Category: Blog Grind

 

I recently saw a job posting, “Looking for new writers to write sketches for teenage vine and youtube stars. Want to write sketches for them?” Yes! Have I ever written sketches for this age demographic? Nope, but the minute I heard about the job my mind was whizzing with premises! Was it my years working as a teacher in middle and high school? Was it my memories growing up? Was it the seasons of Full House I have watched? Probably all of the above. So far I have written 3 sketches. Do I have the job? No. But I have been told, regardless of if I get the job, it is good “practice writing sketches”. Well truth be told, I am having fun writing them! And according to my “editor” they are pretty good. So far the scripts have been about a dad interviewing his daughter’s new boyfriend, two friends hanging out where one friend is texting the ENTIRE time, and finally one girl has a crush on her friend’s brother and the other friend is crushing on her friend’s cousin. Oh young love! I am having fun with this project but you know what would be even more fun? Getting paid to write them! FINGERS CROSSED!

I had another guest spot at Gotham Comedy club! I could get used to performing in front of 250 people on a regular basis. I opened the show which is the second hardest spot after the MC because the audience isn’t fully ready for comedy. I did a gig where a comedian literally hid so she didn’t have to go first. I didn’t even know about the concept of “hiding”, until an experienced comic told me about it. Wowsa.

What did I learn in doing the set?  Certain jokes that work later in the show, like about sex, won’t work if you’re the first comedian.The joke about my brother making an excel spreadsheet of all the money he ever spent on a woman is a solid and a reliable laugh. I have been told this before, but I need to figure out how to flesh out this joke. I’ll put that high up on my to do list.  

I don’t like it when people name drop in conversations, but sometimes it’s just necessary. I do think there is a couth way of going about it. The same principle goes for checking in on Facebook your stand-up comedy spots. On one hand, no one likes a braggart, on the other hand it’s important that people in the biz know that I’m working. Let them know that I am a professional getting booked at legit professional venues. But, oy how often do you have to toot your own horn? There is also the theory that if you are performing every night then the people that you want to know you are getting spots already know because they are getting them as well.  For the time being I have decided that every time I get a spot at a legit comedy club I will post about it on Facebook. Truth be told, it’s not that often, so I don’t have to worry about it being egregious.  Done. Decided.

There are less than 20 female comedians that perform regularly in A room comedy clubs in New York City. That’s not a lot, but considering the small amount of female comedians there are in general, that is a pretty good percentage. I felt like wait a minute, maybe if I get really good at this, I could have a shot at becoming a headliner. When I was acting, white females were a dime a dozen. Now with the proper skills, as a standup comedian I could be a hot commodity.

But, there is a reason there aren’t that many female comedians. One of the issues is having children and a family. Many of the female comedians who are headliners don’t have kids. I could see myself performing while pregnant, I already have my opening line. I look at a guy in the audience and say “no, it’s not yours”. Is getting pregnant worth one joke? Practically speaking, I could still perform and get a part-time nanny (grandma) to babysit in the evenings. But I wouldn’t be raising my kids hands on.

Do I even want kids? If I keep working as hard as I have been then to “throw” it all away to raise children seems wasteful. I could just not have kids. That seems like a very viable option, but then everyone who has kids loves it more than anything.
These are complicated life questions. Standup comedy can be quite serious.

It was 8 degrees out and I did not want to go to a mic or to Late Night. I can endure many hardships and I am not afraid to wear 3 layers of clothing, but 8 degrees is rather intimidating. To paraphrase a well known quote, “the difference between a professional and an amateur is that an amateur does what he loves when he wants, whereas a professional does what he loves when he doesn’t feel like doing it.” So yes even though I REALLY didn’t want to- I went to Late Night. I was very surprised there were 13 other comics. Maybe the comics thought other comics wouldn’t be there so they went in the hopes of getting a good spot? Maybe comics are lonely? Maybe they are professionals, probably both.

I was proud of myself for persevering and wound up having a really good set, possibly the best in the year I have been grinding it out. The comics sitting in the back of the showroom literally slapped me five. I have the audio, but the video didn’t record. That is my excuse for not uploading the clip to this post.

The whole experience of battling whether to go or not to go was a good reminder that it’s important to take a night/day off. So I have made a plan to take a night off towards the end of the month, but in writing this I am realizing I should do it before then. And so I am going to a high school reunion next week. Is that a night off or another form of work? TBD!

There is a Mic Club that has the feeling of summer camp.  It’s very supportive. Everyone stays up late as if it were the last night of camp. To kick off the mic the host, Sacha Chavez, recites a chant (he’s of Native American origin so his chant is all the more significant) about the importance of owning your own space. We take a glass, lift it up and then down tapping the floor with the glass, a symbolic gesture of owning your space.

I have a room for myself. In the world of stand-up comedy that is a highly coveted because it means you can get as much stage time as possible. Stage time is an important ingredient to becoming a strong comic and it’s a premium because there isn’t enough of it! So let me take a moment to appreciate the fact that I have a room.

I MC’ed my show recently and towards the end the audience was getting chatty. I had passed around the donation bucket, which is equivalent to the check spot and people were losing focus as they contributed money. That is understandable, but I needed to bring the room back to normal before bringing up the next comic. I was not able to do so, I did not own the room.

On the bright side I did come up with a save line the next time a room gets slightly out of control “what is this a protest, a rally” and there is always “shut up”.

After the show that got out of hand, I realized the importance of the chant and to always remember to own your own space.

I was asked / offered to do PR for a friend’s book. Have I done PR for books before? No. Have I promoted shows, organizations and projects I believe in? Yes! Wait, I can totally do this. It was an arduous process, but I did a good job and am proud of myself. Look, I’m acknowledging an accomplishment. My new years resolution has not yet been forgotten!

How did I do it? There is a great website for researching on the internet; think of it as google and a bag of chips. It’s called http://buzzsumo.com/. I typed in a book comparable to the one I was promoting and got over 60 websites that wrote up articles or blog posts about this original book. I then made an excel spreadsheet and researched every listing, marking down who wrote the article, finding their contact information, their twitter, facebook, notes, etc… Once I inputted all the information into an excel spreadsheet, I then sent a form letter to each reporter/blogger. The pitch was, since you wrote about X book you might be interested in writing about Y book. The trick was making the form letter seem as personalized as possible! I got a 5-10% response rate which was expected. The most exciting response was from a reporter who writes for a top tier newspaper asked for a copy of the book to be mailed to her for review. She wanted a hard copy. None of that PDF stuff. If she actually writes the review, whether it’s positive or negative that could be a big tipping point for the book to get even more publicity. Fingers crossed and pat on the back. #IWouldTotallyDoPRForMoney

Recently, a friend of mine who enjoys comedy went to an open mic where I was performing. Why he didn’t go to a real show, who knows?! He took me to dinner afterwards with a friend and towards the beginning of dinner his friend asked “did you tell her why we are here?” Woah, that was a little scary. Intervention? Were they going to blackmail me? Turns out they wanted to hire me as a consultant. Last year they did a roast, but thought the night could have been more successful. What they wanted was an evening using comedy to shed light on issues important to them. What wound up happening was closer to a regular stand up comedy show at a comedy club. Their vision was not the focal point to the evening of comedy.

They want to use my expertise in theater, improv, & stand-up comedy to translate their vision into something concrete. This is what I’m good at producing, creating something from nothing. Of course there are a few set backs, money being one of them and the subject matter is a very hot topic. Comedy comes from pain and so difficult topics such as Israel, the Holocaust, rape, cancer etc… can all be joked about as long as it’s funny and tasteful. If the joke is not funny then it will inevitably be offensive.

The key to taking this project on is to make sure the piece provides a message, has some pokes and jabs along the way, but ultimately is funny and poignant. I’m excited to work in this consultant and producer capacity.

Runners speak of the runners high, but for me, there isn’t a greater high than getting on stage and making a large group of strangers laugh. Unity through comedy. Michelle gets attention. Michelle feels powerful. Michelle affects the lives of others, if only for a few minutes at a time. What a high! But what happens all those other times when you don’t grasp their attention, you don’t make them laugh. You bomb.You feel powerless.

As a new-comer on the standup comedy scene I’m all too familiar with the latter. But I had a special night.  I performed at Gotham Comedy club to a large audience and I did well! The producer of the show who booked me saw me do well!  I was proud of myself, which is one of my new year resolutions – to celebrate my accomplishments. While riding the wave of excitement I went to the Comic Strip for late night and there was another large crowd and I had a good night!

This is the reward for all those rough nights grinding it out. But always stay humble, tomorrow is a new day.