One of my closest friends, the Rogue Hippo Pat DeGeest, is pursuing a lifelong dream of being a professional comedian. Earlier this month I had the opportunity to watch him perform at an open mic night. It was an interesting experience that has had my brain churning for weeks.
The scene was Average Joe’s Pub in Superior, Wisconsin. A rather nondescript watering hole, it was a small rectangular building with a perpendicular rectangle bar inside the front door. There were about 15 people sitting around the bar and a couple more at tables. The Hippo took me to the far side of the bar where there were some tables, a pingpong table and dart boards. When it was time for the show to start, they folded up the pingpong table and set up a cordless speaker with a microphone. Pat had the distinct honor of powering down the jukebox.
I hadn’t seen the Hippo perform in any fashion since we were in a high school musical together in 1998. In the interim he has been a professional radio DJ, lived on a sailboat and earned a bachelor’s degree in robotics. Throughout the years I’d like to believe that I’ve served as a role model and a mentor to Patrick and I was curious to see if any of his material poked fun at his idol.
I didn’t have to wait long. The Hippo was the third comic to take the floor. His setlist:
- Pornhub
- Gloryholes
- Seducing Greta Thunberg
- COVID Deer
- Alligator Eats Toddler
It was a strong showing. Pat is legitimately funny. He still has a ways to go before comedy can evolve into a paid profession, but there was a lot I respected about his act.
There were about a dozen comics performing that night. Each had 10 minutes to work with, although most used far less. Some were funnier than Pat and the best of them were much more polished. At the end of the night and for weeks after, I’ve been thinking about what makes a good stand-up comic. Here are the thoughts of an insufferable know-it-all:
wanted to play darts.
Good Jokes
A comic needs good jokes? This is the kind of insite that inspires me to pledge $10 a month to OiO on Patreon. I don’t know how the science of jokery works, but I do know that Pat puts a lot of time and effort into his material. I think it helps if jokes are relatable and timely.
Take for instance his material on gloryholes. It’s a two-and-a-half minute bit, and keep in mind that a lot of open mic nights only give you three minutes to work with. It was funny, I had some good chuckles along the way. But it wasn’t very relatable, because I have not, and likely never will, see a gloryhole. It’s like Daenerys in Game of Thrones. Until it’s relatable – until she comes back to Westeros, it doesn’t have much punch for me. If he had suggested putting one in his apartment or a gaming store, it might have hit a little harder.
And sometimes you might need to educate a bunch of idiots. I have no idea who Greta Thunberg is. Pat set up the fact that she was a young activist who was finally legal and suggested several pickup lines for potential suitors. Maybe I’m a nerd, but I would have liked a bit of a history lesson to go along with the jokes.
Transitions
One thing that I noticed from most of the acts was they jumped from joke to joke without tying things together much. It was something I thought about after seeing Danielle, a 54-year-old transgender woman do her set near the end of the night. She had a number of jokes that tied back to her gender and how it affects her life. It was interesting, personal and very funny.
It was nice having that connective tissue. Chatting with Pat about it, he shared that a lot of comics use open mic nights like this as an opportunity to workshop new material. It’s a low-pressure way to see if a crowd reacts well to a certain joke. While transitions will be very important in an HBO special, they are less important in an environment like this.
Being an infinitely helpful friend, I reminded Pat about an aspect of his lovelife that a close group of friends, (maybe it’s just me?) give him a lot of grief about. Looking at his setlist, I think he could have used it to connect every joke but the COVID deer. Poking fun at himself might also make the overall act more relatable, which will help him get the khakis, so he can get the chicks.
Stage Presence
If there was one aspect of the performance where the Hippo really struggled, it was with his stage presence. I don’t envy him trying to build this skill. It’s easy enough for me to talk into a microphone in the anonymity of the internet, I can only imagine the pressure of telling jokes that you personally wrote to a group of people who may laugh, may yell obscenities, or might start screaming that they won $100 in pull tabs across the bar.
A handful of the comics had a true command of the stage. Breaking down the event with Pat afterwards, he noted that most of those with the masterful stage presence also had a lot of experience. They were calm and collected, like delivering jokes into a microphone where a pingpong table stood moments before was their natural habitat.
I’ve thought a lot about how Pat, or anyone, can work on this aspect of the presentation. First, I think repetition is key to getting comfortable. I hope Pat keeps performing over and over again. He’s currently performing at two open mic nights a week, I wonder what other opportunities there are. Do talent shows still exist?
I think doing some stage acting could help too. I think gaining some experience pretending to be someone else can help him be more comfortable in his own skin. It could also help him develop a persona that he uses on stage. Perhaps he could explore community theatre or improv classes.
It could be a terrible idea, but I also keep coming back to Pat starting a Twitch stream. If he had a regular schedule, he could workshop new material and get used to performing in a new medium. I’m sure it is an entirely different ballgame doing a comedy act as a livestream on the internet when you can’t get audible feedback from the crowd, but I bet the experience of interacting with the chat and still performing would be valuable.
Patrick has a natural charisma. People are already drawn to him. I’m really excited to see his potential when he gets a little more comfortable on stage.
A Touch of Decency
There is a delicate balance to comedy. You can be vulgar, crude, and/or obscene and still be extremely funny. You have to be careful though, because going too far can alienate a crowd. One of the comics that night opened by saying he was a five year cancer survivor, drawing a rousing applause from the crowd, before saying he never had cancer but was still alive. Given a close friend’s recent battle with cancer, I have no idea if he was funny or not. I was openly hostile to him from that point on. He could have been the offspring of Ali Wong and Dane Cook, I wasn’t processing another thing he said.
After the show, we talked a lot about potential topics for new material. Pat keeps a healthy roster of google docs to track ideas and develop new jokes. There are also some topics, especially politics that he avoids. He noted that whichever side you poke fun at, you lose half the audience immediately and you may never get them back.
It’s easy to stand on the sideline and give Pat advice on how to hone his craft. I have so much respect for him for actually putting himself out there every week. His girlfriend Kaitlin also deserves a ton of credit for how she supports his comedy. The Rogue Hippo may have a bit of a road ahead to his own HBO special, but there is a comedy scene in Duluth. Eventually they will get back to live shows. Each act will have an opener and perhaps intermediate entertainers. His goal is to make money as a comic, and I believe he is well on his way.
And there you have it, a foolproof guide to becoming a professional comedian! If you are interested in watching Pat perform, you can check him out at Average Joe’s in Superior Wisconsin Monday nights and at the Dubh Linn Irish Brew Pub in Duluth, Minnesota on Thursdays. Both shows are at 8 p.m. Central, and if you go make sure you scream, “Outside is Overrated” when Pat’s trying to tell a joke.
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