IT'S 8:17 Thursday night at Bo Irvine's Comedy Club and I'm rolling along talking to the audience about Arabic being my first language and feeling pretty good. It’s not always funny
First of two parts
being a standup guyI'm feeling pretty good because even though there are only about 40 people in the audience, they seem to be having a good time. And although none of them is actually falling out of a chair with laughter, they are attentive and polite. And anyone who's ever tried stand-up comedy will tell you that on some nights, attentive and polite, with a few charity laughs tossed in, well, that's a pretty good night.
I'm also feeling pretty good because my main fear - that my mind would go blank, that I'd forget what I was saying and begin peering into the bright spotlight like an antelope about to become someone's wall decoration - hasn't happened.
And then I notice one of Bo's guys, holding up a lighter, flicking it on and off. At first, I thought the guy was lighting a cigarette. But then I notice he's distinctly flashing the lighter at me. He's trying to tell me something. But I'm concentrating so hard at not losing my place in my monologue, I just keep rambling along, casting an occasional side glance at the lighter guy.
Then I notice he has started making a slashing movement with his right hand across his throat. I initially think this is a very bad prank comedy club people must like to pull on novice comics. But then I realize, no, he's trying to tell me something. He's trying to tell me to get the hell off the stage.
Having not built any dignified escape routes into my material - while I had envisioned many horrible scenarios, getting the hook was not one of them - I simply stopped in mid-sentence, thanked everyone for coming and walked off the stage.
Ahhhh. Comedy. It's so much ... fun.
I ran into Bo, who would take the stage next.
What happened? I asked.
"Seventeen minutes," he said.
No!
"You were already at 17 minutes. You did fine, but you have to tighten it up," he said as he headed for the stage.
I was amazed. Seventeen minutes. That's like an eternity in show biz. I was supposed to do 8 to 10 minutes. Time sure flies when you're frightened silly.
But that's why I was there, to find out what it's like to do stand-up. We have become inundated with stand-up these days. It's on every television channel. It looks easy, but entertainers say it's the scariest thing you can do. It's just you, looking into the vast darkness, a spotlight blinding you. Out there somewhere are half-drunk people who have paid good money to be entertained. You can't see 'em. But you can hear 'em breathing.
I had actually tried stand-up before. At the same club at the Aston Waikiki Terrace Hotel. But since then, the club had shut down and there were no venues in Waikiki specifically for stand-up comics. Stand-up comedy isn't like dancing or singing or acting. You can take classes for those. In stand-up, everything is theoretical until you stand up in front of an audience and try your material. If you die, you die. Then, you scrape your ego off the stage, try to figure out what parts of your routine worked and dump the rest. Then you try again. And again. And again.
It's a brutal, fearsome sport made even more bizarre because the purpose of this nightly self-flagellation is merely to make others laugh.
But the only comedy club in Honolulu - run by comic Eddie Saks - shut down early last year, leaving nowhere for this city's masochistic comics to test themselves. That is until just several weeks ago when Bo Irvine and Paul Ogata, two comedy club staples, decided enough was enough.
Friday: A view to a kill
