It'll Be A Riot!

I'm doin' my stand-up thing this Tuesday, December 2, 7:30pm at the Stonewall Inn, birthplace of the modern gay-rights movement. What was that sound like thunder you ask? That was the sound me becoming even gayer than I already was. Buwahahahaha!

Oh, and it'll be freakin' funny. The line up is awesome.

Leah Dubie
Hilary Schwartz
Dale Sorenson
Cara Kilduff
Vicki Ferentinos
Jason Verlaine
Jeffrey Johns

No cover. Two drink minimum. Produced by the awesome Wesley Cannon.

Here's a map.

Special Halloween Comedy Show

SuperEgo Comedy has a fabulous new show at a fabulous new location, Ochi's Lounge downstairs at Comix. To celebrate, Michelle and I are having a Halloween show with stand-up comedy in costume! There will be laughs. There will be horror. There will be candy. So come on down! No cover for audience and only 1 drink or food item minimum.

If you've been waiting for a special night to check it out, this is it! And if you want to see me, fabulous me be sure to be on time. I am opening the show.



Friday, October 31st @ 7:00 PM
353 West 14th Street, Chelsea (map)
Between 8th and 9th Avenue
A/C/E Train to 14th Street; L Train to 8th Ave

A Night To Remember

Last night I had the privilege of seeing Eddie Izzard perform live at Radio City Music Hall. I say privilege because there's something very special about RC. Not only is it a fabulous hall, but if all goes well, you get to see what is very likely one of the greatest moments in the life of a performing artist. So shows at RC are infused with a special energy that few other venues can offer. It's pure magic.

The show, "Stripped" was great. I'll buy the DVD whenever it comes out.

How Life Becomes Standup

People are often curious about where standup comes from and how life gets turned into material for a comedy act. The questions are often phrased in rather egocentric ways. Here are some of them and the replies I'd give if I weren't as sweet and pleasant as I am.

After saying something only mildly funny: "Oh, you're gonna use that in your act now, aren't you? You better send me a royalty check."

Reply: "No I'm not going to use that. It wasn't that good."

After saying something that is actually very funny: "Don't go putting me in your act."

Reply: "Don't worry. You're not interesting enough to put in my act and I only enjoy talking about myself."

After I say something funny: "That was funny. You should put that in your act."

Reply: "It wouldn't work in my act. That joke was custom tailored to the circumstances of this moment and to you. Stripped of context it would no longer be funny."

Whether or not real-life funny can be turned into standup hinges on whether or not the context can be reestablished for an audience who wasn't there and isn't the person for whom the occurrence was originally funny. This is what the "set up" is for. If context can be established quickly with an economy of language then you might just have the basic ingredients of a joke.

Anytime an attempted retelling of a story ends with "well I guess you had to be there" it is a failure to establish context. Another common version of this is "well I guess you'd have to know Julie." Which, by the way, is why I avoid telling long stories about people my listener doesn't know. They're boring.

So it's actually pretty rare that I'm interested in turning something funny from real life into standup for two reasons. Either context would be impossible to establish or depends on too many things to establish quickly. Or the joke isn't about me. Telling a joke about someone else requires that I establish them as a character in the narrative. Since I'd much rather talk about myself I don't usually bother.

I do have a few characters I use in my act. If I can make a joke about one my recurring characters it's far more likely to become standup. My characters are:

• Dumb Straight Boys
• Guys I'm Hitting On
• People Who Annoy Me (Computards, Whiny Chicks, My Family)
  

All of these characters serve the same narrative purpose, I need people to whom I can condescend.

---

Enough! If you've made this far then I owe you some funny. Remember the guy who called me "heteronormative"? It took a few days to gestate but it's turned into a nice little bit. I performed it at SuperEgo this week and it killed.

HETERONORMATIVE, THE BIT
I was chatting up this cute college boy and he says, "I love your beard, it's so heteronormative."

/big laugh

Not tuff, or butch, or manly.

(slowly) Het-er-o-NORM-a-tive.

/small laugh

Conforming to societal gender norms.

So I said, "Hey, You're a women's studies major aren't you?"

/big laugh

(act out his reaction of surprise during the laugh) "How did you know?"

(dripping with sarcasm) I'm psychic.

/small laugh

I've got an idea. Let's go back to my place. We can bring down the patriarchy of the military industrial complex with our homo-AB-normative butt sex.

/big laugh

There's a gender equality revolution in my pants and you're invited.

/big laugh

HETERONORMATIVE, THE ANALYSIS
Notice how many of the details get stripped out of the story to turn it into standup. You don't need to know where he was from, that he was wasted, or that I wasn't actually interested in hooking up with him. The only details needed are that he's in college and that we were flirting.

Notice the streamlining of language, events and reactions. It faster and smoother to say I was chatting him up than to say I was being chatted up by him. Notice how the choice of "chatting up" instead of "talking with" implies a bar setting. "Chatting up" also implies a sexually charged conversation and agenda. These two words paint the whole scene making them a very efficient set up.

The term heteronormative is so odd, it sounds so strange in the ear, and it's use in a pickup line is so patently absurd that the first laugh doesn't even have a punch line. Really the first laugh is still set up for what is to come.

The word is so inherently funny that it gets another laugh, albeit milder, when I say it again slowly. This is fortunate because for a lot of people I bet this is the first time they've heard the word. So it must be defined before I can continue. Usually the need to define a word means there's something wrong with a joke. But here it works.

Usually I avoid repeating words in a joke. Because once you've used a word, the second utterance usually has diminished effect. But this joke bit uses "norm" repeatedly in different forms. This is so I can do the joke that hinges on turning "normal" to "abnormal". I put a strong stress on the "ab" syllable, making it stand out.

The structure of this bit worked out so nicely. It's tight, about a minute, with 6 jokes, that's awesome. It starts with a big laugh and ends on two big laughs.

When I first started doing standup, I would tell these long winding stories with good laughs, but way too much extraneous stuff. It's all I knew how to do. The problem was the laughs were so far apart that the audience would cool off between each one so I wouldn't get any build up of momentum.

Now I know how collapse a story down now to just the bare essentials. I get in, I crank as many laughs out of a premise as I can as quick as I can, and I get out while it's still fresh.

Even the best premise can run dry if you go to the well too many times. So I always try to work a bit for one less joke than it's worth.

---

P.S. I wrote my first holocaust joke this week. It's about butt sex. I can not tell you how deeply satisfying this is for me. The hope that I created the world's first holocaust/butt sex joke makes me profoundly happy. And before you ask, the answer is "no". I'm not going to post it here. It's just too raunchy and I gotta save something for the show.

I'm All Squishy Now

Michelle wrote a really sweet blog post about our comedy partnership and our show in which she characterizes us as "dommy control freaks". She sure does have a way with words.

Stand-up is a solitary art. Sometimes it's even a bit lonely. So having a partner is a load of fun. We inspire each other, support each other and relieve each other when one of us is sick of it all.

We manage different parts of the show and it's that division of responsibilities that helps keep things going. I have no doubt that even if one of us had managed to start this thing on our own, alone we'd have given it up ages ago. When I just can't cope, it's a great relief to have someone to call and say, "Honey, would you hold the baby?

Thanks for two great years, babe. You rock my world.

SuperEgo Slash -- Behind the Scenes

For three months leading up to our second anniversary show neither Michelle nor I had any idea what we were going to do. We kept having the same conversation.

"You got anything?"

"No. You got anything?"

"No."

"How about now?"

"No."

"Now?"

We talked about doing another roast, but I felt like after my huge-boobed performance last year as Michelle I really had no where to go. Then this happened....

The Making of SuperEgo Slash
I was reading The Absolutely True Ball Story by Evan Jacobs. It's a charming and romantic tale of a boy who gets stoned, accidentally ties his balls in a knot and goes to the emergency room for this first homosexual experience and an anal probe.

Since we both know Evan I sent the link to Michelle as a laugh. My interest in the story inspired her to write a single line parody in an email....

"I felt his knit tie, soft but scratchy, rubbing against my bare heaving chest...."

This had me on the floor laughing. So I dared Michelle to write a slash fiction story about me and quickly decided to write my own about her.

And so, only 30 hours before the show, we finally found our theme.

We decided to coordinate our performances in a deadpan Masterpiece Theater style. But we did not share drafts.

So the whole time I was writing about her, I wondered what she was writing about me. Specifically I was worried about whether I was going to be the top or the bottom in Michelle's story. I could just see myself ending up at the bottom of some bitch pile.

---

The Show
We opened the show with our readings and as you can see in the videos it went well. I really liked the quick/slow rhythms and rising/falling tones of Michelle performance.

In his biography, Steve Martin relates how some years ago he changed the fundamental structure of his comedy. Instead of using obvious punch lines to tell the audience when to laugh, he left it to the audience to decide for themselves when to laugh.

A little nervous about how this whole thing would play, I decided to follow Martin's example and not telegraph any attempts at jokes. As far as I was concerned this was fine literature. This allowed me to relax and give exactly the performance I'd wanted to give. Although it wasn't easy getting there.

I had a lot of trouble with my rehearsals right up until the very last one. I was unable to resist my usual urge to ham it up, which is a form of begging for laughs. But when I put on the suit, everything just clicked right into place. Interesting how the clothes allowed me to finally get to where I wanted and knew I needed to be.

After our stories we put up 18 comics. There were a variety of themes to the reactions.

Several girls said they felt slighted at having been left out of the "lesbian montage".

Straight men and lesbians alike agree that I don't know a damn thing about lesbian sex. This is true.

I'd wanted to include female ejaculation in the story but didn't for two reasons. First, I wanted to keep it classy. Second, I had absolutely no idea how to get there.

The erotic parts of Girl Talk read like a 14-year-old straight, virgin male's first attempt at a letter to Hustler. This was intentional. But I still don't know anything about girl parts.

In my defense, Girl Talk is not actually a lesbian story. Slash fiction was invented by straight women and it's almost always about straight male characters, Kirk/Spock, Han/Luke, Frodo/Sam. It's called slash fiction because of the slash in the pairings. The top is always first. So in an Aragorn/Legolas story, Aragorn fucks Legolas. (That little blond bitch wanted it.)

But I digress.

So Girl Talk is not a lesbian story. Knowing I hadn't the foggiest clue about how to get a vagina into a narrative I consciously wrote it as a straight girl on straight girl boob domination scene. This subtle distinction may not matter to the casual listener, but it's the basis for the narrative.

Several phrases captured people's imaginations. Michelle's "Take those off, you're way sexier without them," was a favorite, as were her inspired lines about stubble and pleats in pants.

I particularly liked Michelle's poetic, "Male confusion of belts and buttons and underwear."

My utterly laughable, "moist erotic love knobs" seemed to be a memorable phrase repeated a few times in the show. Like so many lines, I wrote it to be as cliché and ridiculous as possible. Which was the point of the whole thing. Porn out of the context of arousal is ludicrous.

But the phrase that really took on a life of it's own was, "Boob Slave". Several comics, including Michelle, straight boys and a real, live lesbian said they'd all like their own boob slaves.

A new service industry is born.

---

Epilogue
Having watched the videos a few times now what sticks with me most is how flattering Michelle's story is. Not because I ended up on top (I did) or because it casts me in a positive light (it does). Rather, the effort itself is quite a compliment.

What better way to star in your own porno without the awkwardness of having to take your clothes off for the camera?

Dale Sorenson with Huge Tits

It's the SuperEgo Comedy 2nd Anniversary Show this Thursday the 17th at 7pm at the Parkside Lounge. Hooray!

At our first anniversary show, New York comics had a blast ripping each other to shreds. I did my impression of Michelle Dobrawsky, trashed some of my buddies and parodied straight boys' bad gay jokes.

So here it is at last ... your chance to see me with *huge* tits.



My victims were ...

• Michelle Dobrawsky, my ample-bosomed comedy partner,
  
• John Morrison, host of several great stand-up shows around town,
• Evan Jacobs, who wears ties constantly for no discernible reason,
• Eudi Paz, a little man with tiny hands,
• Nicole Cunningham, refined, elegant and the only black woman I've ever known who's been to finishing school,
• Dan Upham, whose girlfriend of nine years is his high school sweetheart,
• Stacy Honeycutt, whose had a bit of work done, and
• annoying straight boys ... who deserve all the ridicule they get.
  

Art by Accident

So often art is accident. Take these photos of me taken the fabulous and talented John Morrison for example. The very red lights at SuperEgo Comedy wreak havoc with light balance. And yet, I really like how they look. In fact, rarely in my life have I felt a photo has both flattered me as much as these and captured how I like to think of myself in my own mind.






Thanks for the fab pics and the confidence boost, John. You're tops!

Revived, Repurposed and Redeemed

Instead of one of my usual, malcontented rants, I thought I'd post something that actually complies with the stated purposed of this blog, just to be different.

Two years ago I wrote Ode to the XBox 360 as a satirical blog essay. I liked it and decided to try to perform it as stand up. It failed utterly. But I remained convinced that it could performed and enjoyed in some other form.

I dusted it off, edited the intro slightly and performed it for the Nerd Poetry Slam at the Bowery Poetry Club this week. What fun!

It was my first time performing at a spoken word event and it was a smashing success. The crowd was jammed with nerds. The host wore a T-Shirt bearing the image of The Simpsons Comic Book Guy and asked questions about Star Trek and Muppets.

Anyone who failed the trivia challenge was mocked by audience chants of "Not a nerd! Not a nerd!"

Where previously the bit had failed, it worked here for four reasons.

1. Most importantly, it was the right crowd.

2. The writing conformed to the format of the event.

3. While the changes were minor, the edited intro set up set the tone of satire and condescension rather nicely.

4. My performing skill has increased dramatically. I'm still no Sir Ian McKellen and I never will be. But I was able to project a variety of emotions and use a variety of vocal and mic techniques to punctuate the bit. I really enjoyed what I was doing and felt in command of the performance.

The event was judged and I didn't win. But I didn't care. I got what I wanted out of it and had a lot of fun.



Oddly, they played a continuous video of 80s cartoon toy ads behind the performers during the show. At a stand up club this would be unheard of and fatally distracting. But somehow it worked. Having the Transformers behind me as I sing the praises of a video game console seems to fit in some strange way.

The cherry on my ice cream Sunday of nerd came at the end. After the last performance the theme to the original Battlestar Galactica was played and the host started in on the monologue. He made a mistake and in the rather raucous atmosphere I chided him, "get it right!" He asked if I knew it and when I affirmed he surrendered the mic.

With the music rising to a majestic crescendo I stormed the stage, and with the crowd cheering recited....


Fleeing from the Cylon tyranny,
the last Battlestar, Galactica,
leads a rag-tag fugitive fleet on a lonely quest:
a shining planet ... known as Earth!


I felt like a rock star!

Do Aliens Laugh?

The more you think about laughter, the less sense it makes. I tell you a story with an inherent contradiction or impossibility and you have an emotional reaction which releases certain pleasant chemicals in your brain and usually inspires you to create one of a general set of particular rhythmic sounds. So great is our love of these improbable stories and observations and the reactions they elicit in us that we create designated places where we go to be reasonably well assured that such stories will be told and such reactions will be had.

How odd.

I sometimes wonder if we were visited by aliens what they would think of humor in general and the strange phenomenon of comedy clubs in particular.

"Ask The Next Question"

Bam! Boom! Ba-Da-Bing! Ba-Da-Boom!

That's it!

That's the answer!

. . .

Perhaps I should back up.

. . .

Last night I asked the crowd , "Is anyone getting laid."

A woman cheered so I asked her, "who are you sleeping with?"

She said, "an Iranian arms dealer."

So you want to know what I did with this golden gem of a setup handed to me on a silver platter?

Nothing. Not a God dammed thing.

I couldn't think of anything immediately funny so I panicked and dropped it.

Nice job, comic boy.

I'm a fabulous conversationalist (if I do say so myself). But I've always felt my crowd work was weak.

If a woman told me at a cocktail party that she was sleeping with an Iranian arms dealer a hundred questions would jump to mind.

Do you get free guns with that?
So that's it? We're totally out of fuckable American men?
Are terrorists good in bed?

When making social conversation I've very good at hooking into a topic that I think is interesting or amusing. I've been trying to bring this into my act. But there's been something missing and I haven't been able to put my finger on it, until after last night's show.

My formula for crowd work has been.

1. Ask a question.
2. Say something funny.

This has only worked on preselected topics where I have templated responses ready to go. But it doesn't work for general conversation. We've all met that jackass who thinks he's hilarious who makes lame, forced jokes at everything. He's using this formula.

But true, open-ended, anything-can-happen crowd work is much more like cocktail party conversation. The way I make conversation is to get people talking about themselves and then to engage them on the topics they raise. And the formula for that is very simple.

1. Ask a question.
2. Ask the next question.

That's it.

That's the simple key to crowd work I've been trying to figure out.

Ask questions and the funny will tend to itself.

And slowly I learn.

Super Mega Show Report

I'm a smidge behind on blogging about shows. So here's a catch up round up.

PHILLY

Kelli's Farewell Philly Show was awesome. I've performed for Kelli's room twice before and as they say, third time's a charm.

The one-woman marketing bonanza that is Kelli Dunham filled the place. The girl knows how to pack a room.

Right before the show ... "I'm ready for my close up."

Knowing what to expect going in this time I adapted my set list. I have several bits of which I'm very fond which don't play well for straight crowds. But they come alive when I do them for lesbians. Giving up a few fat chick jokes is a small price to pay for this transaction.

I still offended them a few times. But the difference is, this time I did it on purpose. I tweaked their noses with a little twinkle in my eye and a grin on my face.

But mostly we all just had fun together. There were a ton of dykes into polyamory so my riff on that subject brought the house down.

I mentioned the word and then said, "for the two people in this room who don't know what polyamory is ..."

They laughed so hard I had to stop and wait. Sensing an opportunity I dug in deeper.

"... for the two people in this room not actively engaged in the practice of polyamory at this very moment ..."

This got another huge laugh, especially from the people there with several of their polyamorous partners.

It was a good crowd and these were some of the best laughs I've ever gotten ... ever. It's not hard to figure out why. It was about them. It was about their interests. And it was very, very connected to what was happening in the room at that moment.

These connections are difficult to force. But they're easy when I just keep an eye out for an opportunity. As in normal conversation, the best joke is the spontaneous one that is relevant to the topic at hand.

"THAT'S NOT FUNNY!"

After the Philly show I got another PC speech along the lines of, "that joke offended me so you shouldn't do it." This time it didn't throw me the way it did last time. I asked her why she didn't like it. And then in the middle of what was actually a pleasant and stimulating discussion I said, "by the way, that's one of my best jokes and I have absolutely no intention of deleting it." The conversation continued and I was just amused by the whole thing.

Although, I continue to marvel that people have the audacity to make such a request/demand. It's one thing to say, "I didn't like it." It's another thing entirely to demand the absolute deletion of a work so that no one else may ever experience it.

I think I'll start asking joke objectors this question, "If you went to the MoMA and part of a painting offended you, would you demand that part be blotted over so that no one else may ever see it?"

It's not as thought I don't know how they feel. I hang out in comedy rooms full of straight boy comics. So I get offended all the time. A guy actually did some "homo" jokes in my room this week ... IN MY FUCKING ROOM!

You go to the gay comic's show to try out "homo" jokes?!?! SHEESH! That's pretty fuckin' balls-y.

I chuckled and shook my head. But I didn't say anything to him and I certainly didn't demand he stop doing the joke. Moreover, I did chuckle. The jokes were, in fact, funny. It's good to be offended now and then. They're just jokes.

ALL ABOUT KELLI

The Philadelphia Weekly has a great article on the strange and fabulous life Kelli has led. I learned lots of stuff about my favorite dyke that I didn't know. I'm quoted. I said lots of eloquent stuff in the interview about Kelli. Alas, the quote the reporter chose makes me sound like an inarticulate retard. Nothing says stupid like emphasizing a point with "really, really."

Here's the quote I wished they'd used. "Kelli has such a strong, natural charisma, she draws people to her without realizing she's even doing it. Spending a night on the town with Kelli is like chasing a giant, ever-growing snowball down a hill. You start the evening with 4 people and by the end of the night you have a fabulous, interesting, creative group of 20."

STRETCHING TO LONGER SETS

I achieved something I'm pretty proud of at the Brooklyn and Philly shows. I did two, almost 30 minute shows without using a written set list on stage. Before that, the longest set list I'd ever held in my head was 12 minutes. I still had a written set list on hand. But I had resolved to not look at it while performing unless I completely blanked.

The first time, getting ready was really hard. I took 4-5 hours. But I was determined to give up this crutch. The second time ... no problem. The skill has now been acquired. It just takes a certain amount of prep and discipline.

POLYAMORY BIT EXPERIMENT

When I got back from Philly, I decided to see if the polyamory riff could be turned into a bit that stands on it's own. I edited it and tried it at SuperEgo. Mostly it didn't work. I got some chuckles. But, not surprisingly, without the relevancy the material didn't get the response. The one solid laugh the bit did get was when I asked if anyone had heard of polyamory. Only one person responded. So I called her a "slut". That was connected to the room. So it worked.

That's fine. I expected a mediocre response and mostly I was proving a point to myself. I can file that bit away and haul it out when it's relevant to the crowd.

It's fun building a repertoire like this. I've got a nice little menu of bits to choose from these days. It's small but growing. And it helps with crowd work. The larger my bit menu becomes, the better the chance an audience member will say something that provides a hook into a bit.

It's all about looking for those opportunities to create a connection. A mediocre joke can kill when it's relevant.

GAYEST NERD ON THE PLANET

One day at comedy club, Leil David asked my why I carry two PDAs with me everywhere I go. I replied that while I organize my life on the Treo, the only good mobile application for playing the card game of bridge is only available for PocketPC. So, naturally, I need both.

This makes perfect sense to me.

After a moment of considered silence Leil says to me, "Dale your whole act is about being a big gay nerd ... and that is the gayest, nerdiest thing I have ever heard in my entire life."

This struck me funny, so I did what comics do ... I tried to turn it into a bit. Alas, the difference between mobile OS platforms (Palm vs. PocketPC) is too obscure for a general audience to work as a premise. (Guess that's another one I'll have to save for when I headline Linux World.)

But this observation by Leil an some other factors led me to new theme....

"I am on a personal quest to become the gayest nerd on the planet."

This theme has provided fuel for some great writing lately.

Even more satisfyingly, it has provided a link between the opening gay joke in my audition set and the nerd material that comes after it. I have struggled for six months with three sentences and the best segue I could come up with was clumsy at best, and a non-sequitur at worst. I'd been so frustrated with this for so long I finally had to just leave it alone.

But now I've got the perfect link and set up for my nerd material all in one. Prior to this, the nerd jokes lacked cohesion and all just sort of lay together in an unstructured pile, like dirty laundry on the floor. Now they all support an idea.

Thanks for the inspiration, Leil! You rock, buddy.

THE JOY OF RANT

Last week was really frustrating. (Don't ask.) So when SuperEgo came around I wasn't sure what to do. I'd written some material about how I'm too old for gay pride. As the day wore on and the show drew closer my personal emotions began to mix with the material and it hit me that I was in the perfect mood to do an angry set.

So I dug up a few angry jokes and did a whole anti-gay pride rant. It hit the jackpot. Much funny was had.

Angry material feels both dangerous and powerful to me. It's fun and scary to wield such strong emotions. The smart and super funny Sue Ball said to me after the show, "I like the angry stuff. You seem like a ranter."

I am a ranter. In real life, I rant almost constantly. It's pretty much my default mode of communication. I have opinions about virtually everything. It's a constant battle trying to keep them from getting me into trouble. And yet, this is a component of my personality I rarely bring into my act.

The thing I'm trying to wrap my brain around is how to integrate the ranting with my other material which is much more cute and charming. When I've tried to put both into the same set in the past, the audience seems to get emotional whiplash. Not surprising, I suppose, when I can go from endearing to jackass in 2.0 seconds flat. I'm not sure how to guide them through that. So they end up recoiling at the sudden hostility and I lose them.

Charming works by itself. Angry works by itself. I'm not sure if charming and angry can ever meet.

Maybe I should just give up all the nice stuff and become the gay Lewis Black.

One way or the other, the fact that this stuff scares me means I should probably explore it.

That is all.

SuperUpdate

I updated the SuperEgo Comedy website with a new photo logo I made with my cell phone. This lame effort and the stunning change from center justified to left justified upgrades the design from "vile" to merely "butt ugly".

"One day mens' courage will fail when they behold the beauty of a site with actual graphics and stuff, but it is not this day!" (I think I heard that in a movie.)

The show, on the other hand, is anything but ugly. Going into the summer, Michelle and I were worried about turn out dropping off. But with the Tuesday Motel on break for the summer we've got more awesome comics begging to play than ever before. (Thanks for all the good times, John Morrison!)

I've begun to think of our little baby as, "the show that doesn't suck for comics that don't suck." Now there's a slogan that'll sell!

Dykeland(tm)

I'm in Philly to open for Kelli Dunham at her fabulous Gayety! going away show. (She's moving to the west coast.)

Join us tonite at 8pm at Joe Coffee.

Since Kelli is the only person I know well in Philly, I hang out with all her friends while I'm here. And since Kelli is a big fat dyke, all her friends are big fat dykes. So Philly has become Dykeland(tm) for me.

Kelli's world is full of constant gender bending ... mostly accidental. Little did I know these experiences are contagious.

Dale: "That guy who made my latte at the coffee bar this morning was really cute."

Kelli: "That guy at the coffee bar used to be a girl. She was a lesbian. But now he sleeps with guys. That way he's still queer. All the female-to-male transexuals are doing it these days. You'd like him. I hear he takes it up the ass."

Jackpot!

I always did like feminine men.

Now excuse me won't you? I'm going back to the coffee bar to flirt with the adorable she-boy. I'm so excited. I might just get to have my first transgender sexual experience. Wheeeee!

The "Do Over" Show

Enough with the distraction and filler! Here's an entry that actually fits the stated purpose of this blog.

Catharsis @ Cattyshack on Monday was surprisingly enjoyable and provided a startling number of insights for a crowd of ten people. And it marked a number of milestones.

• First show in Brooklyn.
• First show in a dyke bar.
• Longest set(s) on a NYC stage (28 mins+15 mins=43 mins).
• Longest set performed without notes.
• First show with a "do over".

My previous, mostly lesbian crowds have been fairly PC. So I did autobiographical, self-satirical and gay-inspirational material and it went well. They were with me and laughed. But I could see their self-consciousness. So I kept the pace up to keep the show from dragging.

After my set I hung out with the crowd drinking about joking. Everyone told me I was really funny. But one person actually said she was reluctant to laugh because of the small crowd and a second person immediately agreed. I knew what was going on but was surprised that they were actually aware of this themselves as audience members. I wondered ... how does a comic help a small crowd get past this inhibition?

As we chatted, I noticed they were far raunchier than I'd expected. I realized in retrospect I had played it safe ... nothing too offensive or overtly sexual. I commented that "I should have done an all-dick-and-ass set." Athena offered to put me up again at the end of the show for an encore set.

So I wrote another set list of all my dirty jokes ... it ran 15 minutes and looked something like this....

• Gayest Thing Ever
• Kissing Dominicans
• Pick Ups
• Hand Jobs
• Screamers
• Two Fingers
• Gay Porn
• Fucking Harry Potter

I started in and they went nuts. The drunk dykes wanted, "wet, hot, dripping pussy jokes," like I was some kind of comedy juke box. Not having written any of those (go figure) I just took to just yelling out "Pussy!" in between jokes or when their attention wandered. They would reply "Pussy!" and hoot and cheer. It was hilarious. I didn't matter if a joke got a laugh or not. 'Cause I could just yell "Pussy!" and get a huge response. The word was magic.

I was more nervous doing this material in front of my little brother than I was doing the stuff making fun of Mormons (which he is). I got to "Two Fingers" and I was like, "Jeeze, I can't do this in front of my little brother." He egged me on. The crowd egged me on. So I did it. Along with various bullshit claims that, oh no, I'd never finger fucked a stripper in an East Village bar ... the bit is hypothetical.

Yeah, right.

My first set did well for the size of the crowd. But the "do over" was much stronger, even though not all the jokes got laughs. I've been thinking a lot the last few days about why.

I'm certain there are factors I haven't wrapped my head around yet, but here's what I've got so far....

• We'd gotten to know each other a little.
• We'd all been drinking.
• I engaged the crowd more directly.
• So they engaged me back.
• Dirty jokes were what they wanted at the time. (Although I don't know if they would have wanted the same thing earlier in the evening.)
• I was more relaxed.
  
• Having already accomplished my "agenda" I had nothing at stake, and therefore was more relaxed, not that I was tense for the first set. But I felt a responsibility deliver the show. Having done this, I felt no responsibility during the "do over".
• I'd abandoned my previous assumptions and expectations.
  
• I felt more in command of the stage the second time. Whereas the first time I felt I was carrying them along, as often happens with small audiences.
  
• The first set was a monolog. The second set had a more conversational feel.

So from all this comes a simple goal for the future ... deliver the "do over" show the first time.

The Brown Jokes

Jerry Dante, a smart and thoughtful guy, commented on my blog here that, "Taking a shit will always be funny because it's something everyone does." Jerry has written more on the topic here and asked me to respond.

OK. Hmmmm ... I see where you're coming from here, Jerry. But sorry, man. But I gotta call this one like I see it.... And "shit is always funny" is such a straight guy attitude ... or at least a guy attitude.

When a guy goes into shit jokes (and it's almost always a guy) I tune out. A little voice in my head just says, "This is the best you could come up with? The most interesting thing about you is that you take a shit? Time on stage is precious, and this is what you want to do with yours?"

Sadly, shit-joke hacks literally seem to have nothing better to talk about. Or perhaps more likely, they're not willing to take a risk and expose themselves by talking about something personal.

I once sat in a workshop and listened to the owner of one of NYC's top clubs tell a comic, "don't do shit jokes in my club."

While maybe not all club owners have this attitude, I think most do. Ignore this at your own peril.

"But Eddie Murphy did it!"

Yeah, and Jeanine Garofalo did a Comedy Central special, reading from her notebook which she had on stage. (That's her in the cartoon. I couldn't bring myself to use an image that's appropriate for the topic. Ick.)

But these comics already have a following, earning them a platform from which they can do, just about whatever they want. Those of us down here at the bottom haven't earned that yet.

I firmly believe that shit jokes and performing from notes will not move you up the ladder.

Jerry, you've certainly helped me understand why guys write about shit. But I'm no more interested in the topic than before.

Perhaps my perspective will help guys understand why some people (chicks in particular) tune out on these kinds of topics. I can just see the comics up there thinking, "but people, takin' a shit is funny!"

And I can see a large part of the audience thinking, "maybe, but we just don't care."

I think ass fucking jokes are hilarious. Funny is funny, right?

But I've learned (from painful bombing) that if I ignore an audiences' sensibilities they'll quickly decide to ignore me back.

Sibling Rivalry (Hear My Brother Trash Me On Stage!)

I'm dying, just once, to be the top comic over on Comedy Soapbox. Won't you please help? If you have a blog, post this link. If you don't, just send this around:

http://www.comedysoapbox.com/comedianblog.cfm?ComedianID=1367

So what in it for you? I put a special little treat over there for you....

Sibling Rivalry
My totally awesome, tall & handsome little brother, Neil, is in town this weekend. (Yes, I still call him my "little" brother even though he grew 1" taller than me ... the little brat.) We're having a blast. At my SuperEgo Comedy Show on Thursday night, I roasted him and then dared him to take the stage and retaliate.

He was awesome ... a natural on stage! The crowd loved it.

So go listen to the recording and you'll get to find out what our super embarrassing childhood nicknames were.



Come and get it ... hot babes and pretty boys.
Do ya want the gay one or the straight one?

We be tall!

Cheap, Cheap Shows

SuperEgo Comedy is going gang busters and has expanded, picking up another night.

And I'm doing my first show in Brooklyn on Memorial Day as the "featured headliner" (25 mins!) at Catharsis ... because how better to commemorate our heroic dead than with dick jokes?

So my current comedy schedule is all about cheap, cheap shows!

Check it out ....

Catharsis @ Cattyshack (I'm headlining!)
Monday, May 29, 9pm, $3
(Signup for performers is at 8pm.)
249 4th Ave, between President & Carroll, Brooklyn, New York
Featured Headliner: Dale Sorenson
Host: Athena Reich
"Cattyshack is hosting CATHARSIS, an Open Mic where you can showcase your rawest-newest-oldest-weirdest-craziest work in a safe, listening room environment. All grrrls, boys, trannies, dykes, fags, freaks & straights welcome."

SuperEgo™ Comedy (Expanded!)
"The Comedy Show for EgoManiacs!"
www.superegocomedy.com
Every Thursday of the month except the first one (so that's a weekly show with a monthly break)
Parkside Lounge, Lower East Side, NYC
317 E. Houston Street, between Aves B & C
No cover for audience, only 1 (cheap) drink minimum

What do I do with this egg on the stage?

I've been thinking about hosting a lot lately.

Much has been written about how to handle bombing, as a comic. And comics frequently discuss the burden of following an act that bombs. But really, isn't handling this problem a host's job?

I've never seen anything written about what to do when a comic lays an egg and you're the host. Yet it's vital for the host to keep one bad set from killing the energy for a whole show.

So I thought I'd start with a few thoughts and invite everyone to chime in. I don't pretend to have all the answers here. In fact, most of these thoughts are embryonic and half-baked.

A while back, I was playing a show I love. It was being hosted by a comic I love, a guy I learn from every time I see, a guy I watch with something approaching awe.

I bombed.

I bombed hard.

I bombed about as hard as anyone has ever bombed.

I came off stage with my ears burning. I was just relieved it was over. But it wasn't. There was one last bit of suck to come.

The MC said, "Dale Sorenson ladies and gentlemen. A very funny man. Not tonight. But usually a very funny man."

My humiliation was complete.

I understand a host's dilemma when a comic bombs. The energy in the room is his responsibility. He wants to bring it back up before putting up the next comic. So a quick cheap dig at failed set gets a laugh, relieves the tension and it "calls the room". That is to say, it acknowledges what has just happened and what the audience is feeling.

But getting laughs at another comic's expense is bad policy ... and not for the touchy feely reasons you might be expecting me to launch into.

It's bad, because it makes other comics nervous. When they see someone else getting trashed, they're gonna play it safe. The anxiety may even cause them to have a bad set as well. And then there goes the show ... spiraling down the crapper.

So what's a host to do?

If you can find a way to "call the room" and acknowledge the situation without trashing the comic who just bombed, I think in the long run, it's better for the show.

An example ...

At a show I hosted recently, "Comic X" did an entire set about taking a shit ... different takes on taking a shit, observations about taking a shit, thoughts he's had while taking a shit, highlights of different shits he's taken over the years.

It was awful. No one laughed. I was sitting there thinking, "Yeah ... this set is gonna make you famous ... definitely. Lemme look at my watch here ... oh look ... he's still talkin' about takin' a shit! Fantastic!"

So he finishes and I get back up. I didn't want to make another comic come up to that painful vibe. I could see in their eyes just how badly they wanted to be released from their discomfort. So I said, "Comic X, ladies and gentlemen ... and his hilarious bowel movements!"

This got huge laugh. More importantly, I think I found a way to walk the fine line between letting the audience off the uncomfortable hook they were on but not slamming the guy who'd just bombed. He knows. Or maybe he doesn't. In which case he'll keep bombing until he figures it out or gives up comedy. Either way, I don't think saying, "What a loser!" is going to help either him or the show.

(BTW, Comic X, if you're reading this, for fuck's sake, write about something else! No one's going to book your takin' a shit material. NO ONE!)

When I was new at this, I usually went to rooms where the hosts were nice guys like Steve Rosso, John Morrison and Dave Baldwin who I knew wouldn't trash me if I tried something new and it didn't work. Thanks guys! I felt a lot safer blundering around in the dark knowing that at least if I tripped, the host wasn't gonna whack me with a bat while I was down.

It's particularly important for a host to be supportive at an open mic. But what about "real" shows?

The temptation to slam a failed set is mighty strong.

One night at a Caroline's bringer I saw one of the worst comics I've ever seen bomb a packed house. The pro who went up after her absolutely killed by mercilessly ridiculing her ... lampooning, mimicking, saying he'd commit suicide if he was her. It was savagely funny. The audience agreed and they roared with laughter.

I don't know what he'd planned to talk about when he arrived, but....

Wait! Stop!

I don't know what he'd planned to talk about when he arrived ... and I'll never know.

His set was completely derailed by mocking the previous failure. Sure I laughed. But I don't remember his name or anything about him.

Which leads me to this....

You can't make a name for yourself by trashing other comics. Sure you can get transitory laughs. But unlike the great routines of comedy, no one will be quoting your bile afterwards, they way they do with Eddie Izzard, Ellen and Bill Cosby.

And I think that is probably the best reason to leave other comics alone. It'll never get you anywhere. Can you think of a single comic who got famous trashing other comics? I can't.

(Insult humor and celebrity commentary doesn't count. That's different. It's "material".)

Don't get me wrong. I'm not some goody-two-shoes. (What the hell does that mean, anyway? OK. Nevermind. I looked it up.)

I love dark, harsh, condescending, sarcastic humor. But why not direct that energy at the things in life you feel deserve to be mocked? There's no shortage of them these days.

Jim Mendrinos once said to me, "Comment on your own universe."

Good advice.

Still, if you're gonna host, it's a good idea to have a few techniques in your back pocket for handling a failed act. Sooner or later you'll need them ... probably sooner.

So here's another one from a friend with truck loads of MC experience.

Kelli Dunham was hosting when a musical act whose band members perform as various animals ended their bizarre, incomprehensible set with one of them swinging from the rafters.

The audience was dumbfounded.

Her comment ... "Now there's something you don't see every day."

Simple. Funny. Honest. Gentle. Perfect.

And finally ... the best thing a host can do after someone bombs? ... Tell some jokes that are funny.

Do chime in with your thoughts and suggestions of how to handle it when someone else bombs, won't you?

Nobody Likes a Braggart

Murray has made some fascinating observations in the comments at the bottom of this post which have inspired me to indulge in various philosophical musings on the difference between confidence and arrogance.

Here's my perspective. Dictionary definitions are linked.

CONFIDENCE - A belief in the value of one self or what one has to offer, tempered by humility.

ARROGANCE - Pride and fear pretending to be confidence. Arrogance is closed to criticism and blind to error.

A truly confident person is grateful when presented with a better way. An arrogant man secretly fears being exposed, accepts no criticism, is often unaware of failure, and thus learns nothing.

Confidence allows for progress. Arrogance creates stasis.

Confidence draws people in. Arrogance pushes people away.

One of the things I often remind myself, both when I'm performing and when I'm writing is that, "nobody likes a braggart." We've all seen the comic who goes up and brags about his sex life. Nothing turns an audience off quicker. That's why self-effacing humor is so much more popular and effective.

If a comic first shows the audience a few frailties, frustrations and failures (a veritable trifecta of Fs) he can then earn a little leeway to be a bit cocky or condescending. This is a tricky line to walk. I often try because it's fun playing on that edge. I don't always succeed. When successful, the result can be delightfully sardonic satire. When unsuccessful the result is frequently obnoxious, smug failure.

I'm learning that cocky or condescending material can only be done with careful awareness of how the material is being received and monitoring of the audiences' emotions. A little bit of playful charm goes a long way to smoothing this path. Failure to notice signs of alienation leads directly to bombing.

Being a Good Host

One of my goals in starting SuperEgo Comedy with Michelle was to get more experience hosting.

Mission accomplished ... I've been hosting ... and not a moment too soon. Turns out MC'ing a show, like so many things in life, is more work than it looks.

You're "on" all night long and you have a lot of competing responsibilities.

Here's what happened my first night hosting SuperEgo.

GOAL & ATTITUDES

• I'm going to do 10 minutes of whatever I want at the top of the show, after all, I'm the host.
• I'm going to have lots of funny things to say in between acts.
• I'm gonna rock and everyone's gonna see how awesome I am.
  

OUTCOME

• Many of my forced attempts at humor died horrible deaths.
• The crowd was bored by my long, self-indulgent set of experimental stuff.
• Many comics had to come on stage to a lack of energy because of my floundering. This affected their sets. Which in turn, brought the show down.
  
• I put a fair amount of pressure on myself to succeed, which did not give me a good stage presence.
  
• I did succeed at one thing spectacularly. I made the show all about me. Specifically, I made it all about me not doing a very good job of hosting.
• The show wasn't a failure, per se. But my poor effort gave it a weird vibe.

REALIZATIONS

The difference between just doing a regular spot and hosting is very much like the difference between going to a cocktail party and hosting one.

As a party guest, I get to talk about myself. I get to be fabulous and flirty and get attention and "have fun".

As a party host, I feel a responsibility to make sure other people have fun. I make sure their drinks are full and that they're involved and ask them to a talk about themselves. As a host, it's not uncommon to actually not have a lot of "fun" at my own parties. But I still get a lot out of hosting. It's deeply satisfying seeing my guests having a nice time and to know I made that possible.

It's a different sort of experience. "Fun" is exchanged for "satisfaction."

I went into hosting SuperEgo with an attitude of ... "It all about me, me, me!" Note the completely lack of mention of both responsibilities and anyone else in my goals.



In retrospect I realized how deeply wrong this was. I thought of MCs I admire, like Jim Mendrinos and Guy W and going into my second time hosting the show, I gave myself a major attitude adjustment.

Dale Hosts SuperEgo ... Take Two!

GOAL & ATTITUDES

• I'm gonna do everything I can to help the comics have a good show and the audience have a good time.
  
• I'll do a few, short, warm-up bits at the top of the show and then get right to the line up.
• I'll do my best to draw the audience in and keep the energy up.
  
• I will make an occasional joke or offer an occasional tag when it will add something to the show. But if I have nothing interesting to say, I will say nothing.
• I will keep things moving along.
  
• I will not make the show "all about me."
• I will make the show "all about the comics."

OUTCOME

• Success!
• I did everything I could to try to deliver the audience to each comic, primed and ready to laugh.
• The comics had great sets.
• As the energy waned toward the end of the show (as it often does) I made sure to pump it back up so that no one had to come up to dead air.
• By making fewer tags and doing fewer bits in between acts the things I did do were far better received.
  
• I put almost no pressure on myself and had almost no expectations. So I was relaxed and casual, which allowed me to be occasionally spontaneously funny.

It's amazing the difference a little humility makes!

Your thoughts about what makes a good host?

(The illustration I stole is by my very talented friend, Tyler.)