Between the Flesh and the Fat

Hey everybody! I performed stand up comedy for the first (legit) time last night. And it was pretty awesome.

I performed in the Georgia Tech Talent Search part of the TBS National College Comedy Competition (henceforth referred to as “competish”) last night. It’s the first round where TBS looks for the funniest group of eight people (usually out of 20, but last night it was out of 12) (well, 11, but more on that later) and make them a team that represents Tech and performs against other schools in hopes of ultimately getting to play at the TBS Just for Laughs festival in Chicago.

Okay, so, I walk in to the ballroom around 7:30, and the show’s supposed to start at 8. Cool. I’m just hanging out, waiting for my friends to show up and talking to some of the other comics there. They seem like cool guys, I guess, but I know I’m funnier than them. Is it arrogance? Yes. But it’s arrogance that’s derived from truth.

The show starts around 8:15; we watch this TBS video that describes the competish, and then watch a half hour of consecutive promos for TBS shows (actually it was like 10, but it felt like 30. No disrespect to TBS, though, I get that they wanted to promote their stuff). Around 8:30, the show officially starts. The guy who hosted the competish (henceforth referred to as “tish”) came out and did a few jokes. He was pretty funny. But then he introduced the first comedian.

Oh. My. God. This man was amazing. He was introduced as “Dr. Pimp Juice Swagger aka Black Homie”. He was not black; a dark little Indian (probably Bengali, honestly) kid, rather. He goes up on stage, hood over his face, and starts practically yelling his jokes. Now, the rules for the tish state that you can’t curse at all during your set, or you’ll be disqualified. The doctor was dq’d in three seconds. His first joke was about his dick and how it was so big, it was measured in kilometers, and that the speed at which his dick went into some poor unnamed girl’s pussy was measured in meters per second. And then he converted it into meters per second squared. Amazing shit, all around. I’ve never seen a crowd more shocked. What’s even more shocking is that nobody stopped him. They pretty much let him do his full three minutes, even though he was out in three seconds. Great way to kick off a tish like this, let me tell you.

Then, a few other guys went on (it was all guys, obvs). Some of them weren’t that good. Actually, most of them weren’t that good. One of them read off internet jokes (“Hey why was 6 afraid of 7? Because 7 was black.” HAR DEE FUCKING HAR.) One guy made jokes about being mistaken for a Mexican. And that his mom sounded like Sofia Vergara (“Do you want orange juice?” “Jews aren’t orange, mom.”) Ugh. Needless to say, I was pretty disappointed.

Then it was my turn. Ah, yes, my time to knock all these other kids down a couple notches. Show em how it’s really done. I go up there, start off with the only topical joke I had, and it gets decent, not great, reception. Actually, for almost all of my jokes, the laughs went like this: chuckles, two or three seconds of silence, then much bigger laughs when they actually get it. It was amazingly consistent. I continue my act, and it’s all going well. By the time I’m done, I’m pretty confident that I got the most consistent and loudest laughs of the night. Boosh.

After me, three or four other guys go, only two of whom were actually good. One guy goes up there, and I kid you not, makes the dumbest sexist jokes I’ve ever heard. And they’re aggressively sexist! And no one’s laughing! He acknowledged that and left. There was a GT football player who was doing stand up for the first time ever, and he was surprisingly good. What’s great is that he himself was surprised at how good he was doing.

Once everyone went, all the audience members voted on who they thought were the best three. Apparently, I was third. Fuckers. But either way, I made the top eight, so I’m with the team now, going against Morehouse College at the Laughing Skull in March. I hope that any of you guys that couldn’t make it to this one catch me there! And in the meantime, I’ll keep making you laugh.