Opie and Anthony Travelling Virus tryout

9/14/2007 Philadelphia

So this was my first attempt at standup comedy. The event was the Opie & Anthony Travelling Virus to be held the next night at the Tweeter Center across the river in Camden, NJ. For those of you that don't know O&A, they are an immensely popular radio show that is shared between XM satellite radio and 20 FM stations around the country (including NYC, Boston, Philly and Buffalo).
I'd always thought of doing standup but actually getting up the nerve to do it was another issue. The scene was a contest called "Car Crash Comedy" live on the Opie and Anthony show. In a nutshell, it was a walkon standup comedy competition. The winner would open their show in front of 13,000 people the following night. That show featured some of the top comedians in the world, including Bob Saget, Jim Norton (coming off his recent HBO show).

The venue itself was somewhat surreal. It was located in south Philadelphia in a bar that seemed used to hosting concerts. The doors opened at 5 a.m. and the bar opened shortly after. The locals lived up to their reputations in every way - there was a line at the bar and no shortage of insults to people on stage or people in the crowd.

The radio show started at 6 a.m. and at about 7 they told the would-be comedians to line up at the side of the stage. About 30 people assembled and yours truelly was about seventh in line. The contest didn't start at a specific time... they infrequently took a volunteer backstage. The problem was that for every person that they took from the front of the line, they took three more from the crowd. Apparently the members of this group either were "friends" of the local afternoon show or had made a prior arrangment with someone in the know. As time started to tick by and I hadn't moved up I started to get nervous. I called over the guy that was in charge of lining up the contestants, a man named "Club Soda Kenny". I explained to Kenny that I drove 7 hours to be in this contest. He asked me to prove it so I pulled out my driver's license and hotel room key. He said to sit tight. About 20 minutes later Kenny waived for me to follow him backstage. At that point the other 20+ people that were still in line started to scream and yell at both of us. Oh well....

There was a lovely buffet backstage and I gnawed on some fruit as I watched those before me bomb onstage. It wasn't even so much that they weren't funny. The Philadelphians were just animals... they had almost no interest in being entertained. The entertainment was something out of Ancient Rome - they wanted blood. Over the course of the previous month I had written and rewritten a script that I thought was pretty good. It became apparent that I would have to throw most of it right out the window because of the crowd. From the minute a comedian walked out for his turn, he was heckled mercilessly even before he got out his first joke.

The worst part about the wait is that I had no idea when I was going to go on. They would take a comic here and there and then continue on with the show. There were a few other guys that were back there with me and a couple of them were really suffering. This was the last show of their tour and the contest had evolved from a "hey isn't this funny to watch amateurs" to something that professional comedians were trying to use to get noticed. One of the guys kept muttering to himself as he rocked in his chair. The plus side of all of this is that I had the opportunity to rewrite much of my act, some of it based on what had transpired that morning. I was finally told that I was the third of the four remaining contestants (eveyone else was told "too bad", which even further soured the the mood of the crowd). The first guy from our final group was a guy that was a professional and I could tell he felt there was a lot riding on this gig. He went out there and just didn't stand a chance. He then did somethng he shouldn't have done... he panicked. He started to talk at lightning speed and you could see beads of sweat pouring down his face. He didn't even get through 30 seconds. As he was asked to leave the stage, he gave Club Soda Kenny a shove as they walked by me. He was then escorted out of the building.

A few minutes later, I could see my time coming. They had just come back from break and I saw the producer looking at me. I then heard my name called and I walked out from the shadows into the light. I don't know how singers do this. I could barely even see the crowd because of the lights on the stage. What I did hear, even before I could get to the mic, was a guy from the front row yell "Adam Morgan, I'm going to kill you". Thanks Philly. Anyway, after fumbling with the mic stand for for what seemed like an eternity, off I went.

(for the act itself, please go here).

I barely remember the whole thing - it really did seem like a blur. I lingered for a while backstage (after all, the buffet was still there) and then they kicked me out. We lingered for a while for the rest of the show but it was just about over at that point. I walked back to the stage after the show to beg for tix to the show the following night. After catching Club Soda Kenny's eye, he did promise to leave 2 at will call (only because he thought Rebecca was hot. Hey, whatever works).

The show the next night was so-so... not quite what it had been the last time we saw them (in Boston). We had a nice time in Philly either way.