The Smelly Mic

Comedy is easy

COMEDY IS EASY

The first comedy recording I ever heard was Bill Cosby’s To My Brother Russell Whom I Slept With. I listened to that record with my brother and laughed until I was in pain. I was eleven years old and already an entry level smart-ass.

With the exception of Cosby, none of the clean comics I saw on the television ever did anything for me. My parents would laugh at the likes of Steve Allen, Joey Bishop, and that faggy mouse Topo Gegio on the Ed Sullivan Show. God, I hated that fucking rodent and I prayed for a light or some other piece of heavy studio equipment to fall out of the sky and crush him and maybe clip Ed in the noggin on the way down. The only thing worse was Shari Lewis and that stupid sock puppet Lamb Chop who should have been wrapped around my pre-pubescent Catholic Pee-Pee as Shari coaxed me toward my first orgasm and schooled me in entry level masturbation techniques. Here you go Lamb Chop, here’s a facial scrub for your woolly complexion. That crap just seemed like it needed some octane boost, a couple of F-bombs, something. Cosby worked clean, but he was the only one that was able to make it work – to me. I always wondered what Cosby’s material would sound like if he was a potty-mouth.

Several years later, after I had been kicked out of Catholic school for spitting on a nun, I was a freshman at Copley Square High School. I felt like I had come home as we sat in Mr. Julian’s math class, who we tormented on a daily basis, and listened to Richard Pryor’s That Nigger’s Crazy. Now, I’m not trying to compare Bill Cosby to Richard Pryor, but it would have been nice to hear Bill’s brother Russell tell Fat Albert that he was a fat fuck and he was going to die from a clogged aorta if he didn’t stop eating so many ham-hocks. Making people laugh? I can do that. I want to do that. They pay people to tell jokes? I’m going to do that some day, said little Johnny Ceccon.

What the fuck was I thinking. Cosby made it look easy. Pryor made you want to tell dick jokes and say nigger and motherfucker. I thought that making people laugh who were standing around a water cooler located outside a computer lab at the Fortune 500 company I worked at meant I was funny and maybe even a comedian. That’s what they told me. You should be a comedian. You’re funny. And, trust me, I made those corporate fucks laugh too. I made them laugh, that means I’m funny…….right? Maybe I can quit this job, get a shit-load of open mic time at the Comedy Store and several shit-holes around town, write a bunch of material, go become a comic, and make lots of money. I could be just like Dave Attell, or Joe Rogan, or Jimmy Norton. It looks pretty easy. Just get up there on stage and say some of the same shit you say around that water cooler. I could even bring a water cooler on stage with me. That could be my gimmick, a water cooler. Ron White has the drink and the cigar. Carrot Top has a bunch of stupid shit he brings on stage. I just won’t carve up my face like he did. Yeah, a water cooler! People will be laughing their asses off.

So, I did it. I left a pretty lucrative position in the computer business to go do comedy open mic’s for no pay. For those of you that don’t know what an open mic is, the important part to remember is that you don’t get paid, and in some cases it means that you better open up your ass too because every once in a while, you’re getting fucked. Not only will you not be getting paid, you will find yourself driving all over the state to get stage time in rooms with seven people in attendance all wondering when you are going to say something that will make them laugh. I always loved making the two hour drive from San Diego to Los Angeles to do ten minutes at the Hollywood Comedy store, or some dive in Hollywood, maybe even both in the same night. Maybe I was better off telling hack versions of Ellen jokes around the water cooler.

Right now two things are happening as you read this. If you are a real comic, and you have established a career in comedy, actually make money and don’t accept free drinks and bad bar food for payment, you are probably realistic about what it takes to make it in this business, you are most likely laughing your ass off and calling me a jerk-off for being so stupid as to think that I could circumvent the comedy learning curve. It’s not even a learning curve. Its more like getting your ass beat for three to five years and then slowly the beating stops and is replaced with laughter – one laugh at a time.

Now, the second thing. If you are not laughing your ass off as you read this and you are an aspiring comic, listen up. You are probably an open mic’er that is lucky to get six minutes of stage time a week at dive bars in the gay section of town where they sandwich the comics between transvestites doing awful Cher impersonations. Comedy is one of the hardest things you will ever do – EVER. Some comics make it look easy, that is because they are either masters of the craft or they have been doing it a long fucking time, or they are hacking somebody else’s material.

Comedy is the hardest thing you will ever do – fuck, I already said that. You thought you could get up on that stage, tell a few poorly written dick jokes about fucking your own sister and think that the uncomfortable laughter coming your way is real, it ain’t. You think you will soon be featured on an HBO special, or Letterman, or Leno after you memorize a four-minute set that your mother or girlfriend thinks is funny, you won’t. You are picturing your name on the marquis of The Comedy Store or the Improv in the early years of your foray into comedy, not gonna happen – unless you are blowing someone or letting them blow you. I’m still not sure if I would blow someone to do a set on the Letterman show, but at the very least I probably would let some poofter blow me to get on that Late Night stage. I might even let them blow me ON the Letterman show after my set right on Dave’s desk while they wear a forehead cam and Dave gives the blow by blow. What makes that statement so fucked up is that I know the guy that booked Letterman’s talent, I’ve done stand-up in front of him and paid him to critique my set.

The transvestites mentioned above came straight out of the John Ceccon up and coming comic gag, choke, and spit reel. Transexual’s, transvestites, and comedy? Functional transexual’s are a good accessory for just about any social event.

I was performing at this lovely gay dance club in San Diego called Riches. On this occasion, they were hosting an event called Slumber Party, which meant that most of the men were shirtless, proudly showing off their tanned washboard abs and delicately prancing around in Winnie the Poo pajama bottoms. They were the cute ones, the twinks, the bottoms. These are the cuties I would consider fucking or at least accept a blow-job from if I were on the down-lo or really drunk. Next, you had a bunch of other guys that didn’t seem to fit in to the cute twink demographic, but they were hanging out at a gay bar, so what-the-fuck. These are the guys I would not consider fucking. That is when I learned about the kind of chubs and bears you will not find on the Animal Planet channel. Chubs are gay guys that violate the rule that states if you can look down and not see your dick because your gut is in the way, it’s time to loose some weight you fat fuck. The same rule applies to women. If your belly sticks out further than your tits or it hangs down and forms a flap over your va-jayjay, its time to call Jenny Craig. Also, it would probably be a good idea to talk to a therapist about your uncle Dick and your weekly meetings with him in the back-yard tool shed back when you were eight. Basically, chubs they are the BBW’s of the gay community. When you think about it, cock IS low-cal, so stop eating and start sucking. Richard Simmons never talks about THAT diet.

Sliding a little further down the creep slide, you have gay bears. First you guys fuck up rainbows for me, then you contaminate my view of bears. I like bears, real bears, especially the one that ate that pain-in-the-ass Timothy Treadwell dude on film in Grizzly Man. That was one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. I’m still not sure what is creepier, fat gay guys or hairy gay guys. I like my fags smooth and trim. How annoying is it when you are trying to blow a guy and their hairy, sweaty gut keeps smacking you in the forehead and you end up with a few of their belly hairs stuck to your face. How does one deep-throat someone with a big fat hairy gut that prevents you from going all the way down? Either way, I’m picturing a hot August day and a fat hairy gay guy. The fucked up thing is that there are guys out there right now that are masturbating to that very thought while logged on to some gay bear site on the internet.

Let’s not forget all the rainbows at Riches. There were lots of rainbows all over the place. Rainbow banners. Rainbow tattoos. There was one twink sucking on a rainbow lollipop that was shaped like a cock and he had a rainbow plastered across his ass. Another one of my childhood favorites hijacked by the gay community. I used to love rainbows. I would fly a rainbow flag, or even have a rainbow sticker on my car. Unfortunately, a rainbow ain’t just a rainbow anymore, is it? No, it’s now a shout-out to the entire man on man world and they are wondering if you are a top, bottom, or versatile.

I looked around the club and didn’t see any women, but there was the next best thing – hot transsexuals. Chicks with dicks? Yummy. All the tranny’s were wearing lingerie, really really awful lingerie. Nothing accentuates the sex appeal of Victoria’s Secret’s lingerie more than the bulge of a cock shrouded in lace and botched boob jobs performed in third world countries with a spatchela, a box cutter, and two zip-lock bags full of contact lens solution.

The person booking the show thought it would be a good idea to have a bunch of non-passable transvestites and transgendered what-ever's dressed in skimpy sleep-over attire bring up each comic and make juicy comments as to how, why, and what type of depraved sexual act they would like to perform on us.

What made Rich’s such a notable spot is that it is the gay mecca dance club in San Diego’s Hillcrest district. It’s like the Vatican of cock without the priest costumes. They forgo the confessionals and replace them with glory-holes. Just a few blocks away you will find The Brass Rail, a truly historic cock-spot. This is the part of town where dick jokes take on a personal appeal and are usually taken as an icebreaker to a possible prelude to gay ass-sex. You want to score some gay cock and you have a lame pick-up line, then Rich’s or the Brass Rail is your place. Here’s my dick, come here often? Here’s my dick, show me yours. Here’s my dick, how about some sweaty ass sex? Here’s my dick, will you be a sloppy party bottom for me and my friends at an all man orgy later tonight? What’s my name? Oh, its Dick, but call me Richard.

I always found it interesting that a common pick-up line for gay guys in gay bars was to just pull their cocks out and show it to a few potentials. I felt like I was gay by proxy and started wondering if I should pull mine out right on stage and possibly rouse up some tranny action but I was afraid it would have been taken as my first joke. My self-esteem is bad enough and I really don’t need a bunch of gay men laughing at my dick. Its not like anybody was listening to any of the comics, there was cock to be had elsewhere in the club. Fuck those tight-ass hetero comics and their stupid hetero jokes.

Over in another corner right by the stage is this grandfatherly type dude who was the personification of the dirty old man archetype. I’m sure his wife had no idea that he has been getting fucked in the ass by transvestites in the back of an adult theater when he’s supposed to be down at the Elk’s lodge. They never find out until it’s too late. Pop might have been an off duty Catholic priest. He had this look of desperate amazement on his face as he waved a five-dollar bill at this tranny that is about to bring another comic on stage. This dummy was obviously new to the whole tranny sex for money thing. Everybody in San Diego knows that 30^th and Polk is the tranny/transvestite hooker corner and five dollars doesn’t go far either unless you are going after tranny’s that are also crack whores.

I was the third comic on the bill for the night. The first two bombed horribly, even the token gay comic that we brought along just to show the pajama boys that we were down with the whole gay thing bombed. I always loved following comics that bomb because I was cocky enough to think that me and my mounds of hilarity could bring the room back into the fold of laughter – especially a room full of people I had nothing in common with and were there to chase cock and not laughs.

I had my big opening line ready to go. I was thinking about it as my comedy colleagues stood on the stage and went down in flames. I was sure that my opener was going to switch the funny in the room from chicks with dicks and guys that take it in the back side.

The Cher transvestite who was the apple of the eye of the money waving unshaven old man in the corner brings me up with a look of disgust. Maybe he thought the old man was my dad, I don’t know. Maybe I needed to wear a dress, put on a shit-load of poorly applied make-up and tape my dick back. I wasn’t really sure how you make a transvestite like you without playing dress-up or answering their Craigslist ad for no-strings-attached sex. The one’s I always pick up from 30^th and Polk always seem to like me, especially once they realize I’m not a vice cop. I was handed the microphone and told Cher that I had no idea that she had such big hands. Great, another friend made, another fuck-you look fired my way.

Suddenly, I got the feeling that I was now beneath the contempt of everybody in the room. Suddenly, I lost all confidence in my big opening line to the point that I actually forgot it. Suddenly, I just wanted to get the fuck out of there and snatch the five dollar bill from that old geezer on the way out and then point his ass to the corner of 30^th and Polk where the real action was.

At this point there was only one thing to do with a bad situation like this – that’s right, make it worse, Opie and Anthony style. I was going to get a rise out of these fuck-heads one way or another even if I had to do it was six inches at a time. We are in a room filled with a bunch of horny gay men that either hated us or wanted to gather us up and forcibly use us like rubber fuck dolls at the man-on-man after-party. I take the microphone from Cher, smelled it, and comment that it smells like a dirty cock, then I say, in my best MC voice, “OK, which one of you faggots wants some pussy”. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the Cher transvestite rushing toward the stage and I figured I had time for one more offensive volley before I was asked to leave. “Thank-you, that’s my time”, I said, “now Cher, how about you open up your ass for this poor old man over here, and do something right for once.” Yes we were asked to leave and that was the last time a comic was invited to perform at Riches. Oh yes, comedy is easy.