Letter to a Comedy Club
by Jon Friedman
Dear Comedy Club,
I'd like to perform my act this Friday night at your club. It is hilarious. I do a fantastic impersonation of Greg Tatum. He was in my third grade class and he used to walk with a hitch limp and slobber. The crowd loves it. I rump around the stage a bit saying "Tatum if you got 'em!" I do lots of jokes too. My favorite one is about a seal that tries to deposit money in the bank but can't because "No pinnepeds!" The main part of my act is basically me enraging everyone. When I am introduced I come out like a pissed off hillbilly looking for my trunk of junk. Of course my trunk is already on the stage but I pretend to not be able to find it. "Did any body see my trunk of junk?" That's what I say scratching my head for a while. People usually yell out things like "It's right behind you." "What are you doing?" and "Boo." I really like the interaction I get from my audience because without interaction what do I have? Then after I locate the trunk with a gallant "Well, here it is! Shiver me tacklebox! I found it!" I open it up and take out my giant sledgehammer and a watermelon. I got this idea from this bald weird big fan pants guy who jumps on large furniture and crashes fruit. His name is something like McGregor or Grunger. He smashed the fruit on a table and it went all over the audience. They love it. The sticky mass of gloshy smashness gets all over their hair n' clothes. But what I do is I take it a step further to enhance the comedy. I actually eat the watermelon and then smash my own stomach with the sledgehammer and double up until I brunt all over the front row. Later on in the show I do something similar when I have someone come up on stage and sandwich hit my puffed out cheeks with their open gloved hands and I spit sweet water all back at them. I also make up song parodies of parodies thus setting them back to the originals. How big is your stage? I do a routine with a dead whale where I go inside its mouth and open and close the flaps to make it look like it's talking. The whale smells like an old bag of spoil ruin. His name is Shlep and he talks about shaming his wasted last few days degulping carp form the ocean floor. I make him sound like that dinosaur the kids love, Mr. Rogers. What's his deal? Who comes home and immediately puts on different shoes and a sweater. I mean when I come home the first thing I want to do is change my pants. And what's the deal with all these different brands of bread? I "WONDER" when that's going to end. I only need one kind of bread and that's the kind to hold my pastrami in place. Did you ever see that show the Wonder Years? What's with that nerdy kid? Is he like allergic to everything? I saw him sneezing from his glasses strap. Speaking of allergies is anybody here allergic to the IRS? But seriously folks you should pay your taxes because we don't want to have another tea party on our hands. What was the deal with that? A tea party? I know when I want to protest I break out the kettle and crumpets. Speaking of crumpets anybody ever go to England? I went there once and somebody invited me over to their flat and I was like "Flat? You got anything more firm?" I do invite people to come up and jump on the whale but he is getting pretty blasted apart from the leaps some of these people take. After the whale I go on a full out insult fest of nearly everyone who is alone and semi ugly. I once called someone a worthless goose son-of-a-lova reindeer hater window washa begga meat eata softy geek. The audience bloarfed in delight but she turned bright blue. Do you know of anyone who needs a plumber? During the finale of my act I dress up as a clown and I become a sort of mixture fun loving fool and lunatic night beast. As usual I juggle three multi colored balls until one drops which frustrates me beyond belief and that's when I go into a haze and lose all recollection of time and thought. I had my act video taped recently to watch myself and see what everyone is raving about. It was some of my best work. I gave this wise guy in the back a tearing wedgie and flipped him over tangling his arms in his broken sheared underpants. Then I jumped around landing on my hands and feet growling at a near scream as my corner lip foamed up and I played the bongos on a German ladies head. The crowd was laughing so hard after I pummeled into the left wall of the room and then broke out into a hard deliberate march in place staring determined straight ahead at an eleven year old boy who cried so loud that all noise coming from him stopped and turned into one wide mouthed blare. He's lucky that I got distracted by a man in the front who was reflecting light off of a pocket mirror into my eyes. That's when I snapped towards him and ran back onto the stage tearing away my clown clothes. It all seemed to die down after I ate an old dirty sock and yanked my neck with a large cane. People really like the unpredictability of my finale. It's what people say is my "Take my wife please."
Sincerely,
Jon
About the author:
Jon lives in Brooklyn with an old mustard colored cat named Lemon. He has recently launched a T-shirt website called Elameno Tees. Check it out at www.elamenotees.com