She So Funny

Amy’s First Time.

The date was November 10^, 1998, the place, Buzz Coffee, Los Angeles.  That was the day that my stand up cherry was popped.

I had just moved to Los Angeles from Charlotte, North Carolina in June 1998, and had given myself 3 years to become “famous” (like Madonna famous).  As I look back on my original plan, I realized that was one of my funniest jokes ever. …”Madonna famous in 3 years”…hilarious.

I was taking improv classes at The Groundlings School and met a girl named Rylee Newton in my Level 2 class.  She was thinking about doing some open mics and asked if I wanted to come along.  “Fuck yeah”, I said.  Well, maybe it was, “Hell yeah!”, or possibly even, “I’m feeling thin, want to get a burrito?”.

For a couple of weeks, I painstakingly watched Rylee suffer through her 5 minute sets – literally reading her jokes off a piece of paper (by the way, Rylee is an AMAZING comedian.  She has performed on Comedy Central, etc.  She is living in Portland, Oregon now.  If you ever have an opportunity to see her perform, do so.  It will be worth your while).  I finally grabbed my lady balls, and decided that it was time to do the do.

I had written material for weeks…and all of my jokes were BRILLIANT, of course (see below for an example of on of my brilliantly written jokes for my first set.  Get ready to be blown away by my comedy genius).  Sunday came around and it was time to do an open mic and get famous.

Once at Buzz, I signed up for a spot and nervously awaited my turn.  The night slowly dragged on.  Finally, Joe Wagner was on stage and I was on deck – ready to blow people’s minds.  During Joe’s set, he either accidentally or purposely poked fun at an old man in the audience, which didn’t go over well.  All hell broke loose.  The old man jumped out of his chair, rushed the stage and took a swing at Joe.  The old man’s wife jumped on her husband’s back and tried to restrain him.  Chairs and lattes were a-flying.  It was like a fucking Wild West saloon fight.  All of the excitement was moved outside so the show could continue.  Most of the audience followed the chaos outside.  So, 3 people remained inside to watch my set: Hal Sparks (only because he was going up after me), Rylee and Adam Gropman, who was running the mic.

I walk up on stage and begin my set with (hold onto your pants…shit is getting ready to be brilliant), “I hit myself in my face while I was doing Taebo and my roommate asked how I got my black eye.  I told her that my boyfriend hit me.  She said, ‘I didn’t know that you had a boyfriend’”.  HILARIOUS.  I stood there waiting for a glorious outbreak of applause.  Instead, I heard crickets and saw three blank and confused faces.  I blacked out for the remainder of my set.  I have no idea what I said, or how I said it.  Whatever it was, didn’t lead to a development deal from NBC. 

14 years later, I’m still “pushing the rock up the never ending hill” and trying to lead myself to the promise land.  I have a huge fan base that consists of my two dogs.   Living the dream, people.  Living the dream.