Starting Standup in Maine with David Walton

#36 Latest Open Mic with Post Mortem

• David Walton • Season 1 • Episode 36

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Speaker 1:

Hello, starting standees Very excited for this episode because what we have here is a real-time ep. I am T-minus hour and a half from going on for my open mic. It's been a while. I got some nervous energy, but I am actually genuinely excited. I'm excited to try some new things and to tighten up some old things. I have spent the last three or four hours this afternoon listening to old sets, removing things that didn't get laughs, tightening things up and then working on a new bit about my son asking me if I masturbate, and I don't know if I have time to get that in. But the good news is I have now enough stuff where I think I'll feel it'll be easier to go to open mics because I want to test this stuff out. So that's good. It's been a winning day. I appreciate it. Special shout out to my accountability group, who I meet with on Mondays, and I don't think I'd be doing this without them. They really kicked me in the ass. So this is great. I'm excited you're here. I'll be coming back in a few hours giving you the post-mortem.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to the Comedy Mill in Biddeford. The Comedy Mill is the name of the show. It's called Mulligan's the bar. There we have it. Anyway, thanks for being here and we'll see you soon. Oh man, that's rubbish. That's rubbish, okay, we're back. Well, we did another. It was we're back. Well, we did another. We got back in the saddle. We reengaged. The victory tonight was the reengagement. Now, let's do an honest assessment, honest self-reflection. It wasn't bad. I mean, I stood and delivered, so why don't we share it? I mean, what do I got to lose? I'll just share you the open mic I just did.

Speaker 1:

When you hear this set, you're going to feel tremendous secondhand embarrassment from me and you're going to cringe and you're going to think, oh God, this is so sad and I want you to know that it is. But it doesn't matter. This is the inevitable, unavoidable process. This is my 22nd, or something, open mic. In order to become a legitimate stand-up, I need to be doing hundreds of these, and so whatever your, let's say, say, judgment or whatever your secondhand embarrassment or dork tingles or just shame or like secondhand shame that you're gonna feel, it's okay, I feel it, own it. It means you like me and love me. It also means you're judging me. But all of it should be accepted as the inevitable process. And may I make something extremely, extremely clear to you. This was by far the best set of the night. No, I'm just teasing.

Speaker 1:

There's some funny people, but if maybe one of these podcast episodes I will share what the norm is at these open mics, because they are incredibly depressing. There is so many failed jokes slapping you across the face. It is wildly uncomfortable, but you begin to get like teflon. You just realize that everyone is just grinding away and that it's so hard that the the things that don't work. No one in actually in the audience is judging, because everyone is. Everyone is bombing, and so I want you to just put on that hat as you listen to this. Be an open mic audience member.

Speaker 1:

We got a big gay body coming to the stage next, mr David Walton. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all. Anthony, being tall is not what it's all cracked up to be. I get jealous of you on airplanes, and if we had the same size penis, yours would look a lot bigger, so you should think about that. You understand. You understand what I'm saying.

Speaker 1:

We're listening to everybody intently and there's some cool things, like I have this set, and the themes of my set are being mentioned. One is masturbation and one is awareness. You know meditation, so I think I'm going to go with. I'll go with the meditation set. So I've meditated probably 2,000 hours, ass on cushion, and I'm just beginning to realize that it's a total crock of shit. All I'm becoming more mindful and aware of is that I'm a bad person, like you know. It's supposed to be this thing like close your eyes, allow sensations, thoughts, feelings to rise and fall like waves on the ocean, be the ocean. And for me, as a father, it's like I'm at the dinner table and it's like become increasingly mindful of the smooth glass of your iPhone as you ignore your family and play some four-way parlay on a Turkish basketball game. And then you're supposed to make. It's supposed to make you, you know, connect, be more present with your child. And all I'm doing is sitting there while she's on step 17 of her Korean skincare routine, going.

Speaker 1:

Notice, david, the increasing certainty that you were never meant to be a parent. A little dark, maybe a little dark. I love my children, don't worry guys. No, but it is. It's very boring there. Most of children's stories are really boring, you know. You have to sit right there in it. You just be aware of it. I just was much happier when I wasn't aware, like in my 20s.

Speaker 1:

You sometimes wonder, like what it would be like to be aware of doing blow with your friends in your 20s. You know what I mean. You're like let's sit around before we do these lines. Let's just give gratitude to the Colombian farmer who made this night possible With the giant black man that we just met at 3 am in this kitchen. Let's feel the JetBlue MasterCard. Divide up the lines equally, but just notice the subtle justification is or divide up the lines equally, but Just notice the subtle justification is because you bought the cocaine, you deserve the bigger line.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, it's hard, it's hard to. And then, like I've been on silent retreats and I don't know if anyone's been on a silent retreat and it's really weird. They feel like a cult. There's all these ADP people mindfully eating really slowly, not talking, and I can't help but just want to bully them. I just want to poke Gustav in his third eye, or just give Bradley a little wedgie, you know, just supercharge his root chakra, get that kundalini really flowing up the spine. There's this guy, moonbeam, and Moonbeam says that silence is the loudest echo of the universe, and I disagree. I just want to tell Moonbeam that I think the loudest echo of the universe is if I put your head in the toilet with a man bun and gave you just a good old-fashioned swirly. Remember those in high school? No, I guess I'm a baby's boy. Swirlies are great the other day.

Speaker 1:

It's really hard being a parent. I'm just getting scary. I have an 11-year-old boy and it feels like I'm living in a war zone. Not because of his physical activity, it's because of the questions he's starting to ask. I love golf. He's getting into golf. I'm watching the US Open recently. I'm like boy, look at Scotty Shepard. He keeps his head still and he just releases those arms. 320, right down to Piper. We've got to try that next time we're on the range.

Speaker 1:

He looks at the TV and he goes Dad, do you masturbate? And it's just a horrifying feeling because your brain's in a panic. You get really scared because, well, first of all, you don't want to talk about masturbation with your son when you're watching the US Open. That's number one. Because well, first of all, you don't want to talk about masturbation with your son when you're watching the US Open. That's number one. Number two it's creepy to think your son's thinking about your erect penis, you know, while watching golf. And number three, he's watching YouTube all the time.

Speaker 1:

Guys Like I don't know, if I say yes, the follow-up questions could be insane. It could be like, oh cool, dad, like do you go with the double pepper grinder? Or like, and a little bit, today it's like you can't be. Like. You know, son, you know, you know I'm not big enough for the double pepper grinder, but luckily my wife's in the kitchen over here and she started. She just laughed and she goes hey, louie, everybody, everybody masturbates. And I was like hey, louie, everybody masturbates. And I was like yes, louie, you're right, she's right, I do. He goes. Why? What about the shmenma? It's not a true story. He goes what about the shmenma? I go, what do you mean, shmenma? Your dad has powerful, powerful loads. Actually, that load made you, boy, you run along and you play your xbox.

Speaker 1:

All right, give it up for david, okay, post-mortem, post-mortem. Thank you for listening. Well, I hope that was as uncomfortable for you as it was for me. But here's the thing thing in listening back, there's a lot to learn. There's so much to learn. Where do I even begin? Okay, first of all, I would say the let's start with the positive. Okay.

Speaker 1:

Biggest laughs from this audience. I'm not saying this is the funniest, I'm not saying these are the jokes that should get the biggest laughs. I'm saying these are the jokes that did get the biggest laughs. That's the data. That's a room full of 18 stand-up comedians. Often, often, this is a huge problem in the stand-up development system is what makes stand-up comedians laugh is very different than what makes civilians laugh, and so a lot of stand-ups will say this, that they do these jokes that are really weird and off color and they just are kind of shocking and just strange, and they'll get laughs from the stand-up comedian audience and then they just bomb with regular people stand-up comedian audience and then they just bomb with regular people, and so it's just tricky. It's tricky to trust the laughs right now. I listened to that and here are the biggest laughs ready.

Speaker 1:

First laugh was the Draft Kings that I had set it up. It took way too long, I mean, just about a minute of setting up. Meditation is something that I like. Blah, blah, blah. And then here's what you're supposed to do, and then blah, blah, blah, and now I'm mindful of my betting. I thought it may be an adding a line. Like you know, it's just much more fun to have a gambling problem when you're not aware that you have a gambling problem. Now, the next joke was the skincare routine of my daughter, who you know is obsessed with Korean skincare, and she does like 24, she will explain. I will pretend to be interested as she explains all 20 steps of her skincare routine and it's hell. It really is, uh, but she doesn't know that until now. Um and but step 17,. Like, maybe I didn't say explaining it enough.

Speaker 1:

It was interesting because I've done this joke once before for an audience of three people at Empire and when I listened back to that, that audience was loving all this. They were really loving it. I was very slow, I don't know what it was. It was very intimate, I was really talking to them and they really really liked this. So I have two data points. I have one audience, a very small amount of people, who absolutely loved this stuff, and then I have this audience which was kind of iffy. But this joke is a little bit dark. I mean, when you're basically saying that you wish you weren't a parent, it's a little. It gives people a little bit of like are these kids? Okay, that's my theory. Who knows if people are concerned. Please don't be. My kids feel tremendous amount of love anyway, okay, okay.

Speaker 1:

Next big laugh, maybe the biggest laugh of the night. Going back to the tape, uh, we may have to, we may have to go back to the tape, but I think it was the biggest laugh of the night and that was, uh, a good old friend, our friend cocaine. We love talking about cocaine. Cocaine is making a big comeback in the comedy world. It's just a very funny drug for some reason and I can't stop talking about it. I'm hoping to do an hour and a half just on that topic. No, but no, it did. There's no denying it.

Speaker 1:

The line let's give gratitude, uh, for the columbian farmers made this night possible. That got the biggest laugh, I think. And, and you know, look, uh, if you've been, if you're starting standing, you've been listening to this. You know that my christmas episode, I did a a whole six minute mindfulness of cocaine and obviously you'll connect the dots and that was a joke that came from that, but, uh, it was nice. It was nice to see that, uh, people, people enjoy that.

Speaker 1:

What was interesting is my most favorite part, and maybe there was like racist undertones, but it's just based on personal experience. Um, there was just a lot of. You know, I said something about a big black man who you just met and you're in his kitchen at 3 am giving gratitude to the columbian farmers just met and you're in his kitchen at 3 am giving gratitude to the columbian farmers, and maybe I don't know. I don't know, just saying big black man sometimes puts people on edge. But look, I'm just, I'm just stating the facts, um of my life.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, moving on, yeah, let's move on to the bullying thing, the bullying of the silent retreat. Uh, again. Uh, this is a derivative of a lot of things I've been thinking about. I think there's still something there. This is the again the. The first time I performed this, there was people were really digging it. This time I think people are a little iffy, like you know, just a bully, like me being a bully, you can't assume that they think you're a likable bully. Maybe they start thinking you're a real asshole. So I think there's a huge trust. You have to establish this likability and that, this sweetness or something to pull off these bully things. Or you just like go full persona that you're just a total dick, and then they, they're safe to laugh. But I think it's kind of confusing. Um, I will say I left out a really kind of good line after the bullying, or a bona fide joke that works, where right after I end the bullying bits, I say uh, oh yeah, one more thing.

Speaker 1:

I host a meditation class, lead a meditation class at 9 AM on Wednesdays. A flyer hit me up for a flyer. You know, that's always a nice little. Maybe it's, maybe it's cheap, but it works. It works. It's surprising. You know what I mean, after you've revealed so much darkness, if you will, anyway. So I forgot to say that. But what's cool is I know it would have gotten a laugh, and that's what stand-ups start to realize. They just start to have the confidence of, like I have trusted material that, unless it's just an insanely weird environment, is going to get a laugh. So you build up that quiver. Okay, moving on. Okay, so moving on to.

Speaker 1:

I did get the time to talk about this masturbation story, and so this is what I'll say about that the masturbation. It's funny because you think that people are going to laugh when you tell the story, like this is what my son did. He asked me if I was going to, if I was masturbating and if you were telling your friends and family that they would laugh just with his question. But an audience, that's, that's not enough. They don't know my son. I don't really know me. It's kind of it's not a joke, it's just like okay, well, he asked you if you masturbated. The jokes have to come after that. So I would say I'll give myself a pat on the back.

Speaker 1:

I knew that that saying Dad, do you masturbate? Wasn't going to get a laugh Either because there's probably a way to do it, there's probably a way to set it up with timing or something where that does get a laugh. However, I knew that I didn't have that yet, so I just rolled through it. I tried to just move past it quickly and get right into the reality of what is the reaction of a human, what is the honest, truthful reaction I had, which was really that my face turned blood red and it was super uncomfortable and somewhat annoying and funny. It was like a whole mixture of emotions and I think what you really want to get down to is what I'm hoping to do is to get more of that truthful, the truth of the reaction, and there is a lot of panic, you know, because your mind starts really ripping on what you're going to say, because you can just be like like yes, or you can say like within the five seconds that you're waiting to kind of decide what to say to your son when he says do you masturbate? Yeah, I think I probably had about 40 thoughts and that's what I was trying to get at in the stand-up set.

Speaker 1:

I was trying to like milk the funny things, because you know the questions are coming and there is a tremendous amount of curiosity and also dirtiness when you're 11, as a boy, like the shit you're talking about at school. I mean, I was looking at hustlers, I think, when I was 9 or 10, like it's on and it's on for my son, and so you know, I think there's better jokes. Like I should have mimicked the double pepper grinder thing. Uh, I, I, I'm not sure people know what that is. That's like an inside joke. You know, when you pepper grind a penis, um, maybe, maybe, just not that funny to people. I was surprised that people didn't find that term funny as funny as I do.

Speaker 1:

But like I could add just another stupid, like kind of high school term like the the stranger. You know, like if Louie started asking me like if I've ever done the stranger, which is when you sit on your left hand and, you know, remove all blood flow so it goes numb and then you masturbate with it so it feels like someone else's hand. You know, maybe, maybe that's one. You know, there's a million terms for the different ways you can. You can do it, but, um, I think there's something there. I think I think this story can milk and especially can it can parlay right into his other question, driving to school, when he asked me if I'd ever done cocaine.

Speaker 1:

So there's quite a bit here of my relationship to my son that I think is good and I'm excited to tighten. And then I added, very late to this set, I added what is in the leading. It could be a tie of the two biggest laughs and a couple of standups. You know, sort of marked it as their favorite line, where Louis, you know, when he asked, and I had to say I forget to say this is a true story because I think a lot of people assume that you're bullshitting, but I just want to. You know, I think next time I do it I'll be like guys, this is really true. Nothing I'm saying is false. When he said like, oh dad, it's so gross, like does the shmegma come out? And then me getting prideful about my loads People really like that. And then there's just the straight truth of the matter, which has always blown my mind really, is that the reason these beloved children exist is because you nutted directly into your wife's vagina. You just busted it. That's it, simple, simple. The most pedestrian thing in the world has created this life, has changed your life on such a profound, deep, in such a profound way. I find it so comical.

Speaker 1:

I remember when my sister, my oldest sister, announced that she was pregnant, when my sister, my, my oldest sister, announced that she was pregnant. I remember like we were in the living room of our house, uh, on clyde street, and everyone got so excited. It was just screaming. I three, my three other sisters, screaming, my mother's screaming, and and francy and John were there. John is her husband and they were in their mid-20s, a little sort of late, 26, 27. And I was not screaming, I was not smiling, I was just looking at them, being like, just imagining, like, okay, look at this excitement. All that dude did was just bust it unprotected into my sister. That's it. What are we congratulating them for Do you know how fucking easy that is?

Speaker 1:

Do you know how good? You know that feels Like you're just all screaming, that your daughter like pulled the goalie and got just fully nutted into. You know, and that's where my brain goes. I don't know why I just that's where my brain goes. I don't know why. That's how my brain works. And then, later on, you know, my nephew's born and I Make sure to tell him. The only reason you exist Remember, dude, the only reason you exist, is cause of that. It's cause of what I just said. Anyway, there's something there, but it's because of what I just said. Anyway, there's something there, but it's more podcasty than it is stand-up. Maybe not, who knows, but people liked that. People liked me bragging about the load and then me trying to explain. You know, like, ask your mother, that's exactly how we made you boy. Now go play your Xbox. I don't know.

Speaker 1:

It seemed like a pretty strong ending. I think the claps at the end of that were maybe the strongest I've ever had at the end of an open mic. And I don't think that's because the open mic was particularly good, because I ended on a strong note which is high up on the list of must-dos to be a stand-up. Okay, that's it. I've really gone for it.

Speaker 1:

It was fun to do a post-mortem. This one is probably more for me because I can listen back and remember and my takeaways. But I really do appreciate you being here and coming all the way with me. And, yeah, we're back, we're back. We got a little bit of that fire. We've been through the dark night of the soul questioning everything, but the fire is back. We're going to keep going and we're going to have a fun summer and we're going to keep grinding. And who knows where we go, who knows where this takes us. The days are getting shorter, the solstice is behind us, the summer is just beginning. If you are going to nut in someone this summer, just make sure you're ready to have a baby or that they are in proper protection.

Speaker 1:

That's the PSA for today. Lots of love, everybody Wishing you tremendous, tremendous joy and peace and love. Next week's guest is Dave Chappelle, and then the following week will be Louis CK and then the following week after that is going to be Jerry Seinfeld. We're just confirming those guys. So it's not 100, it's close. So I look forward to, uh, interviewing those guys and, you know, hearing what advice they have for me after they listen to this set. Okay, bye, thank you.