Jon Levine :: Actor, Writer, Director
Cobra Kai, The Gifted, The Food That Built America
Well, it’s official. I’ve earned my first dollar from comedy. Actually, I earned my first dollar plus twenty more. I had my first ever paid gig and walked away with $21 for 12 minutes of my time. That’s $1.75 a minute. That’s $105 an hour. If this was a full-time job, I’d be making $218,400 a year. But, I only got 12 minutes.
So, I guess you could say that the money’s good in comedy, it’s just the hours that suck.
I’m exhausted from last night’s fun, but I need to get up tonight because tomorrow’s the Improv. Gotta bring my ‘A’ game for that. American Rock Bar is the perfect room to work out the kinks and get a good laugh.
I feel calm. Not all the time, mind you, but more and more as I get on stage. I understand that there’s a natural progression and that the more you do something, the more comfortable you feel about it. But, I wasn’t expecting this.
I’ve started to just come up with topics or ideas off the top of my head and run with it. I’ll give it a go on stage with nary an ounce of trepidation. If it works, great. If not, well, I’ll try it a few more times just to make sure.
I’m starting to feel like I want to take more risks. I want to get into crowd work. Add a little bit of uncertainty into the foray. Am I being over confident? Am I playing with fire? Perhaps, but playing with fire is how steel was invented. Not to say that I’m comparing my budding comedy career to steel, but maybe tin.
Next stop, aluminum.
As I sit here waiting for the show to start, saddled with strep throat and a general malaise overall, my thoughts turn to the old saying, “the show must go on.” Fuck that noise, I feel like shit.
So, I’ve been coming to the Funky Buddha in Boca now for their open mic for the last four weeks and there’s something that I learned rather quickly: the signup processs is a fucking madhouse.
For the uninitiated, open mic’s have a signup sheet that’s numbered with the slots that are available for the evening. Most, if not all, open mic’s put this list out an hour before the show starts. This known as ‘dropping the list’.
With every open mic I’ve been to other than this one, the list drop is fairly benign. Show up at the time the list drops or even a little later and there it is, sitting out waiting for signups. Easy peazy, lemon squeezy.
Except, that is, for the Funky Buddha. It’s currently 6:30pm and I just arrived to claim my spot in the front, waiting for the list to drop at 8pm. That’s right, I’m here 90 minutes early. The reason? It’s because by 7, they’ll be a dozen people here and by 7:15, that’ number will swell three times that.
That wouldn’t be a big deal if the signup was, at the very least, somewhat organized. It’s not. Not even close. By 7:45, there’s a dense crowd gathered around the table where the list will drop. By 7:55, it’s like a feeding frenzy. And when that list hits the table, it’s a God-damn free-for-all. There’s no line, there’s no courtesy, there’re no prisoners. It’s a bum rush to get your pen-filled hand near the paper so you can (hopefully) get the slot you want… or at least close to it.
So, where does that leave me? Sitting out in front of an empty venue writing a blog post and girding my loins for the impending battle.
At least the weather’s nice.