I was thinking last night about cool stuff that I had done. My junior year of college a bunch of us dressed up like ninjas and attacked a group of people who were on a date dressed as pirates going in canoes down the provo river listening to bad pirate jokes. We tipped their canoes and made sure no one made it out dry. We got it all on film and answered the age old question, who would win between ninjas and pirates. I can give you more details about the attack, super Dave making ninjas masks as he worked by night at the insane asylum, and how Tracy Wu-Tang wouldn't talk to me when she found out I was involved if you're interested. The reason I was thinking about this is that our friend Jeff Hofmann did something totally rad last night: He took his stand up act to Amateur night at the Apollo.
For those of you uninitiated, amateur night has launched the careers of several megastars-Gladys Knight and the Pips, Isley Brothers, and Ella Fitzgerald. That's just Amateur night, not people who started their careers at the Apollo. People can sing, dance, recite poetry, etc. and the audience judges them. If we like them, we cheer. If we don't, we boo and they get booted off. It's pretty ruthless.
We started off with a soul train of people selected at random from the audience. We had two Parisians who threw down what they could and it wasn't too bad. Then one guy, it looked like he had practiced, really brought the house down. The next couple people were fine, culminating in a 60 year old Australian getting funky. I don't think he ever had before. The last participant was something to behold, but I can't really go into details. But it involved supertight lime jeans, some HUGE fake nails, and a bit of poppin' and lockin'. Finally came the amateur performers who had tried out months in advance. We had a sweet beatboxer, Nasty, who really impressed us. Really impressive. I won't say it changed my life but it was really good. We then went through some okay performances-some made it and some didn't. Then the MC went through this big intro for a comedian and how we should give him a chance and we were hoping it was Jeff but it was some kid who was awful. His jokes weren't funny. You could tell what he was trying to do but even if done properly it wouldn't have been funny. So, he was booted. I was a bit worried that Jeff wouldn't be given a chance but there's not much you can do. Then an old man got booed off (he deserved it) and some less memorable performances followed. Finally Jeff came out, gave the Tree of Hope some love, and broke into his monologue. He started off strong but I don't think he had a chance from the beginning. The audience just wasn't progressive enough to be ready for a funny white guy. We cheered (there were probably sixty of us from the ward) as long and hard as we could and he got through most of his routine but got booted. We were cheering and they were booing so loudly we didn't even get to hear a lot of it. Obviously we wanted him to do well, but I think most of us were blown away he even had the chutzpah to get on stage at all. So, congrats to him. Afterwards we went to a sweet dinner and got to hear Jeff's full routine. It was a bummer he didn't get to deliver the whole thing at the Apollo because if they could have heard it I, they would have loved it.
Anyway, he took a huge chance and can always say he was at Amateur night. (Don't worry about the last pic, Tamara's taking it.) It's a select group. Congrats to him and I'm taking up his example to do something rad before I'm done with NYC. Let me know if you have any ideas. And remember I have no discernible skills.