PART 1: Different ends of the spectrum

By Michael Wells

I have been doing stand-up comedy for a little over a year now. I love it; I can't get enough of it. Stand up has its ups and downs, but you always live for that perfect moment to where you have an entire room laughing. It's a feeling I wish every single person could feel. It's like you’re on Cloud 9 and no one can take that feeling away from you.

Then there are the downs; the times where you eat such a big fat cock you debate on powering through or just giving up stand-up all together and throwing in the towel. Both are feelings that any comic will experience if they stick with it long enough. As for me my best and worst show came in the same week.

Let's start with the good.

I was on a show in Muncie, Ind. for an event they throw once a month called Comedy Underground. It was a two-level bar with a basement. The show was in the basement. It sat about 40 people.

Up until 5 minutes before show time, there wasn't an audience, and then all of a sudden BANG. All the seats are filled and people still piling in had to stand in the back.

I was 4th on the list, so I had a little time to relax and just go over my jokes in my head. I'm next up and the comic before me has the crowd rolling. Prior to the show, he had told me he had been doing stand-up comedy for about 4 years. So there I am watching this guy kill this room and in my head I say, "Fuck. I can't follow this.” I tell myself just to go out there and fuck it. If the crowd doesn't like it, at least I gave it my all.

He gets off stage, and as I'm going up, I feel this energy in the room. The energy was electric. You could tell they wanted to laugh more, and I was going to give it to them. Once my first joke hit and it hit perfectly; then the next 2 after that hit. I knew I was going to murder that room.

Even when a joke didn't work, I still got them to laugh. My timing and delivery was down perfect; it was as if the crowd would start laughing before the joke was finished.

Getting an entire room to laugh at one joke is amazing. There could be someone in that crowd that night that just had the shittiest day ever and at that moment, all their problems left and they were just able to enjoy life for a minute.

I'm not one to brag or boast, but I killed that room. I was the best that night. Other comics afterward told me I killed; people in the crowd wanted to talk to me after the show telling me how funny I was. I wasn't perfect, but I couldn't have done much better than I did and that is the best feeling. Murdering an entire room with your jokes is better than any high you can get. It's even better then sex, but that's just me.