4/7/2009
The Contest
After I had been doing Stand-Up for several months I entered a contest at The Bassa Vita Lonuge in Lakewood. Every newer comic in the city entered this contest including me. I was very excited to see how I stacked up against the other comics in Cleveland. The night I was scheduled to perform I was at the club super early again. I was super excited and nervous for this show. I had some friends coming and I wanted to do well. The first round consisted of like 8 comics if I remember correctly two of which would advance to the finals. I don’t remember all that much that night but I do remember this is the first night I made a real good friend in comedy.
The comedians were all pretty much what you would expect on a night like that some stunk some were good no one was really great. I had a pretty decent set and I was able to advance to the finals along with Jim Tews. After people started to leave I got to talk to Tews a little bit and we were shared are hopes and dreams of becoming successful comedians. Keep in mind at this point we were fresh faced young comics with about 7 minutes of total material but it was fun to finally have a friend that suffered from the same delusions of grandeur as me. Jim Tews and I have been pretty close friends since that night and we became even closer after the finals round were we both lost and shared bitter and angry thoughts with each other. We both did well in the finals but we were up against some stiff competition and it was really an honor just to be in the finals at that stage in our careers. I had been doing it for about 2 or 3 months at that point and Jim about 10 months and we were right there with the top guys in the city. It was the first time I really felt like I could do this at a high level.
About Me
- Bill
- Bill Squire is a Comedian. He knew he wanted to be a comedian when at age 6 he fell out of a plastic swimming pool and broke his arm. It got a huge laugh. Since then Bill has experienced many more injuries both physical and emotional that have made him the comedian he is today.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
My Second Time on Stage
When I started doing Stand Up every Monday they would hold auditions at The Cleveland Improv for Open Mike Night. With One performance under my belt so far I felt like I have never been more ready to perform at a Comedy Club. I arrived at the club at 7 a.m. to make sure I was able to perform. Auditions were at 11 am so I signed my name on the paper and sat in the empty club and waited. A guy named Mike Dietzel showed up shortly after me and we started talking about how we were both new comedians and this and that. Other people started to trickle in much less enthused than Mike and I. I felt pretty good about my performance the other night so I figured that I would do the same material and blow these people away. My name was called first and I went on stage and as soon as I felt the heat of stage lights I started to Panic. I forgot the prepared material I had and started muttering thoughts. I gained some composure after what felt like 90 minutes of mumbling and started to tell my first joke when the manager Mario held up the light which means I had thirty seconds. I panicked and said thanks that’s my time and sat down crushed.
I watched the rest of the people do their audition sets and was impressed that they could form thoughts into sentences. I had at one point in my life been able to do that but not on this day.
When the auditions were over we sat and waited around for Mario to tell us how we did. I knew I did shitty and I didn’t need the GM of the Improv to tell me that but I went and sat down with him and he told he couldn’t understand me at all and I told him that I was nervous and he gave me some hopeless encouragement and sent me on my way. I went to those auditions every Monday for two years and I learned a lot from them. I made some great friends there and after a little more than a month I got my first chance to perform in front of a real audience at the Improv.
I watched the rest of the people do their audition sets and was impressed that they could form thoughts into sentences. I had at one point in my life been able to do that but not on this day.
When the auditions were over we sat and waited around for Mario to tell us how we did. I knew I did shitty and I didn’t need the GM of the Improv to tell me that but I went and sat down with him and he told he couldn’t understand me at all and I told him that I was nervous and he gave me some hopeless encouragement and sent me on my way. I went to those auditions every Monday for two years and I learned a lot from them. I made some great friends there and after a little more than a month I got my first chance to perform in front of a real audience at the Improv.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Starting Stand Up
In May it will be my five-year anniversary of doing Stand Up Comedy. It has been an interesting five years and over the course of the next few months I am going to recount some of my worst and best memories from these years. I am going to start with my very first time on stage doing stand up.
If I recall correctly the first time I ever set foot on stage with prepared jokes to tell was May 6, 2004. I had recently returned from my mission in the Philippines and was looking for a way to make a living and not hate myself. I had always thought about doing stand up comedy but never knew how to get started. It turns out it is the easiest thing ever to start doing. Just find a microphone and people and talk to them, so that is what I did. I started looking for an open mike night and as luck would have it there was one ten minutes from my house at the old Medina Movie Theater, which had recently re-opened as music/performance venue. I emailed the lady in charge of the open mike night and started writing my jokes and rehearsing them in front of a video camera because I thought that’s how it was done.
I showed up at the venue which had many great childhood memories attached to it. This is the theater were I such classics and Jurrasic Park, Independence Day, Ninja Turtles 3, and Six Days, Seven Nights. I walked up the long hallway and found the lady in charge and asked a bunch of stupid questions. She told me I would be first and would have five minutes. I waited around for what seemed like hours and it almost was because I got there way early to make sure I could get comfortable before all the crowds showed up. So while I was waiting I started talking with some of the other would be performers and some of them had some real big time experience. They had performed at open mikes all over the area which sounded so awesome to me. The time came for the show to start and I eagerly waited for my chance to tear it up on stage.
I took the stage and started into my material. The jokes I wrote were terrible humorless stories about growing up and being a small child that played video games. I can’t remember exactly how it goes but it was something to the effect of “I was a little kid and I played video games and I learned from Mario that bricks were full of mushrooms so I took a hammer to our house looking for mushrooms that would make me grow.” That was what I opened with, a humorless lie since for one we didn’t even own a video game console until I was at least nine years old and it wasn’t Nintendo it was Turbo Graphix 16 and second although yes I was a dumb child I was never actually dumb enough to believe that bricks contained magic mushrooms that double your size. The next joke I wrote was about my crazy family and how I think it would be great to see these dysfunctional people try and get out all their old grudges by having a punk rock mosh pit and the joke was that my father would take advantage of this situation and use it to beat my mercilessly, which had he seen me perform this joke he probably would have. Not because he thought I was belittling the family but out of sure respect for the art of stand up comedy and so he could say I died an honorable death. Oh I almost forgot that joke had an act out in it where I hit myself in the head with the microphone and fell on the ground. Yes I was three and a half minutes into my stand up comedy career and I had already done a pratfall. I pulled myself off the floor and said that is my time and said this “ If you want to see me perform again I will be working at Sea World…I’ll be one of the seals.” That was my closing line and it got a good laugh, as did the other stuff I did but let me put those laughs in context. I was performing at an open mike with an audience of maybe ten people six of which were comedians performing that night. I went first and obviously the people there saw I was nervous and were very kind with the laughter.
Overall it wasn’t the worst performance ever, it wasn’t even the worst performance of my life but it was not by any means good but it did feel good. There was a rush that I felt that got into me and it kept me going and eventually I got good.
If I recall correctly the first time I ever set foot on stage with prepared jokes to tell was May 6, 2004. I had recently returned from my mission in the Philippines and was looking for a way to make a living and not hate myself. I had always thought about doing stand up comedy but never knew how to get started. It turns out it is the easiest thing ever to start doing. Just find a microphone and people and talk to them, so that is what I did. I started looking for an open mike night and as luck would have it there was one ten minutes from my house at the old Medina Movie Theater, which had recently re-opened as music/performance venue. I emailed the lady in charge of the open mike night and started writing my jokes and rehearsing them in front of a video camera because I thought that’s how it was done.
I showed up at the venue which had many great childhood memories attached to it. This is the theater were I such classics and Jurrasic Park, Independence Day, Ninja Turtles 3, and Six Days, Seven Nights. I walked up the long hallway and found the lady in charge and asked a bunch of stupid questions. She told me I would be first and would have five minutes. I waited around for what seemed like hours and it almost was because I got there way early to make sure I could get comfortable before all the crowds showed up. So while I was waiting I started talking with some of the other would be performers and some of them had some real big time experience. They had performed at open mikes all over the area which sounded so awesome to me. The time came for the show to start and I eagerly waited for my chance to tear it up on stage.
I took the stage and started into my material. The jokes I wrote were terrible humorless stories about growing up and being a small child that played video games. I can’t remember exactly how it goes but it was something to the effect of “I was a little kid and I played video games and I learned from Mario that bricks were full of mushrooms so I took a hammer to our house looking for mushrooms that would make me grow.” That was what I opened with, a humorless lie since for one we didn’t even own a video game console until I was at least nine years old and it wasn’t Nintendo it was Turbo Graphix 16 and second although yes I was a dumb child I was never actually dumb enough to believe that bricks contained magic mushrooms that double your size. The next joke I wrote was about my crazy family and how I think it would be great to see these dysfunctional people try and get out all their old grudges by having a punk rock mosh pit and the joke was that my father would take advantage of this situation and use it to beat my mercilessly, which had he seen me perform this joke he probably would have. Not because he thought I was belittling the family but out of sure respect for the art of stand up comedy and so he could say I died an honorable death. Oh I almost forgot that joke had an act out in it where I hit myself in the head with the microphone and fell on the ground. Yes I was three and a half minutes into my stand up comedy career and I had already done a pratfall. I pulled myself off the floor and said that is my time and said this “ If you want to see me perform again I will be working at Sea World…I’ll be one of the seals.” That was my closing line and it got a good laugh, as did the other stuff I did but let me put those laughs in context. I was performing at an open mike with an audience of maybe ten people six of which were comedians performing that night. I went first and obviously the people there saw I was nervous and were very kind with the laughter.
Overall it wasn’t the worst performance ever, it wasn’t even the worst performance of my life but it was not by any means good but it did feel good. There was a rush that I felt that got into me and it kept me going and eventually I got good.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
BUSY
I have been very busy this year. I have worked pretty much every single weekend this year except one and that one I spent in Las Vegas with the wife. I just got back from a week long tour that covered South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota. I really enjoy going to those places. The audiences are great and I love the flat desolate country side.
I have shows in Indiana this week and next week I am in Pennsylvania and Ohio. I really have nothing interesting to write about here. I just wanted to post something.
I have shows in Indiana this week and next week I am in Pennsylvania and Ohio. I really have nothing interesting to write about here. I just wanted to post something.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Sex, Drugs, Comedy, Rock n' Roll and some other Bologna
So on Thursday January 22nd I am doing this show at the House of Blues in Cleveland, Oh. The show is called Sex, Drugs, Comedy, and Rock n' Roll. This ain't no run of the mill comedy show either. There will be two bands playing one is The Dr. Teeth which is the most successful band James Burge has ever been a part of.
Also this will mark the glorious return of Falcon Heart which is a motivational inspirational rock band that holds no bars or something. Check out one of their videos here.
So that covers the Rock n' Roll and some of the comedy. Others performing comedy include Jim Tews, Mike Polk, Chad Zumock, myself, Ryan Dalton and hosting this shin dig will be Dan Stansbury from The Maxwell Show on WMMS. Ryan, Stansbury, and The Dr. Teeth pretty much covers drugs as well. They like smoking marijuana cigarettes. I hope none of them are applying for a job and their would be employer reads this and decides not to give them the job at HH Gregg that they were dreaming of.
So that covers Drugs, Comedy, Rock n' Roll but I don't know where the sex is coming from. I think the dudes from Falconheart might be planning some sort of motivational gang bang. You will have to attend to know for sure.
Also this will mark the glorious return of Falcon Heart which is a motivational inspirational rock band that holds no bars or something. Check out one of their videos here.
So that covers the Rock n' Roll and some of the comedy. Others performing comedy include Jim Tews, Mike Polk, Chad Zumock, myself, Ryan Dalton and hosting this shin dig will be Dan Stansbury from The Maxwell Show on WMMS. Ryan, Stansbury, and The Dr. Teeth pretty much covers drugs as well. They like smoking marijuana cigarettes. I hope none of them are applying for a job and their would be employer reads this and decides not to give them the job at HH Gregg that they were dreaming of.
So that covers Drugs, Comedy, Rock n' Roll but I don't know where the sex is coming from. I think the dudes from Falconheart might be planning some sort of motivational gang bang. You will have to attend to know for sure.
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