Love and Betrayal

My cat, Lois Lane, is an inside cat. Recently, she found her way outside. She was gone for 3 days and refused to return. She started hanging out with 2 other neighborhood cats. One of them is a cat I’ve never liked. He looks like thug! The cat has stripes and one of those stripes

You Will Never Be An Overnight Success

Not getting the recognition, as a stand up comedian, that you think you deserve? Are you only hosting shows but think you should have a shot of featuring or even headlining? Or maybe, you’ve only had an opportunity to perform at open mic’s but think you should be given an opportunity at hosting a professional

Can You Win Them Over?

In a previous blog, I wrote about passing several milestones on your way to stand up comedy success. I’ve mentioned how it will take years to hone, perfect and get to the level every aspiring comedian dreams of. Tonight, I add one more notch to my journey. Allow me to set the scene. Five comedians

How Many People Do You Need to Have a Good Stand Up Comedy Show?

The answer to the title of this blog is, six. Yup, that’s all you need. At least, that’s all I needed.  Last night was my Headlining debut at a local El Paso, Texas bar called Coconuts. The promoter has run that show for over 3 years now, every week on Tuesdays. For the most part,

Stand Up Comedy Inspiration From an Unlikely Source

This past weekend, my beautiful better half, took me to a Tegan and Sara concert. Tegan and Sara are a Canadian sister group who started out simply as a guitar playing duo. Now that they have achieved a certain level of mainstream success, they are certainly poised to get even bigger. During the concert, which

Think Classy, You’ll Be Classy

“Your shower shoes have fungus on them. You’ll never make it to the bigs with fungus on your shower shoes. Think classy, you’ll be classy. If you win 20 in the show, you can let the fungus grow back on your shower shoes and the press’ll think you’re colorful. Until you win 20 in the

Bombing; When Being in a Room Full of People Makes You Feel Alone

Bombing, (not getting any laughs while on stage), is not only a learning experience, it is an absolute certainty in the business of stand up. Last night was one of those nights for me. I will not make any excuses about why my set did not do so well. I will attempt to describe the

Stand Up Comedy is not Always Funny

Aside from the technical aspect of stand up, and the boring, mundane process of writing, the least funny side of the business is watching other comics stop performing. There is a side to every comic that thinks, “Cool, that’s one less comedian I have to compete with.” Then, there is that other side that is

A Joke in its Infancy

It always amazes me when a new joke comes out of the gate and works! This bit has a lot of the joke writing elements to it that are crucial to its success. Rather than get in to the technical aspect of the joke, I’ll let you just enjoy it!

Doing the Same Jokes

One of the biggest obstacles facing a stand up comic is the constant repeating of the same material. It’s not much of a big deal when you are performing your set in front of a different audience every night, but it becomes quite a dilemma when performing in front of friends and family that have