Back of the Room: Charlie Murphy likes my comedy, he probably isn't aware of yours.

First of all, I want to say none of this would have been possible
without FreezLuv. He features for Charlie on the road, and was cool
enough to get me backstage to hang out with Charlie Murphy (follow him
on twitter @FreezLuv).

A long time ago, (March 2010) I sent a video to Charlie Murphy on
twitter, the video was four minutes long of me performing. About six
minutes later, Charlie responded. It meant so much to me as a young
comic to have a comic I admire not only respond, but give honest
feedback. It was a powerful experience.

I would later see him live a few times.

BUT THIS STORY, is about me getting to perform in front of Charlie
Murphy. He is pretty famous, so girls want to hang out with him. Also,
backstage he is F****** hilarious. Imagine EVERY story you have heard
him tell on Chappelle's show, plus 3 hours of more stories. To put
this into perspective, the guy just KILLED on stage, and then came
backstage and gave maybe 6 people a SHOW. Stories about his life,
fellow celebrities, his brother (some guy named Eddie Murphy, who is
one of the biggest actors of all time, no big), other comedians; dude
was just talking, and everyone was laughing and having a good time. At
one point, this happened:

We were cracking up backstage after a show, he looked at me and said,
"You funny?"

To which I replied, "Of course."

Charlie then responded with, "Well come back tomorrow and do some
time. I wanna see how funny you are."

Now Charlie's audience and my audience are completely different,
mainly because his exists. And holy S*** do they exist! Charlie did 6
sold out shows the week I saw him. Since I'm not famous, I was able to
hang out in the show room and hear some of the comments audience
members were making pre-show. They ranged from excitement, to "He
better be funny.," to people just wanting to get away from their kids
for a minute and see a show. Regardless of the expectation, NO ONE
left disappointed.

This room was an urban room,* now being primarily an Oklahoma comic, I
have never even SEEN an urban room. I talked to Charlie pre-show for
about an hour, and apparently bombing at an urban show is one of the
things that almost got him to quit comedy initially. WHAT?! WHY IS HE
SAYING THIS TO ME?! Then he goes on to tell me, "If they even suspect
you aren't confident in your material, you are dead to them..." I am
now in full panic attack mode, dope. But his story had a lesson,
involving Eddie Murphy, Mike Epps and Martin Lawrence none the less,
and the lesson was this: if you respect the audience, the audience
will respect you.

A few minutes later a guy from the club walked up and was like "Hey,
we are starting the show in 10... blah blah blah." So now I have 18
minutes (ten till show, and the emcee doing 8) to mentally prepare
myself for what could be a very public death. But right before I left
the green room (which by the way is almost never green) I just
embodied Charlie's words, "respect the audience."

I went out there and did one of the most exciting shows I had ever done (all in only 5
minutes). The energy was palpable, the audience loved me, waves of
laughter, and when an urban room likes you, they really f****** like
you. Guys were laughing to the point of physicality (laughing so hard
their body would move back and forth, side to side). I caused a
PHYSICAL reaction in these people in 5 minutes. This is what killing
feels like. I didn't even get to do my closing bits, I was having so
much fun vibing with the audience.

Backstage I was on cloud nine. Charlie was quoting a joke of mine and
cracking up. Everyone had been listening on the intercom in the green
room, and they all liked what they heard. I listened in while FreezLuv
and Charlie took the stage (back to back, not at the same time), and
showed me that no matter how well I could do, they were still the
professionals. They took my tiny laughter waves (which seemed
tremendous) and rode them to Japanese tsunami-like proportions. If I
was funny, those guys were hilarious. I learned a lot about pacing and
performing those two nights with Charlie and Freez.