I will survive.

January 8th, 2007 at 12:52pm Beth Brandon 130

Well, it wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t great either.

I consider myself incredibly lucky because the first time I got up on stage to do stand up comedy for a room ready to laugh, I killed. Maybe I didn’t kill like Ellen Degeneres or Jerry Seinfeld, but for a moment it felt like I was the funniest person in the room. It was magical.

So for those of you who don’t know I’m part of a ten member comedy troupe known as Laugh Your Aspen Off. We were put together by a brilliant man, Clifford Fewel, to make fun of Aspen and the entire Roaring Fork Valley.

I lived in Carbondale for approximately two and a half months. I then lived in Basalt for one year. THEN, I moved to Aspen and have lived there ever since. I have had a job in Aspen since I moved to the Valley and I would say it’s safe to say, I’ve spent the majority of my time there.

It’s been an interesting run for us comics. We put on two shows in Aspen that were very well received. We did our third show in Carbondale at Steve’s Guitars and that too was well received by a standing room only audience.
I’m a little neurotic, so when observing myself I’m my own worst critic. And maybe not always justifiably so. I was anxious, excited and concerned going into our fourth show. I’d planned to do the same set I’ve done previously. My challenge wasn’t to write new material to include jokes specific to “downvalley”, but to keep the material structurally the same and find myself present in the moment. I thought if I could find a “nowness” that my improvisational skills would just come out.

Naturally, I worked myself into a tizzy the week before the show only to break and calm the fuck down.My material was good. It got laughs in the past and why should I write “downvalley” jokes about experiences that weren’t unique to me. I think as long as you’re genuine and being yourself you can’t loose. Right?

Well, I think I was genuine and I know I was nervous and the crowd, well, the crowd was tough. I guess this is what they call silence in the world of comedy. I stepped out on stage ready to rock and saw 250 faces staring back at me sort of like, “okay, how many more of you funny people left?” I felt their vibe. I can’t quite describe it. But tough just seems to be the only word that comes to mind.
I started with my routine. I had done this set before and the crowd loved it. How bad could it be, right? Well, about two minutes it, I felt like I was playing to a house of critics. I hadn’t won them over yet. Keep going Beth, don’t loose your momentum. I just couldn’t connect to this audience. Sorry if you were there. Don’t take it personally because I’m not. It was quite possibly the scariest 250 people I’d ever performed in front of. I felt myself dying, and quickly. Suddenly, a routine that I’d done and recited numerous times became a faint memory. The corpses were staring at me and not impressed.

The dreaded moment came where I actually stopped and looked at my set list. I’d never done that before. Shit. What was happening!? HELP!! Send out an S.O.S! Someone throw me the life preserver. I kept going. I tried like hell to get on their good side and by the end they hadn’t quite sent me to be burned at the stakes. I just had to get through the jokes. It was rhythmic almost. I was saying my precious jokes as quickly as I could spit them out. Just get through it. The crickets couldn’t quite be heard, but I’d felt them there with me the whole time.

I finished to a dull clap. Thanks. I walked off stage and words like, “flounder,” “die,” and “bomb,” came to mind. It was awful. I went to the bathroom to be alone thinking I might cry. I sat there and thought, cry or pee, cry or pee. I peed.
I was rattled, but remember thinking, “I needed that.” However, humbling and terrifying it might have been, I needed that. That is what stand up comedy is about. That was an experience I needed to live through.

One of my fears in doing stand up comedy is having an audience that doesn’t laugh. Another one might be, having that experience be in the presence of my friends and family. Well, Saturday night was a pretty good example of both of those fears. My sister and her boyfriend were in town visiting and my boyfriend was also there. I kept my composure, finished my set and I’m still alive.

So that was it. My big fear in my face, minus a heckler. I lived through it and no one pelted me with tomatoes. It was a learning experience. Do I take it personally that I didn’t get the laughs I’d hoped for? Not really. At the time, in the moment, I probably did. Now, not so much. I’m the same person who was well received in October with a different audience. Maybe it was the audience or maybe it was my energy, or maybe it was some strange combination of the two. Who knows?

I guess for now I have one question, “When is our next gig?"

Entry Filed under: Theater, Carbondale, Aspen, Comedy, Pitkin County, Poetry