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Charlie Hatton
Brookline, MA
Charlie’s Standup Comedy Journal
Ah, back to where it all began. Full circles are nice, don’t you think?
Nearly six full months after getting my comedy start at the Studio, I was able to line up another gig there.
(Which says that I either did okay the first time, and the place is tough to get into… or that Rick, who runs the show, has a relatively short memory for these sorts of things. For my sake and his, I prefer to believe the former. You people can think whatever you like; I’m not the boss of you.)
Anyway, it was great to take the stage again at the Comedy Studio. Oh, wait, as long as I’m doing this, I should give it some link-pimpage, shouldn’t I? Let’s try that again. Ahem.
So, it was great to take the stage again at the Comedy Studio.
(Yeah, that’s better. Plus, this way, you can mosey over to the ‘Schedule’ section, and see for yourself that I was there. I know that some of you would otherwise believe that this is all some elaborate hoax, with me standing in my basement with a sign behind me and a tape-recorded laugh track.
Or, in my case, a tape-recorded mostly-silence track. Hey, shut up!)
All right, let’s talk about the show itself, then. This was a Thursday night gig, so the crowd wasn’t quite as large as I’ve seen it on the weekends, but there were still twenty or thirty people in attendance. And they were tough, but fair — reviewing the clip, I see that they didn’t respond much when I rambled on a bit, but they stuck with me and gave me love for the big punchlines. So that was good — they weren’t a bunch of crickets, but they didn’t just feed me pity laughs, either. My kind of people, that.
Hopefully, you folks will enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed performing it. And — unlike a few of the more recent clips — this one is largely filled with new material. There’s one bit that I worked in from the last show, but apart from that — all new. That’s what taking three weeks off from doing shows will get you. Now we’ll just have to see how well it went over, and whether Rick will let me up on stage again before the fall. Eek.
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Download Clip of 04/01/04 Set —
Comedy Studio, Cambridge, MA (5 minutes, 41 seconds):
(Click photo to enlarge)
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Well, that grabbed your attention, didn’t it?
This was another show at the Emerald Isle; these Wednesday nights are starting to turn surreal, but in a good kind of way, not a scary, Stephen King sort of way. A few weeks ago, it was an impromptu ‘Comic Idol’ night, where the more musically inclined among us belted out tunes for a while, in lieu of telling jokes to the audience.
(Of course, in their defense, that was largely because we were in lieu of an audience to begin with. And there’s nothing quite so consternating as doing standup to a room full of other standups. And no one else. I’ve been there. It was no fun. And I needed a shower afterwards. ‘Nuff said.)
Anyway, last night at the Isle, it was more of a show. There were four — count ’em, four! — patrons filling the seats up front, so it was mainly bidness for the first part of the show. Two hours’ worth of comedians went on, and did their sets more or less the way you’d see at any open mic comedy night. A veritable ‘Improv’, it was.
Then, of course, came the soon-to-be-famous Emerald Isle ‘comic workshop’, where comics can try out new bits and get advice. Or Stash can ad-lib, rather hilariously, about… um, well, I don’t remember, exactly, to be honest. It was largely a blur, though I do remember something about Ronald Reagan, and a priceless little bit later about Larry Flynt interviewing Osama Bin Laden. I’m sorry, folks — you really had to be there. I simply couldn’t begin to convey what happened on the stage that night.
What I can tell you, of course — and show you, as well — is my contribution to the festivities, way back towards the end of the early session. Heady from the no-preparation success (yes, it’s a relative term; bite me) of my last show, I decided to do as little as possible to get ready for this one. This is in stark contrast to the meticulous preparation that I put into the first few shows; practice that wasn’t particularly making ‘more perfect’, and was frankly starting to get a bit tiresome.
So I decided to wing it, more or less. I did plan out the jokes I’d tell, and practiced a couple of times in the car on the way there. But I didn’t time anything, or diligently craft and recraft the wording, or go through the routine over and over until I could recite it in my sleep. And frankly, I haven’t been doing that for many of my recent shows. But the difference is, until last night, I was aspiring to do those things; for this show at the Isle, I whipped out a big old bunch of ‘Fuck it!’ I even slipped in a joke that had come to me that day, and reused another that I tested out in my last set.
(Both of which revolve around the idea of a ‘small penis’. Hence the title of this post. And hence my rather significant discomfort, when I realize that the only two jokes I’ve written in a week are about small penises, in one way or another. There’s something deeply psychologically disturbing about that, and I’m just hoping that it doesn’t visit me in my dreams, whatever it is. I get little enough sleep in my life now, without ‘small penis nightmares’ hanging over my head.)
Anyway, I ended up having a blast, and I think the new stuff went over well. Have a look, and see for yourself. I apologize for the camerawork, by the way — my wife wasn’t able to make the show, so I just set the camera on a counter, and zoomed in on the general direction of the stage. I don’t think that I ever wandered completely out of the shot, but I did hover rather annoyingly in the left-hand half of the picture for most of the set. Maybe one of these days, I can afford to hire a roadie, and you’ll get better clips. Until then, load ‘er up and enjoy!
Download Clip of 03/10/04 Set —
Emerald Isle, Dorchester, MA (4 minutes, 40 seconds):
(Click photo to enlarge)
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This was an interesting show for me, for a couple of reasons.
First of all, I had essentially no time to prepare. I got an email at around 11pm on Tuesday night, asking whether I’d like to come do my set at the On the Hill. On Wednesday. As in, the next night. As in, after getting up for a 9am meeting, schlepping through a fuller-than-usual day of work, picking up the dog, zipping home just long enough to pick up the video camera, and then racing over to the bar for the show. As in, without practicing a single word of the set — assuming I could manage to come up with one — because there simply wouldn’t be time. As in, crazy talk. Pure and simple, crazy talk.
I wrote back, and said, ‘Sure!‘ What can I tell you? I’m a sucker for stage time.
As it turns out, all of that gallavanting around that I described above took longer than I thought, and I was late, to the tune of twenty minutes or so. The organizer, Teddie, was very nice about it — he even said that I mentioned that I might be late. I don’t remember telling him that, but it’s certainly possible — based on my typical Wednesday, I could have predicted it easily enough. Anyway, the upshot of it is that I arrived late, so I went on late. Next to last, in fact, in a group of about a dozen comics. And that was fine with me — on stage is on stage, no matter where or when it happens.
The good news was that there were still several people hanging out at the bar and tables around the stage when I went on. Of course, the bad news is that only a handful — maybe ten or twelve — were actually interested in the comedy. As you can hear on the tape, there was an awful lot of yakking, and yammering, and even a fair amount of jibber-jabber going on in the background. Still, the folks that were there for the yuks were nice enough, and I did manage to get a couple of laughs.
All in all, it was a pretty good time at On the Hill, even if it was a helluva hectic twenty-four hours or so in getting there. It was nice to go onstage with almost zero prep time and not completely bomb, though. As a matter of fact, I was able to work in some material that I thought of that day; I’d never actually tried that before (my usual ‘deer in headlights’ expression notwithstanding), and I built up a bit of confidence ‘winging it’ for a while up there. As far as I’m concerned, Teddie can email me the night before a show any time. I’ll be ready.
Download Clip of 03/03/04 Set —
On the Hill Tavern, Somerville, MA (5 minutes, 12 seconds):
(Click photo to enlarge)
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Have you ever looked forward to something, and then — for whatever reason — had the event not happen? Remember how disappointed you were?
And then, has it ever happened to you that the thing, by some miracle, actually ended up going on exactly as planned?
Well, that’s how it went for me last night at the Comedy Vault, and it was quite the roller coaster ride. Not one of those fancy new coasters, either — I’m talking about the rickety old wooden kind, where you bump your knees a lot, and it isn’t even fun because you’re afraid the whole thing could fall apart at any second. That kind of roller coaster ride. Except less life-threatening, and without all the cotton candy-flavored vomit. Allow me to explain.
I set up my date at the Vault early in the week. The Sunday night shows there are what’s known as ‘bringer shows’, where you have to show up with paying customers (in this case, two) to get on stage. Unfortunately, on this particular Sunday, I couldn’t rope any of my (usually willing) friends to come along for the ride. Maybe it was that Sex and the City finale. Who knows?
Anyway, I was holding out slim hopes that a ‘maybe’ or two would straggle in, but by ten minutes till showtime, things were looking grim. My darling, beautiful wife (who also works the camera, and let’s all give her a round of applause, folks; she’s working hard out there) and I checked in, but with no one else to speak for me, I figured I wouldn’t be speaking at all that night. So, I paid my wife’s cover, and then paid my own, like any of the other non-comic types who’d schlepped in for some yuks.
Unbeknownst to me —
(Sorry, sorry, I’ve got to interrupt myself here. ‘Unbeknownst’? Christ, that was hard to spell! There is no way to type that word so it looks right; I had to look the damned thing up. And even though I got it right when I typed it into dictionary.com, it still didn’t look right.
And what kind of jackass came up with that, anyway? ‘Unbeknownst‘. Is there really a ‘beknownst’ lying around for it to be the opposite of? Who the hell talks like that? Or even a ‘knownst’, for that matter? Whose frickin’ word is this?
And look, the dictionary doesn’t even know what to do with it — the first definition for ‘unbeknownst’ is ‘unbeknown’. Well, that’s fricking helpful, there, Poindexter. I shit you not; you can look it up. ‘Unbeknown’. ‘Unbe-fucking-lievable‘, that’s what it oughta say. Gimme a break.
Okay, I’m done. Sorry about that. I know, I know — back to the story, already. Jeez.)
Anyway, unbeknownst to me, by paying my own cover, I became my second person, and earned a slot in the lineup. So I was scheduled to go onstage, whether I was planning to — or even knew about it — or not. Just a little miscommunication, you see.
So, I sat — moping, mainly, looking out at the packed house of fifty-plus people that I wouldn’t be delivering giggles to — and watched ten or so comics go up and do their thing. Suddenly, I heard the emcee in the back with the comics, asking, ‘Who’s Charlie? Is Charlie here? Charlie?‘
Luckily, we were sitting right by the comics’ area, so I went back, sorted out what had happened, and discovered that I was not only going on, but I was next. Like ‘two minutes from now’ next. Just enough time to get nervous, go over my first three jokes, and start walking toward the stage. Eep.
In the end, though, I think all went well. (Though I haven’t watched the tape yet, so don’t hold me to that, all right?) I had a little trouble in the beginning fighting down the panic, but it smoothed out somewhat, and I got through everything I’d planned. I even got a couple of pretty good laughs. (Or they were in my head; we’ll know when we see the film, eh?) But the audience was great, and it was a blast — the best semi-impromtu, up-and-down-then-up-again standup set I could hope to do at this point. After which I nearly went out back and barfed up all my cotton candy.
But I didn’t, and I hope you don’t, either, if you do me the honor of watching it. The camera’s way off to the side (and occasionally behind some guy’s head), but I think you can get the general gist of things. I hope you have as much fun watching it as I did performing it. Just don’t be surprised if you’re a little dizzy, and your legs a bit wobbly, after going on the ride. It’ll get you every time.
Download Clip of 02/22/04 Set —
The Comedy Vault at Remington’s, Boston, MA (4 minutes, 58 seconds):
(Click photo to enlarge)
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This performance was what seasoned comics would call a ‘learning experience’.
It’s what this newbie comedian would call ‘goddamned embarrassing’.
My third trip to the All Asia was a lot of things, but what it certainly was not is a ‘charm’. There was nothing charming about the entire episode — the audience, the atmosphere, and certainly not my performance. About thirty seconds into my set, I blanked. Just blanked, completely. Could not, for any amount of money, pull the jokes that I’d planned to say, out of my ass, or any other handy orifice. It was gone, completely.
I’d like to say that I handled it smoothly. And, in a way, I did — I fell back on other material, and yapped through it for as long as I could. Which turned out to be about another minute or so. I had to stop for a sip of beer, to try and cover the fact that I had nothing left in my head but cobwebs and an ominous buzzing noise. I may have even done the ‘nightmare check’, to make sure I really had pants on, and that it all wasn’t some horrible dream.
It wasn’t a dream. On the bright side, though, I was wearing pants. And even better, the beer jolted another couple of minutes of my set back into my head, so I went with it. All in all, I struggled through nearly four minutes, and frankly, it doesn’t look nearly as bad on tape as it felt.
(Which is a hell of a statement, because it looks really bad on tape. Excruciating.)
I was really bummed out afterwards, I have to admit. It’s the only comedy show where I performed and left before the end, but I just didn’t want to be there after feeling so unprepared, and unprofessional, and comedically (but not hilariously) naked. It’s my worst standup moment so far, and hopefully ever. (But I don’t really believe that. *gulp*)
So, the next day, I did what any self-doubting, disgusted, disappointed beginning standup comic would do — I booked another show. Hey, being on stage is the only way to get better, and this show taught me that I have a lot of better to get. So I got right back on the horse.
And, to be honest, forgot parts of the same set again. Apparently, I have a mental block with this sequence of jokes or something. But I finally, doggedly, got it just the way I’d planned it the next Sunday.
Please, for the love of God and the ghost of Chevy Chase’s career, if you care for me at all, in any sense of the word, go watch >that clip, or any of the others, before you watch this one. Please, I’m begging you. Don’t watch this one at all. It’s just here to remind me what a goober-douche I can be if I don’t work hard at this. Just move along, all right? There’s really nothing of value to see here. Seriously. I don’t want you to see me like this.
Download Clip of 02/15/04 Set —
The All Asia Cafe, Cambridge, MA (3 minutes, 57 seconds):
(Click photo to enlarge)
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