This week I was out of town on Tuesday but had signed up in advance for the Wednesday night open mic at another club. While driving back to St. Louis on Wednesday morning I was going over some new material that I’d worked on while out of town. Now the debate was do I try the new material or stick to some older solid stuff? I would let the mic decide.

And I opted to go with new stuff because the crowd wasn’t all that big. There were more comics there than outside audience members, so why not? Sometimes it helps to just practice new stuff because you can work on how you are going to say it. Yeah, it might or might not get laughs but open mics are all about practice. Or they should be.

I’ve heard multiple stories from various people on that. Practice at bar mics but bring your best to the club mics. Well, I don’t go to bar mics because they are always late at night and I have to work in the morning. But I’ve also heard you need to have three consistent funny sets at an open mic before you’re considered to host. Really?  Who’s keeping up with this? I doubt there’s a list on someone’s desk somewhere with little checks next to every comics’ name.

I do think a lot of it is just showing up and being seen. And that’s one of two reasons why I did this mic this week. First, I haven’t been there since May and there’s a new booker at the club. So it’s good to “be seen.” And second, I’m featuring at another club on Saturday so I really wanted to try out those new jokes at least once.

As for my jokes, one of them is definitely getting the response I wanted it to get so it’s a keeper. The other needs some work but afterwards I noticed the best punchline is in the middle of the joke. If I just move it to the end, it’ll work better. Wish me luck on Saturday!