Not so cosmic comedy
I used to co-run a comedy club and a more unfunny miserable experience you could not wish to suffer in the name of entertainment. I was awful and so was the venue.

As well as a small number of really great performers who have gone on to become moderately successful (a success I can claim no contribution to, in fact probably the opposite), there was an extremely high quotient of outright losers. I strongly believe that many of them were performing stand-up because it's cheaper than therapy. I had to put up with endless amounts of pretentious (and unfunny) twaddle from overly opiniated idiots and moderately posh London kids pretending to be working class. And they all thought they were Bill Hicks. They weren't even Dennis Leary. Do you have any idea what it's like to sit through a night of between six to twelve acts all parading the same nicked Bill Hicks, Woody Allen or even PJ O'Rourke gags? It's not good I can tell you.

The most pretentious act was this utter loser who basically ranted and shouted for about seven and a half minutes, overstaying his welcome by about seven minutes. The climax of his act (ahem) was to flick wall-paper paste at the front row of the audience while shouting "Take my spunk you Bitches!" Only it wasn't actually as funny as that and the two girls he sexually assaulted in the front row really failed to understand the postmodernism of it all.

He claimed it was "performance art" as I dragged him off the stage. He said that "art required physical boundaries to be crossed" as I pushed him out the back door of the gig. I really hope he appreciated the unsubtle irony of me kicking him down a fairly long flight of stairs after that. I can honestly say that watching his ugly mug bouncing off steps, walls and then falling into a bloody heap at the bottom of the stairs ranks as one of the highlights of my short-lived and not very successful comedy career.

I'm better now. Mostly.
(Wascally Weasel now with 100% fewer jokes., Mon 3 Oct 2005, 14:50, Reply)