Well I was happy to get on my first open mic last night at Funnybone. Actually, they let all 22 people who signed up go up, plus they squeezed in a few more, but everyone only got to do three and half minutes.

I was anxious to get on stage. It’s the first mic of the year, and I had planned for it to be my first time trying out a new joke I’ve been working on for a while. Jokes are a lot like puzzles to me when writing them. I start with one or two pieces. I might step away from it for awhile. I don’t rush it. And eventually it all fits together and ready to try out.

I usually rehearse it out loud to myself in the car on the way to the club. I even added another piece to it in the car on the way there. I was way down on the set list so I pulled out my phone a few times and went over the joke in Evernote. I love using Evernote for that reason because I can make changes anywhere and it syncs to all of my devices.

Anyway, it was pretty obvious early on that everyone was not doing well. Most were bombing, and most were actually funny but just not getting good laughs. The audience just wasn’t going to loosen up and give in to the laughter. And it didn’t get any better for me. Eh, that’s why you forget about it and move on. Everyone else will forget too.

At least I got to try out the new joke and though I didn’t get the laughs I wanted, I worked it out on stage and that’s just as important. I have another show on Thursday this week which is an improv stand up show where all the material is made up on the spot thanks to audience suggestions. I’ve done it before and it’s a lot of fun and also good experience being on stage and in the moment.