Baked goods + booster club for a high school hockey team + a firehouse hall = Great Comedy Show!

Friday January 18, 2008 I was booked to do a benefit show for the booster club (i.e. parents) of a high school hockey team in Budd Lake, NJ. When Nick Cobb, Brett Anderson, Jeff Sussman and I walked in we were all trying not to laugh. We were in a fire station hall, and we were looking out at about 11 tables of adults who looked like they came from Fargo. Furthermore there was a giant Bingo board up on the wall where the “stage” was (this looked like an electronic board that would look more in place at Madison Square Garden, so you know these people take their Bingo seriously). There was a pot luck buffet dinner (but it was bring your own wine and beer) and to the four of us we were not sure we had ever been to an environment that seemed more destined for comedy failure.

The great thing about comedy is that you never know how a show will turn out. These people who came to the show:

a) wanted comedians – they requested a comedy show as their fund raiser

b) were paying money for their kids’ hockey team

c) were willing to spend a Friday night in a firehouse hall

In other words, these people WANTED to laugh and laugh they did.

Each one of us had a great time and in a move of divine intervention, halfway through my set, literally as I was saying “I played basketball – the winter sport people care about” the microphone broke, pleasing all the hockey parents. So I had to do the last 15 minutes without a mic. And after a few minutes of mocking me the crowd got right back into audience mode and laughed.

After my set I was rewarded with one of the great dessert tables ever (baked cookies, brownies, cheesecake, etc.). And I made $75. But best of all, someone told me that they really enjoyed and appreciated my multi-racial humor because her family is very diverse and she apprecaited my experiences. I think I could have told her I was Obama and she would have given me money.

This stands in great contrast to the previous night at Gotham Comedy Club, in front of roughly the same number of people where I could not have paid people to have a good time. I felt like I was on stage sexually assaulting everyone’s mother going, “What, you don’t think this is funny?” Maybe it’s the jaded attitude of New Yorkers, combined with some of the biggest, most awkward silences before I got on stage, but I felt terrible about comedy Thursday night. It was the nice peopel of Budd Lake, NJ who immediately restored my faith, both in my own jokes and in the hope that there are people who want to just forget stuff and laugh. So thanks Budd Lake.

And it seems especially poignant because I am at my new job today (as well as tomorrow and Monday) and have not yet made anyone laugh. As Frank Drebin once said, “Like a blind man at an orgy I was going to have feel my way around.” Back to feeling my way around.