the Comedy Store

Back in March, a couple of friends of mine from college came to visit. They flew out from Washington D.C. and stayed with me four or five days. We had some bizarre adventures, and the memories are permanent, to say the least. We saw a taping of the Jimmy Kimmel live show, in which my friend Mike Lowery got on stage and did a dance for the audience (I wish I could make stuff up as weird as this), and we ALMOST got on the Price is Right. We missed the Bob Barker glory by about ten minutes. Literally, the people right next to us got into the show, and we didn't. We arrived at the CBS gate in Hollywood at about 6:30 AM, but it wasn't early enough. We waited four hours, but it wasn't enough. We barely didn't make it.
Anyway, one thing we did was go to a comedy club called the Comedy Store. Back in the late eighties and early nineties, the Comedy Store was the hot spot for up and coming comedians. Steve Martin, Jim Carrey, Gallagher, David Letterman, Jerry Seinfeld, and many others that went on to greatness performed there early in their comedy lives. So, I thought it would be amazing to check out some stand up comedy there. Who knows, we could have seen the next big thing.
Keep in mind, I had only been in Hollywood two months, so I was incredibly naive about how things worked. Apparently, the Laugh Factory, which is right down the road from the Comedy Store, has become the new "it" place. The Comedy Store started going down hill in the late nineties, and now it's sort of a trashy low budget remnant.
First, I'll tell you the idea to go to this place came about when we were at Jimmy Kimmel Live. The warm up comedian said if we went there, and told them we were at the show taping, we could get in free without a cover charge. So, we thought it would be a good idea. We drove down Sunset Blvd until we got to the club. We parked, and walked up to the front. We told the guy behind the "ticket booth" that we were at the show taping, so he let us in. We walked in to a dark, dank, and dirty looking cave. There were old dusty neon signs along the walls, spelling out the names I listed above. There was the stage, the spotlight, and the microphone. And, there were four people in the audience, scattered in the dark corners. I was seriously considering a career evaluation for myself in that moment.
Soon, the first comedian took the stage. We sat through comedian after comedian, and I never thought it would end. There was one forlorn comedian on the stage, probably a 35 year old man. On the brink of tears, with a totally downcast expression, he told us he thought it was ridiculous that he had to perform for four people, and he was going to quit stand-up comedy forever. We're pretty sure he wasn't joking.
After an hour or so of this weird torture, the warm up comedian from the Jimmy Kimmel show showed up. He was like, "Hey, I remember you from that dance you did from the audience!" (talking to Mike.) He tried to convince us to stay and watch more comedians, but we were so freaked out by the environment, we didn't want to stay. But, he talked us into watching "two more" comedians, which became five more. He promised us Comedy Store buttons if we stayed a little longer. Each comedian got worse and worse as the night continued. Some of them got into verbal fights with other people in the audience. One woman just asked us questions about Burt Reynolds the whole routine. She asked Mike, Alex, and me about Burt Reynolds' mustache. Is that comedy? It was so weird. We decided to leave, and when we asked about the Comedy Store buttons, they told us they were out of them.
We left that place about 1:30 in the morning, completely traumatized. I had future confontation with the Comedy Store, but I'll write about that later.