So I get on stage at Castagnola’s, a seafood restaurant at Fisherman’s Wharf in SF.

A 50-year-old heavyset woman is sitting with her bald husband about 4 tables back.  She’s drunk and has been growing increasingly talkative throughout the night; she’s told comics before me that she’s from Iowa and loves sex.

My initial strategy is to ignore her.  I open with a few jokes about growing up in a white trash town. I get some decent laughs—then Iowa babbles something.

I give her a smile, ignore her, and keep going.

Iowa babbles again, this time loudly enough that other people hear it—something about her wanting me to tell a joke.

I laugh and say, “What do you think I’m doin, lady?”

The audience chuckles, but it was a bad move on my part — open-ended questions in a burgeoning standoff rarely end well (well, for me, at least…).

And as if on cue, she responds in a drunken slur, “You’re jacking off. Why don’t you tell a joke that’s funny?”

The crowd gives up a long woooo. A woman whispers ‘oh shit’ in the front row. The battle is on.

I smile…but I feel myself start to sweat. Any comic can look like a bully, but—call it sexist if you want—male comics have to be especially careful when dealing with a female heckler. Push too far and you go from saying what’s on the audience’s mind to sounding like an abusive jerk, and you can kiss the rest of your set goodbye. The best strategy in this situation is to gently riff and let the heckler hang herself; just repeating what she says will sometimes get a laugh, and give her enough attention to satisfy her need for attention.

So I say, “If you saw what I have to work with when I’m jacking off, you’d think it was funny.”

The audience laughs.   Iowa laughs.  Maybe I’m O.K.   I continue with my set.

Iowa orders still another drink…oh god.  The bartender—a very nice woman who inserts herself into shows to the restaurant manager’s chagrin—walks up to Iowa’s table, and in the middle of my set, proceeds to shake Iowa’s martini loudly.  I stop talking and stare at the bartender as she pours the martini. The pour seems to take forever. I check my invisible wristwatch. The audience chuckles. Thank god I’m still getting laughs.

Iowa remains occupied with her fresh martini while I launch into a bit about people in SF thinking I’m gay.

Suddenly Iowa yells, “You look gay to me! I bet you like dick.”

I answer: “Just like your husband enjoys sucking yours.”

The audience laughs, but the situation is getting precarious….

I go for my big closer and  Iowa interrupts me again. This time I try a new strategy: I literally hold my hand up to her like a traffic cop making a stop — my hand right up to her face — and she shuts up! She halts, brakes squealing! Tell it to the hand! Not a word comes out of her mouth!  A new miracle technique!  I finish my joke, get my last laugh, and thank the audience.

As I run off stage, I pass the headliner who’s about to go up. He looks deathly nervous; I’ve seen him perform before, and I know he doesn’t like riffing with crowds.  I shake his hand and whisper, “Good luck with Iowa!”  He smiles sickly.  His palm is soaking wet.

I go to the back of the room and take a drink. Iowa jumps out of her seat and stumbles over to me and my comedy partner KayDee.

Iowa slurs, practically crying, “I’m sorry I ruined your setttt, Scotch Wichmann!  I’m sorrryyyyyy!”

And of course I lie: “You didn’t ruin it…the audience was laughing…that’s all that matters.”  I even pat her on the back.  Iowa smiles a little.  I deserve an Oscar.

Then she yells, “MY HUSBAND THINKS I’M A PIECE OF SHIT!”

KayDee and I look each other.  Oh man.

Iowa continues slurring as the show ends. The houselights come up.  Iowa wants a hug, so I give her one; no hard feelings.

One of the other comedians walks by.  He’s 16 years old, skinny, and shy.   He had a good set early in the show; the crowd liked him a lot—even Iowa.

Iowa looks him up and down. She licks her lips—then lunges forward and grabs his asscheeks hard with both hands.  Meat!  The 16-year-old yelps and runs.

Iowa chases him across the room and tries to get another handful while her husband laughs at his piece of shit.

“Look at this man! He is insane! Why bring him to me? Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me?” — Sam. 21:14

I think it was 1979.  A shrink told my mom that I was hyperactive.  I screamed, “NO I’M NOT!” — then sat down on the kitchen floor and polished off an entire jar of Skippy peanut butter with my bare fingers.

That pretty much sums me up.

Some old-but-instructive interviews with Mitch Hedberg at Arizona State University, Montreal, and with Howard Stern. Also found some old Bobcat Goldthwait here and here. Although superficially their volume couldn’t be more different, their intensity, observations about the industry, subtle political POVs, and riffing skills are formidable.

Comedians’ best horror stories from Hollywood — auditions, day jobs, head shots, you name it. Nothing’s funnier than watching comedians cry.

Esquire writer Scott Raab interviews Seinfield genius and Curb Your Enthusiasm neurotic Larry David about hummus, driving a Prius, and the Seinfeld Curse.

Saturday night I did 10 minutes of my favorite material for a SF audience and it hit well. Bits about growing up in a redneck town, German guilt, Tom Cruise, my knack for attracting lesbians, and a short bit about my shrink got decent laughs through the end, with two applause breaks. So far, not bad.

But Friday night was another story. Friday I did the same 10 minutes in SF for a younger crowd that, I later found out, was mostly from a suburban town 40 miles east of SF.

A red flag should’ve been flapping. Young is one audience; suburban is another; young and suburban is a third. And San Francisco is another audience altogether, with all of its many subgenres—straight, gay, urban, geeks, etc. The backwards trucker caps in the audience and short skirts in the 40-degree SF nighttime weather should’ve been hints that these people were not from SF, and that adjustments to my set might’ve be necessary. But of course, OF COURSE, I failed to scope out the crowd. Bad move.

I’m second up. The MC gives me a warm intro and I jump up to do my 10. I open with with the redneck jokes, then go into Tom Cruise, and all’s fine—the crowd’s embraced me and I’m 4-5 minutes in. But then I start the German bit. As soon as I say ‘German’ and ‘guilt’, I feel a downturn in the room’s energy. A sudden cold breeze. There are still laughs, but something’s shifted in a way I’ve not sensed before. And instead of turning outward toward the flesh-and-blood people sitting there, I turn in.

I finish German with some ok laughs and get into Lesbians. I hear some initial shock, then some laughs, then another energy downturn—but worse than before. It feels almost like people are afraid to laugh—they’re missing the ironies, and sticking on the word ‘lesbian’ just like they seemed to stick on ‘german’ and ‘guilt’.

At this point, I have a choice. I can trudge forward and try to finish Lesbians, really milking it, trying to get the audience back, or I can stop the bit cold and rip on myself with self-deprecating cracks about the bit falling on its face, and then try some other topic.

I decide to power forward…because in the back of my mind I’m thinking, just wait for it, people, this bit’s heelarious and the big punches are coming! And when the punches finally arrive—and they usually kill—I get nothing. NOTHING. Not a single laugh. Zero. A sea of faces just looking back at me in the dark. Again, at this point, I should’ve pointed at my glaring failure. I should’ve exploded it on stage, shined a spotlight on it, let the crowd know that I knew that they knew I’d just eaten shit….

But I don’t. Instead, I fool myself. I think, hey, I’ve got an ace in the hole: my big 1-minute closer! That’ll get ‘em! So without commenting on the previous 2 minutes of totally obvious and horrifying silence, I go for the big ending—and again, NOTHING. Fail fail fail. I say good night and get applause, finally…as I leave the stage…and after ending on nothing. I jog off totally embarrassed and hoping nobody taped that shit.

A few people in the audience came up to me after and said they’d liked my act, but it didn’t heal the sucking wound. I’d served myself a huge lesson. None of the other comics ate it that night because they either worked hard at connecting with the crowd, or they adjusted their material to better feed younger and suburban appetites.

Let my failure shine as a beacon, o fellow comics.

I was surprised that I laughed when I watched this. Manson has a fine sense of timing as a lay actor, and a great sense of humor/irony, which together betray an obvious understanding of psychology and human behavior. In those terms, he is very much a shadow comedian, the comic’s evil twin, a real flesh and blood Joker who knows how to manipulate, shock, or even get laughs with a well-delivered punch that tells ironic truths…even as it’s breaking your ribs.

Each punch carries a double meaning; the faces he makes are a calculated critique of America’s media circus and its fascination with deconstructing him—but then—we remember what he is famous for, and so then comes the second meaning: a megalomaniac killer showing off—showing us he is unknowable because he is insane—a superficial act that plays the very circus he is simultaneously critiquing. For a moment we *think* we know him because he’s familiar…he’s been on TV…but then we witness just how at ease he is with what he is…a monster, there, sitting in his chair…then suddenly lunging forward. All hit at the same time. A “real” comedian playing for a paying audience couldn’t pull this off—not even close. Any subtle monsteresque threat a comic could muster would dissipate in the safety of the distance from the stage to the seats. After all, who really fears being murdered during a comedy show? (Ok, maybe the comic—ha). It would be Grand Guignol at best. It’s macabre to say it, but Manson manages to achieve a complex moment of comedy here that few others could…or would…or, shit, should.

Here.