Starting Standup in Maine with David Walton

#23 Army Vets, Hecklers, and Trumpet Farts: My Week in Stand-Up

• David Walton • Season 1 • Episode 23

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Speaker 1:

Hello, welcome to Starting Stand Up. If you're new here, this is a podcast where I try to get good at stand up and I journal it audio style. No video, just audio. You have stumbled on a man's journal and if you like journals and if you like secrets and if you like inappropriate entries into a journal, you've come to the right place. I hope you'll stick around. Entries into a journal You've come to the right place. I hope you'll stick around. For those who have been here, we've got a great episode for you.

Speaker 1:

We did two open mics Sunday. This is a report and lessons learned, some surprises, a little, some details, and then we'll be on our merry way. Oh man, that's rubbish, that's rubbish. I just listened to both my sets from Sunday and it's getting easier to do. I must say this one was wild.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I went to the Monjoy Tavern, monjoy Hill Tavern, which has a Sunday night open mic, which is the kind of open mic where no one wants there to be an open mic. This is a dive bar. It actually has nice lighting and it's a nice dive bar, but it's not. There's not a, there's not a hipster, it's. It is Authentico and I believe it's mostly. The most of the regulars are Army vets and you go in and where you do the open mic you can barely. It's like half the bar can't even see you.

Speaker 1:

So the guy who hosted it started at 7 pm. The guy who hosted it started talking and the din around the bar got louder. It was like people were actively protesting the open mic and I was going up second. So I was like this actively protesting the open mic and I was going up second. So I was like this is going to be wonderful. So he gets up. He's admittedly said he's not a good host, like he just really struggles and I must say kudos to just respect to everyone I'm meeting in this sort of main standup scene. You know they're just like diving into. This guy hosts an open mic so he can work on doing something that does not come naturally, so he's working on it. Respect. Anyway, I'm going second. The first guy goes up. He's a guy I've seen around. He's a guy I've been doing about five years. He gets up and starts just doing crowd work and everyone starts paying attention because he's ripping on a group of dudes for having small dicks and all and they love it. He's talking about how they're all like construction workers and they don't work. He's just ripping on everyone and that's what the dive bar vibe needed to be just good, friendly ripping. Now I'm rolling in there with a set that I have been working on hard, you have heard, if you've listened to the last few episodes, this is the set that has been developed by this idea that I'm meditating like a madman and all I'm realizing is that I'm just becoming more aware that I'm a degenerate.

Speaker 1:

What I did was I wrote, wrote, wrote. I got, I would say, four or five minutes and a whole bunch of jokes. I recorded them all. I sent the recording to a group of friends and I just got feedback. I incorporated feedback. Special thanks, you know who you are.

Speaker 1:

And then I spent all weekend really kind of tightening, tightening, tightening. And then I was like, okay, I've got the best joke, I think, for each of the premise setups. I'm going to go do it, let's see, let's see if my compass for what I think is funny is actually funny. And then I roll into this place and I'm like it's like a bunch of like thousand yard stare army vets sipping very off off brand you know, beer out of a bottle. I'm gonna play you a clip, but I start in on it and no one's really listening and it's people drink orders. There's no real hush at all. I just I'm like screw it, let's just do it. In hindsight I would have should have just scrapped the set and I should have just gone and done crowd work or had a whole other set at the ready. I think the big realization is so much of this work is having material ready for any context for any setting. Material ready for any context for any setting. And so if I had a dirty set or a set where I could rip on you know, people in the Air Force and it was all army people there, you know anything like that that would have been great. But alas, as a beginner, we have just what we have. And so I go into it and I'll play you this clip.

Speaker 1:

But I start talking about meditation and About anger and how, you know, meditation is supposed to help you with your anger. But this man who's just death staring me at the bar, he's just been looking at me with like really intense kind of slightly scary eyes, long hair beard. He interrupts my act and he just starts. He screams and this is what he said. No, no, meditation is like supposed to soothe anger too. It's weird. It's not doing that for me, like it's not nirvanic bliss, it's a fucking. This guy meditates. My god, you're gonna like this. It's a 12-step program. So I said you heard me say my guy and I'm so upset, but I'll be okay, but I'm just so upset. The joke was oh, I'd like to introduce you to my meditation teacher or something like that. I don't know if I came up with that or my friend did after when I was telling this story, but I'm going to take credit because this is my podcast. That's a perfect example of like you listen back and the next time I get interrupted during this set or if someone has an outburst, that joke is armed Right. So it's like, anyway, that would have been funnier, but like who cares, whatever? But this poor guy. Here's.

Speaker 1:

The thing that's hard for me Is that I feel for this guy. I would rather have just stopped right then and there and been like my man, what's going on? Let's break it down, and I think you can. I think because I'm not able to do this sort of rhythm of open mics, just mic, mic, mic, mic. 10 times a week, mics, two a night, mics for years. There, the everything gets less precious, like, and every time you're up you're just kind of like this, this for me, each one feels like it has to count and really move me somewhere and I think that's a bad way to look at it and I got to let it go. Time is an illusion. I just got to go at my own. What I can do At this stage of my life, what can you do? Just do your best, david, just do your best.

Speaker 1:

So that was a fun little moment, I will say, and I'm not going to do the recording but my biggest laugh was my closer no-transcript. I announced that I have a meditation class every Wednesday at 9 am and I invite everybody and everyone liked that and I got claps. It was good. So it was a good ending to a very mediocre, really, I think. Also I had really long jokes. They're not like short, they're very like long and kind of visual. So this is all to say that at the end I was there and I was like that didn't really count, I didn't really test it.

Speaker 1:

I got to wait a week to go and try this again and it turns out the Empire Comedy Club, which is the real comedy club in Portland has a new Sunday night open mic and it was at 830. So I could do back to back. So I went there. I did the whole set. I actually did 11 minutes and I did the whole set. I actually did 11 minutes because it was just three of us. I did the set for two other stand-ups and then a random woman who actually I wasn't going to do this set because I was like guys, I can't, no one cares about this. And she was like I'm actually a philosophy major, I'd love to hear what you have to say about spirituality and meditation. And I was like I have found the perfect audience member and certainly, and it was great, and it was the first time that I made actual standups laugh. I felt like every joke that I had written that I liked, they were genuinely laughing and that was a first. So that was a victory.

Speaker 1:

I've listened back to that one. I'm just so slow. The big note here is I'm so slow. There's way too many uhs. You knows there's filler words. They need to be eliminated. I mean, you don't have to be crazy with it, but listen to any of your favorite standups. You will rarely hear any filler words. Everything is a laser guided word missile. So that just takes a lot of time and extemporaneous speaking, little nerves. I just you've heard it on this podcast I have a lot of those like halting. You know, we're still. We're working on ways to get our brain online and firing better.

Speaker 1:

So it was long I did like 11 minutes, but there was an intimacy in the room and, of course, intimacy I like. I like talking to people, I like to feel like I'm just talking to you and then things are good, things went really well. So, all in all, it was a wonderful Sunday. We got two more open mics under the belt Good experience. All in all, it was a wonderful Sunday. We got two more open mics under the belt, good experience, a renewed sense of, oh yeah, just a big arsenal, a big quiver of material for every situation. Keep working.

Speaker 1:

I'll finish this very short episode, this special short one. We've had a little trouble this week developing or writing after those open mics because of some, uh, acting stuff I have to focus on and so, yeah, we, we have, we have. We don't have as much writing. My writing time got taken up by memorizing lines. So, anyway, this is a short episode. I'll.

Speaker 1:

This is the energy coming off a double open mic. I must say, the drive home from open mics is kind of this almost like you have the zoomies as a dog after you've taken a bath, like I'm just driving home and I'm like motor mouthing Heyo, booga, booga, boo, welcome, welcome. Welcome the starting stand-up, the podcast that's going to get you from beginner stand-up to mediocrely beginner. No I, the damn audio is going through the jeep bluetooth, so it's it's so bad the sound that I can't share it, but I will do a segment of post open mic hyperactivity mind. That, I think, is helpful because truthfully and many stand-ups have said this right after you go your brain starts just firing new ideas. It's almost like you've got the pipe you like spray in these open mics and then that creates room for all the new ideas and ways to make it better, et cetera, et cetera. So I got to record that. I just didn't. I can't do it through the Bluetooth. That will never happen again. But rest assured, the 12-minute rant I did after those open mics, it's the greatest 12 minutes in the history of radio. Too bad, it's gone.

Speaker 1:

Okay, short episode, busy week, a lot of some acting stuff coming through. So if you're hungering for the normal length. I do apologize, but I hope a nice, short, sweet one, and I wish you, of course, the most incredible week, so, so full of of little laughs, medium laughs, big, hearty chuckles, maybe an eye-watering laugh. I'll tell you the story of it. I'll tell you my one eye-watering laugh this week. I hadn't had a laugh like this in a long time.

Speaker 1:

My son is playing the trumpet for school. It's a required thing. I was talking to my sister on the phone, amanda, and Amanda is an easy laugh If there's any confidence I need. Before going up, I did my stand up set for her and, bless her soul, she was in a car accident. So she, her laugh is like kind of it's her voice disappears. It's sort of like she laughs, it's like ah, and then she goes silent because she's lost her breath. So when I do these stand-up sets for my sister, she's basically silent the whole time, not breathing. So I have to really go through it because she's just laughing the whole time. So, anyway, her laugh cracks me up so much I should have her on the pod at some point, anyway. So we're talking and she's not. She was pretty down. And then my son, I'm like man, I can't play the trumpet. I'm sorry I can't talk to you.

Speaker 1:

Louie is practicing the trumpet and he never practices and Louie, just immediately on cue, makes this noise. That sounds like such an insane fart. You know like, and I'm like god, and I hear, I hear amanda start to laugh, like she knew exactly what I was like laughing at too. And then we were. We basically had louis for about four minutes. Louis was making, he was so good at it he basically puts the trumpet in the couch cushion and like it's like, you know like, really great fart sounds. And it was just, it was a cry laugh to the point where my daughter came around who was doing her homework, and she's like just so mad that her dad was like a fart laugher.

Speaker 1:

I know I'm trying to be funny. Like that's the only thing that really gets me. It's basically people falling down and people with a well and well-timed farts. What can I say, man, that's my sense of humor. All right, that's all I got for you. Uh, I don't know what promises I made, but I 50, 50, we hold to them. That's just how we roll. Uh, anyway, I wish you, I wish you. That's right. I'm coming back to what we were talking about. I wish you so much, so much eye-watering laughter. Thank you.