My Toolkit

Something that you'll see most every comic carry around is a notebook. Obviously, this is to facilitate the writing down of spontaneous ideas, fleshing those ideas out, set lists, notes, etc. There's the moleskine style:

Three things I like about these are a) bookmark b) stretch band keeps it closed c) it's pretty. What I don't like about these is that you can't open them all the way around, like a spiral notebook can.

There's also the composition notebook:

 

These have classic styling, and are generally cheap, but what I don't like is that they're often full sized pages.  The reason I don't like that is because of portability. You either have to keep it in a backpack and carry that around, or you have to roll it up, old-school comic book style, to fit in your pocket. I suppose you can just carry it around, but who wants to do that? Not me, that's who.

Here's my notebook. It's kind of like a reporter's notepad:

I like that it can fit in your pocket, and that it's a spiral book. This way, when you're writing notes, you can flip it back on itself and it doesn't take up any more space than it already does. I have a few issues with this one, however. That's why I've now moved to this:

It's slightly larger, but not so much that it can't fit in a large-ish pants pocket, or an inside jacket pocket. I also like that the spiral can fit a pen inside of it. I lose pens all the time, and I'm hoping that keeping it in the spiral would allow me to hold on to it a little longer. The other improvement is that the front is plastic. Comedy and alcohol regularly coexist, and it's common for tables to get wet and drinks spilled. With the plastic front, the cover is less likely to warp, not to mention more likely to protect the comedy gold held on the paper within. It's also thicker than my prior notebook.

I've filled about 2 notebooks already, so this one should hopefully last longer than the others.

Another paranoid thing that I do is that I keep every joke, story, etc, on a spreadsheet online. I'll have just a brief description of the joke, how long it is in seconds, where I've done it, and how well it's done (in my opinion). Before I did it to organize my material for potential setlists, but the other benefit is that if I lose a notebook, at least it's not all lost. This is something that I haven't really heard other comics do, but it makes me feel better.

Speaking of notebooks, Nick Rouley's a comic who has a neat website called Scholastic Jive. It shows the insides of a lot of comics' notebooks. If you go through some of the prior entries, you'll even get a glimpse of the inside of my notebook.

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The other thing that you'll notice about many comics is that they'll bring their phone or some small electronic device with them on stage. This a recorder. My phone has a terrible microphone for recording, so I ended up getting this little guy. It's about the size of half a pack of cigarettes.

It'll last about 40 hours with 2 AAA batteries, and it records MP3's on a microSD card. I like the large record and play buttons; one is recessed and one has a little dot on it. This makes it very easy to use in a dark room, since you can find and identify the buttons by touch. It has noise cancellation, but more importantly, it has some pretty high quality microphones. Even in a relatively noisy room, the audio quality is on par with a decent CD quality recording.  I'll usually have this stashed somewhere on me while I do a set. My favorite place is to put it in my chest shirt pocket. Many comics (and me) will record their sets to analyze it for both their own performance as well as audience reaction. Hearing a joke that does really well definitely gives me a thrill even after hearing multiple times.

I will take my notebook and my recorder with me to every open mic that I do. On the occasion that I forget them I'll feel anxious. Some comics will bring their notebooks on stage, usually because they'll write their set lists on it and refer to it if need be. Generally, though, you'll want to rely on your notebook as little as possible, because you don't want to give off the impression that you're reading off of a script.

While my notebook and recorder are always in my toolbox, I'll sometimes bring a little camcorder (Panasonic HDC-TM90) and tripod. It's a nice HD camcorder that does fairly well in low light. I've only recently started to film myself, and even then only sporadically. It's not that I want to see myself, far from it, but it's good to have at least a couple of clips of yourself. A video is like your business card. A producer won't take your word for it that you're funny, they'll want to see you in action.

These things, and my wits, are my weapons of war. And my charisma, I got loads o' that.

Mini-bombs, and How to Love Them

You're going through your set, and one of your jokes gets no response. I'll call it a mini-bomb, which is a term I made up about 30 seconds ago.  The idea behind that being that it's not your whole set that went badly, but just that one joke. It can be for all sorts of reasons. Is it a new, untested joke? Did you flub it and say the punchline during the setup? Did you do your veal one-liner at the PETA convention?

Whatever the cause of the mini-bombs, the question arises, "What do I do?" You can ignore it and move on. However, rather than just continue like nothing happened, often times a comic will try to save themselves. I've seen all sorts of ways to do this, some that I've employed myself.

You can blame the audience, and do it explicitly. It can be done with anger, "What's wrong with you!?" or with some cheekiness "That was hilarious, and if you don't think so, I feel sorry for you." The old one liner "Is this an audience or an oil painting?" is in this vein.

You can brush the audience off, again either angrily "Screw you guys!" or cheeky "I love that joke, I'll keep doing it, I don't care about you guys, I'm here for me." That last one is a direct quote from me. It worked for me, the audience actually laughed pretty hard at that. I'll get into that in a bit.

You can blame the joke. Johnny Carson would notoriously remark on a bad joke if it didn't go over well. "Ok, THAT one's no good", kind of a thing. Many times comics will try to explain that it's a new joke. I think this is so common because they almost try distance themselves from the joke. "It's not me, I swear!"

You can fake ignore it. By this I mean that you don't address the situation directly, but you take a beat before going on to the next bit. Maybe it's a silent pause, and sometimes that awkwardness can yield a laugh. Or you can just say "moving on...." or "let's keep it rolling...." something along those lines. I suppose it's like trying to wipe the slate clean, so that your next stuff isn't "tainted" by that mini-bomb.

There are others, but this isn't meant to be comprehensive. It's to highlight something. From what I've seen, in my limited experience, what works most often can be tied to a specific trait; confidence. If you look like you're panicking, that's not good. And being angry "at" the audience, generally doesn't work either. It looks like you're a whiny baby. I'm not saying that being whiny and angry doesn't work. For some people, that's actually their act. I'm saying that it's very difficult to pull off and not alienate people. But at the same time, there are ways of confidently blaming and being angry at an audience vs. whiny blame and anger. And I think that's what makes the difference.

But that's also why so many people are afraid of public speaking. Speaking to a group of people, by yourself, can make someone feel at their most vulnerable. Getting past that, and not letting that vulnerability come to the surface, is key to not only getting up there in the first place, but to persevere in spite of one of those mini-bombs.

I think. Maybe.