I'm a ham. No, not like lunchmeat. I'm more like the "I can't get enough attention" kind of ham.
So when I saw an advertisement for an Open Mike Night at a comedy club, I thought, "I wonder if I can do Stand-up?" I tried to imagine myself as George Burns with better hair. But I realized I had one problem.
I can't remember jokes. My dad tells them. My boyfriend woke me up one night to tell me a new joke. And I love to hear them. But I can't tell them.
How could I be a Stand-up comedian if I can't tell jokes? Well, I rarely let little problems get me down. So I emailed the Open Mike Night organizer and told him I would perform. I figured if I had a deadline, I'd have to come up with something to say on stage.
I wrote a list of things I think are funny: noses, feet, and meatloaf. Hmmm, I thought, maybe I can make something out of the meatloaf bit. For a solid week I wrote stupid stuff, then crossed it out, and then wrote something even more stupid. As I did this, I kept thinking, "I am going to tank."
After a week of doubts, my material began to make me chuckle. This lifted my spirits, so I worked harder. I needed to have three to six minutes of material. I wrote about my inability to stay on a diet, I wrote about wombats, and I kept the bit about the meatloaf. (What's not funny about a bread-shaped glob of meat?)
So what is the next step to creating a great comedy routine?
In Melody's world, the next step is procrastination. I had three weeks to prepare for my chance on stage. I didn't want to do anything as rational as learn a little bit of the routine each day. Instead I waited until five days before my opening night, and then in a frenzy of nerves and bad dreams, I repeated the five-minute routine until I thought my right eye might pop out.
Now, let me take a moment to tell you how my friends felt about my doing Stand-up. There were two general reactions. 1. Nice people would say, "You are very brave." 2. Honest people would stare at me like I was leaking orange juice out my elbow and they would say, "YOU? COMEDY? WHY?"
So with the knowledge that almost everyone, including me, thought I would be a total disaster, I arrived at The Improv Comedy Club. I wore a hideous costume, my cheap mascara made me look like a raccoon, and I felt like I had five cats inside my stomach doing their version of Cirque du Soleil.
Needless to say, I was nervous. As a dress rehearsal, I made my boyfriend listen to me mutter my lines. At that moment, we both noticed I had a problem. I couldn't say two sentences of my routine together without forgetting my WHOLE monologue. This was bad.
I wanted to run away. But my boyfriend patted me on the back, told me to stop being a chicken, and sent me to sit with the other comedians. I walked away from him like a woman being sent to the electric chair. For better or for worse, I was going to get on stage and try to not to bomb.
Then a magical thing happened. A parade of stressed out comedians took their turn on stage before me. A couple of them were really funny. But most of the comedians wore expressions of shock and pain and horror on their faces. They were not doing as well as they had expected.
Maybe I should have felt more sympathy for them. But the truth is their plight made me relax. The audience wasn't throwing rotten chicken at these performers. Maybe I could live through this experience too?
So when I heard my name being called, I ran onto the stage, and did what comes naturally to me. I took over the stage like the big, honey-dipped ham I am. I grinned at the audience. I wore a pig hat. I remembered all of my five-minute routine. And I even got a few of laughs. Apparently, meatloaf is way more funny then I ever imagined.
Now you might be wondering, will I ever do Stand-up again? With all those people staring at me? With the music, and the Cirque du Soleil cats in my stomach, and the terror? It's a real possibility.
