Allow me to begin by admitting that I’m not proud of what I’m about to tell you.
That said, open mics, a horrible spectacle in which comics pay $5.00 – $12.00 for the honor of trying out premises in front of other comics, can be brutal. Yes, some mics are free. Generally, those mics are too early in the day for me to attend. I need, say, a 7:30pm mic, which means I simply don’t have as many options.
Tonight’s was just awful. I was one of five women, which is common, and is not the bad part. What was horrendous was that I was one of the last comics to get on stage, which means I listened to about 20 men between the ages of 16 and 60 perform before I got up. That doesn’t necessarily have to be a negative thing. There are good male comics aplenty; however, tonight’s showing . . . I have no words. A bad or wonderful habit, depending on how you look at it, that I’ve gotten into is keeping a running scratch pad of other people’s jokes topics while I wait my turn. Tonight’s were especially pro-woman (ha!). See above.
What BLEW MY MIND is that two young guys each took a chair out of the audience and dragged it on stage and proceeded to SIT during their four minute sets. I’m almost six months pregnant, 39 years old, and I worked a nine hour work day before coming to the mic. If I can stand on stage for four minutes, why can’t they?
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