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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 12, 2000)
AGGIELIFE by, April 12,2000 THE BATTALION Page 3 The art of laughter exas A&M students talk about professional comedy outlets available in College Station ire industrial distribution ug to be a great chance for ne and have fim with their in liir Parents's Weekend)k ironment” The pn/es include tivoAi onds, a $500 book scholar?: t ree meals at restaurants sail k Steakhouse, Johnny C»|| •Olive Garden. Monday nt Association: Single ery Monday 6:30-7:30f enter rm 204. nt Association: v9:30pm at StM^j t Association: St. . Every Monday 9-11 enter rm 201. GABRIEL RUENES/The Battalion BY JUAN LOYA The Battalion F or all would-be stand-up comedi ans, here’s a free joke to get start ed: Cover half of face with sheet of paper, open mouth wide as if exclaiming, “Are you ready for some football?” and remain still in that position. Instant Pat Green impression. Of course, jokes are just the first step on the road to professional comedy. As some Ag gies have discovered, finding an audience to view the slapstick spectacle of stand-up is more than half the effort involved. Lance Lunsford, a junior political sci ence major, has been doing stand-up come dy for a year and a half, and has found his own ways to perform in a community where stand-up is scarce. “I had a friend in the band Kid Fantastic, and I asked them iff could kill time for them before their set,” Lunsford said. “So a lot of my first opportunities were just telling jokes before the band went on to get the crowd warmed up. “I just read that the best way to get started is to get as much stage time as possible. You have to make your own opportunities.” The outlets for comedy in Bryan-College Station are few, and potential comedians do not have the old starting ground most profes sionals have used to perfect their craft: the open mike. “Austin has a multitude of places to do open mikes,” Lunsford said. Indeed, most of the metropolitan areas in Texas have places to showcase amateur comedy; the Laff Stop in Houston, for instance, offers an open mike every Monday night, where any brave soul can approach the microphone and attempt to make the crowd laugh. MSC Town Hall offers its Coffeehouse open mike in Rumours deli, where musicians, poets and comedians have an opportunity to display their talent. Lunsford said that he has attended Coffeehouse only once and had a less than receptive audience. “The people there were ready for poetry, with their berets and laptop computers,”- Lunsford said. “And here I am. Joke Boy, trying to get my comedy going. It wasn’t a good mix.” Faced with comedy prospects numbering nil, Lunsford decided to organize his own comedy showcase for College Station. Lunsford has start ed accumulating comics to participate in what he plans to possibly be a six-person comedy troupe and the beginning of a continuing scene in the lo cal nightlife. “My plan is to get this kicked off and start this as an alternative to the usual things to do in this town,” Lunsford said. “1 know a lot of people are getting sick of seeing Pat Green eveiy weekend, and I’d like to bring something else to College Station. Something people can bring a date to and just have a good time.” Lunsford has approached members of Freudi an Slip, Texas A&M’s improvisational comedy group, and hopes more comedians will answer the call to arms. N ick Cemoch, director of Freudian Slip and a junior theater arts major, said that while improv and stand-up are different forms of comedy, both have a potential audience in the community. “If it’s good, yeah, either kind can find an audi ence,” Cemoch said. “Improv adds a theatrical el ement to comedy, and that’s what I like most about it.” Both forms also have different methods of deal ing with the heckler, a com mon comedy nemesis. Since the majority of Freudian Slip’s show en courages audience partici pation, hecklers do not usu ally pose too much of a problem, Cemoch said. Lunsford, on the other hand, has sometimes used the heckler to his advantage, even to the point of supply ing the jeerer himself. “Sometimes I tell my friends to heckle,” Lunsford said. “It just makes the crowd go nuts when somebody’s out there yelling ‘you suck.’” Perhaps a more common problem for begin ning comedians is not getting the audience to stop heckling, but to listen in the first place. “The plus side of doing comedy here is that it’s probably easier to get a small following than it would be in a larger city,” Cemoch said, “but ‘ it’s also harder if you have mostly people who are just coming to the club and not necessarily to see . you perform.” “It’s good to be at a party and be recognized and complimented,” Lunsford said. “One night after my act this huge guy stopped • me like he wanted to kick my ass or something. But instead he just looked at me and said, ‘That right there, man. You were real good.’ And that’s , a really good feeling, to hear that people enjoyed your comedy.” Both Lunsford and Freudian Slip will be par ticipating in Town Hall’s Variety Show program, Lunsford as a performer and the troupe as hosts. The program is on Friday, as part of Parent’s . Weekend activities. “I knew some people who went to it last year and I had done some comedy before,” Lunsford said. “It seemed like a good outlet to perform and find a bigger audience.” Lunsford said that he will probably gear his material toward parents and going away to school, but finding material for comedy is some- g SUSAN REDDING/Tm: Battalion Members of Freudian Slip (Lto R) Doug Newell, Casey Wilson, Julia Smith, Nick Cernoch and Dominic Nuosce. thing he never has a problem doing. “There’s a lot of funny things that we forget about when we’re walking around all pissed off at the world,” Lunsford said. “Sometimes we just need to chill out and appreciate the humor.” Tuesday :iety: There will be a speaker from a surrcrtl le time and location at ters: Learn public spei Will be in Rudder at an for location. For intact Laura at 695-28331 ts Association: There in Rudder 707 at 7 te Students’ Associ# be a reception andbooki o Portalison hisbookl p.m. at Barnes and i/ednesday e Students’ Association’ i and book reading hi his book “CrowdingOut ?s and Noble. Association Student! 1 ary Wednesday fS-Sp? iter rm 204. r in Chief gers, Photo Editor o, Photo Edi tor 1 lynecck, Graphics Editor DeLuna, Graphics Editor ipf. Night News Editor rnnyhoff, Radio Producer i Payton, Web Editor nber, Science & Tec >dy Wages, Bradley Atchison. Hrl- ms, Sallie Turner. Patric Schnenli' tabeth O' Farrell. Melissa Sacke' : i & Susan Redding. Gabriel Ruenes, EricAndraosJefc! enderson, Richard Home.OandS^'' Harrell. & Sean Gillespie. • Assistant Cristina Padron: BeKiAh® les, Carrie Bennett. MaicGiate.lif 11 ’ bs. Melissa Maride, Jamie MooisS^ iistant: Noni Sridhara; Whitney Sot nt, Ryan Locker. Almudena Alba.£•' itchett. riant: Brent Barkley. Iechnology • Scott Jenkins 8 tola' 5 ki. rsity in the Division of Student Ma l vsroom phone: 845-3313: Far MSit The Battalion. For campus, local,andra) ts are in 015 Reed McDonald, andi® pick up a single copy ollhe BaW f 6 iring semester and $17.50 lottliesn«r the fall and spring semesters aril at Texas A&M University. PeriodicaS '15 Reed McDonald Building tens Come learn what your government does not want you to know about UFOs. . . Using the Freedom ot Information Act, several UFO research organizations have recently obtained once-secret government documents concerning “flying saucers". These, and other newly-declassified documents reveal that UFOs do exist and, further, indicate that the U.S. Government has been engaged in a massive cover-up designed to keep the tacts from the public. UFOs - THE HIDDEN HISTORY” A slide-tape program and lecture by Robert Hastings April 13,2000 Rudder Theater 7 pm Presented by MSC Current Issues Awareness