“I’ve wanted to be a comedian,” confessed my eight-year-old grandson in tears, “since I was five years old.” We’d told him he should be straight man to our six-year-old granddaughter’s funny Gracie-Allen-like answers. He didn’t want to be the straight man. I knew how he felt. I was tired of setting people up, too.
So as a gift, my husband surprised me with a half-off Groupon coupon (no surprise there) for a one-day seminar on how to become a standup comedian. (Couponman’s had a bigger effect on me than I care to admit. I parked several blocks away to save the $5 parking at the hotel.)
“He must be in the class,” I chuckled to myself, passing one fellow with a heavily-waxed handlebar moustache. Then as I opened the double glass doors to the hotel, right in front of me — the Little Miss Gold Coast beauty pageant. I burst out laughing — at least on the inside. It appeared Joe Falzarano, our entrepreneurial leader, had spared no cost with his comic plants.
By the time I reached the loud, barely wet-behind-the-ears group at the elevator, I wore an inerasable grin. We all exited on the second floor, and walked into a small unadorned conference room. A plastic cup of purple grapes, a flip container of orange-flavored Tic Tacs, and a black pencil rested on a small table in front. Joe, the scruffy-looking, funnyman with the answers we’d paid big half-price bucks for, paced.
A young buxom girl bounced in, guarding her chest. “Recent surgery?” asked Joe, still pacing.
“How’d you know?” she answered back. “Just last Thursday.”
“You sure those babies don’t need a little air?” he said, smiling with that look of a little boy in a candy store. The class snickered.
Others entered the room and took their seats. Some had tattoos; others wore tank tops and shorts. I wore a white shirt and beige pants. I felt like George Gobel, the night he appeared with Bob Hope and Dean Martin on the Johnny Carson Show. “Did you ever get the feeling that the world was a tuxedo,” he’d asked, “and you were a pair of brown shoes?” I definitely didn’t fit in with these young whippersnappers.
No surprise, I was the oldest student in the class. The humor of today is not what it was when I was a child. Mentally I upped my range to PG-13. Soon I realized, I was not nearly as avantgarde as I thought. Our first assignment was to write a funny job description combining a sports name and a sexually transmitted disease. I was stumped. In my heyday, kids were the only sexually transmitted disease.
I sat sandwiched in between two Brandons. “We’ll call you Brandon ‘Double-D’,” Joe said, pointing to cute Brandon Jeddi’s name tag.
“No,” I interjected and pointed across the room to Breast Augmentation Girl, “Double-D’s over there.” I was getting the hang of it.
Joe held up a writing utensil. “What’s this?” he asked.
Thank heavens, something I knew. Someone answered the obvious. “A pencil.”
“No,” said Joe, “what can it be?”
“A moustache,” another said.
“A sword.”
“A wand.” Then a few off-color suggestions.
I, with little left to the imagination, drew from my vast experience with pencils, “An age gauge,” I shouted out. “It’s a droopy boob tester.” I witnessed puzzled looks. If you place a pencil underneath and the pencil falls to the floor, they’re still perky. I didn’t explain to this young group. They’d get there eventually. Okay, maybe with the exception of Breast Augmentation Girl.
“A chopstick for a one handed man,” a guy yelled out. He was as out of it as I was.
“A one-handed man can still hold two chopsticks,” said Joe. Dumber than a Doorknob Guy scratched his head.
“Grow down,” Pacer Joe encouraged the group. “Use your imagination, exaggerate. Lie.” Most of my classmates didn’t have too far to grow down.
Joe encouraged us to find our own comic persona. Pacing was his schtick he told us. “You have to be true to who you are,” he said, still pacing the room.
I’m a nagger by nature. “You forgot an item on your outline,” I pointed out. I was catching on.
“Who’s this?” Joe asked, holding up an old photograph. No one recognized the young well-dressed man wearing a suit and tie, except me.
“George Carlin,” I said.
Others shook their heads in disbelief. “The old lady in the class is right,” Joe said. Was that a compliment or getting even? “You don’t recognize him because he didn’t start out being true to himself.” He held up another picture of George, as we remember, looking less kempt. I think Pacer Joe was getting a little carried away. As we age, we go for comfort. I went to work last week without wearing pantyhose. It didn’t have anything to do with not being true to myself.
We listened to some very funny clips of Mitch Hedberg “3 Easy Payments” (not G-rated), Jerry Seinfeld, and Jim Galligan about “King Bacon.” “Each of these fellows,” Joe emphasized, “started out just like you.”
I really doubt that. Maybe more like Steve Martin. I, too, was born a poor black child.
P.S. I’m not giving up my day job. But I can hardly wait to share the Pencil test with the Bug, and to watch the video clip with the Worm about her beloved bacon.
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I think you have great comedic timing! The Bug will be catch it in no time.
What a very cool coupon! I bet you had all those kids in stitches!
It takes a lot of courage to try to be funny.
Cute blog Penny! I’m still smiling ; )
Now that you’ve tried stand-up, try a class on improv comedy. You will love it.