A wussy says what?

Who you callin' a wussy?! That'd be me -- only because I'm too chicken to call my self a ussy with "p." That's right, and I nearly blushed as I typed that.

I am not de-pressed ... I'm re-pressed - extra starch please ... and I'm finally full-on ready to accept my uptightness. This is an amusing attribute for a stand-up comedienne. Maybe I could get on stage & start a bunch of jokes and then stop short of the punch line ... Substituting "well .. you know" with a wink.

It's been an interesting journey, developing my comedic voice, point-of-view and stage personality. I spend many, many nights in the back of dark, seedy barrooms standing elbow-to-elbow with a gaggle of 20-something boys who do very dark, twisted, raw material. I stand in the back, laughing until I snort out loud (and sometimes pee a little) at their filthy, disgusting, funny as H.E.- double carrot-sticks jokes. Last summer, I went to see "The Aristocrats" - Penn & Teller's movie about the dirtiest joke ever told. I sat in the theater laughing my tushie off at stuff that would make a depraved pimp wince.

I don't say this defensively, as much as with genuine curiosity. I don't think I'm a prude -- just inhibited. My comedy type must be AB positive or whatever the blood-type is for "Universal Recipient" ... I'm just a more restrictive comedy donor.

I don't work dirty. I don't swear in my act. Some jokes are suggestive but never raw. The odd thing is - I don't consciously edit myself .... writing jokes that I then kill as "too nasty" of off-color. I just don't think that way. I haven't thought of my material as playing-it-safe or felt that I wasn't taking big enough risks.

Some other comics ask if I keep my material clean to get more lucrative corporate gigs. Nope. I would love some corporate gigs -- not just because they are more lucrative, but because I survived the corporate world for nearly 2 decades ... and that's where I get some of my best material. The bar-room crowd doesn't always get the cube-as-veal pen analogy -- but the veal would.

On Saturday night, a comedy friend of mine wrote me a new routine-closing bit that called back to another joke of mine. He nearly wet himself with laughter because he thought that if I went raunchy on this last line, it would kill the audience because it was so totally unexpected. I gave it a shot and it did well ... but I felt kind of like a fraud.

My buddy thought I was a little too apprehensive with the line. Maybe. I don't know. Half of me wonders what kind of state I would have to be in to write totally uninhibited material ... the other half realizes that this WASPy suburban mom ain't gonna come up with a Dave Chappelle or Sarah Silverman set. I will appreciate both but -- I just gotta be me ... even if I am too "Leave It To Beaver" for some.
Heh, heh, heh ... she said Beaver ... heh, heh.