Contest, Spade, Joke Joint

Hey folks! The contest was this past Thursday and I must say... I kicked some major ass, I won't lie. 20 or more people I know came to see me. I had never performed in front of that many people I know and I was incredibly nervous beforehand. About 2 minutes before I was supposed to go on, I got this incredibly feeling of calm and I knew it'd be okay. I went on and rocked the mic for 3 minutes or so and I most definitely got an applause break. Huttah! The headliner, Costaki Economopolous, almost did a callback to one of my jokes but then another contestant did it first. I consider that a huge compliment when 2 comics want to do a callback to your joke.

It was very weird to have all my friends and family surround me after the show. I finally feel like I can do something right, I know that sounds emo and all but this is the first thing I can really say I'm genuinely good at and mean it. It feels good. Too bad comedy doesn't really pay, at least right now it doesn't.

Last night I saw David Spade in Hinckley, MN. I had never been there before, but I have to say that it's absolutely everything I expected. Boring and somewhat trashy. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy old women with oxygen tanks and cigarettes as much as everyone else does, but this place was just disconcerting. I don't like gambling much anyway. It was weird to have people smoking indoors. That's not the point, though. David Spade is the point. I have a crush on him and that made the show that much more amazing. I really wish I could've actually met him but he disappeared into the abyss pretty much immediately after the show. Todd Glass opened for him which was pleasant surprise. Overall, it was a really great show.

Tonight, I'm performing at the Joke Joint in Bloomington, MN. Matt Fugate is the headliner and Bill Young is the feature, so it's a show well-worth coming out to. I have no idea how much tickets are, but I can't imagine they're that expensive. Come on out and see some comedy tonight, it's better than television and probably more entertaining than watching your drunk friends walk into tables and fall off couches all night.

Peace

Unpaid gigs

Hey there, kids. I've been making the rounds with the open mics around town lately in order to prepare for Thursday's show. I went to the Joke Joint in Bloomington and did about 5 minutes worth of material. The owner of the club, Ken Reed, agreed to let me emcee on Saturday night for their two shows. Matt Fugate is headlining and Bill Young is featuring. There'll be two shows, 7:30 and 10:00. I would do Friday night too, but I'm going to see David Spade up in Hinckley that night and there's no way I'm skipping that in order to emcee for a show I'm not getting paid for. I'm not getting any cash because a.) the Joke Joint doesn't have the funds yet, they're still pretty new and b.) it's against the Funniest Person in the Twin Cities Contest rules to get paid. Also, I need the experience in case I work my way up to ACME level emceeing. It should be fun if not humbling.

Here's the info:

Saturday June 23rd
7:30pm and 10:00pm
the Joke Joint Comedy Club
2300 American Blvd
Bloomington, MN

I have no idea how much it costs, but I think it's relatively cheap. The Joke Joint is located in the old Thunderbird Hotel which is now a Ramada Inn across the street from the Mall of America.

Come see me do stuff!

The red light means stop!

There's a big red light right in front of you at ACME when you're onstage and when it goes on for the first time, it means you have 30 seconds left, so wrap it up. When it starts blinking, you have 10 seconds. If you keep talking, your mic gets turned down. Embarrassing. We all laugh at the folks who get turned down on Mondays, but this past Monday... it happened to me. I was so frustrated and embarrassed and mad at myself. I don't know what the fuck I was doing,but I saw the redlight and thought I had enough time. Guess not. I had about 5 words left of the joke when I got turned down and Cliff, the announcer, was like, "sorry Carolyn..." Naturally, I ran away with my tail stuck between my legs, avoiding all the scrutiny and harrassment from the other comics. Ever since I started way back in September, I've heard nothing but "if you go over, you're fucked." "If you get turned down, you'll be 86'd from ACME for life!" So of course I was traumatized and saw my comedy career go down the toilet and yes, I wept a bit. I'm just taking me crying over it to mean that comedy really is incredibly important to me and it's something I want to continue doing. They even gave me 25 extra seconds! I was at 3:25 and I still wasn't done with my joke, I'm retarded. The other comics wouldn't stop saying "just don't go over, you don't go over!" which is like, "thanks, I know!" Pointless. It just made me feel like an even bigger moron.

Anyway, so I went back inside and sat in the theater for the rest of the show, to prove that I wasn't some dumbass who got turned down and ran away. Afterward, I went up to the manager and told him I was really sorry and I just wasn't paying attention and I'm so mad at myself. For a few minutes, he played it off like I was totally screwed and I should just give up now, but then he said "pfft, it's ok - just don't do it again - this is your get out of jail free one time pass." What a relief, eh?

So yesterday, I timed out my contest set and without a lot of laughter breaks and going a bit swiftly, I was at 2:30. I'm gonna try it out tonight at Jitter's to see how it might possibly go next Thursday.

They finally put the bios up on the ACME website! Here's mine:

Carolyn Blomberg:
Favorite Comedian: Maria Bamford (great choice!)
As a comedy purist, Carolyn chose the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory vs the Johnny Depp version and Joe Rogan over Carlos Mencia. Now, if she could only apply that good taste to her boyfriends (jk/tr). Creative writing and a strong inner voice makes this comedian one to watch.

Woo woo! I don't know what a "strong inner voice" is, but I'll take it.

Come see me perform, guys!

Thursday June 21st 8pm
ACME Comedy Company
708 N First St
Mpls, MN 55401

Laughing or Crying - which one?!

'Sup kids. Two stories to tell, neither very interesting:

Story one:

On Wednesday I went to Grumpy's on Washington for some open mic hilarity. I was the very last comic to go up for the night and I. fuckin. bombed. It was the worst set of my life. I went up there without really thinking about my set and I tried out some half baked jokes that didn't work at all. After sets like that, I generally run away with my tail behind my legs. And that's pretty much what I did. I went home and on the drive home I suddenly got very lonely and insecure about some things. I got to thinking that comedy is the only thing I consider myself pretty decent at and having blown donkey ass that night, I started thinking that maybe comedy isn't my forte. Then I got really depressed and starting wondering what really is my forte in life. What the hell am I supposed to do in 70 years? I know I'm only 21, but I feel like I don't have much time left to figure things out and get going. I feel like I've wasted a lot of time watching tv or googling my name online. I want to do comedy full time and not have a "real" job. I don't want to get up everyday at 8am and take the lightrail downtown where I see shells of people walking down Nicollet to their crappy office jobs. More importantly, I don't want to become one of those sorry souls. 9-5 jobs are not for me, nor are 8-4, 7-3 or 6-2 jobs. I want to be my own boss. I'm sick of not doing anything right for micromanagers in a company that means absolutely nothing to me. The point of this story is, I felt like shit that night and I was forced to consider my life and where it's going which is a very scary thing to consider.

Story two:

Tonight I went to the Joke Joint in Bloomington and did their first ever open mic night. It was pretty fun. I'd like to say I hate the set of the night, but that's relative and debatable. Either way, I think I did a kickass job and I'm pretty sure that was God's way of telling me "y'know what, kid, sometimes you need to suck in order to know that you're not really that awesome - here's a killer night, though - enjoy!" and then He patted on me the shoulder, turned around and starting walking away, turned back momentarily, threw me a baseball and kept walking into the sunset. The owner of the club, Ken, told me he was looking for emcees but he couldn't afford to pay right now. Kind of a bummer, but I'll take all the experience I can get right now. The point of *this* story is that I think comedy really is what I want to do for a career.


I went to the hospital today to visit a friend's friend who got into a really bad bike accident and I realized that I don't really like hospitals all that much... I was planning on being a nurse, but I've wanted to be a comic for much longer. The only reason I chose nursing was because my mom's a nurse, my aunt's a nurse, my great aunt's a nurse and so on and so forth. I would have a totally steady job with benefits and all the praise for being a good person a girl could want. Part of me is still somewhat interested in it, but I just can't see how nursing and comedy could work together - timewise, at least. The trip to the hospital was such a downer and I just can't see how I could go from such a sad environment to a comedy environment without going absolutely psycho somewhere down the line. Now is the time to decide, though. I'm on the brink of paying thousands of dollars to get a degree that I don't even know if I want. I'm having a really hard time figuring it all out.

I went to the Nick Swardson show last night at the State Theater downtown which kicked ass. I had heard most if not all of the jokes he told, but it was still really really cool seeing him perform in front of 1k+ fans. All I could think while he was up there was "holy crap, I want that!" The sound of hundreds of people cheering and clapping and most importantly, laughing must be such a high. Hell, I got high from the residual laughter, it was great. After the show, we all went to the Chamber's Hotel down the street and partied it up with Swardson and the guys who opened for him: Owen Benjamin, David Huntsberger and Patrick Keane. All nice guys, except for maybe Owen who wound up being a douchebag by attacking my religion and other very personal aspects of my life. I know he was drunker than friggin Lindsay Lohan, but it still stung a lot. Not a fan of Owen Benjamin, that's all. David Huntsberger, however, is one of the nicest and coolest comics I've met yet. He just recently started doing comedy full time and he's travelling all over the states doing it - how awesome, eh? He's featuring at ACME this week with Doug Benson - not a show to be missed, my friends.

Alright, this blog is too long - hope you read it all and didn't shove a pen in your eye in the process

Peace

The Old Thunderbird and the Ramada Inn

Last night I went to the Joke Joint Comedy Club in Bloomington. It's only been around for 5 weeks and the audience was pretty lame. I did a guest set for Bruce Baum (apparently he's been on the Simpsons as himself 4 times...). The audience was made up of all men except for 2 women and I was incredibly worried that my material wouldn't go over as well if there weren't more women in the crowd. Like I said, it was a weird audience and I ended on "faxmachine" which *always* gets some kind of response but last night - nothin. Awkward. I'd say one of my strengths is covering myself pretty well if a joke bombs, but last night was just too much. The room looks like a lounge singer's bedroom and the crowd looked like a bunch of hunting Republicans. It was comforting to see that in the bar they had the Democratic debates on, though.

The Joke Joint is located in the Ramada Inn across the street from the Mall of America. Any club located in a Ramada Inn is doomed. I honestly hope this one isn't though. Minneapolis needs more genuine comedy clubs around other than just ACME where a lot of comics don't feel welcome. There was a club called Knucke Heads in the Mall of America, but they were shut down for some reason. Now all of the comics who were doing really well there and making a name for themselves have nowhere to go really. According to some comics, there are two groups of comedians: the road dogs and the ACME comics. I ran into a few guys at the Corner Bar on Friday night and they asked me where I performed the most. I said ACME. They groaned. I don't know what the process is at ACME for who gets on and who doesn't. All first timers automatically get on (fair enough), all comics who work at ACME as either emcees, features or headliners automatically get on (also fair), the in-betweeners who Louis Lee (the owner of the club) is looking at to possibly hire in the future get on regularly too (again, fair). But there are a few who get on every time they sign up or call in and they're neither first timers, in-betweeners nor employees at ACME. I don't know why they get on. To me, they're not very funny and they rarely come up with new material. Oh well, not my place to judge or decide.

Back to the Joke Joint. As I said, it's located in the Ramada Inn near the MOA. It used to be the Thunderbird Hotel, a historical landmark in the Twin Cities apparently. I couldn't decide whether or not I was offended by this place. There were all sorts of Native American memorabilia on the walls, the floor, the ceiling and in the bar. Sacred designs, taxidermied animals, totem polls. It felt like a casino, but worse almost. I'm incredibly interested in Native American culture and traditions and I'd like to say I know a little about it - enough to determine what's offensive and what's not, at least. There was not one Native American present last night - that I could tell. Mind you, I don't know much about the Thunderbird and whether or not it was established by Native Americans or some white guys who thought it would be a cool tourist trap, but it seemed to me that it
was definitely the latter. I would assume that a full blooded Lakota person would be offended by the "Shoshone Suite" or the "Anishinabe Suite". It was just odd, is all. Tommy thought I was overreacting by saying I was offended. He said "you're not even Native American." Do I really need to be a certain race to be offended by something like this? Oh well, that's a discussion for a more serious blogger, not I. Not here, at least.

Well, tonight is Monday and I've got my three minutes down I think - I need to time it and see.

Bye bye bye

Ch-ch-changes

I've tried writing this blog at least 3 times and everytime something has gone wrong and the entry has been deleted or effed up hardcore. Hopefully this time will work
out.

Since Monday was Memorial Day there was no ACME, so I went to an awkward barbeque instead and almost passed out - possibly due to the questionable meat being cooked there. It was a comedy free weekend - however, tonight I'm going to Jitter's 99 Cent Comedy Hour and Grumpy's Death Comedy Jam on Washington to try out my three condensed minutes of comedy genius for the contest.


Speaking of the contest, it's coming up right fast. Next week, in fact, is the first night of the competition. Wednesday night, 5 comics will go head to head to see who really is the "funniest person in the Twin Cities." I got my date for the contest - Thursday June 21st at 8pm so mark your calendars! I'm getting a little nervous just typing about it, but I really shouldn't worry. A.) half of these comics have never actually been onstage before and B.) it's not the end of the world if I don't win the contest much less the night (every night, one comic wins and gets some rinky dink prize - Tommy got an Xtra Large Rolling Rock t-shirt on his night).



It'll be really cool to perform in front of a paying audience. Apparently the weekday audiences are much different than Monday's. Some other comics have said that weekday audiences expect less than Monday audiences, which is weird to me because weekday audiences pay and Monday audiences just drink. Maybe it's because the Monday crowds are generally the same folks who come out weekly or twice a month or so to check out the new comers and the weekday audiences are folks who've never seen standup live or are just there for a bachelorette party. Hopefully they'll be easier to please - we shall see.

Alright, that's it for now - C.Blo out.

Chi-town and the Bammer

Tommy and I went down to Chicago this past weekend to see Maria Bamford and Jackie Kashian do a show at the Lake Shore Theater. It was simply awesome. It had been a while since I had actually sat in the midst of a crowd during a show but this time, we sat 4th row center. I chose those seats because Maria Bamford does a lot with her
face during her shows and I wanted to see how she did it - to learn, if you will. I've gotten ahead of myself, let's start from the beginning, shall we?

We left Minneapolis at around 7:30am Friday and arrived in the Chicago area at 2:30pm. We stayed in a skeezy Days Inn motel - a motel, really? We couldn't poney up and go for vertical lodging? It was cheap but clean and we were only staying for a night, no big deal. We went to Target, because that's what you do when you go on a trip - go to a place that's exactly like the one in your home town. And it was. Targets don't change from state to state from what I've noticed. We walked back to the motel, I took a shower and Tommy took a nap and then we headed to the theater. Mapquest claimed that the drive to the theater would take approximately 10 minutes. It was 8 miles or so from the hotel, but due to the horrendous Friday night rush hour, one lane roads, lack of parking, one ways and asshole drivers not to mention the homeless people who have the balls to actually walk INTO traffic to ask for money, the trip in total took a half hour to 45 minutes. Thankfully, we left early enough that we didn't miss anything and we still got there early. We did, however, have to pay 15 dollars for 4 hours of parking... ridiculous.

Since we know the incomparable Jackie Kashian from ACME, she was kind enough to put us on the comp list for the night - we saved 50 bucks just from that. Before the show, Tommy and I were walking around the neighborhood looking for a coffee joint (driving for 7+ hours wears you out pretty fast - granted, I was the passenger for the entire trip so I really have nothing to complain about) and we saw Maria Bamford walking down the street, looking very determined and very much not like what I thought she would look like. Seeing her on teh webzorz and on tv, etc I thought she was much shorter than she is. Granted, she was wearing a pair of black heels that made her maybe 2-3 inches taller, but still - apparently she's 5'6". Interesting. Anyway, the show started and was opened by the artistic director of the theater who is not a comic and was very nervous to introduce Jackie and Maria. Not much to say about the actual show other than it was amazing - I'll get to my thoughts on Maria in a second.

After the show, we awkwardly stood around waiting for Jackie and Maria to tend to their adoring fans. We weren't sure if it was kosher to ask them to go out for a drink or not, but they ended up asking us to go out for coffee with them which I'm right glad about considering booze + nerves = vomit and subsequent embarrassment. Then again, caffeine + nerves = not much better. There were six of us total, Jackie and her brother, Maria and some guy she went to highschool with and Tommy and I. We went to this posh little cafe called Argo where the drinks were surprisingly cheap. I paid for Jackie, her brother, Tommy and I but Maria insisted on paying for herself, saying that she had just gotten paid but thank you for the kind offer. It wasn't long before the shop closed and we had to part ways, but talking to Maria about comedy was eye opening and wonderful. I shook her hand and she said "us women gotta stick together in the comedy business" and I was like, "f'real, shiiiiii(t)" and she laughed, saying that she hopes to come to Mpls for a couple days to do a show and an open mic. She hates coming for weeklong shows because of the radio, she says it depresses her.

To wrap it up, we went back to the motel, passed out on the bed, woke up at around 8ish, had our free continental breakfast, explored Chicago for a bit going to the pier and the Field Museum and then made the journey back home, getting back at around 10:30pm. All in all, it was a decent trip but I wish we could have stayed longer or hung out with Maria and Jackie for a little longer.

My thoughts on Maria Bamford: I think she's wonderful. She has such off the wall ideas that the only way I can think of even thinking of those types of ideas is to imagine crawling deep inside my brain and pulling things out at random without censoring myself. I wish I could do that, but I'm really not confident enough yet. It was interesting to hear her thoughts on her own comedy. She said she was worried that she was doing too much material on her family and she was afraid people would get bored with it or it would pigeon hole her into some genre of comedy. It's so cool to hear a successful comic like that whom most fellow comedians consider to be a 'genius' not be confident in some of her material. Also, I realized that her voice onstage isn't really her voice offstage. She has a relatively high, squeeky-ish voice onstage and I think she does that to enhance her other voices, make them seem even more different than her real one... if that makes sense. When I got back to Mpls, I wrote her an awkward Myspace message saying that is was nice to meet her and I hoped the Saturday night show went as well as Friday's show. She wrote back and pretty much said "ditto, hope to see you in MN or LA!" - sweet.

Anyway, this entry has gone on far too long - ACME is tonight and I need to brainstorm.

Holla!

-- C.Blo