Starting Standup in Maine with David Walton

Ep 3- My 1st Open Mic

• David Walton • Season 1 • Episode 3

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Losing my standup virginity. Painful but fun.

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Speaker 1:

Fuck, I forgot. I forgot the name of the next person. I think it's David Walton. That is a person. How's the light? People are finding their light. How's my light? You got the whole face. Thank you, baby. Come on now. Hey, what's up? Okay, the moment of truth, the moment I share my very first open mic in its entirety How's my light? The very first words I ever said on this stand-up journey on stage How's my light?

Speaker 1:

In the context, everyone was performing and their face was hidden. They were too far back on the stage was hidden. They were too far back on the stage and I was concerned about that. Of course, I wanted a full, full presentation, and so that was what I decided to say, and I regret it ever since. Okay, so it's time. Oh boy, this has been really hard for me. Just a little side note I really don't want to do this. I don't want to publish this episode. I resent you. I resent you for listening. I'm hoping no one is no, but in all seriousness, this is part of the exercise. I'm really just trying to do shit that is making me wildly uncomfortable and we'll see what happens. Who knows, maybe this is a terrible mistake, but fuck it, let's go oh man, that's rubbish, that's rubbish. Okay, we're going to get to it, but first I just want to give you some context.

Speaker 1:

This open mic was at Free Street in Portland on a Sunday night at like 7.30. This was April 7th, 2024, and I had not planned on doing it. It was a very sort of impulsive decision. I was going to launch this podcast and the plan was basically to launch the podcast, to start stand-up and to never actually do it, to just basically prepare forever for years and years and never have the balls to get up there and actually do it. That was the original plan of the podcast. But then I got some great advice. I was reading Comic Insights every night and all through the day and I was just learning from all these stand-ups and their interviews and my technique to develop material was basically this is 45 minutes of stream of consciousness, writing and really just continuing to tap, tap into what do I really think about things?

Speaker 1:

And after I would write for 45 minutes, I felt like the neurons were cooking and my friend said hey, man, you should get a Shure stand-up mic like the classic microphone you see on stage and just practice holding it, practice moving around with it. And, sure enough, I ordered it. It was only like a hundred bucks on Amazon. It came and I started to go oh, this is getting real, it's getting real now. And then the first time I stood up and I'd written for 45 minutes and then the following rant just sort of spilled out of me. And after I did this rant I was like, dude, I'm fucking ready. That was amazing, I'm going to kill. And then I basically modified it and I started messing with it and then I added some things that I thought would kill even more and I really felt like I was going to start, I was going to blow minds. I was going to be like, wow, you've never done stand-up before. That was fucking really good man, you're incredibly talented. That was all what was going on in my head after I started practicing with my actual mic and roaming my office here in Maine alone like a madman. So I'm just going to share with you the rant so you can see how it's connected to the actual performance and you can see how things changed a little bit.

Speaker 1:

So we're getting to the actual car crash, but we will begin with this rant. I thank you for your patience. A little warm-up here. A little warm-up. This is an open mic warm-up. Hey everybody. Hey, what do I want to talk about today? How's everyone doing? Anyone get laid in the last month? A show of hands, that's great. I love making the best.

Speaker 1:

I heard a great word. Are you guys ready for a good word? It's called venery. It's an old-fashioned word but if you look it up it's a word that means fucking, basically in a nice. But it's the cuddling, it's the spooning, it's the studying of the tit, it's the necking, it's the. Let's put on a movie and just get buck naked and if I pop wood halfway through the movie, let's pause it and bone. That's venery. And venery may very well be with someone you love or just someone you like, or just someone you have a nice little vibe with. Venery may well be the meaning of life. It's the meaning of life to bone.

Speaker 1:

So I really do pray and hope and wish that all of you beautiful souls who are half listening to this, I hope you bone and I hope that you find a penis or a vagina that just feels so good to you and that, after whatever climax or enjoyment you've enjoyed, enjoyment you've enjoyed, that's a good one. Yeah, I went to. I went to good college enjoyment you've enjoyed fucking idiot. Yeah, I really do wish that for you. I wish, I wish tremendous, silky, silky, soft, warm vagina and just satisfying not too big, not too small, perfectly fitting penis. Or, if you're not into that, I wish you just incredible sessions of scissoring and oral pleasure. That's what I wish for you. You know it's funny. This probably seems weird that I'm wishing all these venery things to you, but it may surprise you that, despite the fact that I am pursuing a career in stand-up comedy, I have another passion, which is mindfulness training and teaching.

Speaker 1:

I am, in fact, a meditation teacher. I have taken a two-year course with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brock, famous little Buddhist mindfulness teachers. I have a little sangha, which is like a little group that I teach on Wednesdays and we just lead meditation. It's very casual, very chill, and the thing about mindfulness is there's a lot of wishing well. It's called metta M-E-T-T-A and there's a lot of wishing well. But I also because I'm a fucking pervert, I also like to.

Speaker 1:

When I wish things on people. It's a lot of love and openheartedness and kindness, but the little dirty man, the dirty David, is always smiling and laughing inside about what the other things I wish on people and hope for people, and so it's almost like a two-pronged solution. It's like on my Wednesday meditation class, I can wish the PG things on people and here at stand-up comedy night, open mics across the country instead of making you laugh, I can just wish incredible sexual feats for you. I hope that you know I can just wish incredible sexual feats for you. I hope that you know you can just bone at such a higher level than you ever have, like a mesmerizing, earth-shattering orgasmic joy. You know, and that's an important venery I want to wish venery on the world. You know, I feel like people on Twitter X, as it's called now, wouldn't get so angry if they had just had incredible sex.

Speaker 1:

So it's not that sex is the answer to all our problems, but it turns the volume down on them, doesn't it? I mean, how often have you been extremely stressed out and then your significant other just senses what's going on and slowly unzips your trousers and just starts edging you as you continue to watch golf? It's never happened, actually. It never happened. We're just sharing our dreams. Now we're sharing our joys and dreams, our visions. I'm gonna manifest that I love vision boards. You know, it's like if you were to vision board a. Uh, if you were to vision board a like a teenager, like if you, if I was vision boarding when I was like 16, it would just be like love scenes from like Armageddon, just like, oh, I remember.

Speaker 1:

Now I've I'd never fallen in love before and um, you know, at that point of life you've now watched hundreds of movies and listened to hundreds of songs and in case you know, for those listening that may not understand, almost every movie and almost every song is about love, and so you're jacked up on love. At least I was at 16. I was like what is all this fuss about? And then you see these high school sweethearts who are just absolutely madly in love with each other. You know, those high school girlfriend and boyfriend are just like just attached and clearly like just can't stop boninging, and it's great because they really love each other. I remember looking those people just being so jealous, so jealous and I was, you know, with your boys. You're like, yeah, dude, I wanted to suck my dick. Yeah, dude, I wanted to suck my dick. Look at those lips. But deep down in the heart, you're just wanting to lie naked in an open field, laughing, staring each other in each other's eyes and just like boning for the seventh or eighth time that day. Oh, just so comfortable with each other.

Speaker 1:

So the vision board of back to the vision board, you know, it would just basically be like pictures of. My vision board in high school would have been would have been just pictures of like almost like soft core cinemax, but like still frames you don't know that they're not into each other, but just like love making scenes and just comfort. And yeah, basically my vision board when I was 16 would be a, would be a like stills from the movie Emmanuel 17, with like a few red shoe diaries in the corner. And if you're not from the 80s, those were before we were allowed to watch porn at any moment of any part of the day. You had to wait for your parents to go out to dinner and then you had to watch Cinemax and then you had to set up sort of a audio system so that you knew if your parents got home.

Speaker 1:

Even though it was far, far away, you could hear them coming down the hall Because around 1030, if you got lucky on a Friday night the Manuel or Red Shoe Diaries would come on and they'd be getting home from their dinner party with a restaurant around 11, 11, 15. And so you had about 30, 40 minutes of high stress. Now I should explain that the only TV in my childhood home was on the second floor in my parents' bedroom, and so it's really dirty and pretty awful actually Now that I think about it. Think about it that you're 12 and 13 and you're just rock hard in your parents' bedroom waiting, terrified that they may be coming in. The only saving grace is that usually they're tied on a nice little happy buzz from their dinner party. So you know they're going to be a little louder than normal, but anyway you're watching Emmanuel and Red Shoe and usually five, ten minutes in you've got to wait that long. So it's like it's just this really dicey moment. And this is 19,. Let's call it 1989, 1990.

Speaker 1:

Internet's far away and a lot of frustration with Emmanuel and Red Shoe Diaries, because he really wasn't showing full penny that's short for penetration and you didn't get any penny. You certainly didn't get any double penny and you definitely didn't get any penny. You certainly didn't get any double penny and you definitely didn't get any airtight penny, which is for those who have never watched porn. That's airtight is mouth and both the anus and the vagina. All right, kids, that's it for today. You guys have a great day and I'll be back as your substitute teacher next week. All right, have a great weekend. Class dismissed, jesus, david, a little long-winded there, but okay.

Speaker 1:

So that was a noodle, that was a rant, that was the loose 10, if you will. And so after I did that, I was like you know what? There's some stuff in there, man, let me just go on stage and I'm just going to share my thoughts about boning, and people are going to just love it. And so, without further ado, here is a newly confident but scared David Walton showing up at Free Street on April 7th in Portland, maine, signing a little sheet of paper. There's 20 spots and I think I put myself at 11. Lucky number 11.

Speaker 1:

I drank a couple beers, I had my recording equipment, I tried to keep my eyes, I tried to listen to the other standups going, but I truly was just going through what it was going to be like. It felt so surreal. It was sort of like I had jumped off a cliff and I was in midair and I knew I was going to do it and I knew on some level that my life was going to change once I did One little piece, that my life was going to change once I did One little piece. As I was doing it, I texted Kevin Christie and Al Madrigal my sort of guru, mentors both very accomplished stand-ups, and I was like I'm here, I took a picture of the stage and Al immediately texted back. He goes start with your second best joke and finish with your best joke. And I remember looking at the sheet of paper and being like I don't even know if I have a joke, the sheet of paper and being like I don't even know if I have a joke, I don't know. And I realized right then, and there I didn't really know what a joke was. I had one joke at the top, which you'll hear, but I thought it was really cheesy and bad and there's some irony there, as we'll go through it, but without further ado, my very first open mic.

Speaker 1:

So my name is David Walton. I'm 45 years old okay, 45, which is midlife, right, and my dad's dying. It's fine, it's all good, he's 86, but when you hit midlife, you think about death a lot, and there was a doctor who just told me that everyone dies, whether, if you make it. You know, if you make it to old age like I'm not talking about accidents and all these things but if you make it to old age, you're going to die of, let's say, cancer. You're going to die of heart disease. You're going to die of a stroke or neurodegeneration, like Alzheimer's right, like everyone in this room is going to. If we make it, if we're lucky, we're going to die of that. You guys have a great night. No, I'm just kidding. No, but I think about death a lot because you know it's midlife and it makes me journal and I journal a lot.

Speaker 1:

You know I'm a pretty sensitive guy. I like to put my inner thoughts to paper and here's the thing like, I ask big questions. Like you know, one of the great questions and I suggest everyone do this is you imagine yourself as an old person? What advice would you give yourself at this age? It's a way of prioritizing yourself. So I'll ask that question and I'll start to write and inevitably and I don't know whether it's because I have this weird denial or it's too intense, but I get just rock. Whether it's because I have this weird denial or it's like too intense, but I get just rock hard. I get really horny. Okay, quick break.

Speaker 1:

This was the moment that I realized that shit was going south. Okay, I had them. That opener, that was a big laugh. Honestly, I will tell you right now I've done a bunch of open mics. I think that still is the very first joke I ever told is still the biggest laugh I have ever gotten. So it's just been all downhill since that first moment. That joke that I thought was cheesy and lame which it kind of is, it's a sort of a middling. It's a useful thing at the whatever. It could be of use. Maybe I'll be using it 10 years from now in certain situations. But there was a big laugh. There was a couple claps. That was a nice robust. We're rooting for you. Now.

Speaker 1:

I took that positive energy and I basically just shoved it into a horrible dark place, because it's now been a minute and I haven't said anything funny and I think I'm just being funny, but I'm not. I think I'm just. I'm basically taking forever to explain the premise. So it's just super verbose and everyone's just sitting there looking at me just being like where are the fucking laughs, dude? And actually they're not, because it's open mics and, let's be honest, no one was getting laughs, but very fewer. So anyway, but in hindsight this is just taking forever, just like this interjection. I do apologize, but I'm highly neurotic right now and you're going to have to bear with me when I I do these things and so I end up I go, I just go, I just feel it and I go, beat off, and then I come back to the page and I'm like and I don't have I still don't have any answers. But then I realized just the other day I had an epiphany. I had an epiphany that what I really want for everyone, for all of you, that what I really want for everyone, for all of you.

Speaker 1:

Another quick interjection this is hack material. I'm just talking about boning, because I think talking about boning and wanting people to bone is funny and it's just not. It's not, it's hack, it's cheap, it's what everyone does and I'm a fucking shame. No, I'm really not. It's the mistakes we got to make. We just make farting and boning and shitting is basically what everyone starts with, and then you realize that everyone's just like dude. Everybody does this and no one's funny with it. Stop, okay, anyway. So I made the rookie mistake, but here we go. I want you to fucking bone more. No one's boning enough, except for Owen. Owen is fucking crushing. You are crushing. I saw you get up there and I was just like that guy fucking hammers. He's a hammer, but uh, you know it's hard because I really feel that way.

Speaker 1:

And you hear about these young kids, right, like no one's boning anymore because of these phones and these. It's hard because I really feel that way. And you hear about these young kids, right, no one's boning anymore because of these phones and these iPads. And they're just doing it and they're just caught up. Have you heard these headlines no one's boning anymore. And it really bothers me. It really really bothers me. I had this image the minute they fucking invent this thing that plugs into a phone. You know those pocket pussies. If they invent that and you can plug it into a phone, it's over. The fucking world is over. So someone do not invent that. And they probably already have the vibrator in the thing. Right, they probably have that. It just makes me so upset and I think about it a lot.

Speaker 1:

But there really is, like Owen, the people who are boning are the bros, fucking bros, like I go to Foley's Fitness. Does everyone know that gym? It's a gym in Scarborough and everyone is just yoked. They're just so yoked and I'm like, if people aren't boning, has anyone here ever boned a bro? You have not. You have not. Do you know what a bro is? So if you want to get a bro, okay, if you want to get a bro, they're all yoked up right. First thing, you just got to just tell them that their shoulders look like boulders. Bro, you've got boulder shoulders and he's going to be so excited. And then if you could figure out a way to suck him off while he's live betting on DraftKings, he's yours, he is yours, he really really is.

Speaker 1:

Now I have two kids. I have an 11 and 9-year-old. I'm married. I'm very like you know. I got a life together, I got it together and I'm loose, I mean, with my kids. We have a lot of nice conversations and we've already started talking about sex. Oh, we're going to talk, okay.

Speaker 1:

So I'll leave you with this, because it is a mission of mine. I don't know how I'm going to get people to bone more, but I know what I want for my child, and she's 11. She's starting her sixth grade. You know it's starting to happen, and I want her to get Shawshanked. And let me tell you what Shawshank is. The Shawshank is this I want her to go to a field in Buxton, maine. I want her to find a tree that has no place it's in a hay field and I want her to lay out a blanket with this guy that she loves and I want her to just have like sweet, sweet love. And then I want her to find a volcano rock that has no business in a hay field and I want her to find a huge pile of cash under it. You guys have a great night, oh fuck, oh, man, man, man, that is so hard, that is so so hard. It really is.

Speaker 1:

The timer goes, so they sent, they flash a light at one minute and then so I had to rush that at the end. Now I realized when, when doing that, there was that was like the merging of three rants and, uh, we didn't have time today for all the rants, thank God. But I got to tell you, with the boning, uh, and then bringing my daughter into it, um, and the Shawshank bit, that I continue to try to make work at future open mics, um, and then, bros, bro, boning, um, that's like a merge of three rants. I did, and I gotta tell you I'm just so sorry. I'm so sorry you guys had to hear that I really am, and if you made it, but if you made it this far, I just I want to wish you a life, a life full of love, connection, adventure, peace and just incredible beautiful venery. I genuinely wish that for you.

Speaker 1:

And here's a quick clip of the MC talking about my act and really making me feel good. I appreciated it. Here you go. David Walton, everybody, this dude fucks. I fucking love that. Take dude. Yes, fuck more people. Yeah, I guess I got the MC kind of charged up to fuck. I mean, you know, and that's the most shameful part, I come off as this guy who's just boning all the time. Of course I'm obsessed with it and no, I mean I go the kung fu route. I never, ever, make love more than twice a week because of the power it removes from my chi. You guys know that. I mean, come on anyway, I appreciate the support, mc, we'll see you soon. Anyway, happy boning. That's it for episode three. Thank you for being here. Tune in next week because I have no clue what we're doing. Thank you.