Entry 100: Epic Comedy Fail

Last night I went and saw a comedienne (apparently there is a feminine spelling of that word... who knew?) with some friends.  She was okay.  This story however isn't about her, but about her warm-up guy.

Who SUCKED.  No- no. No.  Sucked.  Serious.  This is the midwest, and politeness kept people from openly booing or throwing things, but this poor guy was so bad it was awkward.  In fact, my friend had his head buried in his hands saying "Oh God... stop the awkward..."  (I, of course, was on the edge of my seat chanting "more awkward! More!")

His jokes were of such epic lameness that the audience wasn't even aware that he had finished a joke.  He would pause, uncomfortably, after each fail and then kind of plow ahead to the next huge embarrassing failure.  Here are a few of his gems:

"Cell phones.... any of you out there texters? [Um... who isn't?  Rtard.] I myself don't do texts.  None at all. It's a phone, right? It has a speakerphone thingy, and a listening thing.  Call me.  Right?"
[Silence]
"I hate it when people in line ahead of you are on their phones.  They're just talking, all like "hey girlfriend... yeah, I'm just shopping" like whoever they're talking to is more important than you.  Right?"

He even started with a potentially funny set-up.  He has a 12 year-old son who decided not to go to the show but wrote him a note saying why.  This could be funny, right?  Nope.  Apparently "comic-failure" is an inherited trait.

Even more sad, towards the end he got a few chuckles with some half-way decent impression he did (don't remember who).  Encouraged by the (minimal) success, he brightens and says "oh, you guys like impressions?  Shout some out! I'll do any!" And he did tried. Here is a list of impressions I remember him going for, and a 1-10 ranking for both the accuracy of the impression and the funny context in which he placed the impression (i.e. putting the "character" he was imitating in a funny scenario)

Macho Man Randy Savage  5/0
Audrey Hepburn                  3/0
Daffy Duck                          4/0
Sly Stallone                          2/0
Bill Clinton                           3/0
Richard Nixon                     6/1
James Stewart                     4/0
Jimmy Carter                       0/0
Michael Jackson                  1/0

What, Caleb, you think you could do better?  Yes.  Absolutely.  With no preparation or experience, I would have been at least 7 times better.  In fact, I briefly considered bum-rushing the stage and taking over as an act of compassion. 

Instead I says to my friend BBB, "can I sneak out and go smoke?"

To which he says, "I want to go out and chain-smoke until I get cancer and die."

That, ladies and gentlemen, sums up the epic fail of this comic.

Caleb

PS The Johann says he is going to "pee on you.  drip drip drip."

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