Canadian Days: Comedy Night at the Pub

Upstairs in a pub a young woman is on stage with a mic in her hand. She has long brown hair, glasses, and is wearing a blue shirt. She looks like a college student, and I figure if she's on stage she's got alot to say, mostly about her lovelife, whether it's about the struggles in it or her frustration of not having one. My hunch is correct too. The next thing I know she shifts body posture and says something about her love experiences that's too revealing for me. I feel a tinge of discomfort. The crowd laughs. I don't because I think the joke is in bad taste. Then she shifts her body posture again, and tells another joke that's even more revealing: "He said I want to c** on your glasses." Nobody in the room laughs, and I think it's the worst joke I have ever heard.

The scene I've just described is from comedy night, which was held every Sunday night at the pub across the street from the hostel I stayed at. I have decided to give it a mention in my blog because of its sheer awfulness. To me there was little that was good about it, except being occasionally amused. Comedy night was open mic--anybody could try their hand at comedy--and the result was poor quality since most people who took the mic were just starting out as comedians.

I only went to comedy night a couple of nights. The first time I went was because a friend suggested we go because we had nothing do. Had I known how bad it was I would have never have gone. But each time I went back I naively hoped it would get better. It never did, and since I was able to observe comedy at its worst I came up with a theory about bad comedy, which is: a bad comic is one that spends too much time joking about their sex life. I have never understood why some comedians found the most intimate experiences in their life to be funny. A comic who spends too much time joking about their sex life is a comic that has run out of creative room. Whenever a comic doesn't have any more good jokes to tell sex--which is a subject alot of people find funny--is often a convenient substitute. Alot of people who went on stage at comedy night had a tendency to talk about sex alot. I remember one guy who said something like"Don't you hate it when your on top and you've got to do all the work." The joke fell on deaf ears.

But one good thing about comedy night was it allowed people to get creative. But even this didn't escape in keeping with the awfulness of the event. Since most people who took the stage were starting out as comedians they were in the process of finding out what worked and what didn't. Few people were "polished comics," so that meant anything went. Somebody might wear a hood over their head, carry around a pail and a water gun and mumble nonsense. I never understood whether this was supposed to be performance art or not, but whatever it was it was just awful. I remember when one of the more polished comics took the stage. He talked about his obsession with weed the entire time, and I consider this to be progress since he didn't focus on sex, although I don't smoke weed. Listening to this guy you'd think he'd smoke weed at breakfast, lunch, dinner and in between. It was as if his idea of heaven was being blissed out in an eternal state of being high. He was only one of two comedians I found to be remotely funny.

Some people reading this may think I am being too harsh on comedy night. After all, it is a harmless event intended to lighten things up, which is the purpose of comedy. But I wasn't the only person who thought comedy night was unbearable. My roommate, Ben, would hang out with us up to a certain point in the pub on Sunday, and then leave as quick as possible whenever comedy night was about to begin. Upon observing this I thought Ben had an impeccable since of timing, and when it came for him to leave I'd leave too. As far as I'm concerned Ben had the right idea--it was the sane thing to do.