Here’s something we’ve all been guilty of, especially me.  I’ll start by saying that I’ve had a handful of people read Don’t Wear Shorts on Stage and tell me that it helped them realize that comedy is not the right path for them.  That was actually one of my goals.  Our St. Louis open mic once had over 50 people at the sign-up meeting so I’m thinning the herd.

Sometimes comics like myself would get to gigs and instead of exchanging fun road stories (I don’t have that many because I’m lame), we just bitch about the bad things that have happened to us in the business.  For example, I can tell you about a three-day trip to Charleston where most of the shows were canceled on me which resulted in a net profit of $2; There was a time I was supposed to MC for someone fairly famous and had over a dozen people in the crowd when the manager called and told me I wasn’t needed on my drive to the show.  Or like two weeks ago when I drove 8 hours to Ohio to headline a very well-paying gig (for me) that got canceled because a tornado wiped the town out the day before.  These things happen.  Actually much much worse things happen.  These are mild.

What’s even worse is when you get screwed over by people you know and trust.  That happens a lot too, but it’s showbiz.  You have to expect it.  It’s like these NFL players who can’t believe they have long-term damage to their brains.  It’s part of the business.  Every profession has it.  Teachers, servers, whoever–there’s always going to be something unfair.  Showbiz just feels worse because of the emotion we put into it and a lot of us aren’t used to it.  It makes no sense.  It’s the most superficial industry on the planet.

Again, I’m still guilty of it.  So when things happen that don’t seem fair.  It’s okay to vent (please not on Facebook or on stage), but after a few days just accept it and move on to the next gig.  Sounds like a breakup huh?  Yeah, stop posting about those on Facebook too.  We all just laugh at you from afar.

Nothing can kill a show’s momentum, open mic or paid show, like a comic who stays on stage too long.  Comics stay on stage for too long for several reasons.  Sometimes they aren’t aware of their time.  This happens more at the amateur level.  Sometimes they can’t get a big laugh to end on.  This happens at every level.  Your closing joke doesn’t need to be your best joke, but instead, your most reliable.  Certain jokes have a risk factor of not working.  When they work, they might be your biggest laugh, but occasionally they could flop.  Avoid using these as a closing joke and choose one that works every time.

Here’s a mistake I see a lot.  Comics will do a great joke in the last minute of their set that gets a big laugh.  Instead of closing on it, they’ll keep going and do a different bit that flops.  Your set is only as strong as your last joke.  This is important because crowds will tend to applaud you louder than the response they just made for what should be your closing joke (reread that until it makes sense).  Don’t feel like you have to force in that last joke when instead, you can get off on a high note.  Why is this important?  A loud crowd response will gain the attention of the manager.  If you can shift the momentum of a crowd in a positive direction week after week someone’s going to notice and start giving you paid gigs.  On the contrary, if you risk going over your time to fit in a mediocre joke, it shows that your stage sense is lacking and you’ll remain an amateur.

Also, don’t attempt to do what few headliners can pull off by closing on crowdwork or some cheesy speech about “I’m so lucky to be doing what I love and it’s all ’cause of you guys!”

1.  Know your time.

2.  Have a trusty joke to exit on.

3.  If something right before it works just as well, you can close on that.

4.  Be sure it’s a joke, not an interaction with a crowd member or some cheesy line that kisses the crowd’s ass.

Don’t have a Kindle to read Don’t Wear Shorts on Stage?  No problem, find it on iTunes or get a signed paperback here.

Comics often get upset with crowds when they moan and groan at different jokes.  “It’s a comedy clubs, relax!”  If you hang around with a group of comics, the jokes extend beyond the stage often at one another’s expense.  No matter what’s going on at home, the club is no place to bring your problems and baggage, only your humility.  Put your ego aside when you come to a comedy club (and while you’re at it, on Facebook as well).

That doesn’t mean you can just go in and make fun of anyone.  There’s a bit of a pecking order and for you to determine whether your ball-busting comment is worth it.  Think ahead of time, “Will what I say influence whether I get work or not?”  That doesn’t mean a veteran can just go round cracking on everyone.  There’s a long list of headliners that nobody likes.  We joke with the ones we love can tolerate to be around so don’t go attacking comics you’ve barely talked to.

At the same time, learn when to time your cracks.  For example, if you’re going to make fun of the MC during an open mic or a regular show, remember that the MC will get the last word after your set.  The pecking order warning from above is also there because odds are the more experienced comic is better at comebacks than you.  I’ve been on both sides of this exchange over the years.

Honestly, unless you’re a headliner getting a door deal, you need the club more than the club needs you.  That means everyone who works at the club is more important than you, so be careful what you say even if you’re just joking around.  Also, learn not to take yourself so seriously.  You should be mentally focused before taking the stage, but that doesn’t mean you should be strutting around as if you’re about to take the ring in a UFC fight.  Calm down, you’re doing five minutes.  The more you act like a super-star, the more you’re going to get mocked.

Stay humble on Facebook as well.  For every great accomplishment you post, throw in one or two remarks about your real life struggles or shortcomings as well.  And if you can’t think of anything wrong with yourself, ask Joe Lehnig.  He’ll be happy to keep you grounded.  And if you think I’m being a hypocrite in this entry, we just don’t know each other well enough.  I’ve made plenty of mistakes on this topic, come find me.

For more tips on handling yourself better on and off stage, check out Don’t Wear Shorts on Stage.

If you’re a comic in your first few years and this isn’t a concern, it should be.  Too many amateur comics have stories where they say, “I did a half-hour with no problem the other night…”  If you’re one of those comics, you’re delusional.  On the other hand, if you’re honest with yourself and your set’s ability, you’ll occasionally reach small landmark sets of the first time you get to do a full seven, ten, fifteen or twenty minutes.  You can’t just write an additional four minutes the week of the gig and hope it fits in perfectly.  (If you are, there’s a really good chance it isn’t good enough yet and you’re still delusional.)

So how can you take what you have and squeeze an additional few minutes out of it without watering it down?

1.  Slow down your pace of speech.  This doesn’t mean make the joke longer by adding words, especially in the setup.  This means to simply not talk to so fast.  This has been a weakness of mine for years because the first six years of my career I was mostly MCing 10-15 minute sets.  Pause and let the audience laugh a little more between each joke and each tag line.  There’s a fine line on this but you’ll eventually get the comedic timing down that everyone talks about.  The extra seconds shouldn’t hurt your momentum if your bits are strong enough, and if you can do this correctly, you’ll actually increase how hard each joke hits.

2.  Add another tag line where you can.  Over the years you’ll be surprised how many tag lines in your act are actually courtesy of another comic.  They’re often a different angle that another comic thinks of for you.  They aren’t 100% transferable because we often have severely different delivery styles, but for the most part they can add some extra laughs.  You might even discover a potential callback.

3.  Take your existing bits and build on them.  See if you can find whatever topic you’re joking about and just write another joke or two for that topic.  This will start to help develop your set from sounding like an open mic set of individual jokes into a more professional format of bits made of jokes about the same topic.

Here are things NOT to do to make your set longer:

1.  Recycle older jokes.  There’s a reason you stopped doing these.  If they didn’t work in your less experienced days, they probably aren’t worth recalling unless you can completely rewrite the premise as a more experienced joke-writer.  Never recycle topical humor that is no longer topical (Note to everyone: Bill Clinton jokes expired a long time ago).

2.  Crowd work; there’s a lot more to write about this topic (see Don’t Wear Shorts on Stage) and it takes years to develop this into something that’s entertaining for the entire audience.  Along with the crowd possibly turning against you, it’ll also upset the comics after you as well as the manager.

3.  Transitions;  transitions aren’t necessary when you’re still doing individual jokes instead of longer bits.  It’s hard to write or plan transitions anyway.  Worry about them much later down the road, because for now they’re just lowering your laughs-per-minute.  They shouldn’t be so long that they take up much time anyway.

4.  Cheap hacky fillers;  Watch enough midnight shows with weaker headliners and you’ll see these.  “Let’s all just go to a strip club now…”  Or “Keep it going for the troops…”

This brings me to an important side note:  You can learn more from headliners during tougher sets with small crowds than you can with sold out shows.  Watch Heywood Banks during a midnight show when most of his regular fans aren’t there.  It’s amazing how he works them into liking him compared to the earlier shows where they’re eating out of his hand within the first five minutes.  I’ll try to write more about midnight shows next week unless somethings else pops up.

 Thank you again to everyone who has been reading and sharing my blog and book.  I’ve tried to write just about every post as additional information from my book.  I don’t expect anyone to 100% agree with everything I write, obviously, and for the most part any differences of opinion have been handled maturely, so again, thank you.  The shares on Facebook really boost the number of hits so thank you.  It’s really hard to compete with those blogs that discuss rape jokes every month.

On Tuesday I returned to a stage I hadn’t been on in seven years.  It was a paid gig to headline an open mic night at an OSU campus bar.  I only knew two of the dozen comics and one was the guy in charge of the show.  The room was fairly empty and then about halfway through, a group of seven crowd members left.  Most of us were in the back, but once this group (many of which weren’t paying much attention anyway) left, there was only one table watching.  I don’t know the guys performing, and I’m not going to critique anyone in front of a crowd of five, but the crowd just kept getting smaller and smaller.  By the time I got up, it was a couple, two comics, the MC, and (thank God) a table of five black people who just entered.

So what should happen when there’s an off night at a paid show or an open mic?

First, the other comics should have the courtesy to support each other through the entire show.  I don’t care that they didn’t stick around for my thirty at the end (I’m not writing this to shit on anyone), but during each others sets, sit somewhere that you can at least occasionally laugh to give the comic a hint at timing.  It isn’t fair that the first few people on the list are the only ones to perform in front of an audience.  We often had to resort to this for our shows in Fairview Heights before it closed down.  This also gives the illusion that it’s a respectable show to those who might enter late.  I saw two smaller groups come in and then leave right away because the show looked so dead.  If there isn’t a crowd, the other comics have to make one.

Second, as a comic, when there are only a few people in the crowd, make sure they’re listening.  If you allow small groups to talk, they become the majority of the “noise” and focus instead of the person with the microphone.  One comic finally paused in his set, said hello to the talkers to get their attention, and continued on with his set.  By doing this, he avoided a heckler conflict, didn’t embarrass the little crowd that we had, and got them to stop talking at least for his set.

Third, small crowds are not a reason to not try.  You have to try harder when there are very few people.  When I have a show with 300 people in the room, it’s easy to coast.  If there are only a dozen or so, I better bring my best delivery.  A lot of comics have this backwards.  In your career you’re going to do a lot more shows with “not enough” people in the crowd compared to sold out shows.  Get used to the small numbers.  Long pauses are bad when there isn’t any white noise caused from a bigger crowd.  This isn’t a reason to abandon your set and just do crowd work unless you’re an expert on that (you’re not).  Grind through your material.

For a lot more other comedy advice not included in this blog please check out my book, Don’t Wear Shorts on Stage.

Nothing struck me as super-unusual this week to give me a specific lesson to write about, so I thought I would write about what a typical week of shows is like at my home club, the St. Louis Funnybone.  I worked with headliner, Vince Morris, and MC, Jon Ve-(hold on, I have to go check the spelling on Facebook) –Jon Venegoni.  I was excited to work with both because it was Jon’s first full MC week at the club and I hadn’t worked with Vince since ’07 (actually, the night I met my wife).

Like most clubs, attendance depends more on the season and not who the headliner is.  Of course there are exceptions for famous acts (who often disappoint), but the real weeks with the real headliners like Vince will vary depending on weather, holidays, and local sports teams.  I won’t get into which months are best and how to adapt to particular holidays, but you can find that in my book, Don’t Wear Shorts on Stage.  As June begins and baseball season is starting to get interesting, club attendance isn’t going to be that great.

Wednesday:  We had almost fifty people.  My default set time at St. Louis is 25 minutes.  Going into this week I was going to make one big adjustment to my setlist for the first six minutes.  For years I’ve been leading off with my jokes about substitute teaching and I’m tired of them.  I’m at the Funnybone every few months so I’m sure there are others who have heard them as well.  It’s not that the rest of my act is brand new, but I was already bored with certain jokes, so I gave them the week off.  Wednesday’s crowd was so-so.  Not tight, but not great.  I worded everything well and sold zero books after the show…damn.

Thursday:  Thursday had about a dozen or so more people than Wednesday.  This crowd was a bit tight but loosened up about ten minutes into the set.  I remember being really hungry (not metaphorically) going onto the stage.  Why don’t I eat more ahead of time?  As I’m going through my set, my mouth is dry.  No matter how much water I drink, I’m still tripping on my dry tongue here and there.  The crowd was good, but if I didn’t say a joke correctly, they let me know with less laughter.

Friday:  I’m finally comfortable with my new setlist.  Unfortunately, it’s May in St. Louis and tornadoes are touching down everywhere.  A group of girls going to the show is panicking, one is crying, so a few others cower with her in the restroom.  They’re hammered, but we still have a crowd close to eighty while the sirens blare outside.  My wife is texting me in a panic because we live on the top floor of our apartment building and my grill is about to blow off the balcony.  I look at her last text, “Rob, I’m scared!” as Jon introduces me and I walk on stage.  I should take my own advice about preshow stress.

This was the only somewhat “unique” show of the week.  I’ve done shows where thunder interrupts a set and distracts everyone, so one of the first things I do is acknowledge the storm and the flickering lights.  I make a rule that anytime the thunder is loud, the entire audience has to slam whatever drink they’re having.  Sounds brilliant, dangerous and/or stupid.  Turns out it never thunders and this is easily the worst crowd (and therefore) worst set of the week.  I get bored with them after a few minutes, so I dip into the vault of Rob Classics (just for Charlie Winfrey).  I did four bits that are over ten years old and made it a little more fun for me.  They got about the same result as everything else.  I sold two books that show (meanwhile Vince is unloading half a giant bag of t-shirts at a higher price than my book…this happens a lot as ‘Merica easily favors funny t-shirts over books.  My t-shirts aren’t as funny so I’ve stopped selling them.  I am jealous of his wad of twenties.).

I’m tired, but the 10:30 show goes fine.  They were really out of it so I had to exert the most energy of any of my shows to get a good response.  I’m not complaining, they’re not even close to as big of a challenge as a two-hour block of sophomores on a Friday afternoon at my teaching job.  The three or four beers I’ve had since 7:30 keep me loose and ad-libbing a little more throughout the night.  They also make the drunk people I talk to after the show more tolerable.  I sell one more book.

Think this blog is long?  Try a three-show Saturday:  My wife, Beth, comes to the 7:30 non-smoking show.  Any tightness a non-smoking show normally has is trumped by the fact that we have well over a hundred people in the crowd.  The set goes very well and I’m finally happy with the whole 25 minutes.  I sell four books.  A 5’11” blonde girl wants her picture with me as my wife looks on five feet away.  Beth is great; she says nothing, thinks nothing of it, and understands that with each $15 purchase I’m that much closer to buying her more shoes.  If your significant other has petty jealousy issues, wow, good luck with comedy.

The second show on Saturday turns out being the biggest crowd.  I paused once to address a couple who was talking in the front row.  I get distracted easily so I asked them a question.  It was awkward, unfunny, but effective in making them shut up.  It took another joke to get the momentum back from the crowd.  The lesson there is, if you’re going to address talkers, have a funny way to do it that isn’t too cruel.  I normally don’t have problems with hecklers so this is still one of my weaknesses.  I sell three more books and other local comics are showing up to watch Vince.  It’s nice having buddies to chat with between sets.

As we get ready for the midnight show, I’m dreading tomorrow.  I have a 5K race at 8 a.m. and I’ll be getting up at 6:40.  I’m really hungry again but Dan from the box office gets me some sushi from upstairs.  I am grateful and will continue to tolerate his Michigan fandom as a result of this act of kindness.  I make sure to wash my hands before starting a California roll while they seat the room.  I’m hoping Matt trims my set down from 25 to 20 minutes.  We start the show a little late and he tells me 15 (even better!).  (I’ll explain one of these weeks about the change that some comics have regarding the labor of it).  This time I skip my whole bit about teaching inner-city and have no trouble keeping the energy going for fifteen.  After the show a tall guy in his twenties walks up and says, “I came here Thursday and brought back all of my friends.  Why didn’t you do your inner-city stuff.  That was my favorite part of the show!”  I wonder if this is how Eddie Vedder felt when he reflected on Pearl Jam’s setlist in Columbus, Ohio circa 2002.  “Guys, great show, but we left off pretty much the entire Ten album…oops.”  Vince decides not to sell any merch and as a result I get three more book sales in.  Woo-hoo!  I get to sleep by 2 a.m.  for a total of four hours and forty minutes of sleep pre-race.

Sunday: As I get to the club Jon is asking me what Sunday crowds are normally like.  In St. Louis for some reason we always have a higher percentage of African Americans in the crowd on the Sabbath.  Sunday crowds aren’t as big as Saturday crowds, but pound for pound they’re often better at most clubs, including ours.  You get more “comedy fans” I guess.  People are a bit more rested, and if they’re going out on a Sunday night, they don’t have a lame sense of humor.  They were my favorite set of the week.  I have a good opener to get the black people on my side that I use every Sunday night in my home club.  Once that’s taken care of, the rest is very easy.  Wording should be in auto-pilot by this point of the week.  I look down into the front row and see a table of three associate principals from the high school where I teach.  I now recall how they told me they’d be out June 2.  They’re laughing at everything, but I cut two jokes from my set about teaching, because I don’t want them attempting to repeat them to others.

I sell a couple of books and am about to pack up and head home when another group of three walks up.  A skeptical girl says she wants to see how my book is and that it had better impress her on the first page.  A minute later she buys it.  I think this was my proudest moment of the week.  It was a successful week and though I wish book sales would’ve been higher, I didn’t have any bad sets.  I head home starving again ready to watch Game of Thrones.

If you’re thinking, “This was long and kinda boring,” yep…that’s a week of comedy.  It’s a great job, but not the crazy action packed lifestyle that a lot of people think it is.  Next week I’ll try to remember to address the question as to why I and other comics don’t mind having our time trimmed down.

Often before open mic night, contests, or opportunities for guest sets, you’ll find comics pacing around nervously out by the bar.  Sometimes they’re just excited, but a lot of times it’s easy to see the dread in their face stemming from the upcoming pressure of the set.  I thought about the sets that used to give me a sense of dread as they approached.  We all like performing.  No one’s forcing us.  Other than the first timers, what’s the reason for the nervousness and the sometimes crumbling under pressure?  It’s simply a lack of confidence.  That’s why most professional comics don’t get nervous most of the time.  They’re confident enough and have performed countless times, so there’s no need to worry (like a frequent flyer).  

That’s not to say that pros don’t get nervous.  Talk to a professional comic before a one-nighter that has a few things wrong with the setup.  Is the bar going to keep using that loud blender?  Is there a spotlight?  Is that drunk bachelorette party of twelve really going to get front row seats?  Is that your sound system?  The MC is going to do what?!  There are how many guest sets?  There are only how many people in the crowd?  One of them is the club-owner’s fourteen year old daughter?

The point is, professional or not, nerves and the pressure getting to you only comes from not being confident in your act.  If I knew I was funnier, I would never care about any of the above italicized problems.  If you’re having problems with nerves before shows, know that as you improve, they’ll eventually go away.  In Don’t Wear Shorts on Stage I wrote a set of tips/tricks on how to overcome nerves right before going on stage.  

There’s one sure way to get over your nerves for 99% of your shows early in your career.  If you can get in a larger show (I realize that’s not always possible), anything at the open mic level won’t seem like such a big deal anymore.  My first paid gig was out of my league; it was a theater of 1500 people.  I was terrified (and showed it on stage), but after that, MCing at the Columbus Funnybone didn’t make me nervous anymore.  

Eventually you’ll be excited for your spot and instead of counting and dreading the minutes until your set, and you’ll become eager for your chance on stage.  If you’re not at this point yet, take comfort in the fact that you’ll eventually get there.  If you’re still dreading the moments before you take the stage month after month, perhaps comedy isn’t the right outlet for you and that’s okay to admit to yourself.  If you’re just not having fun up there, your set doesn’t have a chance.  

At the end of every Saturday night, whether a club does one, two, or three shows, the staff sits around and talks.  Before a showroom is seated and the staff is setting everything up, they talk.  During smoke breaks, slow nights, or drinks at a bar after work, the staff talks.  Big clubs, small clubs, everyone on a comedy club staff is connected and talks.  If they drink after work, they talk even more.  The point is, they all share a same set of ears so if you have something negative to say, don’t.  Sure, there are a few clubs that have a higher turnover than others, but the ones I work the most have the same staff every time.  They become family and when you visit you’re merely like a cousin they see once or twice a year.

Comedy clubs make a majority of their money from the bar.  The bartender has to be one of the most trusted employees at the club.  Sometimes it can even be the general manager or owner of the club behind the bar working.  Where do open mic comics do most of their bitching? (other than Facebook) …With a drink in front of them at the bar.  Sometimes they’re not even bitching about the politics of the club.  Sometimes its just badmouthing someone else or talking delusional BS.  “Yeah, I killed it that set.  The new stuff is working.”  No, no you didn’t, no it isn’t.  Stop talking.

This week’s advice is simply watch what you say and how you carry yourself while at the comedy club.  It’s a very small world and famous or not, no one is more than two or three degrees away from the top comics in the business.  You might badmouth a headliner who hasn’t worked that club in two years.  If he or she comes back, word will still reach him or her.  I used to be a young doorman, I knew how to stir shit up and I wasn’t alone.  I still remember which comics we liked and hated back in 2001.  Bartenders have great memories too.  Some of them have unbelievable abilities to rattle off what each headliner likes to drink whenever they’re working that week.  And if they can remember drinks, of course they’re going to remember the conversations they’re in or overhear.  (It doesn’t help that you talk three times louder after one Bud Light.)

To sum it up, whether you’re talking to the box office, a waitress, a doorman, or even a regular bar fly who seems to be there every week, you may as well be talking face to face with the booker because word always gets back.

To counter all this negativity, there are plenty of things you can do (obviously tipping is one), to make yourself come off more professionally and avoid unnecessary politics.  Read about those in my book, Don’t Wear Shorts on Stage.