Staleface Earns First Stand-Up Dough Amid Sketchiness

Staleface made himself a cool $5.50 at the Out of the Blue art gallery in Central Sq., Cambridge, MA on Thursday. Coaxed by his housemate to go to the $5 entry open mic (later found out to have contest format) instead of local favorite Grandma's Basement near Fenway, he staled his way through a set that had a few red flags (not on his part). The first deterrent came in the form of 5 bones to do open mic. Fuck that. But it had a potential payoff of 10% of the door (50 cent more than the entry it turns out). The wacky host Bob Gatreau also raised a red flag mostly by his zany characterture of himself for an FB profile pic. So I went into the mic knowing the host had jaherkov eminating from his persona. The motherfucker showed up in a salmon tie. Shaped like a river fish. Wow! FUNNY SHIT! He had super campy material about, like, Frankenstein's mother and Dracula's mother, how rock singers sound like farm animals and like shiet. He brings up my housemate and he does a few notches under alright and then brings me up right after according to the random selection process.
So, I go on stage and start with observations and feelings about the room. About a minute into it I saw in the upper right-hand corner of the room Bobby's camcorder taping the whole thing. He mentioned to somebody else (not the all the performers) that he would tape. That meant early in my set I thought "Oh fuck" for the next 5-7 minutes. After my set I approached BGizzle as he finished a cigarette of all things (hacks smoke? Yeah... for the edge) and asked if he recorded for promotional purposes or something. He said he just wanted to have it which means he will later use it for promo if one of the performers at the mic makes it, also to nab my or other's jokes. He would not post the video but would sell it to me for $25. So after I sort of make my presence felt he replies, "I'd give you a copy but I wouldn't want to see it because of the audience reaction. So this guy who sneakily records the show tries to take me down a peg by saying I did not get reaction. What he then said is he wanted to see me in front of a crowd, meaning a big one. So he meant the video could use more audience but he could not help slide in some cowardly passive aggression.
Take the money and run. To quote Ice Cube, "I ain't going back" despite the cool Ukrainian chick that worked the door (Go Ukrain :) and though I made it to the semis, Gafaux makes the semi-finalists pay door. This "open mic" lacks talent and works as camp central, but I did make enough for a sticker pack from Hippy Tree. Perhaps I will post my set from the show later.
Later.

Surprises from The Gas!

Philly came to Boston at Allston's The Gas @ Great Scott. The Philly comics performed as expected. Funny. Alex Pearlman opened the Philly ending to the show with a tear of solid comedy the style this writer likes. He riffed on the traffic in CT on the way over to Boston. It had a taboo-but-not-really-come-on, as this writer puts it, theme. The show featured stand out sets from Ryan Shea and Caitlin Durante. Shea awoke the crowd from, as the Dedham band Magic Magic's front man puts it, "the Boston Coma" by talking about Boston of all things. That and he release a guttural, visceral scream about Badminton that connected on two pleasing levels. His Boston material refreshed this reviewer and it did so skillfully because some comics talk about Bean and this writer could care less. He turned on the humor switch.
Caitlin Durante started her enjoyable, intellectually stimulating set with a misdirection joke that pulled the audience hard and got a big laugh of surprise. It caught this comic off guard. It shot energy into the crowd and they got excited for what came next. Her set had all well constructed jokes. She got some classic "comedian" laughs from the audience as she raised the bar in the room with jokes coming from a constructed character of superficiality. Pro female comics do that type of character and Caitlin made this writer realize how much he likes that kind of comedy. An innovative set that left the audience in soft awe.
See these comics perform live! Worth the five bucks :)