So I went to the bar again tonight for my 4th appearance at the open mic comedy event. My last three sets went fine, got plenty of laughs, and I felt good about them. Tonight I thought some folks from work were going to be there so I was using old material that had worked previously. I wanted to make sure I did as well as I possibly could.
I'm *SO* glad nobody showed up! Ugh!
I opened with, "For 20 years, I was one of Jehovah's Witnesses." I intended to follow this with, "I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused." It would have worked, I'm sure of it. But as soon as I said I had been a JW, a young woman sitting right next to the stage raised her hand meekly and said, "So was I." I distinctly heard her say "was"! Perhaps stupidly, I took the bait and chatted with her a moment about it. She quickly gave me the impression that she is currently a JW, not a former one. Uh oh, as my next two jokes were pretty anti-JW.
What would you do? Perhaps you'd (wisely) delete those two jokes and move on. Or perhaps you'd (foolishly) do as I did, plunder forth. With each word, I felt the audience trying to decide if they were with me -- the comic -- or with her -- the pretty young Christian woman. It didn't take them long to realize they liked her better.
I DID manage to get thru the two JW jokes, both of which got laughs. At which point my JW heckler said "you're an asshole". What would you do? Perhaps you'd (wisely) ignore her and move on. Or perhaps you'd (foolishly) say, "Why, you're the prettiest woman that's ever called me an asshole... Well, close." (This did draw a few giggles from the audience, so it wasn't a total loss)
By this time, two things had happened. I had wasted over a minute of my 5-minute-set in banter with a woman who was pretty obviously not a JW. (She had earlier admitted that she was here for her birthday, of all things. I was too flustered by it all to connect those dots at the time.) Secondly, I had become off-step and was losing ground.
The MC flashed the "time's almost up" light at me, so I glanced at my notes, pulled out one joke on dating, and tried it. I said, "So after 15 years of marriage, I've been trying to get back into dating...." to which my heckler replied, "Good luck!" I leaned toward her and said, "Well not with you *specifically*, but in general..." which also elicited snickers. Perhaps the audience was at least partially with me anyway? I did get thru that last joke and closed it off.
In the end, my set was shot. I did maybe 5 of my 10 planned jokes.
I don't know if the MC was just showing solidarity with the comics, or genuinely felt she was a bitch, but when I stepped down and he retook the stage, he worked her over, saying, "Ya know, you've been pretty hard on our comics tonight. You're pretty, but you're not THAT pretty!"
All in all, it was a lousy set. And since hecklers like her aren't going away, I'm gonna hafta learn to handle them better. I can't flat out ignore comments from the audience, but neither can I let them halve my set. I haven't figured this one out yet. If you've got any pointers, please share them!
Dave of the "Called an asshole by a JW" class