Booted

Alas, I am no longer alive in the Boston Comedy Festival. I appreciate the batch of you guys that came out to the show tonight and gave me such generous support. I started a little uncomfortably, and not with as much confidence as I would have liked, but rebounded. I can;t complain. I felt like a king when I left the stage. I never expected to do as well as I did. I daresay once I settled down, I destroyed. I felt the power surge about 2 minutes into the 6 minutes set that you get when you know you can do anything you want with an audience, and I rode it out to the end.

I felt as though I didn't belong in the festival until 1/2 hour before the show, then a calm came over me and I was somehow relaxed. When I went on, I felt ready, though my opening "pretend" off-the-cuff joke died, I used a saver to bail out, and it worked. I started my first real bit a tad slow, but really wound it up strong and kicked into my main bit with a good head of steam. By this point, my confidence had skyrocketed.

As I left the stage, I knew I had just hit a grand slam. It was a great feeling. I had been hoping to not embarrass myself. My spiritual buddy told me to aim higher. He kept saying "aim higher, aim higher", so I did say a prayer along those lines, and the results were dramatic. I never thought I was going have a set that strong. Comics were congratulating me left and right. At that moment, I didn't care whether or not I won, I had done what I set out to do.

As the night wore on, I began to believe I had a real shot. I am the first to hammer on myself for a bad set, or be overcritical with regard to any set I do, but I gotta tell ya, with the exception of Dana Eagle and maybe Simmons, I felt solid. I actually sat there and became aware that i expected to win. It was weird.

Dana, a really cute girl with a routine about being plain, kicked ass. Her writing was original and personal, her presence that of someone that has logged a lot of stage time in places like LA and NYC. It's hard to guage your applause against someone else's, because you're on stage, closer to the audience than when you are in the Vault. But, I felt she got on a good roll and finished really strong. I thought I might have had the most applause, but then I'm a local boy, and you're supposed to get more. Anyway, I knew she was going to be tough. The other winner in my preliminary was Lamont Ferguson, who was very humble and looked like he was surprised. I missed some of his set, but the stuff I caught was smart and funny. Tom Simmons, last year's runner-up followed me. He started a little slow, but did a good job and picked up steam. I considered him a favorite to win the whole thing.

All in all, it was an interesting experience. I'm glad I did it, but I don't like feeling the way it feels to do everything right and lose. But that's comedy contests. The people in this contest are so good, a lot of them do everything right, and 95 out of 96 are going to lose, that's just the way it is.