The Thing About Comedy Clubs

1. Unless you know one of the jokesters or got comp tickets, you paid around $20 pp to enter the club.

2. If it was an off-night or the comedians aren't well-known, you can have your choice of seats. Otherwise, it's an elbow-to-asshole dash to sit together with your friends.

3. A 2-drink minimum seems a universal policy. Something innocuous &mdash say, a Coors Light — will probably set you back $10. Every comedy club server I've seen looks like she was up all night offering the blow-for-blow special to the club's headliner. She hates you, by the way.

4. The first act is lame and gets mostly polite laughs. He/she sweats this one out while several obnoxies in the audience commence complaining about every damn thing.

5. Booze takes affect by the second act, causing the audience noise level to drastically increase. People tell their own jokes to their friends, or make fun of someone the group knows and they all cackle and roar.

6. The first act is now at the bar, staring daggers at the second act and trying to pick up the non-responsive server. If you look around the audience you can pick out the teetotalers: they look confused, depressed and disgusted.

7. By the time the headliner "ta-da"s on the stage the audience is primed. By primed, they mean slobbering, laughing uncontrollably when the act merely raises an eyebrow, and one cocktail and one joke about dating away from puking.

8. The lights go up, the bills are presented, everyone goes back to the relative dreariness of their life.

I know a couple of comedians. They're super nice people, funny, entertaining. I hope they get to do more than touring comedy clubs. Can you imagine how dispiriting it must be to face the above scenario, night after night, town after town?

Rarely, I will go to the comedy club, usually in support of a comedian I know. I have to get good and drunk to enjoy it, otherwise I'll spend the whole night taking in all the depressing, greedy, misanthropic energy of the place.

Not fun or funny, says I.