ten — paying customers with them to get stage time. And I’m not sure I’ve got ten friends

left who are still willing to come watch me make an ass of myself in front of a mic. One, maybe. Two, I could

probably scrounge up. Anything over three, and I’d have to pay people off the street to fill the chairs. So unless

and until I really do make the ‘big time’, this might be the only footage of me you’ll ever see under the

Connection’s bright lights. So enjoy, dammit! Enjoy!

Clip of 09/06/04 Set —

Comedy Connection, Boston, MA (4 minutes, 52 seconds):