Mar 03, 2014

Sometimes people ask, "How'd you get your start in comedy, Rusty Z?"  So I tell them.

I started in comedy rather late in life, even though when I was in third grade I wrote a paper (Big Chief Tablet paper FYI) telling how I wanted to be a "comedian like Alan King" when I grow up.  It took about 26 years after that paper was written to actually make the move.

I started at 34 years old at an open mic at George McKelvey's Comedy Club on E. Hampden Avenue in Denver, CO.  Not at the newer and much bigger club he built later, but at the quonset hut club next to the car wash.  The club with the glass and metal front door, then the foyer with a cigarette machine, then another glass and metal door.  This must have been in 1988.

Now here's how the open mic worked at that club in those days:  You signed up the week before, and if you were lucky, you got to perform the next week.  On Tuesday, I think it was.  So, I went over to the club to watch the open mic comedians and to sign up.  I sat in the back of the room, drank a beer and watched the comedians.

Short story shorter:  I got scared, plain and simple.  I had no idea how those people remembered their 3 to 5 minutes of material.  And worse, even if I remembered my jokes, what if I wasn't funny?  My third grade dream would be shattered.  So I went home without signing up.

I went back the next week.  Sat in the back of the room, drank a beer and watched the comedians.  While I was watching, a big guy sitting in the back of the room asked if he could borrow my pen.  Back then I always carried a pen.  This one was the "lucky pen" my wife (at the time) had given me.  I said "Sure" and watched as he wrote notes on the palm of his hand.  AHA! That's how they remember their jokes!  Then he gave me back my pen.

So, a little later on, the MC introduces the guy who borrowed my pen.  "Your next comic is doing his first stand-up comedy set so please be kind and don't heckle.  You won't want to heckle this guy anyway, because... you'll see. Please welcome Big Joe!"

Well, Big Joe walks through the curtains. He's 6'4" and probably weighs in at 250.  He looks bigger on stage than he did in the back of the room.  He walks up to the microphone stand, adjusts it to his height, and pees his pants.  Really.  He looks down and says, "I just pissed my pants."

The room is silent.  No one knows how to react.  Big Joe walks off the front of the stage (not through the curtains at the back), through the first door into the foyer, then out the front door.  As soon as the audience heard the metal front door scrape shut, they erupted in laughter.  I didn't laugh.  I just thought to myself, "Well, I won't do that" and walked over to the sign up sheet, took out my pen and committed.  

I did my first open mic the next week, and I didn't pee myself.  We never saw Big Joe again.

p.s. I still have my lucky pen.

 

 

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