Really Good Memory

I remember this conversation I had with my mom.  It was a great conversation. 

The first time I ever did stand-up comedy, I was 18 and I had just started going to a university about an hour away from home.  I entered a stand-up competition for students on campus, and I had to perform 3 minutes of material.  If your set went over three minutes, you would be disqualified from the competition.  You couldn't curse or do offensive material.  And I signed up.  Stand-up was something I had always wanted to try, and Eddie Murphy had started his career with stand-up when he was 18, so I thought I would give it a shot, too.  You know... because I'm exactly like Eddie Murphy. 

Getting no more than 3 minutes of material together didn't seem like it was going to be difficult, but it was.  I worked really hard to get good quality material in my act, and I was surprised when it started going beyond three minutes.  I cut and trimmed and eventually came up with an act that was close to the three minute mark.  I rehearsed a lot.  I went to a friend's house and had her video tape my routine so that I could see what I looked like and how the jokes sounded outside of my head.  And I invited my parents.  I told them that it was only going to be three minutes, so it might not be worth their time coming.  My mother came without hesitation.

The actual stand-up competition was open to the public.  It was in a small-to-medium sized auditorium, probably something used for lectures.  There were about 10 people who were performing in the competition, and a couple of them were very eager to tell everybody that they had done stand-up before and were professionals, and they were eager to allow us to feel like they were going to win.  There was one guy who could make an oboe sound like a light saber, and I thought he was really good.  Out of everybody, I was pretty sure he was going to win.  He had been doing his act for a while, and he told us it was very polished.  And it was.  He was very funny, and I still remember his light saber oboe.

The crowd was ushered in.  I saw my mom, and I waved.  She waved back.

I don't remember much after the lights came down.  I was really nervous. 
There were some people before me.  There were some people after me.
I remember somebody called my name and I went on stage and took the mic.
I started.
And then...
...I got my first laugh from the audience.

I hadn't expected that.

I'm not sure why I hadn't expected that, but I hadn't.
And when people laughed, I had to stop speaking.  Otherwise they wouldn't be able to hear me over the laughter.
And even when I stopped speaking, my timer was going.
I hadn't planned on that!
I only had three minutes!
But the audience continued to laugh.
And laugh.
And Laugh.
And at one point, I tried to politely motion for them to stop laughing.
But they wouldn't.
And even as I waved my hand at them, I realized that I was telling them to stop doing what I had wanted them to do all along-- Laugh! 
But I was going to be disqualified if they didn't stop!
And then, I fiinished.
"Thank you."
And they erupted into applause!
And they stood up!
And they were still laughing!
It was an amazing experience.

I asked my mother about it later, and she gave me her perspective as an audience member.

She didn't know what my routine was going to be, but she was biased before anyone got on stage.  And she tried to temper that bias, but it was hard for her.  But she tried.  And she watched the people before me, and mentally said, "I'll bet my son is funnier than they are."  And then she watched me come out, and wasn't surprised by the crowd's reaction, but *was* surprised at the same time.  She knew I was good, but she didn't know that others would share her opinion as vocally as this audience did.  And she said that it was a really nice feeling to have a whole room of strangers cheering for her son and laughing at his jokes.  It was nice to watch me do as well as I did.  And then I was done, and she was very proud of me.  And as I walked off the stage, she was certain that I was funnier than anyone who had come before me.  And then another performer came out, and he wasn't as funny as I was.  And then another one.  And another one.  And it dawned on my mom, "We could win this whole thing!"  I remember when she first told me this that I was struck by her use of the word "we".  She didn't say "you could win this whole thing," or "he could win this whole thing," but she included herself.  She was part of my team, and that felt really good.  She wasn't stealing any of my thunder or trying to take credit for anything she hadn't done.  But she alligned herself with me, and that felt awesome.  Really, really awesome.  One of the biggest differences between stand-up and every other stage performance I've ever done is that stand-up is solo.  You're alone.  You're alone when you write the material.  You're alone when you perform the material.  Everything else I had done before or since had other people with me.  I may have written alone, but I didn't perform alone.  Even if I performed a solo, I had performers to come on before or after me.  The success of the show didn't hinge entirely on me.  Stand-up has no one but yourself.  And having my mom use the word "we" was super comforting and unexpectedly awesome.  So she watched the other people come out, and she thought, "We could win this whole thing!"  And more people kept coming out, and none of them were as funny as I was or had gotten the kind of reaction I had gotten.  And even the guy with the oboe didn't get the crowd laughing like I had.  He was funny.  And the audience reacted to him.  But it was clear to her, even after the oboe light saber, that I was the obvious winner.  And when they announced me as the winner, she wasn't surprised at all and she *was* surprised at all!  Of course her son was good, but she didn't realize that anybody else would see him the way she saw him.  And this entire room did!

After the show, I'm pretty sure my mom took me out to eat.  That is typically the best part of any show I do.  Even after opening for "Bobcat" Goldthwait and having him invite me to go and party with him and a whole bunch of other people, I chose to go eat with my mom.  And yeah, there were times that I wondered what would have become of that had I gone out with "Bobcat".  Would we be friends now?  Would I be hugely famous?  Maybe.  But I think I would do it the same way if I had to do it over again.  Not that "Bobcat" wasn't a nice or cool guy.  But my mom is just that groovy.  She drove almost three hours to watch me perform for 3 minutes!  Move over, "Bobcat", gotta go have pie with my mom at Denny's.  I'll bet it was the Denny's right by the slaughterhouse, too, but I don't remember.  That slaughterhouse was so massively stinky, and it was on the road into town, so every time you came to town you had to drive through miles of dead pig stench.  Disgusting.  And they built a Denny's next to it!!  Who was the drunk genius to come up with that idea?!  I don't know, but I would do all of that again if given the choice.

Really good memory.
I love that memory.