Photo by Natalie Mosqueda/ staff. Southwestern student James Chew gave an animated comedic performance at Mad House Comedy Club.
A young shaggy-haired man wearing a striped t-shirt, grey jeans and a devil-may-care expression grabbed the microphone as he took the stage.
“Because their body is more relaxed at impact, a drunk person has a higher chance of surviving a car accident,” he said. “Statistically, so does a baby. Does that mean a drunk baby would be invincible? I’d like to find out but nobody will let me test it out. All I need is a baby and an afternoon.”
His callous joke drew tepid laughs from the 19 audience members, mostly other comedians waiting for their turn.
It is open mic night at the Mad House Comedy Club in Horton Plaza. One after another, in five minute spurts, a parade of amateur comedians take their shot at finagling some laughs.
Some have been doing comedy nearly every day for years. For others it is their first time. Admission is free. Anyone can go onstage. Public humiliation is the only cost.
SWC communications major James Chew was set to take the stage for his 18th time.
Chew said his foray into stand-up comedy started during a dark period in his life.
“I was very depressed,” he said. “I had just lost three family members who were very dear to me and I wanted to laugh again, so I just looked up today’s comedy on Pandora. I went through the normal comedians like Kevin Hart and I liked their stand-up, but when I heard Louis C.K., that changed a lot of stuff for me. Louis showed me the side of comedy that lets you throw yourself on the table and lets people judge you for who you are.”
His friends secretly signed him up for a show.
“My first show was at SWC,” he said. “I mostly did ginger jokes because it was all I had. Midway through I got so anxious my vision got blurry. I had to stop early because I couldn’t read my jokes. I didn’t get a single laugh, not even a petty I-feel-sorry-for-you laugh.”
Bombing is common for the novice comedian, who learn that being funny with friends and is not the same as taking it to the stage.
Anthony Grabert, 29, a fixture at San Diego open mics, went on three spots before Chew.
“I’m three years in and I’m just starting to figure things out,” he said. “It’s so much different than being funny in regular life. When you’re with your friends let’s say you make a joke about your friend Dave being cheap. Everyone knows he’s cheap, so you can just make the joke and everyone will laugh. On stage everyone is a stranger, so you have to set up the whole situation and then knock it down.”
Nick McIntosh said he moved to San Diego from Ohio two years ago and has been doing stand-up comedy ever since. It is art form unlike any other, he said.
“As a musician or even a painter, you can be locked away in some New York art studio practicing,” he said. “As a stand-up the only way to practice is in front of people.”
Mcintosh said feeling perpetually vulnerable is something comics must embrace.
“I think the jump on stage is big in most people’s minds,” he said. “But once you do it a couple times you realize that you are just going to spend most of the time your first couple years just bombing all the time. You start to realize that it is not a reflection of you as a human being, it’s just that whatever you were doing that night didn’t work.”
Young comics eager to learn try to get on stage as often as possible, seeking out stage time wherever they can find it.
“I try to go up 12 to 15 times a week,” said Grabert. “The Mad House has an open mic every day and usually I’ll go to at least another one somewhere in the city. So I go up two to three times a night.”
McIntosh said the region is a growing comedic factory.
“The San Diego comedy scene is great, it is pretty recent,” he said. “As an actual scene it started about eight years ago. We are just starting to see comics who started here get bigger in LA.”
Chew said he mines his life experiences for comedic material.
“A lot of times I write jokes from repressed memories,” he said. “I try to be as honest as possible on stage. People have this misperception that comics are always making stuff up. Sure people exaggerate, but the best comedians are the most honest.”
After an hour and a half of nervously waiting to go on stage, it was over in a flash.
“There were a couple of times in my set where I felt like I was yelling, I just got way too loud,” he said. “Other than that, I think I did pretty solid.”
Chew said he is signing up for open mics all over San Diego County.
“I find myself happy more times on stage for that five minutes than I have ever been working at any other job,” he said. “I am going to push harder to pursue comedy. I know it will be years before I’m any good, but it’s worth it.”
Grabert said that the difficulty of comedy appeals to him.
“I’ll probably never be good,” he said. “I’ll probably spend 20 years doing it and never be good. I honestly feel that way. I like that it’s like an unwinnable game, you can never figure it out. Nobody ever figures it out, even the best.”