Now that I'm done filming for the time being (except waiting to hear about a decent commercial spot) I have been doing a little Stand-up Comedy. Most of my friends know that it's been something I've been trying to do for a while now.

Well, I started December 29th, 2008 after being introduced at the club the week before by a friend & comedian, Frank Nicotero. He told the owner, "He's a funny guy, you should put him up next week." He said okay.

Now, before this, I have never done a "set" of stand-up comedy. I've trained in Improv & have done a lot of hosting; live events, etc. My first real gig was hosting an open mic night. It was mixed between acoustic musicians & some comedians. As host, I got to throw in a one liner or two to try out & just improv with the audience. Comedy was just really hard to do there when people were there to see bands. Not a great place to start.

Here I am for my first real "set" of comedy (usually sets of 5-8 minutes, 10-20, 30-45). I was to do an opener of 5-8 minutes. I had no problem with getting in front of people or even talking for that long. It's just that it was stand-up & not improv; I had to have pre=written jokes that I had to REMEMBER. Well, if you ever look at my resume, my last theater role was in high school & the dinner theater I'm in now, I forget or make up half my lines anyway. I wrote alot of material but when I performed it, I felt like I was trying to be like every normal comedian. Joke - Bah-Da-Ching, little laughs. Oneliners are lame to me & I still made people laugh but it wasn't me. At least I didn't bomb. They invited me back (which I'm still trying to get in touch to accept the invite...maybe I didn't do that well...haha).

After that, I just really wanted to think more about HOW to do stand-up before I did it again. I took a couple months & watched ALOT of comedy, read a book or two & really rtied to figure out how to be the person that made people laugh when I'm sitting with a group of people. Maybe not the same jokes, but the personality that made it work.

I went to an open mic night, without telling any of my friends, and did another 5-8 minute set. Better this time, a little more of myself, still had a probelm with my material. I had to work really hard to remember what I wanted to say from what I wrote down. Like the first time, I had notes cards with the whole of my jokes written out. I was getting to caught up making sure I wasn't forgetting a word & that handcuffed my delivery.

I was reading a great book, Comic Insights, by Franklyn Ajaye. He interviewed tons of comedians about their craft. From writing, remembering to delivering & touring. These different insights helped me find some things that would work for me. In particular, a technique that some comedians use for writing worked for me, using just bullet point topics or phrases for each joke. I wrote out lots of jokes with everything that I thought went with them & remembered the good stuff. I also learned that by doing this would play to my strengthes in IMprov Comedy because I knew in my joke the was an A-B-C path but I could now get there any way I wanted.

I tried this way with another open mic. I was confident & invited friends. By the way, that made me the most nervous because I didn't want to show them something I wasn't completely confident about. I did another 5-8 minute set using just bullet pointed words/phrases. Some of my friends came & they laughed. Even the strangers laughed & it seemed that I was the best of the night. The only problem was that I shifted into my inner "black man." I got too ghetto, probly cause that always make people laugh I I wanted to subconciously do something to keep the laughs coming. Now, I can be pretty "urban" sometimes, it's just who I am but I wanted to be myself & not a character.

During my filming of Warrior, I met a stand-up comic named Davon Magwood. We thought each other was funny & he invited me to open for his live taping for a DVD he was making. I really had time now to write the way I knew I was going to perform, allowing some room for me to Improv some good stuff. I was supposed to do a 15-20 minute set. I invited lots of friends & about 50-60 people showed up. It was a pretty good turnout. Three comics went before I was to open for Davon. I was nervous because of the amount of people that I knew were there, like they had some expectation for me to be as funny as I am on there couch drinking beer. I cut some jokes at the last second and went on. I killed it. it was amazing, people were rolling. It felt good. Everyone shook my hand afterward & it was a great confidence booster; not just my friends, everyone. The owner of the bar told me to take his number cause he said he'd like me to headline a show there. Cool.

So from here, I feel pretty good that I'm funny enough for people to watch me & laugh. One of the other comedians at the show asked me, "How many years you been doing stand-up?" I said, " Well...this is my fourth time ever..." He replied, "Whoa."

Check me out on Facebook, come to a show. Who knows, you might come to one when I bomb hard. It's coming, I know it.