Stand-up comedy adventures

On my way home from work yesterday Frank called to see if I wanted to go with him to see Martha do some stand-up at the Comedy Union. Danny and Katherine were going to be there, and I hadn't seen them since their wedding, plus Martha is genuinely funny, so I figured why not.

We got there on time, and I immediately realized that I had been to the Comedy Union before, way back when, to see Mike do stand-up. I was right at the front of the stage at a table with Sam, Danny, and Katherine, but no comics picked on me the entire night. Apparently no one had any Harry Potter material prepared. Thumbs up!

Martha was hysterical, as she has proven herself to be in the past, and several of the other comedians were really funny to, which was a nice change of pace from other stand-up shows that I've been to in the past. This one woman told a story about performing stand-up on Playboy TV that just KILLED. It was fantastic.

But of course not all of them were that funny. And I developed a new stand-up act last night in order to honor a position I've seen several stand-ups take. Here's my new, guaranteed awesome stand-up act!

Please welcome to the stage JEFF STONE!

"Hey, everybody! How y'all doing tonight? That's great, that's awesome. Hey, I'm so edgey and funny, you guys don't even know. I'm just so tired of this 'politically correct' stuff. It's like we can't make racist jokes anymore! Well tonight I'm breaking down the walls! I'm taking back our comedy! Black people steal stuff, am I right? 'Oooh' you say. Yeah, you're all uptight white people. It's not that my realiance on broad racial stereotypes is stupefyingly lazy! It's that you all are just a bunch of stuffed shirts! Huh? If I say that Mexicans are lazy and you don't laugh, that's on you, not me! It's our poltically correct culture that has totally brainwashed you guys! Well I'm ending all of that tonight! Tonight you WILL laugh at my jokes about how swishy gays are! Because you're the problem, not my shitty material! I'm the next brilliant, edgey comedian and you don't even know it! Have I mentioned how persecuted the straight white male is these days?"

Or something like that. I'm going to take that bit to the stage! And I guarantee that on the night I perform it at least one other comedian will do more or less the exact same bit except earnest! It's just sort of exasperating. Comics, I'm sorry the climate of the nation has changed so that nobody laughs at your tired race material anymore. Sorry you might have to actually do something original. Suck it up. (If you replaced the word "race" with "sex" in the previous paragraph, this could also serve as an open letter to the creators of The Man Show.)

ANYWAY, on our way out of the comedy club this woman who had also been at the show told me I loooked exactly like her son. She told Frank and me that her son had moved to Ohio with a girl and they hoped to open up a big anime/hentai store out there. Yes, she really did say "anime/hentai". I was momentarily tempted to ask her if she knew what hentai was (she wasn't super-old, but she had silver hair), but then I realized that it would be awkward no matter what answer she gave me. So Frank and I went on our merry way.

Afterwards we hit the Cat and Fiddle with some of Frank and Martha's friends, as well as several of the comedians who performed that night, and we drank a bit and had a grand old time. The evening wound down and I was thinking about heading home when all of a sudden motherfucking WENDELL PIERCE walked into the bar. You might also know him as THE BUNK. Anyway, he walked into the bar and then right back out again, so there's no cool story there. But it was cool to see him, since he plays one of my favorite characters on my favorite show. Plus he was in Hackers. Then I went home and fell asleep!