Here's a great thing about comedy:

One day you're in a crowded room performing in front of hundreds of people.

The next day? A bar on Long Island performing in front of six people, being heckled by an 85 year old man named "Peanut."

Wait.

That was bad grammar. The six people in the bar were not being heckled by Peanut.

I was.

And when I said "a great thing about comedy," I meant "a crappy thing about comedy."

Also, saying "No comments from the Peanut gallery." is not NEARLY as funny as one would think it would be in such a situation.

That's all.

There's a dilemma.

You see, I signed a confidentiality agreement at the Last Comic Standing auditions, which means I can't tell you if the audition went well or not.

But I can't stop you from clicking on this link.

I mean, I could try. I could try to stop you from clicking on this link that would tell you whether or not I made it through the audition.

I could tell you that it's a terrible, terrible link that might cause you to get inflammation of the kidneys or possibly gout.

But you wouldn't listen to me, would you? You would probably just click away on this link anyway.

Sigh.....

I've done all I can.

Tonight I will be sleeping (and by "sleeping," I mean "not sleeping") on cold concrete on the streets of New York City, waiting in line to audition for "Last Comic Standing" tomorrow morning.

When it's done, I shall tell you all about it, but for now I'm reposting my (very slightly revised) entry from last year's audition. That way you'll spend tonight feeling sorry for me and sending me warm vibes right from your heart-cockles.

Also if you happen to be anywhere near 23rd Street between seventh and eighth avenues in the middle of the night tonight, you could bring me hot chocolate.

So yes. Here it is.
________________________

MY AUDITION FOR "LAST COMIC STANDING"

or

THINGS THAT ARE SLIGHTLY WORSE THAN GNAWING OFF YOUR OWN ARM

A good thing about living in New York City is that you can line up for hours and hours to audition for exciting things like network tv shows about stand-up comedians.

A bad thing about living in New York City is that you have to do aforementioned waiting in line in twenty-seven degree weather.

That's negative three degrees Celsius.

Also one-hundred eighty-nine in dog-degrees.

Because I am a diligent and career-oriented stand-up comedienne who doesn't really value her extremities, I decided to do this Freezer-esque-Line-Waiting Extravaganza.

"Sleeping on concrete? A joy!," I maintained.

"Who needs toes? Not me!," I opined.

"What could be more fun than spending a night surrounded by my fellow comedians?" I thought.

(NOTE: Truly, I believed none of these things. But, in all honesty, the process of being a stand-up comedian involves a whole lot of "fooling yourself." After years of telling yourself, "Someday I'll be a star," and "If I made one person laugh tonight then it was all worth it," and "Those audience members just threw things to show how much they were enjoying my act," a little bit of "Hey, this audition won't be so bad" isn't so hard to swallow.)

I arrived outside the comedy club at 10pm, twelve hours before the audition was scheduled to start, clad in four shirts, two pairs of pants, and a pocket full of hopes and dreams (and by "hopes and dreams," I mean "gum wrappers".) I was about thirtieth in line.

At that point, I believe the temperature hovered somewhere between "SO COLD" and "FREAKING FREEZING."

Lucky for ME, I was in line right behind a guitar player and a harmonica player who had the spectacular talent of being able to play the very same unrecognizable, horrible song in two entirely separate keys at the same time. It's not often that someone has talent like THAT and can do stand-up as well.

Sometimes it's easy not to notice the cold when you are instead noticing the blood streaming from your ears.

Oh, let's speed this story up a little. I waited. I got cold. I got ouchy. I got numb. I cuddled with people I've never met. I yelled at people I've never met. (These two groups were not necessarily different people.) I drank hot chocolate. I cried.

Fourteen hours later, I auditioned.

The audition went like this:

ME: Blah blah blah, joke. Blah joke. Blah joke. Bla....
JUDGE #1: Thanks, that's enough.
JUDGE #2: I like her. She's funny. I think we should keep her.
JUDGE #1: No, I don't think she's ready. She's too new.
JUDGE #2: I think she's cute.
JUDGE #1: She is cute. But I don't think she's ready.
ME: Wait. Is there anything I can do to convince you?
JUDGE #1: Well, you could take off your.....
ME: Other than that.
JUDGE #2: I guess not. Thanks for your time.

And I went home.

In retrospect, I should have taken off my shirt. After all, I had on three more.

THE END.

Ok, here is a real-life question:

Some charming person in my neighborhood keeps letting the air out of one of the tires on my car. This time they even took the little cap-thing off the tire and kept it. As I said, charming.

(For those of you that think this is a disgruntled heckler, you are probably correct. Either that or one of the 4,000 gang members that live in my neighborhood. Yes, I should move.)

I know you guys. You're genius-like.

Help me find a way to:

a) Make my tires so they can't let the air out.

and/or

b) Catch them.

Pretty please?

ANOTHER SNIPPET:

Jill to Heckler: You're really being quite helpful tonight by shouting out something right before each one of my punchlines. Perhaps we should get to know each other better. What kind of work do you do, sir?

Heckler: I teach middle school.

Jill: I see. Have you considered the fact that you might be the reason they have school shootings?

For those of you thinking, "Goodness gracious, Jill is mean during her comedy sets." rest assured that I am not. I'm really quite nice and kind unless you are mean to me or you talk during my set or I feel like being mean to you. So there.

Also rest assured that apparently I think my blog readers talk a lot like my grandparents.

A SNIPPET:

Jill to Heckler: Sir, you obviously want to be part of the show. What kind of work do you do?

Heckler: I'm an abstinence education counselor.

Jill: Well, you must be very good. I've only been near you for a few minutes, and already I never want to have sex again.

Spring forward, Bitches!

Oh I just love saying that.

Happy One-Hour-Less-Sleep-Day.

Here is the bruise.

Also, here is me splendidly using my digital camera for the good of mankind.

Also, here is me crossing the lines of good taste in blogging.