What I Thought Comedy Was (Part 1) by Anthony Corvino

Open mics full of jaded, angry comics, there were seven or eight middle-aged white men who paid $5 at the door and bought one drink to perform to an empty room. The guy wearing a button down collared shirt, dress pants and black tie…he rapped about the endocrine system…and I opened for him.

The Comedy Corner, the Comedy Village, the New York City Comedy Club, all professional comedy rooms that advertised their open mic as a way to hone your craft and follow in the likes of Dave Chappelle, Robin Williams, and Jerry Seinfeld. My first open mic experience was memorable in the sense that I still haven’t been able to erase it from my memory. I was nineteen years old, on winter break from college and off the advice from a creative writing professor, “Hey, why not try not stand-up? You’re funny…kinda.” I headed over to the New York City Comedy Club. Before the show tucked away in my pocket, I kept a list of one-liners I had ‘perfected’ (jokes I had written the weeks prior and tried in front of my cousin to blank stares).

These are the treacherous pitfalls of open mics and first time comics. Nothing can be as truly dejecting as watching someone’s dream shatter along with their dick jokes. Most of my comedy club open mic experience has centered around the idea that I am worth $$$ to the club and the ‘artistry’ part is for the real comics or comedians. I spent a lot of money that winter break doing open mics until I found one comedy club that would let me bark for them (being the annoying guy on the sidewalk handing out fliers to random strangers) and in exchange for being a professional asshole they gave me five minutes in front of a live audience (it’s 2am, they’re piss-drunk and they’re still alive kinda live)…

This will be a weekly series where I discuss my awkwardly painful start into stand up comedy and I share some true stories like the time I almost let another person die and the time I thought I was Mitch Hedberg, only to realize I’m not Mitch Hedberg. Stay tuned at portcitycomedy.com

Anthony Corvino is from New York originally and is now a stand up comic in Wilmington, NC and an improviser with the Nutt House Improv Troupe.