Is my fan here?

You gotta start somewhere. The bottom is usually a good place to start because it’s all up from here.

OK, let’s see a show of hands if you want to hear eggplant jokes?

My stage name is Eddie Danger. Most likely you will never see it in lights. And it's true I am probably not that funny for most of my waking hours. I have several friends who have an incredibly comic wit and at one time I wanted to write some funny material by sending one of them my sentences to see what kinds of comeback lines they'd produce.

As you walk into Side Splitters Comedy Club in Tampa, there is a large print of Charlie Chaplin, one of America's first famous funny men. I just finished watching the film Chaplin (about his life) and his classic Modern Times. Truly, he was an awesome performer.

I read that Johnny Depp studied Chaplin's films because he'd learned that Chaplin created comedy by using the tension of contradictions. Not only did the actor wear contradictory clothes (large shoes, baggy pants with a small tight coat) he also used his eyes in a contradictory manner. He would communicate the opposite emotion with his eyes from that which was on his face or opposite of what the scene required. Depp used this to great effect in his Pirates of Caribbean blockbuster.

So for my own opening I told a joke, communicating only with my eyes. It seems inevitable to get a response. Then a follow up line about messing up the timing on the punch line. As if there had been a punch line.

I have done it a couple times before and found it effective, but this time I had a recording device in my hand and was going to play a laugh track when I got to the theoretical punch line. It was a new twist on my opening, but instead of hitting the play button, I accidentally hit record. It was an oops moment an messed up the set up for the next line, but actually made for laughs, too, because I did not get flustered, acted as if it was intentional.

Maybe next time I'll get it right.

One thing I noticed is that five minutes goes very fast. Which means you have to do fast setups and keep your little routine moving forward.

A few lines about enlightenment, idealism, the current Democratic candidates, and the introduction of my eggplant wound up the show.

Gotta run. Take care, dream big and have a great day.

Modern Times

The version de jour fone rife with strife, devouring all things subordinate, denying and decrying the wicker schemes of gold diggers. Destructo environs dementia, with a buzzing sound expelled from twin rods, speeding up through the wheels of progress. Modern times, the scrip of scraps and all things hinging on bolt tightening individuals cranking and cragging through eight hour shifts, till speed exceeds the capabilities of sanity. Twitch and itch, demeaning dementia, the work of maddening and monstrous systems, pressing forward as if progress were measured in output.

Charlie Chaplin, in his exemplary role, defying the times. Depth of understated volley gags, within a format rare, the lost air of former fair as dream shifts to realidades, formenting insurrection and other confections. Her smile a favored robust dream, frequentd by denial. Vagrant fortunes, undismissed, defying vagrant summer mist. No question how it came to this, the drilling cakes of cheese and wine, cracker service overtime, denying hours of luscious pain and driving patrons to the vein of measured and unmeasured schemes. If only we could live in dreams.

No matter how you cut it, this roast duck is no Finnegan's Wake... just a simple facsimile. Knock over the tables and when he who is able rises up, let him be first to cherish the cup.