alliancesjr | I once had a dog with no nose.

Last week I enrolled at a comedy course - a stand-up seminar, if you will - at the Improv. Last night was the first class, and let me tell you, it was awesome. Even just walking in to the place was amazing. I had never been there before, and it is a high-class establishment¹.

The first of ten classes was last night, and it was amazing. The teacher - who is a stand-up comic himself; I had actually heard of him - gave us all a short lecture about how a routine should be pared down to its basics. A brief rundown of the rest of the lecture: Don't get verbose, don't lose your place by getting caught in tangents, don't force something that you don't feel. Go ahead and be offensive if that's who you are, but don't do it for the sake of being offensive; do it to prove a point or don't do it at all. Don't just go up there and curse - swear words are just like any other words in that they lose their power if you use them too often or incorrectly².

After that, he had us all take turns on the stage and give a demonstration of our jokes and comedy style. I went third³ and did a rough intro about being an Irish Jew, then went into a couple jokes that Dayna and Tessa helped me prepare. Everyone seemed to like them, and I got a couple bits of advice: "Use the Rule of Three, give it a bit of a rhythm. Also, keep working with the Irish Jew thing, that's good stuff and you can get a lot of mileage out of it if you work it."

Nine more classes, and then the graduation show. A real show, with a real audience. I'm going to be on stage FOR REAL at the Improv⁴.

I'm really excited.

I'd only been to Zanies in the city before, and it was a lot smaller, and - according to our teacher - smelled like 95 year old urine.

Like "sparkle".

Let me take a moment aside, please. I WAS ON STAGE AT THE MOTHERFUCKING IMPROV. Even though it was empty aside from the ten of us. ON STAGE AT THE IMPROV. *cough* Thank you. That was all.