"The Best Kind of Sarcasm and Open Mic's"

When I was a kid, my Mom, Uncles and Aunts used to talk to my Grandma about whatever was on their minds and would laugh at whatever my Grandma said. As a kid, we were always sitting in a different area of the Living Room while this kind of stuff went on, so we never understood what was so funny. It took me moving in with my Uncle Neal in Santa Cruz, California for me to understand why: Grandma was witheringly sarcastic. She was so sarcastic that you’d never know it if you were an outside observer, hence why us kids didn’t get it. Apparently, my Uncle Neal and my Mom are the two that most accurately reflect their Mother’s sense of humor. Living with Neal was like an Apprenticeship into the fine art of the Sarcastic Quip.

Sure, I was mentored into this art by my Mom as a kid, but Neal took me to the next level by “Grand-fathering” me into the College-level that he was at at that point in his life. Neal is quick, and when I say, “quick”, I mean that he seems to have a witty rejoinder available for any situation. Example: When I lived with Neal in the modified sheep-shack in Soquel, California we watched a lot of VHS and DVD movies together. We rented a copy of the animated film “Shreck”, and as I watched it, it was reaching the point where John Lithgow’s character was asking the Gingerbread Man questions, and the Gingerbread Man asks Lithgow, “Do you know the Muffin Man?” Just at that moment, Neal was coming into the house and putting groceries on the kitchen counter, and I asked him, “Hey Neal, do you know the Muffin Man?” Neal looked at me with a completely straight face and said, “Todd, I fuck the Muffin Man.”
I almost crapped my pants… seriously. I laughed so hard that I felt like I was going to throw up. And what sold it was the dead-pan look on his face… and the fact that he was doing something else at the same time made it even funnier; he was making a statement in a very matter-of-fact way that was so ridiculous that it was hysterical. Imagine, if you will, a man having sex with a cookie… get it?

There are of course people who are sarcastic to the point that it’s really, really irritating however, and those people don’t understand that sarcasm isn’t an answer for every fucking question posed to them. I (in my infinite loneliness) started looking into Internet Dating at around the time that I lived with Neal, and I met this chick named Gen that attended UCSC and we started e-mailing back and forth. After about three weeks, I realized that this chick was so sarcastic that she didn’t take anything seriously, and I decided to just block her e-mails. That’s when I realized that most of the people on the Internet looking for dates are there for a good reason: They can’t meet anyone in person, since they tend to fuck it up.

Neal pointed that out to me before all this of course, but I chose to ignore it for the sake of being optimistic.

It wasn’t until I came back to Lancaster, CA at the end of 2002 that someone pointed out how sarcastic I am now compared to how I was when I moved up to Santa Cruz… but really, I was just as sarcastic then, I just decided to hide it from other people. At around the age of 24, I guess I figured that I grew tired of biting my lip about what I thought and thus, “Todd, The Smart-Ass” had his coming out party. Most of my friends knew how much of a smart-ass I was years before that, of course, and they weren’t shocked at all.

It was a couple of years after I moved back here that I felt like checking out the local Open-Mic nights, and I realized that I now no longer had any fear of speaking in public; largely due to how I no longer gave a shit if anyone thought I was funny or not. My subject-matter for the first Open-Mic was my family, and how we have everyone in our family but a “Chinese Muslim”… that got a pretty good laugh from the seven or eight elderly people that were there to support their grandchildren. Open-Mic’s are an interesting experience, since a majority of the people that perform aren’t entertaining in the tiniest way; I mean, they are so bad that they’re practically begging you to heckle them.

Case in Point: there was a black guy named “Sisqo” that showed up about two months into my tour of duty at After the Game (the bar the Open Mic’s were being held), who fancied himself to be a “Comic”, the only problem? His jokes were the hackiest, shittiest jokes that were ever on “Def Comedy Jam” on HBO during the early 90’s (and I knew those jokes because I watched that show too)… and being that me and me step-brother Seth were the only white people in the room, he chose to insult me due to the simple fact that I have no melanin in my skin. Not only that, there were quite a few Bloods in the audience that he thought would be fair game too… and they weren’t laughing. Needless to say, no one saw Sisqo at the Open-Mic’s after that. I have a theory that he’s buried out in the desert somewhere… Bloods tend to be a bit sensitive when it comes to public scrutiny.

There was also a young girl named “Flower”, or something like that, that used to do poetry every once and a while… the only problem was that she was 16, and all her poetry sucked. Now, I don’t typically make jokes about poets, since everyone thinks that they’re a poet, but Flower was especially bad… and when I say “Bad”, I mean you-have-to-walk-outside-to-clear-your-head kind of bad. She had a wide variety of subject matter that she talked about, but virtually no experience in whatever the topic was, and it showed in her poetry. I mean, have you ever had a conversation on the nature of Racism with a 16-year-old? It makes a conversation with Britney Spears sound like having a heart-to-heart with Nelson Mandela.

Did I have any bad sets that I did? Yeah, of course, that’s the way it works out sometimes. But, the key to being a good performer is knowing when you did a bad job (whether you get paid or not) and working to fix it so it doesn’t happen again. For instance, never go do your stand-up set if you’re drunk… I did that once and it went over like the Hindenburg. Also, try to rehearse before you go up, and while you’re at it, take a nap before you have to perform, so that your head will be clear and fresh when your time comes at the Mic. Also, don’t expect applause in any way… because you might not get it, even if you did a great job... that’s why you bring a couple of friends! Everyone need encouragement from time-to-time, so why not bring a couple of your friends?

So, why not get out there and check out the local Open Mic’s? You might see someone on the rise for free, as opposed to paying $20 at a club to watch them perform in a major city!