The American guy before me was also filling in for a drop out. He had gone onto stage and said "listen, I'm not a comedian and none of this material is my own. These are all recycled jokes, I'm filling in. Please don't be offended by my jokes, they're all racist, sexist and homophobic. Don't worry, I hate everyone eually." Now this disclaimer may seem a little bit weak, but I would be surprised if the guy had a genuinely racist, sexist homophobic bone in his body. Whilst I appreciate the notion that jokes based on negative stereotypes can perpetuate stereotypes, there are also times when jokes are just jokes. Some of my strongest friendships are based on us being able to rip into each other. In one group of friends I often joke that I'm the "token white guy". Half way through his act he tells this joke "What do you call a bunch of white guys running down a hill? An avalanche. What do you call a bunch of Mexicans running down a hill? A mudslide. What do you call a bunch of black guys running down a hill? Jail break!" Now, the one black guy in the audience loved it. He was a really dark skinned guy who I later found out was Nigerian and being that the crowd area was really dimly lit, his beautiful white teeth really lit the place up. However, the guy got a few more jokes in and a Mexican girl with her German friend took to the stage, grabbed the mic and said "I'm Mexican and I find this offensive." The guy just shrugged and left the stage. Those two seemed unsatisfied with not just getting the guy to leave the stage that they had to talk loudly throughout the next act - me.
Now in fairness, I'm not saying I would have gotten too many more laughs if anyone could have heard me over their chatter, being that it was my first time ever doing stand up and I had been on the sesh for about a week before I got on stage, hadn't really written proper jokes and decided to just ramble in my fairly incoherent (to the largely central/eastern European/American audience) Belfast accent about living life in Barcelona and how I was going to set up an Arnie does 80s covers busking act. However there is tiny little 4chan trollboy who lives inside of me who wishes I had turned round and said "Hi could I get the bar staff to bring over two shots of tequila and a pinata to the Mexican girl over there." Whilst experienced comedians like Andrew Schulz seem to get away with it these days with the crowds that they have, I have neither the quick wit nor the balls to pull that off. So, I resisted exacerbating an already awkward race issue and proceded with my terrible set. I tried to sell a bag of my freshly shaven pubes to the audience with the money going to the charity. Nobody took an interest. The whole thing was supposed to be an amateur comedian competition, with the audience voting on their favourite. I got the least number of votes and as a penance I had a punishment of having a petit Norwegian bonde girl slap who I had sexually disappointed two days earlier slap me in the face.
That was back in 2011. I didn't attempt comedy again until 2013 when a friend of a friend was running a charity comedy event and pressured me into doing a warm up set for a pro. I literally told him how bad I was and he still insisted that I would do it. Only for him to complain to me for months after about how bad I was.
There's no wonder it's only been the last year or so that I've even attempted comedy again.
Don't do this.
Don't take your pubes on stage and actually write some material. I'm still not writing material properly, or practicing enough, so it'll be a long time before I make any waves in the stand up world. It's a grind, like anything else and needs due dilligence paid to understanding it. This is in largely in terms of what a joke is, or if you're telling a story knowing how to punctuate it with jokes at the right moments, or just editing so that you don't ramble incoherently.
