Best... Show... Ever...

I did a college show last week that was awful. I won't mention the name of the school, or where it was located, to prevent any backlash. I was actually excited about this show, up until about 5 minutes before it started. I was excited because when it was booked, I was told, “Now Ryan, I don't know if you want to do this or not. They're having a Yo' Mama contest, like the Mtv show, before the show. They'll want to you to judge that, then do your set.”

“Lock it in,” I said without hesitation. I thought it was going to be great, because I've seen the Mtv show, and it may be the worst show I've ever seen. So, I thought the college was in on the joke as well, and it was being done tongue-in-cheek. WRONG!

I got to the school, which was about 60 miles from civilization, an hour before the show was to start. I noticed one bad sign going in. It's a college, not a university. Why would a school not have a graduate program by now? If it's not an historical school like College of William and Mary or Wellesley, and it's not a university, chances are, something is severely wrong at the school.

The show was at a pub in the student union. When I got there, I checked out the pub on my own before checking in with anyone. People were playing pool and yelling at the balls. Not saying, “Come on,” under their breath. They were yelling things like, “Come on faggot! Get in the hole!” I always take things like that as a bad sign. I'm also re-watching OZ now, so I've been hearing that phrase a lot lately.

After checking in with the student activities girl, I asked her what most people at the school major in. Most schools that host comedy shows are either big universities that specialize in everything, liberal arts schools, or engineering schools. This school is a private school for hotel and resort management. Read that again. They're paying $100,000 for an education that will provide them with a job they could get by working at a hotel for a couple years and not being an idiot. It makes no sense. Hotel and resort management is only one and a half steps up from AC repair. It's a fine job, but you don't need to spend 100K on a degree in AC repair. Go to a regular school and major in English or business or something. That was bad sign number 3.

We were about 10 minutes from show time, when I was informed that the Yo' Mama contest may be canceled due to only having one contestant, which would mean that I would go up to a cold crowd. That was fine with me. A cold crowd is better than a crowd that has just laughed at Yo' Mama jokes for 30 minutes.

Standing outside the packed pub of about 80 people, about 2 minutes from show time, I could tell it wasn't going to be a good show. It looked like they were doing a reenactment of Roadhouse in the pub. That's never good. Then I heard a girl standing to my left shouting, “Because they whack bitches, that's why. They a bunch of whack bitches. They's scurred. They's scurred.” I deduced that she was the only contestant for the show. This was confirmed when she started throwing yo' mama jokes at passers-by, who had no idea what was going on. I have to admit she had a couple gems too. “Yo' mama's so stupid, she thought Rubber Maid was the girl yo' daddy has sex with in the daytime.” I think she's saying that someone's dad has a blowup doll or something. That's more of a yo' dad joke, if you ask me. Nevertheless, it's brilliant. But her best, and I think this should go in the next Bartlett's quote book, was “Yo' mama so fat, she has to wear an asteroid belt, as a belt, to keep her pants up.” Ooh, does that burn or what? The extra emphasis she puts on “as a belt” is what really hurt my feelings when I first heard it. “...She has to wear an asteroid belt...”

As what? How does she wear it?

“... As a belt!”

Of course! I was thinking she'd wear it as suspenders, or even a hat. But of course she'd wear it as a belt. After all, it's called an asteroid “belt.” That's why she's the comic genius, and I was 2 minutes away from bombing in front of a bunch of people who wanted to see someone git 'r done. I can imagine her writing process... “Yo' mama's so fat, she uses an asteroid belt to keep her pants up. No. It's missing something. What is it though? Oh, I know... a redundant subordinate clause. Let's throw in, “as a belt,” right after I say belt.” I bet that's what she's thinking.

Just before the show started, I was asked, “Do you want me to introduce you, or would you like to introduce yourself?” Seeing as how it would be impossible to introduce myself, I asked her to do it. Then she asked, “Do you have anything you want me to say, or should I just just do my regular spiel?”

Surprised, and thinking that she knew what she was doing, I said, “You can just do your regular thing and introduce me.”

“Anything in particular that you want me to say about you?”

“Just my name is fine... actually you can say “from XM Radio” too.”

“Okay. Got it.”

Fast-forward forty-five seconds. She's on stage. “Hey everyone. Welcome to Yo' Mama comedy night. Unfortunately the Yo' Mama contest has been canceled because we only have one contestant [boos rain down]. But we do have Ryan Conner, who's been on XNM. So, come on up.” And so I did. I came up to a cocktail of silence, indifference, conversation, and a smattering of boos. I pretty much bombed for forty-five minutes. I break my sets down into blocks of five jokes. One out of every five went over very well. Two got a lukewarm response. And the mic may as well have cut out for the other two.

My favorite moment of the night was when I did a joke in which I say the Contra code. It's funny because I'm saying it in a context outside of Contra. That's the joke. But a guy yelled out, “That's the Contra code,” as if I didn't know. He said it as if I threw out a random combination of Nintendo buttons, and accidentally spelled the Contra code. He said it as if he was thinking, “That code is already taken. You should pick something else. Contra uses that one.” The code is, Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left Right, B, A, Select(for two players), Start. What are the odds of anyone accidentally saying that? I think if you had an infinite amount of chimpanzees with an infinite amount of typewriters and an infinite amount of time, they would get the Contra code just before they finished the works of Shakespeare. And I'm sure if he read that, he would say, “Do any of the chimps own a Nintendo? Because that would probably help.”

I doubt anyone from that school would be reading this, but if you were one of the seven people who actually laughed throughout my set, thanks for doing so.