We all have our sensitive spots that we don’t think are funny, and almost 100% of the time the people making the joke have no idea of our background or life story, so they don’t know they’ve struck a nerve.  As comics, we have thicker skin (we’re supposed to at least), so we don’t take a specific type of material personally.  For example, at open mic, we make plenty of racial cracks at our black peers because we know they understand the context (and we’re jerks).  We wouldn’t dare make these jokes to a non-comic.

Audience members don’t always understand this when they’re at the comedy club.  I heard that once someone in the crowd tried to go after Heywood Banks (one of the more innocent headliners of all time), because he did a joke about a train hitting someone.  The enraged audience member had lost someone in a train accident and snapped.  When I was a doorman, we had to calm an ex-Marine down (he actually left the showroom in tears) because he associated a joke about the Persian Gulf with his buddy who died over there.  Sometimes a comic will make a wheelchair joke with someone in a wheelchair at the show.  These are tough to pull off.  Mark Lundholm does and actually explains this phenomenon about over-sensitivity in his act.  He talks about a hypothetical situation of someone getting upset about a joke involving a bag of Cheetos because they had a traumatic experience due to Cheetos.  He said we all have our own “bag of Cheetos.”  Audience members do, comics need to outgrow them and pretty much never be offended by anything in the context of our art form.

It takes maturity.  (Downer time, sorry!)  I lost my mother in ’93, but do you think I’ve heard “Your Mom” jokes aimed at me?  Of course.  Sure, it’s easy to shut that person up, tell them she passed away when I was 15 and make them feel “this big” (and don’t think I haven’t), but now that I’ve outgrown stage three anger, I don’t even bother explaining.  (It also helps to be 35 and not hang out in a peer group who resorts to mom jokes, but you get the point).

So here’s this week’s ladvice:  1.  If you’re a comic, you don’t get to be offended by material anymore.  Most of what’s “offensive” is becoming hacky anyway (We get it, Catholic priests molested children).

2.  Before you do a one-nighter, it’s a good idea to feel out anything that might be taboo ahead of time.  If the bar owner is gay, adjust accordingly.  If it’s a benefit show, BE SURE you don’t do anything remotely near the cause of the need for the benefit.  If it’s a fund raiser for someone with cancer, you don’t get to do an AIDS joke because those are two different things (let’s just blanket this and say you should drop all of your terminal illness material).  I recently did a show that was a fund-raiser for a burn victim.  I did a quick mental audit of my setlist to make sure I didn’t have even a pun that could be misinterpreted.  It’s also important to find the racial makeup of a crowd.  In Don’t Wear Shorts on Stage I explain how crowds react to jokes involving race depending on how many black people are in the crowd from all-white crowds to all-black crowds and everything in between.

Notice I said one-nighters for this rule.  The reason being, in these smaller towns, everyone knows everyone and they often think alike and sympathize with each other.  In a comedy club you have a bunch of strangers with different beliefs and backgournds so if you offend a few, all is not lost.  In my book I also mention the time Harland Williams did a 9/11 joke a month after it happened and somehow survived.

Sometimes a brief chat with the guy in charge at the gig and a visual scan of the audience can open your eyes so you can make the proper adjustments to your setlist.

One last disclaimer:  This week’s advice is for the guys who haven’t been doing this for decades.  I know pros can sometimes perform without censoring themselves but most of us can’t.  If you get a chance, ask them about a time they said the wrong thing at the wrong time.  A lot of us have at least one story where this advice would’ve helped.

I was reflecting back on the end of my 20s when I had to decide whether to rent a new apartment in St. Louis, or move back to my Dad’s house just before my 30th birthday.  I had less than $1500 to my name, no health insurance, obviously no retirement fund, and a 2003 Ford Escort with over 100,000 miles on it.  My comedy calendar was fairly empty with the exception of a few $100 gigs and a couple of MC weeks here and there.  What was the excuse for a valedictorian with a college degree to be in this situation?  My so-called comedy career.  I’ll get famous some day and get some break where I can finally live up to my potential.  It won’t happen this year, but look at me everyone, I’m living my dream. I don’t think I was alone in this attitude or way of life, but I figured I can help prevent others from falling into it.  

I’m a pretty healthy guy, but any sort of health problem could’ve destroyed my career.  You need health insurance.  Essig sent me an article about a musician who had this problem (read that article here).  To be able to become a professional comic you have to have enough money to get places in a car that works.  Medical bills aren’t an option.  

Want to know what else you can’t have without at least a little money and sense of responsibility?  A healthy relationship with anyone over the age of 25 (if they’re younger, you can assume it won’t be healthy anyway).  You’ll eventually want one of those too, I promise.

I hear young comics all the time swear that comedy is the most important thing to them and that they’ll sacrifice their life and everyone in it to be a touring comic, but I feel that they don’t know what they’re signing up for.  The bigger problem is that a lot of them never get to that full-time touring status yet they’ve still sacrificed any sense of normalcy.  Your 20s are the time where you need to put at least one professional thing on your resumé.  If you’re approaching your late 20s and don’t have a resumé, you’d better be pretty damn funny.

I’m not trying to sound like your dad, but on the last page of my book I had a comic explain it to me.  “Make something of your life.  Do something meaningful.  Think about the next few decades,” he said.  

It’s fine if you have the drive to do this full-time–if you’re willing to make the sacrifice and make it your career.  A career takes over 40 hours a week of hard work.  I was never able to put 40 hours a week into comedy.  I just couldn’t get myself to (sitting in a condo on the road is not work).  If you’re the same way, you’re wasting very important years.  Don’t be the guy who wakes up at 40 and has the same financial worth as the 21-year-old comic who just scored an MC week you’ve been struggling to get for over a decade.  If you’re not building a solid comedy career yet, start building your backup plan in the form of a different profession so that you can afford to keep “chasing your dream” down the road when you grow into a better comic.  Trust me…you’re going to need that health insurance too.

Sometimes I get calls from people who have never put on a comedy show who want to hire me for a gig.  The thing that surprises them most is when I tell them that the show shouldn’t go over 90 minutes.  No matter how great a crowd is, they start to tire (or get too drunk) at the hour and half point.  Yes, there are exceptions.  A big name might do around 75 minutes on his/her own.

Ninety-minute shows aren’t always possible, especially for open mic night.  If you can, experiment from week to week at early and late spots in the show.  Ask whoever runs it if you can go earlier or later if you’re in good standing with them.  (That’s a big if)  At some bars, the crowd tires, at others it fills up.

So this week’s tip, if you’re planning a show, try to keep it at ninety minutes.  If you’re planning an open mic, two hours is probably unavoidable, but if you can trim it down, please do.  Or put the comics who still need to pay their dues at the end after the two-hour mark.  If you want to up your game, take on the challenge of going later in the show.  (I will be doing this more often in the summer when I’m not getting up at 6:00 a.m. to teach the chil’ren all day.)

**If you’re want to give a few guys some longer sets, try this:  Keep the comics at 5 minutes or less when you have a dozen on the list.  I know the math calculates that at 12*5 = only one hour, but then you have time for an MC to warm the crowd up and then let a couple of comics do closer to ten minutes at the end of the show.  (Having a longer set in the middle of an open mic by a strong comic can drain the crowd’s energy.)

I know there are a lot of comics who want to try a ten minute set so gauge how well an MC set would go.  The thing is, most guys in their first two years waste a minute or two with useless/wordy setups.  Knowing you only have five minutes will shave your jokes and make you funnier than having a few throw-away jokes for a seven-ten minute set.  The audience will stay more attentive as well.

For more tips on everything comedy, read Don’t Wear Shorts on Stage.

There aren’t as many clubs that do a three-show Saturday anymore, but in case you encounter one, there are a few adjustments to make.  Last night at the St. Louis Funnybone we had two packed shows leading up to midnight.  With around 65 people who were much younger and drunker than the first two crowds, I made the mistake of not changing my pace.  The midnight show has somewhat of a false reputation as being some wild and crazy drunk-fest, but actually the bigger challenge is keeping them lively and laughing.  The MC actually has an advantage but must know how to handle certain situations that occasionally pop up during these late shifts.  Read about those in Don’t Wear Shorts on Stage.  For this entry, I wanted to acknowledge what I did wrong with my pacing last night .  My good friend, the very funny Frankie Chubb and I both admitted we went about our sets the wrong way.  I adjusted only my setlist to some jokes I hadn’t done in the first two shows just to avoid boredom.  Honestly, the reason I hadn’t done those jokes all night is because they aren’t as good.  So the first mistake was putting my interests before the crowd’s.  I also got off on a bad start trying to shush some people stage left.  The woman looked like the lead singer of The Pretenders (A younger blonde version of Chrissie Hynde), but the youngn’s didn’t get my reference…maybe I was wrong, either way, I wasn’t funny.  From that I hurried into my material while feeling the void of the big crowds from the first two shows.  It’s hard to gauge how well a joke is doing in front of 65 people who are mostly out of it, but you have to lower the bar and be patient.  Silence isn’t good, but it’s inevitable while you take a breath between bits (keep it short).  Continue to give off the vibe of confidence and they’ll come around.  Understand that you’re not going to get them into that rolling rhythm you establish in most shows.  It can happen, but it’s tougher by quarter till one in the morning.

Never give up on the set just because it isn’t going well.  It’s like sports in that even when you’re losing by a lot you can still put in a good 4th quarter.  Years ago I bombed for four minutes at a guest set in Little Rock.  My closer worked and after the show I still had a lot of compliments about my set.  A crowd’s memory can be brief and sometimes it just takes one good joke to catch momentum.

So going into a midnight show, be sure to do the following:

1.  If you’re going to adjust your setlist, be sure you know exactly which jokes you’re adjusting.

2.  Be patient yet still energetic.  Silence will happen between jokes, just don’t let it happen during them.

3.  Be careful with crowdwork.  As a non-headliner you shouldn’t be doing much at all, but if there’s a show during the week that will have some, this will be it.  This is especially true for the MC as he or she establishes the tone of the show.

4.  Get to that first punchline before gambling on anything off the top of your head if you can.  Premeditate something that comes off like improv.

5.  Limit your commentary on a joke’s performance.  This is a very bad habit of mine in shows like last night.

It’s impossible to tell how a crowd will be just by looking at them.  I’ve been fooled both ways many times, so don’t assume anything just because it’s the late show.  The more people there the more normal it will be, but most of the time expect crowds well under 100.  And I’m not saying Frankie and I bombed last night.  People laughed, it just wasn’t to the same level as the first two shows.  Still, it’s important to learn from the set.

Well–I’m off to do the Sunday night show which is usually pleasant even with low numbers.  There’s more about Sunday crowds in my book as well.

It doesn’t happen that often, but at least once a month someone will email me disagreeing with something I’ve written because they’ve been successful doing the opposite.  Stage names, wardrobe, doing blue humor, and so on…  Honestly, I’m happy you’re successful the way you are.  Whatever your quirk is, you get away with it despite what my book or this blog says.  I’m not being sarcastic, congratulations.  However, the majority (I’d put it above 90%) of comics cannot get away with being an exception on a majority of “rules.”  You would agree, right?  Whatever exception to the rule you are, you don’t want everyone else doing that too.  Realize that I’m writing for a bulk of mostly newer comics who want to eventually start making money.  So without trying to sound terse…This week’s tip:  There’s no need to email me because you’re an exception to a rule.  I state that there are always exceptions very early in Don’t Wear Shorts on Stage.  If you want to debate something that I write that applies to a majority of comics, that’s fine.  We’re all mature enough to avoid personal insults.

There are exceptions to almost every rule.  The problem is, you may be taking a longer, less profitable road to get to where you want to be.  If you’re okay with that, that’s your choice, I don’t need to know about it.  If you got there quicker, good job.

That wasn’t much of a tip so I’ll write more.  My friend Chad Wallace (follow him @Black SuperGeek on Twitter), asked about inviting friends to shows .  Frustrated with this issue of friends coming to shows, I wrote this about it over a year ago.  Still, everyone likes to perform to a fuller room so you want to invite them.  My real advice for the week is this:  Don’t send a Facebook invite.  Odds are that if you’ve done this before, they’ve already clicked to ignore all Facebook invites from you.  Mass texts with a picture of the show’s poster is also an annoying no-no.  My suggestion is to send an email individually.  If you have the time (you do), write a short custom email to each of your friends.  I know this takes a lot longer but you’re actually “working” on comedy.  With the time you take to design your fancy poster you could’ve emailed dozens of people individually.

The above advice is of course for newer comics…the rest of us wear our friends out on shows and they usually only come when we’re with someone famous.  Don’t take offense to that.  I wouldn’t go and see me all that often either.  Twice a year is enough.

So what do you do if you’re sick of doing open mic night in front of less than a dozen people?  Buy my book and find out.

And Chad is definitely one of the comics well on his way to bigger crowds.

I’ve been in comedy club offices while the manager is checking emails from comics.  They get random emails from comics who want to work their club and though they actually do take the time to read or at least skim over them, there’s one thing they always check…the comic’s online schedule.  They need to see where else that comic works because it’s the closest thing to a comedy resumé.  They usually know that club’s reputation and who books it.  I alluded to this a few posts ago but wanted to explain further.

To use an extreme example, if you’ve got a week at Caroline’s that’s pretty much gold for your resumé.  At the same time, having shows listed that sound like a joke themselves (I go back to Corky’s Saloon and Grill) it will only hurt your credibility.  Your schedule is your online resumé and if you don’t have one online, nothing separates you from the thousands of open mic comics.  If you’re not there yet, don’t worry, you don’t need one just yet.  Get some MC weeks at various Funnybones, Improvs, Looney Bins and build from there.  Once you start to get some dates, there are ways to make your schedule look better than it actually is.  I have a lot of tips on how to do this in Don’t Wear Shorts on Stage.  Gaps in a schedule are like gaps in a resumé but there are ways to fill those in to a degree.

Once you’re ready, get a real webpage.  Facebook isn’t enough for a booker to see if you’re legit or not.  They’ll trust your schedule even more than online clips.  The timing of when and how to self-promote is tricky, but that’s explained in my book as well.  You have to know when, how, and how much for each step of your career.  If another comic gives your name to a new club, give the manager something online to show you’re legit.

I’ve talked to multiple headliners about this week’s topic and for obvious reasons they didn’t want to be named.  There’s something that some comics are doing the wrong way as far as getting help.  It has to do with getting guest sets at a new club.  Newer comics are making the mistake of asking a headliner for a guest set at a club they’re trying to get into.  The problem is, if that set doesn’t go well, it reflects on the headliner’s “recommendation reputation.”  This means that next time, when the headliner (or feature) has someone in mind that they want to give a guest set to, the club manager will be less likely to oblige.  Stop asking headliners to get your guest sets for you.  There are multiple ways to get the set yourself (listed in Don’t Wear Shorts on Stage), and if you happen to know the headliner that week, consider it a bonus.

But aren’t comics all about helping others?  Yes, it’s a great feeling to get another comic into the professional scene.  Most of us really enjoy doing that.  However, comics help only those who are ready in their opinion.  The comics who have helped get me into new clubs did that by inviting me for guest sets instead of me asking them.  On the rare times that I asked a comic for a set on their show, it was because we had already worked together and they had told me that they would be happy to help any time.  Honestly though, they usually offered the opportunity to me without me asking.  When I had 15 minutes, they got me MC work.  When I had 30, they got me feature work.  Let club managers and old pros tell you how many minutes you have, assume your own opinion is inflated (more on that in future posts).

Sitting around and waiting for a headliner’s help isn’t going to get most comics anywhere, so there’s a tactful way to increase your chances.  Get their attention by asking them what changes you need to make in your set in order to get work.  If they’re fully aware of your set and haven’t reached out to help you move forward, you’re not standing out from the pack enough to do so (by standing out I simply mean being funnier).

Just because you are Facebook friends, does not mean you have the right to ask that comic to help get you into a club.  It puts them in an awkward situation (and aren’t we all awkward enough?).  So the main point is this:  Get their attention and if they think your act is good enough, they’ll help get work for you.

As comics, we also talk about each other and who’s doing what.  For a one-nighter last week I booked Columbus comic, Nickey Winklman, as my feature all on reputation.  (It also helped that she wasn’t one of the Columbus comics who called this advice blog “spam.”)  So if you’re funny enough, it gets back to the people who can help you out.  I trusted her to bring a good MC and she came through with Anthony O’Connell…Great comics getting work that came to them instead of them asking.

What else matters?  The way you are as a person.  This is where it can even get petty.  Working with someone means spending hours with them, sometimes for days at a time, before and after shows.  If your act is annoying, you smell, you’re too dirty, you interrupt during conversations, you chew with your mouth open, can never pay for anything, you’re a close talker, you tell boring stories, you lie to impress people, drink like an idiot, you think you’re God’s gift to comedy, or have any other hangups, they’ll help someone else.  In other words, you need to be a better person than you normally are (like a real job interview).  And sometimes you have to pretend you like people in this business.  Does that mean “being fake?”  (And we all know from our Facebook friends that they “hate fake people”)  No, it just means tolerating others for the sake of business and making a living.  Many disagree with my opinion on this, that’s fine.  I like money.

Be a good person with a strong act and the help will come to you when you’re ready.  If it’s not happening, you’re not doing at least one of those two things.

Wow, this almost sounds like dating/relationship advice…it will happen when you’re ready.  Until then, keep improving yourself.