I Blame Taylor Swift

Election time is coming around again and if your anything like me you’re getting really sick of hearing about all of it. So I’m gonna talk about an open mic I went to on Saturday and yes I blame the entire experience on Taylor Swift. Dam Taylor Swift why do you have to be so inspiring…. Especially to people that don’t have talent.

I went to an open mic Saturday because I missed my Thursday open mic (that’s a post for another day). If I havent told you I’m working on some comedy stuff, you know stand up comedy. So doing horrible is all part of the process so I decided I would just get started. Anyway fast forward to last Saturday and the room filled up with people with instruments. They all look really young, so I hate em already (not really but kinda). I figure this will be fun because I love music and especially live music and then I also get to go on stage so this is gonna be awesome right, WRONG!

The first band goes up and instantly I can tell that I have shoes older than most of the band. To make things worse this is west Texas, a desert, and these guys are wearing those ski caps…. In the middle of the summer in Texas. With all these things working against them there is one band member that looks like Uh Huh from the Little Rascals movie so I figure I’ll judge their music. They start playing and suddenly I wish I could have made it to the Thursday open mic. I give them props for trying but this stuff sucks and it appears that no one around them is letting them know that. They were even selling Cds which I found hilarious. Don’t get me wrong I’m all for encouraging someone that is working towards something but I get jealous when someone is funnier than me without even trying.

I blame Taylor Swift. She was writing music and performing it like a prodigy and just had an emotional depth that was just so relatable to her audience. Now it seems that her audience thinks they are all the same, because arent we all special. I especially blame Taylor Swift for the blonde girl that went up with a guitar. The poor girl couldn’t sing and not in the American Idol “she doesn’t have a big voice” but she didn’t sound good. It just made me sad. Well, I guess its not just Taylor Swift but thats who I’m blaming because I’m a grown man and I love her music (that seems like something I should have kept to myself but oh well).

The thing that made it worse is that they would never get the hell off the stage, the ear rape just went on and on and on and on and…….

　

The Art Of The Open Mic

Recently I have been going to the local open mic and if you have never been to one I highly suggest going. The open mic is a magical land where the things you say can actually be heard by a group of disgruntled people looking for an outlet. The particular open mic that I have been going to is for “comedy.” I’m from a town with no comedy except for the stray comedian that comes through here every now and then, so expectations are pretty low and I’m happy about that.

The first time I went there weren’t that many people and their rule is that the longer you have been going the earlier you get to go on stage, which really sucks for the new guy. So, if its your first time you get to sit through everybody’s jokes and the fear will paralyze your ear drums and you wont even be able to hear anything. You keep looking over your jokes because most of the time you wont have the foresight to memorize it anyway. Looking over the jokes you realize that none of it is funny like you thought it was (relax that just the pre-stage jitters) so you start to mark off any and all the jokes you think wont get a laugh. As you run out of material you begin to consider that maybe its just nerves that have made you mark all these lines on your notes.

And after the torture of having to wait the whole time then it becomes your moment. Here’s a tip for the first timer, don’t sit too far in the back because you’ll want to get to the stage while they’re still clapping, for self esteem purposes. Then they call your name and your heart starts racing, you get up and your knees are weak. You walk on stage concentrating on not falling down. Raising your head you see all the hopeful faces waiting for you to make them laugh. You’re in luck, they’re on your side.

Now its time to be funny.