Mitcz.com : Official blog of Rev. Mitcz, the demented devilish comedian from Hollywood, CA.

So, I’ve got a gig tomorrow. Supposed to do a 15-20 minute set. Funny thing about comedy. Er.. god, that sentence needs to not sound like that. STRANGE thing about comedy – no matter how many 1000’s of comedy performances you’ve heard in your life, no matter how SURE you are that you’ve got your finger on the pulse of “what the kids are laughin’ at these days”, at the end of the day it’s just you and a pad of paper* staring back at you, begging you to write something funny. And you’re never really all that sure that you’ve got a winner. After all, that ain’t up to you to decide.

*Okay, so in my case I’m using digital “paper” by jotting notes on my computer, but you get the idea.

Generally speaking, the best ideas for comedy – the ones I feel most proud of when I’m jotting them down – are ones based on conversations I’ve had w/friends, where I’ve garnered ego-stroking hearty laughs from them. Those are the “keepers” that I try and commit to memory somehow, whether it be a quick note on a napkin, or something visual that will remind me. Maybe even a link on a website, in some cases. I’ve got to preserve that. Try to mark it down somewhere. Figure out how to maximize the funny. The idea is to capture the laughter into a mental jar, seal it up, keep it on a shelf and then pull it out and release it into the wild at the EXACT moment where it belongs and hope its days locked in the jar haven’t ruined its freshness. With a bit of luck, the joke(s) will be the wine that’s matured and gotten better while stowed away.

I was never that good in high school with remembering shit. Speeches. Lectures. Debates. I winged everything. I didn’t even do any homework. Seriously. Spent my entire high school career without doing any real homework. Inevitably, every teacher I had would pull me aside after class one day and give me the “you’re a bright, talented student with a great future – but you’re failing my class” speech. Over time (about late Sophomore year), I honed my negotiation skills immensely. I convinced each and every one of my teachers, from Sophomore year onward, to allow me to do “makeup work” to raise my grades, provided I could still pass the tests/quizzes based on the work I was way behind on making up. Most tests aren’t about what you know, anyway, they’re a game of either skill or chance (the choice is yours). I took “chance” as my option and taking into account all of my negotiations, and bullshitting my way through tests – I graduated high school with a 3.5 average.

I told you that to tell you this : I’ve known about tomorrow night’s gig for about a month now. I’ve got probably 3-4 hours of comedic material that I’ve NEVER used – and probably won’t use tomorrow night. I’ve got another 2 hours of material that I HAVE used before, and that I could pull out again. But that doesn’t feel right to me. I need a challenge to myself. I need to prove to myself time and time again that I’ve got the ability to make people laugh on my own terms, without gimmicky tricks or props or reusing tried-and-true old jokes. Going up onstage to perform is my “test”, to prove to myself that I actually understood all the “homework” I’ve been doing throughout my life – and not just getting lucky by filling in the right circles in the right places. Anyone, and I don’t care who you are, ANYONE, can sit down and write their “golden seven” – that initial 7 minutes of comedy that gives every comic their first chance to be funny onstage. Most use that as a building block – I used it as my first test. Where you separate the boys from the men the comics from the hobbyists, is when you can consistently deliver newer, funnier, better material. I’m still not sure I can do that, but I’m feeling more confident. My current highlight for the gig tomorrow is that I’ve worked out a bit that involves the KKK, Jews, Jesus Christ, Black Panthers, Pat Robertson, Gay People, The Devil, Women, and my ex-girlfriend. I told my best friend/roommate Nad only ONE line from the joke and he fell into a fit of laughter. So, that’s a keeper.

Someone, who I appreciate for speaking their mind, saw my show and watched a few online videos of my comedic performances (like here and here), told me the other day that he saw I had a lot of talent – but that I hadn’t found my “voice” yet. That’s a tricky thing, there. Something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. In most of my other ventures in life, I’ve been so loose with them that I never really had a definable “style”. If you were to look at every website I’ve ever designed and compare them, you’ll see very few common elements. The colors have no theme. The layouts rarely have a theme. There’s not a single thing about any of them that I can look at and go “okay, and now for my signature element/color/structure/image/technique”. Not to say I’m wildly diverse, because that sounds intentional, but.. I’m just chaotic. I’ve no “style”, I guess. If you’ve ever watched my show, Aural Salvation, and had to describe it to a friend who says “what’s it about?” you probably found yourself VERY hard-pressed to describe it to anyone. There’s no linking, definable theme. There’s no common thread – save for .. me. It’s just mad chaos. And so it goes w/my comedy. Sure, the intention is to come off like the outward asshole, pointing a finger at the world, with a secret disdain for himself that comes out in a few of the jokes – and telling jokes that without being finessed in JUST the right way would be horribly offensive to a lot of people, but for some reason you laugh because I’m just insane enough to be lovable. That’s the idea. What comes out is basically your slightly-above-average local comic, but with a mohawk and some piercings.

It happens every so often. Pretty much every time I’m preparing for a gig. I’m going over the whole set, 10-15 times in a row. In front of my camera, recording it each time and then watching it to see what needs to change. I sit and I look over in the mirror that sits behind my sprawled-out computer setup. I see this former high school rebel, studying and doing hard work and actually giving enough of a shit to sit and rehearse this shit over and over and over again until he feels it’s “just right” and then thinking “waitafuckingminutehere.. I signed up for this comedy thing so I could fuck around with a microphone and make some motherfuckers laugh. I’m not lookin’ to put myself back in high school studying for tests mentality”. And the task seems daunting. So, I procrastinate.

And I write articles like this, where I talk to myself for a little while.

But when I get up on that stage, and I KNOW my material, and I can feel every joke coming out, and I can feel the rush that pumps into me with every laugh I hear echoing in my head, and I can play with words and construct sentences slightly differently to work the mood of the crowd, and it’s all coming together..

Goddamnit I wish I could do that every moment of the day. I LOVE this shit. Bring it the fuck on. What’m I sittin’ here for? I’ve got writing to do…..

Diggin' my shit? Well then..