I Made My Standup Comedy Debut

The place was The Idiot Box, a comedy club in downtown Greensboro, NC. It was this past Friday night, and it was Amatuer Night. I was reluctant. I was hesitant. But, hey I had performed karaoke to Talking Heads songs, so why should stand-up comedy be any different?

Of course, five minutes on stage felt like the length of "Ben Hur," but I did manage to pull though it. I made jokes about Warren Beatty's love-life, being a Turkish-American in small-town North Carolina, my agnosticism--which always causes me problems and religious fundamentalism.

I made the Woody Allenesque observation that if heaven and hell existed as the world's fundamentalists think they do, then I could see myself in a line where a serial killer who had just raped and murdered 40 women would get into heaven because he accepted Jesus Christ right before his lethal injection. But, I would get sent to hell for once going to a strip club in Bluefield, WVa., when I was 23 years old.

And, the kicker was that the receptionist at the Pearly Gate would tell me: "Hey life isn't fair, so why should the after-life be any different?"

I was not exactly Lenny Bruce (pictured- yikes, I just found out he died when he was my age---40!, in 1966), but I was bit funnier than a "Gomer Pyle" rerun (I hope!).

SIDEBAR: I just found out that not only is the long-forgotten 1980 comedy film "Soggy Bottom USA" with Don Johnson and P.J. Soles, which has been hard to find for years, is not only available on DVD, you can download it for free on Netflix! I've wanted to see the film ever since I missed it at the Buchanan Theatre in Buchanan, Va., (which reopened in 2003 after being closed for close to 20 years) but I have heard it's a bit of an awful film.

The Rialto Theatre in Raleigh, NC, is also showing another film from that era as they will present Walter Hill's film "Southern Comfort" (1981) in 35-mm at 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday. Tickets are five dollars.