A Story About Stand Up

After a long period of wanting to try stand up, being too nervous to try stand up, ready to finally try stand up and finding a place that allows a 15-year-old to do stand up...Zach did his first stand up gig earlier this month.

The occasion was a music festival put together by one of Zach's friends.  She was looking for performers to entertain the crowd between music acts and asked The Artist to handle a set that night.

Now that he had a date set for his stand up debut, what kind of material would he perform?  Would he stick to: 

***Kid friendly material ("How does anyone get convicted of a crime on Scooby Doo when the only witnesses are four kids who claim to have a talking dog?")

***Teen material ("Hey, how about that acne? Make some noise if you have new zits today!")

***Shocking Material (not his style)

After a few weeks of writing and editing, Zach came up with 5 solid minutes about adjusting to life in Los Angeles, the racial diversity in his options school and the crazy vibe of Hollywood Boulevard.

The gig was held at a nice little venue called The Lyric Theatre.  The club filled with around 100 people as the show started.  Dana and I were more nervous than Zach about the set.  We knew how hard he worked on writing, rewriting and sweating over the finer points of the set.

Once we found out what time he was going on that night (10ish), we decided to get some air and find something quick to eat.  The venue was located near La Brea and Melrose which meant we were near Pink's Hot Dogs!

Dana eats gluten free.  I try and eat gluten free as well at restaurants so she will have more options to choose from when dining out.  Pink's doesn't have a huge selection of gluten free items and we were in a hurry to get back to the club.  We decided on an order of chili cheese fries and an order of nachos. While they were very tasty, the items should have been listed as "two bowls of glop".  They came out of the kitchen looking like the type of food items you would have no idea what they're supposed to be if you weren't the person that ordered them.

We finished our glop and made our way back down La Brea.  After a 30-minute wait the moment (finally) arrived!  

It was time for his stand up set.  The musical act ended and Zach made his way to the stage.  He started talking and no one was paying much attention to the teenage kid talking about his life on stage.  

Kicking off his set

The first joke landed to a small amount of laughter.  His act was more of a storytelling set and not "punchline joke punchline joke".  He started his second story (about mishaps while playing football) and you could feel the audience start to pay attention to him.

He won them over talking about the types of tourists and characters you encounter on Hollywood Boulevard.  He was mentioning the desperation in the air on Hollywood Boulevard and segued with "Speaking of desperation...Van Nuys".  (If you're not from Los Angeles, trust me...it killed)

Nailing the Van Nuys joke

The five minutes flew by and he finished his set.  He exited the stage to a nice round of applause and a giant round of hugs from his friends.  

The kid went out and faced his fears by performing and succeeding.

He's already working on new material and we're looking for more venues that allow teen stand up acts.

He might have a new career path in front of him.

The IMDb page of a future stand up star