So-So

It has become a Sunday evening ritual to troop off to the iO West theater in Hollywood to see what joke of mine has made it into the show (and, indeed, the joke made it in and stayed in). It's a time of nearly as much anxiety as the preceding day when I await word that I have gotten a joke into the show in the first place. I have gotten more relaxed all around about these things, but there's still some tension there.

Yesterday's showtime found me in something of a funk. I regained good humor for at least the duration of the show, seeing a few friends and meeting one of my fellow contributors of these two line jokes that I have been doing. The drink I had may also have been a contributing factor to my fleeting good feelings. Before I'd gotten very awkward in my social interaction (on account of my introverted nature, not the drinking), the show began.

The show begins, as I'm sure I've said, with sketches, which are followed by a standup comedian. This feels to me like breakfast on Christmas morning, which one had to wait through before getting to open presents. I occupied myself Sunday by grading the sketches. I found them all solid except one, which was just OK. None of them fell so far as to be shaky or just plain bad. The show seldom has anything like that.

Finally the time came for my joke. The joke went like this: "Alex Rodriguez is suing Major League Baseball over their investigation into his alleged use of performance enhancing drugs. A-Rod is also suing his mirror for defamation of character." I'll say it did not get an incredibly good reaction. It got some laughter, but that was no more audible than the groaning it got. The picture displayed of Rodriguez kissing his reflection in the mirror (apparently an undoctored image from Details Magazine) may have influenced people.

I've had jokes that did poorly and made me feel bad, and I've also had jokes that performed badly but left me feeling fine. This was somewhere inbetween. I guess I'm more apt to feel bad if the joke does badly and I know it's not good. I can deal with it if the audience doesn't like it but I somehow still know in my heart it's solid. This joke had something to it, but it didn't make a ton of sense. I imagine I owe its inclusion in the show to the existence of that picture. Next week I'll do better.