Packed House, no laughs
Last night I was at Hurricaines, a little bar on Bloor street in Toronto for an open mic. This room usually attracts 10 Humber comedy students, and 4 other comics, who will then perform for the same two waitresses and 3 drunks hiding from their wives.
There are legitimate pro comics who work all the amateur nights they can, when they aren't touring, or don't have another paid gig to do, always wanting to get better, like Gilson Lubin. But twice a year, the comedians you never see honing the craft or working out new bits at the open mics around town show up to thrill us with their 5 year old bits they are once again pulling out, in preparation for a Just For Laughs showcase. The only thing fresh about the set is the fact that we haven't heard it for 6 months.
I am the first person to tell you, better comedians make a better show, so I am glad to see them out, but this makes for a long night. They do 10-15 min instead of the normal 5min set, because after all, they're on TV. The 15 amateurs that show up every week are there too.
What does this mean? It means I get to sit in a hot cramped bar from 7:30pm until 1:30am to watch a parade of "pros" who don't care about the audience, the energy, the quality of the joke or improving, they just care about hearing themselves through a public address system as they run through the potential "gala set," before returning to the friendly confines of TV land.
If you want to do shitty TV and shitty comedy, go for it, but if you want to call yourself a comedian, you better do it more than 2 festivals a year and a weekend in Windsor, because when you go to Hurricaines on Thursday, you're going to tank like the rest of us. You can hear the suck.
I'm tired of hearing that somebody is funny just because somebody else has decided to take 15% of the Tim Horton's commercial they did, or that the CBC has considered them to be funny enough to sandwhich 7min of their sorry existence between 2 Ford Bronco ads. CBC isn't reality, Hurricaines is, and you suck like the rest of us, if you aren't prepared. As much as I hate giving up valuable stage time, and 3 hours sleep so one of these big headed, part-time assholes can have their egos stroked by every other comic in the room who has been doing it less than 6 months, it is well worth it when reality comes crashing down around them, and the smarmy twinkle in their eye is replaced with a look that says, "but I've been on breakfast television, why aren't you laughing?" For those of you who have not seen this look up close, it is the same look the big breasted 18 year old gets when Simon Cowell tells her she can't sing.
I will tell you why they aren't laughing at you, its the same reason they weren't laughing at me. You weren't funny.
The difference is, I know it, so I will get better.
There are legitimate pro comics who work all the amateur nights they can, when they aren't touring, or don't have another paid gig to do, always wanting to get better, like Gilson Lubin. But twice a year, the comedians you never see honing the craft or working out new bits at the open mics around town show up to thrill us with their 5 year old bits they are once again pulling out, in preparation for a Just For Laughs showcase. The only thing fresh about the set is the fact that we haven't heard it for 6 months.
I am the first person to tell you, better comedians make a better show, so I am glad to see them out, but this makes for a long night. They do 10-15 min instead of the normal 5min set, because after all, they're on TV. The 15 amateurs that show up every week are there too.
What does this mean? It means I get to sit in a hot cramped bar from 7:30pm until 1:30am to watch a parade of "pros" who don't care about the audience, the energy, the quality of the joke or improving, they just care about hearing themselves through a public address system as they run through the potential "gala set," before returning to the friendly confines of TV land.
If you want to do shitty TV and shitty comedy, go for it, but if you want to call yourself a comedian, you better do it more than 2 festivals a year and a weekend in Windsor, because when you go to Hurricaines on Thursday, you're going to tank like the rest of us. You can hear the suck.
I'm tired of hearing that somebody is funny just because somebody else has decided to take 15% of the Tim Horton's commercial they did, or that the CBC has considered them to be funny enough to sandwhich 7min of their sorry existence between 2 Ford Bronco ads. CBC isn't reality, Hurricaines is, and you suck like the rest of us, if you aren't prepared. As much as I hate giving up valuable stage time, and 3 hours sleep so one of these big headed, part-time assholes can have their egos stroked by every other comic in the room who has been doing it less than 6 months, it is well worth it when reality comes crashing down around them, and the smarmy twinkle in their eye is replaced with a look that says, "but I've been on breakfast television, why aren't you laughing?" For those of you who have not seen this look up close, it is the same look the big breasted 18 year old gets when Simon Cowell tells her she can't sing.
I will tell you why they aren't laughing at you, its the same reason they weren't laughing at me. You weren't funny.
The difference is, I know it, so I will get better.
posted by Andrew Evans at 2:20 PM
4 Comments:
hey andrew
welcome to blog land
you might want to make people enter a code before they can leave a message and that way, you won't have messages like the first one here.
cheers
frosty
andrew,
i'm psyched you have a blog. i'm going to start doing mine again after a brief haitus.
as an aside, who gives a fuck what everybody else is doing. worry about you and your craft and don't get distracted by all the other bullshit - there's simply too much of it.
Thanks Darren, I have set up the blog as per your suggestion and eliminated the first comment.
Randy, Darren's comment was not about your comment but about an ad that I removed, so relax.
Peter,
I'm glad you are going to start your blog again, it was the best one of those I read. As far as the distracting bullshit, I know. I have heard it before, I wish I could block it all out, but I can't and I'm not going to censor my thoughts in what is supposed to be a diary. I do hope as I go, the thoughts I wish to express naturally progress in a direction that is more positive and healthy, but who knows.
Andrew
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