The Comedy Kid Rides Again

I know it's been a LONG time since I've done a stand up gig, so for all of you who have been waiting so patiently to see me (in town too!) come out this Saturday night to the Redstone Grill at Tropicana and Fort Apache at 10pm, It's got a nice setup, with a stage and lights. This is NOT an open mic, but what the producers hope will become a permanent locals comedy club, for those who don't want to go to the strip. I'll be opening for Bill Tucker, a really funny (and incredibly energetic) comic who I've known for years.

Many people ask me how I became a comic. It's a strange but wonderful tale. I was bored, at home, doing nothing and decided I needed to get out of the house. So I decided to take some classes at the college, the continuing education kind, the ones you take for fun. I took "How to Buy a Home" which was to teach me how to save for a down payment, get financing, what I could afford, etc. (This, dear children, was the late 1990's, before you could buy a half million dollar home with only your dog as a credit reference.) The other class was "How to Be A Comedian".

It was taught by a guy named Charlie Brooks, who claimed to be related to the great actor and director Albert Brooks, except that Albert Brooks' real name is Albert Einstein, but I never told him that I knew better. (My first show biz lesson.) I thought from the course description that we would be watching videos of comedians like Eddie Murphy and Dennis Miller. You know, the abstract theory of how to be a comedian, not the practicum. So imagine my surprise when Charlie announced at the first class that in four weeks we would be performing on stage at the Alexis Park Hotel. I thought to myself "No way dude, I can't do that!" I went to my mom's house after class that night and told my brother and mother the same thing. In the next sentence that followed I said to them "What do you think of this as a joke?" and proceeded to tell them a joke that I had written in the car on the way to their house. (The first joke I ever wrote? "Growing up in Vegas I learned that sex is a lot like gambling... except that when you lose at blackjack, you don't have to put the dealer through college.")

So four weeks later I was at the Alexis Park Hotel with my classmates, or at least the ones that hadn't dropped out after the first class. (Apparently there were a lot of people who didn't know that performing would be involved.) I don't remember them all but I remember Kelly and Judy and of course, my comedy soul mate Chandler. Kelly bought me a shot of tequila at the bar which was when I learned not to do shots before going on stage, not that I got drunk, just that it sat at the bottom of my stomach and made it worse than the butterflies before it. (Judy got me not one, but two gigs at a Federal Penitentiary!) My whole family came out to see, my mom and dad (the only time my dad saw me do comedy). my brother, The Graminator, plus a whole bunch of friends from work (who, as my friend Richard put it, "came to see you bomb") But, it turns out, I have a natural knack for making people laugh. (Richard said "But you didn't".) I managed to make it through my set and when I came off stage a producer of another comedy club approached me and told me I was good and asked me how long I had been doing comedy. I told him "ten minutes", he said "no, seriously, how long have you been doing comedy?" and I said "Ten minutes. That was my first set, ever." He told me I was good and invited me to come do a set at his club that weekend. I did and it was my first paying gig so I made money the first week I did comedy. (Ten bucks.) It even got me thinking of a stage name, since none of the announcers could ever seem to pronounce my name (Seriously, Wilhite is not that hard to pronounce. But when they started calling me Shae Whitehead, I knew I had to change it. I mean, who wants to be known as a pimple? So I go by Shae Denin - a derivation of my paternal grandmother's maiden name -- and wouldn't you know it, the first time I went on stage the emcee pronounced it Da-neen.)

And that, as they say, was history. Except for the open mics performing for four drunks and sixteen other comics who ripped my set to shreds. And the gigs like the one where the guy who hosted asked me never to bring my brother to another show again (because my brother got more laughs heckling than the comic did) and all the trips that Chandler and I took to L.A. to work at The Improv, The Icehouse and The Laugh Factory (driving to LA, waiting all day to see if we made it onto the show, changing clothes in the gas station rest room, performing and driving back to Vegas in under twenty-four hours, not to mention the eight Denny's we ate/peed/slept in the parking lot of.) When I signed up for the class, I never would have believed that I would be in a show on the Las Vegas Strip for nine months, doing two shows a night, six nights a week, but it taught me so much without ever having to go out on the road. I never would have dreamed I would open for comics like Ray Romano, Bob Saget, Janeane Garolfalo and Margaret Cho. I never thought I would be named best new comic in Las Vegas and win a thousand dollars for it (my biggest comedy paycheck to date.) All from a class where I thought I'd be watching television in.

Now I don't do comedy as much because I played it safe and stayed with the day job while Chandler took his shot and moved to L.A. (and now came home, but at least he tried.) Now I'm writing which isn't as much instant gratification as performing but I don't have to put clothes and makeup on to do it. But every now and then, I get the chance to get back on stage. And let me tell you, there is no feeling I like better in this world than when I know I've made people laugh and have a good time and forget about their troubles for a little while. It is a gift, not one that I give to the audience, but one that they give to me. How cool is that?

So if you are in Vegas this Saturday night and you want to laugh, c'mon and check it out. I'll be the one with the microphone.