San Francisco has a history of really cool, awesome and lightning-in-a-bottle comedy venues. The Hungry i back in the Fifties. Then the Purple Onion in the Sixties. Then the Holy City Zoo in the Eighties.
San Francisco has had another of those for a while now – the Cynic Cave at Lost Weekend Video. For several years now, a tiny basement in a video store has been home to some really sharp, cutting-edge comedy (and some garbage, but, hey, whaddaya gonna do) and just like those earlier venues, the lightning in a bottle must eventually break out. Lost Weekend is closing in March, and while the store – and possibly comedy shows – may be moving elsewhere, the Cynic Cave as it has been will be no more.
It’s sad, but things only become historic when they go away. And part of the glory is to have been there when it happened in the first place. So – GO see a show before it closes. I happen to be part of the Saturday show this weekend for February 6th (tickets HERE) but be sure to go and sit in one of those old dusty movie theater seats one last time, drink a Tecate and watch some Bay Area comedians do what they love to do in a place that has always welcomed them to do it.
If you hadn’t heard, beloved San Francisco video rental shop-slash-comedy venue Lost Weekend Video will be leaving their current location in the next few months. Lost Weekend and its staff are great and have made producing a show there so easy, even idiots like ME can do it and have successful comedy shows!
After the runaway freight train of success that was the first edition of “I Think I’d Be Good At That,” Episode 2 is coming your way next weekend, Friday January 29th. I’ve got a great lineup and a very-excited newbie to take a shot at comedy glory. Let us know you’re coming via the Facebook Event or buy tickets HERE.
The infamous Roast Battles at the Comedy Store are coming to San Francisco at Doc’s Lab on March 10th. I’m battling everybody’s favorite Cartman impersonator Joe Gorman. This will be fun. Buy tickets early.
Lately after shows I’ve had a few people come up to me after doing a set somewhere and they ask me, “how do I start doing standup comedy?” This is stupid, because I am a bad person to ask. I am a comedy nobody. If you looked up “comedy nobody” in the dictionary, there would be a picture of somebody else, and I’d be on a comedy message board somewhere asking, “who books that?”
But, fine. I do standup. I’ve done it a while. I occasionally get paid small amounts of money to do it at cool places. So here’s what little I know for sure about how to do standup comedy.
1. Find an open mic. If you live in a decent-sized city, look for a comedy group on Facebook based in your town. This will be a page that local comedians go to so they can call each other names, accuse each other of being racist and also to post information about shows. Find an open mic at a place that sounds good to you, go there about an hour before the open mic starts, put your name on the list and sit and wait. You will get to hear lots of other open mikers talk about wieners, eating butt, doing drugs and all about how their lives are crazy because they do standup comedy. Only open mikers talk about this. After listening to all this, you may want to walk out before going up and return back to your totally fine life that was going just great before you had this stupid idea. If that is the case, good for you.
2. Write jokes. You’d think this would be first, but for most comedy newbies it comes, like, sixth or seventh, so putting it second is still pretty good. Get a notebook, and when you have great ideas about wieners, eating butt or how late 19th-Century ennui and economic distress led to a political climate in Europe that would eventually explode into two World Wars, write it in the notebook. Try and create a joke structure in which you introduce a premise, then you say funny things about that premise. This seems like you shouldn’t have to say this, but I totally have to say this.
3. Record your set. If you have a smartphone there is most likely already an app that you can use to record audio of your set. After you have done standup the first time you will get offstage feeling an amazing adrenaline burst and will be filled with excitement about your accomplishment and life’s possibilities as a whole. Listening back to your set will get rid of all of that and help you remember that most of life is a crushing disappointment where you say “ummm…” a lot.
4. After you’ve done it once, keep doing it. Find more open mics and keep going to those. Go to as many as you can, night after night. Your friends will stop hanging out with you because all you talk about is comedy. Your performance at work will suffer because all you think about is comedy. After a few months you will finally write a joke that reliably gets laughs every time you do it and you will feel like you’re figuring comedy out. If you have a girlfriend or boyfriend, they will get really tired of your comedy bullshit and pressure you to stop it, then probably break up with you. Your friends will say things like, “when’s your next show?” and then never come, then they will just stop asking. Soon you will realize that you are spending most of your free time hanging out at open mics, then you will start hanging out more at smaller booked showcases where people get to do slightly longer sets but still for free. You will be making no money at comedy whatsoever but love it more than anything you’ve ever done that made you money. Your life will slowly crumble apart as you allow all the other important things to succumb to your never-ending desire to get better, to write better jokes, to grow as a comedian and perform on bigger and better stages. One day somebody after a show will hand you $10 for doing the show and it will be the most satisfying $10 you ever made, until you remember that you spent $13 in gas, $4 in bridge tolls and $6 in Diet Cokes at the show. But in your heart, you are “doing it.” You are living your dream. You are a comedian.
5. Start going to your nearest comedy club and hanging out. Sit in the back and watch other comedians perform. Talk to the comedians and ask where they perform. You may be introduced to the person who handles booking at the club, and if you tell them you are a comedian their eyes will immediately go dead. Chances are, they are a perfectly nice person, they have just met a hundred million people just like you before meeting you, all of them greedy, hungry and desperate to get paid to perform at the club. Avoid getting drunk and don’t even bother saying you want to perform at the club. They know. Believe me, they know. If you’re lucky they’ll let you start hanging out at shows for free. Be polite, learn the names of the staff and stay out of the way. Don’t poop in the green room bathroom. Every time you think it would be good if you said something, don’t. Just wait. No. Stop. Shut up. Wait.
6. Make t-shirts that say something like “FART!” on the front and sell them after shows. People love that crap.
There. That’s all I know about doing standup. Please note: if this helps you become a comedy superstar, please keep me in mind when you need writers for your Comedy Central show, “Buztin’ Nutz” or if you need to bring an opener with you to stadium shows who is mostly there to make you stop doing cocaine just before your heart explodes. I’m big and can probably handle you, even when you’re coked-up. Good luck!
My first producing effort at Lost Weekend Video, “I Think I’d Be Good At That,” went great. Thanks to everybody who came out and packed the place. Because it was such a success I’m going to do another one. Next show is Friday, January 29th at 8pm. More info coming soon.
For Bay Area/San Francisco comedy, the crux of the whole week is the Sunday Showcase at the Punch Line. Last night my (sadly) best friend in comedy Joe Gorman was hosting. I went up and had a fun set, lots of great folks took the stage for a packed audience and the show was closed out by the awesome DJ Real with Stevie Post acting as Hype Man.
If you’re looking for a way to dip your toes into the current San Francisco comedy scene without having to go to any scary bars or basements, check out the Sunday Showcase. I think it’s $12 to get in (cheap!) and you’ll see about a dozen people do their thing. Always fun, even when I’m not doing a set.
Kind of last-second, but if you’re in Santa Cruz tonight (November 8th) stop by The Crow’s Nest at 9pm. I’m Featuring (aka doing a longer set) on a fun lineup on what is always a wild, rowdy show. Tickets are $7 at the door.
Drew Harmon 