The Tomorrow Show

There was an awkward pause.  It wasn't unusual in these conversations, but it was enough to make her concerned, "Eric, you seem down," MB, as she signed herself in emails, offered into my ear from three thousand miles away.

 

"Yeah, now that you mention it I do seem to be tearing up, but I have no idea why."  I flipped through my mental notes trying to figure out what could have been making me sad.  I thought about what we'd been talking about that night.  It was our routine, every Sunday I'd call her and we'd catch up.  This week I told her about my set at The Tomorrow Show.

 

"Last night I went to the Steve Allen Theater and did The Tomorrow Show.  I got there early and started walking around.  I'm not usually nervous, but this was my first booked gig since moving out here.  I asked what the procedure was and a fellow I'd befriended in the past couple of weeks chuckled, 'I suggest pacing.'  I tried not-pacing--to be defiant.

 

"I saw the person who booked me, co-host Craig Anton, and he greeted me warmly as he dragged some music equipment on stage.  I asked if he needed any help, 'No thanks.  You're on first, that's a good spot.  Oh, it looks like there'll be an audience.'

 

"You still there MB?" I asked into the phone.

 

"No, uh, yeah I am, it's just...it sounds a bit written," she told me.

 

"Yeah, I suppose I should better conform to the medium from which I'm telling the story.  It's not like I'd write a lengthy telephone conversation into my blog or something, that would be ridiculous."

 

"No, I like it.  Go ahead."

 

"Okay then," I said, "The Tomorrow Show is always a weird, wonderful, unique experience, so I happened to be on a show with Eddie Pepitone doing a character from the audience, the hosts starting the show playing rock music in masks, and a contortionist.  It was only days from Halloween.

"I did something a little risky and dangerous.  I did material that I'd been developing for the past several weeks.  Although I was proud of the way it was progressing, I had not tested it in front of that many real audiences.  So that made my performance a little nervous...I did marginally well.

 

"But the strangest thing happened.  It wasn't unusual that I didn't get a lot of laughs and then a bunch of people complimented me, but several times throughout the show, and a little bit after, Ron Lynch and Craig Anton enthusiastically thanked me for my performance.

 

"After the show, Brendan Small talked to me and a brand new comic that hangs out at the show about television, animation, pitching shows, etc. for two hours."

 

"I hate you!" MB replied.  She was a fan of Home Movies, the cult cartoon featured on Cartoon Network's [adult swim] lineup.

 

But, thought I was disappointed in my set, I still wasn't sure why I started welling up.  Later in the week, I theorized that I might be clairvoyant.  It wouldn't be a pleasant week.

 

For example, my new job called twice informing me that I wouldn't be needed on that particular tomorrow.

 

Another problem happened the night of the phone call.  I hung up with MB and went to IO West for the open mic.  I didn't get on, but I got my usual free pizza and ride home.  When I got out of the car I patted my pockets, "Hey, Rob!  I can't find my notebook, can I check in your car?"

 

"Sure, but don't worry, call IO West, leave a message and maybe you can go in tomorrow."  I heeded his advice.

 

Straight from work the next day, I went to IO West and couldn't find the notebook.  To any non-comics, or non-writers for that matter, losing a notebook is almost traumatic.  It was a nice leather-bound Moleskine with an elastic strap.  It was the first proper notebook I bought.  I got it a year-and-a-half ago and, not only wrote my jokes and other thoughts in it, I used the back for an inventory of the jokes I'd written in the past three-and-a-half years.  So, it was extra valuable.  I was worried, but not yet ready to mourn.  Besides, it was just days ago that I'd updated it by putting my new address in it, so as long as I didn't drop it in the mud, or as long as it didn't fall into the hands of a thief, I felt pretty confident I'd see it again.

 

I went picked up Demetri Martin's "These Are Jokes" CD/DVD and I loved it.  Demetri Martin tells jokes, but he's constantly finding new contexts for those jokes.  There's also a childlike wonder to it all and he brought his mother and grandma into the mix.

 

On Halloween I thought about going to the open mic at Westwood Brew Co. but the bus never came.  I was there so long, and I was nervously looking around, that a woman came up to me from across the street and accused me of stalking her.  I waited for her to leave my sight and then I walked to my apartment.

 

I started November by looking for a piece of software to convert my DVDs to mpeg files so that I could upload more of my comedy to YouTube without the watermark.  Everywhere I went I saw software that was too new for my computer.  I'm the third owner of this laptop and it's processor is a Pentium II.  This whole frustrating time, I got my second call from my job and snagged my middle blazer button on a mesh trash can.  The can was empty, so I grabbed the button and stuffed it in my pocket for later.  Not only was the button ripped off, the fabric on the jacket was torn.  It was just one more thing.

 

I got to Synergy Cafe later than I should have.  So, when I left for Culver City, I tried to cross the were cars crossing.  The bus zoomed past as I tried to yell at it to stop at Norton.  It didn't hear me, so as soon as the cars stopped, I zipped through them and caught up to the bus.  I knocked on the door and panted.  The bus driver took his attention away from the red light and just shrugged at me as he waited to go.  I knocked again as he left, me yelling in rage.

 

Synergy Cafe and got on relatively early.  I had another chance to look in my ride's car for the notebook, but not before we both got off stage.  I went up and was the last of three half-Asians in a row.  I brought up a set list of two jokes.  They were the two new jokes that I remembered from before my notebook left me.  They got pretty big laughs, then I told my tale of the notebook and got off stage.

 

I looked again in the car and my ride asked, "Is this it?"  It was stuck between the passenger seat and the frame between the front and back passenger seats.

 

Back at the show, I ran into Dan Rosenberg.  The pro show has now merged with the Sean Patton show and the whole thing still goes until about 9:30.  The comedian Rosenberg commented, like others have in the past few years, "I googled myself and your blog came up."

 

"Is that okay," I asked.

 

"Yeah, I don't care."  This leads me to wonder, should I just start listing the names of people I want to find this blog in each issue?

 

When I went home, I got on the Culver City bus.  A regular customer greeted his regular bus driver and the three of us were the only ones on the bus.  I explained my situation and that I wanted to go to Century City East to switch over to the bus back home.  He explained that he'd drop me off at the 28's terminal stop instead since that's where it leaves from.

 

So I waited there for an hour in the cold.  Suddenly someone told me and the other people waiting that it doesn't stop there past 10, so I'd have to go to the next stop.  I went to the bus driver at the layover station, who was chatting with a co-worker in the 16 bus, also laying over, and I knew they wouldn't let me, but I asked if I could at least get out of the cold and sit for a while in the bus.  No deal, so I sat grumbling on the bus stop bench.  Fair enough, but I remembered that I found my notebook.

 

The next day, I went to the library for some books, bought a sewing kit and felt better about the week.  There would always be tomorrows.

 

This tomorrow was Thursday, so I thought I'd go watch The Fake Gallery's show, the showcase with video timers for the acts and bantering hosts presented live on black and white televisions.  Before the show I finally met Jim DeCroteau, one of the co-founders of the Comedy Studio.  I told him that I wanted to check out his one man show in September but had other plans that night.  It was fun watching the show that night though.  Like the last time I'd been there, Patton Oswalt opened with about fifteen minutes.

 

Friday I did my usual two sets, at Groundworks and IO West, but I didn't watch any improv.  I talked to a friend about comedy for an hour or two and went home.  I'm no Brendan Small.

 

As for today's tomorrow, I think I'll go to back to the Acid Reflux Hour for a change and on Monday I'll go to a show at the Steve Allen Theater.  Emo Philips is doing a show called "The Shredder" in which he tests out his iffy material to see if he should keep it.

 

There's always tomorrow.

 

Thank you, I'm Eric Cheung.  I'm on MySpace and Live Journal.

 

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