John Scalzi Live in Concert
Posted on June 7, 2014 Posted by John Scalzi 7 Comments
Last night I tried something kind of new for me: I did a concert with Paul and Storm and Pat Rothfuss, where I attempted something like stand up comedy. Which is to say for the first half of my opening set (because of course I was the opening set, as P&S and Pat have done this gig before) I went up on stage without reading material or prompts, and tried to be funny on several different topics in front of an audience of several hundred people.
Did it work? Well, people laughed mostly when I hoped they would, so I would say yes. Afterwards I pinged the opinion of a couple of people who I trust, and their opinion was that it was a decent attempt — places where the material could have been sanded down or trimmed a little better, but not bad overall. I think that’s about right. If I were doing it again, I know where I’d trim things down or punch up the delivery. But I had fun, and I think the audience has fun, and I wouldn’t mind doing that again. So overall, success, I think.
The second half of my set included me and Amber Benson reading this piece of mine. It was awesome, largely because Amber rocked it (because she is awesome). And then both Paul & Storm and Pat Rothfuss were excellent, and we all came on the stage for a 25-minute version of “The Sea Captain’s Wife’s Lament.” It was all a blast. My life is pretty neat sometimes.
The Wife’s Lament lasted a good hour-and-a-half at the Chicago W00tstock back in, I think, 2008 or 2010, and only broke up when Peter Sagal came onstage and told them to shut the f*** up. LOL
“Pretty neat sometimes”? If there were a Devil and he wanted to tempt me to sell my soul, “You can have John Scalzi’s life” would be his crowning offer.
On behalf of LubricantGrrl, I am laughing my ass oiff right now. Thanks, Comrade Scalzi!
Grrr, hate ottokerreqt
Xopher pretty much sums up my take on the deal!
Fun short story, did you guys record the reading?
Hah, that’s my picture and tweet! Awesome!!! Now I can cross “Appear on Whatever” off my bucket list. :) Great event–the stand-up was fun and the story with Amber Benson was a treat. Hope to see you again in Phoenix next year! :D