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winstonhcomedy · 7 years ago

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Fredericksburg Feels

Well I don’t really know where to start. Not just this post, but start this blog. I’ve had it a month and have been putting off writing in it every day. I’m not the best writer, but the only way to get better is to do it more so here I am. I was waiting for a good idea to pop in my head, so I could make a splash and hit the ground running. It didn’t happen.

What did happen was i got on Facebook today and saw some shitty news. Not the normal shitty news that affects the nation like a hurricane, a school shooting, or an election, but the kind of shitty news that affects a select few. The news I read was Liberty Center in Fredericksburg, VA has been sold and will be closing down January 1st 2018.

Now you might want to know why a bowling alley located in a city two hours away from me closing is a big deal. Well the thing is that above that bowling alley, tucked away behind closed doors is Liberty Laughs comedy club. Yes that’s right comedy above a bowling alley.

I love that room. I really do. It’s a real club. That feels like it was plucked right out of the 1980′s. Just a well kept secret above a bowling alley like some kind of white trash Anne Frank. Where instead of writing a journal she’s writing a setlist of dick jokes to try to win over drunk townies on a Friday night with nowhere else to go.

My first set there was for a contest. I had been doing comedy all of 2 months and was asked by Kenny Wingle to come up and be a part of it because he was desperate (i’m projecting but yea I’m going to go with desperate). I hadn’t met a ton of comics at this point because I didn’t live in the city and was new. It is 5 minutes before showtime and 2 people are there. A young couple on a date (she was dressed way too nice to be there). Kenny asked us if we wanted to all split the prize money and still compete but have fun. We all agreed. Right after that people started to filter in and we finished with about 15 to 20 people who were there for comedy.

Now it doesn’t matter who won the contest (I know who did), and it doesn’t matter what terrible FB/Dating jokes I did (I still do them). What matters is this. That was the night I met people who are great comics and even better friends. That was the night I met Brandon Beswick (who is a great comic and whomade my website winstonhodges.com), Travis Carl (a dope comic who runs Clash at the Virginia Beach FunnyBone), Kenny Wingle (a super dope dude, funny guy, and all around super fun hang), and others (Brandon Moore, Jody Allen, Troy Robinson) After the show they had an open mic so we even got to go up IN A CLUB and eat a dick twice in one night. A YOUNG COMIC’S DREAMMMMM!!!!

The next time I performed there I was asked last minute by Kenny Wingle (starting to see a pattern) if I could do 10 minutes opening for Chris Keyser (a really great guy) at his dvd release. Chris was doing booking there at the time and the release was a great show. Chris gave me a copy of his dvd for free (he overcharged me), and was very complimentary. He told me he had to get me in soon and we were going to line some stuff up. I was on top of the world.

Chris quit shortly after that.

I wouldn’t perform there for a long time afterwards. Not until Troy Robinson (generous dude, and a great booker) reached out and started giving me spots. I got to open for some dope people and got to have my first feature set in a club there because of him and I won’t ever forget that.

Not all comedy memories are great memories. I had the single worst set of my life at Liberty Laughs. I stand by that to this day. I have never bombed harder in my life and I don’t know if it is even possible to.

The new dude doing booking Bryan Siegel had a message out that he was looking for younger comics to come and audition to see if they’d be a good fit for some hosting work. So I signed up. The week of the showcase I got a sinus infection and thought about not going. I could barely standup or breathe but I figured my stage health would kick in and I’ll be set. So the day of I road up with my friend Paige Campbell (so damn funny) ready to murder. I assumed this would be a typical showcase, where everybody does 7 to 10 in front of a paying audience to get a good gauge of where we were as comics.

I WAS FUCKING WRONG.

It was me and the other 10 comics from Richmond/Charlottesville area in a huge room doing our sets just for Bryan. That’s right 10 comics doing our “best” 5 minutes in front of a room of people who were not only competing with for stage time, but also had heard our “best” 5 minutes 100 times at this point.

“But he at least sat in the front and paid close attention to the idiosyncrasies of yall’s comedy right?”

FUCK NO

He sat in the back and played what I can only assume to be candy crush as we each went up and bombed. I went like 8th, and it felt like for the previous hour I had just been watching all of my friends get executed one by one. Like a conveyor belt but instead of assembling parts, it was dissembling dreams.

I go up and proceed to sweat/flounder/die on stage for 7 minutes. Praying for a small light from Bryan’s cell phone. The only thing I heard over the deafening silence was Bryan ordering chicken tenders from the poor waiter who had to work that shift anyway.

The last person to go up is my mentor Chris Alan (everything he does is great). Mentor is a weird word but it is what it is. I was less than a year in and Chris who has been doing it almost a decade took the time to not only answer questions and give critiques but actually look out for me and be a real friend. I will never forget that (unless I get bigger than him, then yea I’ll forget that).

I watched Chris murder for 10 minutes. he did one joke after 9 minutes of shitting on the situation we were all in. Chris did some other things that night that I respect more than anything but won’t post on here. He's a great comic and a real pro.

After the show Chris told me, “Shit like this doesn’t matter, you were set up to fail. So fuck it.�� He was right and it shifted my approach to material/crowd work ever since.

The shows since then I’ve gotten thanks to Troy Robinson have all been super fun. I have grown as a comic because of that club. This is an audience that doesn’t want to be preached to, or want to know how smart you are. They live in fucking Fredericksburg they just want to laugh. So that’s what I aimed for every time. I just wanted people to laugh. This is a great workout room, to cut your teeth, grind it out, and see if you’re cut out to work a club.

I have on more show there. I didn’t know it’d be my last. It is Friday December 22nd at 8 pm. If you’ve made it this far I hope you come out to it. It’s going to be bittersweet. I’m on the show with some of my best friends and funniest people I know Von Michael (757 by way of 804 comic) Keith Marcell (beast on stage) and Dylan Vattelana (hard working comic who is finally out on the road where he belongs).

It will be a bittersweet night, but I’m glad I get one last set to say goodbye to the stage where I got to feature first, and where I ate the fattest dick of all time on. Liberty Laughs you will not be forgotten.

#comedy comedyrva libertylaughs comedyclub nostalgia memories funny

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