Saturday, June 22nd, 2013
I had an early call in Santa Clarita. 7am. spec commercial shoot. I had real trouble with saying a particular line. Hopefully they got what they wanted. Setting sort of a ‘blah’ tone for the rest of my day, the first thing I wanted to do was rush out and do two mics back-to-back. I hope that sarcasm was clear. I wasn’t in the mood. Since, I missed my show on Friday, I had to make it up on Saturday before I fell too far behind. I’ve already kinda promised myself, so there was no turning back and this is supposed to be fun, dammit!
Show #1 Sal’s Comedy Hole, 7356 Melrose. 6pm.
After a long nap and some bad food, I biked down to around Melrose/Fuller. That whole strip of Melrose is famous for the boutiques of heavy metal outerwear, 3 American Apparel stores, 6 overpriced coffee shops, 4 medical marijuana dispensaries and a car wash. A tourists dream locale for people watching/celeb spotting, but also a locals, one-stop-shop. I walked into Sal’s. Real old Italian bistro style place. With patio seating there was maybe 10 tables in the entire restaurant. I was directed to Naz. He runs the OM/waits tables there, and happened to be on the floor while signing people up. A minimum $3 purchase gets you 5 minutes. I had the cheapest beer they had, Peretti. Not Peroni or Moretti (both popular italian beers), but Peretti, the bastard child malt liquor ‘equivalent’. To my surprise, it was quite good. Tiny restaurant! Where’s the comedy!? They have a back room, that is to say that they too have this HUGE dance hall (100+ capacity), set up Cabaret style, tucked back behind this unassuming tiny little bistro, where they do comedy EVERY night of the week. I did my same set from Thursday, and well, let’s just say you can’t capture lightning in a jar. Of course it wasn’t the same exact delivery, to a drinking audience, so what did I really expect? The same reception that I got on Thursday, of course. Some stuff still landed, even with other comics. I’ll take it. I unofficially met Sal. That is to say, he loomed about and made his Sal-ness known. He totally looks like a Sal.
Show #2 Hollywood Hotel, 1160 N. Vermont. 7pm.
From Melrose, I biked to the Hollywood Hotel. A modern hotel, but like an urban La Quinta. Real quiet and dark on the inside. I walked in to the main lobby and instantly followed the laments of some white guy talking about how he can’t get laid, to the downstairs in what was the basement of the hotel. In all fairness it was a finished basement and the comedy was in the “W.C. Fields Bar and Lounge”, so we’ll call it the ‘Lower Conference Floor’. I saw a few familiar faces, that eventually I’m going to have to at least introduce myself to, but not necessarily have to hang with. Networking is part of the deal, and they’re as awkward as I am to surrender their hand for shaking. I’m going to have to make the first move. I don’t know if any of this is true, but it seems to me that until I deliver on stage, few of them will have anything to do with me. Real 80’s teen drama plot-work. I introduced myself to to Andrew, and he told me to sign up with Gus the Bartender. Nice. I was #38. Time to settle in. I signed up at 7:20p, I finally went up at 11:20p. Ugh. Through half the night, Joseph, Andrew’s co-host showed up after hosting another OM somewhere nearby. He announced that after being stoned at the other OM , that he just dosed on mushroom tea before arriving here. So Andrew is on his way to drunk, and Joseph is stoned and tripping. Time to really settle in. Andrew is the love child of Al Pacino and Jonathan Silverman and Joseph is the star of an angry Angie’s List commercial. 3 beers and 30 comics later, I blindly sped through my act. Again a few good things landed for the 5-ish people that were kinda there. After that wait time I didn’t care. At that point, it was just to say that I did the show. It was another character builder.
To Summarize: Two shows. Nothing dazzling. I liked some stuff I saw. I’m grateful for making some comics laugh. The people that run these mics, so far, are good natured folks that just want these mics to succeed. I respect that. It’s nice to have a place to come figure this stuff out.
# of beers drank: 4
total $ spent :$23
total miles biked: 11mi
total push-ups: 0
guitar chords learned: 0
topics covered:
jews, kardashians, hoarders, NSA, Zoftig