Why I can never be a stand-up comedienne.

by Angela K. Durden
The Most Brilliant Woman in the World

Citizen Journalist.  Novelist. Author of other stuff. 

Business writer.  Songwriter.  Protecting creator's copyrights. 

I went to a Comedy Open Mic last night. My first. Might be my last because one of the comedians...doing what comedians do...engaged the audience by asking the audience a question. Then he turned to me and specifically asked me. Here is that interchange.

"You had pets growing up?"

"Yes, sir."

"What were they?"

"Well, let me see...ummm...monkeys...snakes...baby lion...and ummmm..."

Now, I was getting ready to say, birds and bulls and cats and dogs, but the guy stopped me and said, "Whoa! You can't just say 'monkeys' and roll on by that and not explain."

Then he proceeded to ask some more questions, one of which was, "So, this monkey pet you had, did it die of old age?"

I shook my head and said, "No. It was a cocaine overdose."

Well, that brought the house down and was the running joke the rest of the night. Poor ol' Jocko the Macaque. Famous all these years later. The stories in my childhood are not things I can tell and make people laugh. For instance, before Jocko died of the drug overdose, he got out of his cage and into Ex-Lax. Ate the whole box. When we came home, monkey crap was everywhere and Jocko was laying on the top of the fridge with his head hanging down and moaning.

That should be funny. All the elements for comedy are there, right? Monkey. Crap smeared everywhere. There's a joke in there somewhere...except when I tell it isn't funny. It's just sad.

So you can see that my childhood is why I can never be a stand up comedienne, though I make a great second banana...as I proved so well last night.

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