Last night

(Again, no paragraph breaks. This blog is broken)__________________________________ Oh man, it bothers me when an audience pays to get in and then they get a shitty show. Well, not the whole show..._______________________________________ The 8:00 was mostly pretty good. Melissa Villasenor is the headliner this weekend, and she's very funny. She was a semi-finalist on America's Got Talent, which helps to make her a big draw for the club. The featured comic was Esther Povitsky, and the guest comic was this friend of theirs who, I don't know, maybe got to perform because they asked if she could. She is an experienced comic, but I've learned that that doesn't always mean something._______________________________________ We met in the green room before the show. Melissa had also brought her sister along. I introduced myself and we chatted for a bit, but it was clear that I was the old woman in the room who was putting a damper on things. I asked them how they'd like to be introduced. Esther said, "Oh, I don't know. Just say anything." I told her I'm just not experienced enough to do that. I need something to go on. she said she'd think about it. Then I asked their friend how she'd like to be introduced. She said her name was Amy. Amy Cheapho, spelled C-H-E-A-P-H-O. It's Croatian. I kind of said, "Wha? What?" She said, "Yes, it's Cheapho. It's Croatian." Um, ok. I said (jovially), "Are you fucking with me, Amy?" She acted quite taken aback and offended, and I was instantly sorry I had put that out there. I tried to save it by asking her if the "ph" was pronounced as an eff, or if it was just Cheap-ho. Oh gawd.____________________________________________________ She said, "You can say I've appeared all around L.A. and I'm a big hit at my mom's Al-Anon meetings." Ok...heh, heh. Esther still couldn't think of anything to say so I decided I'd just say something about how cute she is. And she is cute. Cute as a button. Cute as a bug's ear. Just a teeny little thing. I can do something with that._______________________________________________ I left the green room so I could give them time to roll their eyes at each other and talk about what a clueless bitch I am. Something like that. Anyway, I didn't want to hang around with them any longer. Soon it was time for the show to start.__________________________________________________ The place was packed. A total full house, and the audience was lively. I had only 10 minutes so I zoomed through my set (Middle-aged Woman, Voodoo Doll, Phone Sex) and then introduced Amy. Oh my god. Am I that old and out of touch? Am I too unhip to appreciate that kind of raunchy gutter humor? I don't think so, as long as it's funny. The Claremont audience wasn't laughing much. She got a few good ones in, but I would say they ever really laughed. I thought it was pretty embarrassing. And then I thought about her acting so shocked when I asked her if she was fucking with me. I'm thinking, gee, a girl who tells jokes about her mother performing oral sex has no business being offended by ANYTHING I might say. _________________________________________Then it was Esther's turn. I introduced her with a joke about how cute and tiny she is, and how I accidently sat on her backstage. I give her set about a 7.5. It's this self-deprecating, I'm-so-ugly-and-undesirable stuff that can work if it's done right. There were a lot of long, uncomfortable pauses, but about halfway through it she got 'em going. Really, the stuff that worked was very good. Maybe I'll raise that to an 8. During her set Amy took a flash photo of her, which is a big, fucking no-no. Half the audience turned around to look. When Esther was finished I shook her hand as she left the stage. She has the tiniest little doll hands. I said, "Wow, I just shook Esther's hand. She's so tiny and dainty I just want to take her home, tie her up, dress her in something frilly and set her in front of a mirror." Then a guy yelled, "Turn her into a voodoo doll! Stick pins in her!" People laughed at that one! ____________________________________________ Then Melissa was on. She really is very good. She's a good physical comic and her impressions are spot on. If you're curious, just look up her Youtube videos. She's funny. ________________________________________ With such a big audience it took a long time to get everyone their checks. Like, way too long. People were getting surly. While the staff was rushing to get people their checks, I helped clear the room. Then it was time for the second show. ________________________________________The 10:00 audience is usually much smaller, and it can be harder to get them to laugh. I'm kind of used to that. This audience wasn't buying Amy's icky jokes. (Oh yeah, I came verrry close to accidently introducing her as Amy Cheap-whore. Really!) Again, I was embarrassed for the club. AND this time Esther took a flash photo of Amy! And again, people turned around and looked. When Esther went up I thought, ok, she did a pretty good job at the first show. Things will pick up now. Nope. She was so thrown by the second audience being quiet that she went into brat mode. She wandered around the stage and said stuff like, "Um, what should I do now? Um...." She picked up the menu and read some of the items. She picked up the raffle form and talked about how stupid it was. Jokes that landed well in the first show fell flat, and she didn't even do some of the good stuff she had done before. When she was done I felt like I had to fluff up the room, so I told the joke about turning her into a voodoo doll. It helped. ____________________________________Then Melissa got up again and her energy was just down. People laughed, but I couldn't help thinking that some of them were wondering why they wasted their time coming out. When the show was over I went back to the green room to grab my uke. These girls had left a big mess of dishes and trash for the staff to clean up. I was offended by that. I picked up their trash and bussed the dishes.______________________________________ Tonight Melissa is performing again, but the other girls won't be there. Different feature comic this time. The 8:00 show is sold out. Yay! We'll see how it goes.