No Laughing Matter
Last night I went to see a former co-worker perform stand-up at the Comedy Cellar. She’s new to the comedy world, and the show was a competition. Luckily, my co-worker gave a surprisingly solid set (meaning I wouldn’t have to feign laughter or lie during our post-show conversation), and she won the audience vote. She moves onto the finals on August 2nd. Congrats and good luck!
Unfortunately, I also had to sit through some of the worst stand-ups I’ve ever seen. The biggest offender was the first performer, who was a semi-professional not involved in the contest. He started off his set with two minutes on Brokeback Mountain. Brokeback Mountain! What year does he think this is? Then he had the gall to steal one of the oldest jokes in the book: “A lot of people think I’m gay, but I’m not. My boyfriend’s gay…” Heh, good one. And to top it all off, he finished his set by complaining about the audience, saying that we were “good, not great.” Well maybe if your material had been “good, not crap,” we would’ve laughed.

If you want something that’s really funny, check out this photo of the world’s tallest man meeting the world’s smallest man.

And on the subject of stand-ups, here’s professional comic Sandra Bernhart taking a Rorschach test.