What's So Dang Funny? Still immersed in molding myself for stand up comedy stardom. I've been reading three different books on the subject, with Judy Carter's The Stand-Up Comedy Book and The Comedy Bibleproviding the best guidance so far. I'm working on things like topics and attitudes. Still no actual jokes or routines yet. I went out last night to O'Neill's Uptown to check out their weekly Open Mike comedy show. Sadly there seemed to be more comics there than patrons, but it was an eye-opener. There were 8 comics, two who were fantastic, two who were good and the rest were pretty weak. Starting off the night was Alpine Bob, who is celebrating his 25th year of performing comedy in the Duke City. Bob walked among the patrons, and told jokes face to face without a mike rather than taking the stage. I found this very refreshing, and he had a couple good ones about Alzhiemer's disease. The two best comics were Dana Golberg and a very young kid who went by the name Rusty Rhymes. Dana was a lesbian comedian who really had her attitude, stage presence and acting out abilities honed to perfection. She had some really funny and original stuff, especially what it was like for a lesbian to shop at Chick's Harley Davidson. Turns out she's reasonably famous and has her own talk show! Rusty was a very young guy sort of doing a spit-take on Eminem, as a white rapper without a clue. He definitely had the comedy "look" and had his attitude and persona nailed. Very clever and totally original. I would seek both of these people out again. As for the others, most were strictly amateur, but that's okay. They all share the same dream as mine, and I will be up there someday soon, honing my act. I was good to be able to analyze the acts and get an idea of what people were doing both right and wrong. I was surprised to learn that last night was the third anniversary of the Monday night open mike at O'Neill's! I plan on coming to this event often and getting to know some of these folks. A very educational and inspiring experience.