Laughter is an addictive drug. You can see once you make that connection with the audience and get those laughs, you want to keep doing it. And I've seen I've seen comedians get up there and sometimes to their benefit, and sometimes to their detriment.
So you're a real cut up at the office party, you make your kids laugh, you make your life laugh, you make your husband laugh. So why not get on stage? Sometimes it's a little harder than it seems the opportunities happen to be there. This is random acts of knowledge presented by Heartland Community College. I'm your host, Steve fast. Today, we're talking with a comedian and longtime emcee of an event for amateur comedians. The Heartland Community College fundraiser.
I'm Joe Strupek. I am husband, father and grandfather been married for 35 years have two grown children son who's 32 years old daughter is 28 and three grandchildren, my grandsons will be six and one next month and my daughter has a granddaughter on the way. I'm a retired public relations and communications executive. I spent 35 years with State Farm and in retirement, I serve and work for three local boards. I've taught some and I write, I have a blog just drew pack.com. And I'm working on the biography of John Ehrlichman, Nixon's domestic policy advisors, so I retired from work, but I didn't retire from life. And one of the groups that I'm involved with is the Heartland Community College Foundation. I began the relationship. It'll be 12 years now with the began with the fundraiser. I was a comedian for two years. And then this will be my 10th year as the emcee. And last year, Chris downing was kind enough to invite me to join the foundation board. But yeah, I've been involved in the fundraiser now for 12 years.
Wow. You've seen a lot of comedians, get up on that stage. It's all amateur comedians. Yes. So people who have a day job. So when you first stepped on the stage for this fundraiser event, as a comedian, how much experience had you had?
We all like to think for funny, I had some experience in comedy. I was a freelance writer, wrote humor columns for newspapers, magazines, I wrote for radio, and I used to write bits for morning drivetime hosts, as a public speaker had always interjected some some jokes. I grew up at a time period, you know, the the 80s going into the 90s, there was the stand up comedy craze, HBO started with stand up specials. There were comedy clubs all over the United States. And there was always that little bit, you know, you always have that bit in the back your mind. But I had been around and have learned at least some how to put together some jokes. And so the first time that I did this for Heartland, someone had called and invited me to participate as a comedian. I thought, okay, you know, I always thought, Wouldn't it be neat to try this? And so put some bits together and got up on stage. It wasn't easy. But it was it was it was it was fun. It was fun. I say that, you know, and the comedian's or participate, have talked to them all. And they're all you know, before, before they get up there. They're very nervous. And I don't know if I'm going to be able to do my for five minutes. But laughter is an addictive drug. And you can see once you make that connection with the audience and get those laughs, you want to keep doing it. And I've seen I've seen comedians get up there and sometimes to their benefit, and sometimes to their detriment.
Well, we'll get into that in a minute. How did you do? How did you do? And the first time what did you learn the first time you stepped up there,
I got the judges Choice Award, I was chosen by the judges. And then the next year was I was chosen by the audience. And what we do at the fundraiser is of benefit for the Heartland Community College Foundation. And the audience votes through cash. When we first started, we had jars for each one of the comedians and people would donate money vote through cash for the comedian. Now we do it through the app. I did well, too well, because I thought, Wow, isn't isn't this something that maybe I'd like to try elsewhere? And a few years after that, I did try an open mic contest at a local comedy club and learned that depending on the audience, you're not as funny as you think you are.
Let's talk about that. So what advice would you have and maybe you've even given to some of these comedians, to NAV gait that lots of people get told by their friends, they're funny by their family, they're funny, or co workers, they're funny. But there's a difference between just being funny guy in a meeting or out for drinks than there is being a funny guy or gal on a stage with a bunch of people that don't know you.
And I would say that where I have succeeded and saw others succeed is where I also failed. And that's the prime thing for communications. And as a professional when I failed, it should have known this is your know your audience, you know who you are talking to. The great thing about the audience with the funny razor is, it's it's a friendly audience, they know that the comedians are amateurs, there are a lot of folks in the audience that are there to support them support the other comedians, and so they will laugh, but you want to tell jokes, and stories that will resonate with the audience. And a lot of comedians that I've seen that are successful in what I do, is you mind things from your own life. As I introduced myself, I mean, there is a mound of material from being a husband, a father, or grandfather, there are things that people get from their own work that people in the audience can relate to, because you have audiences have husbands and wives and partners, spouses, you know, kids can relate and laugh when they hear the jokes about being a parent, because they sit on the other side, and talk about that. The topics here that have never somewhat resonated, and I've I've stayed away from them. And I've seen the comedian stay away from it as this is not an arena for the file, or blue comedy or politics. I went back and I look, I go through my notes through prior years, and sometimes will mine Old, old material, because I do this once a year. And I figure they might not remember that one. And I saw out of the years that I've done this. There was one year that I told a couple political jokes, it was 2016. One was about Jeb Bush, and one was about Donald Trump at the time, which was early in his candidacy. And I looked and it kind of funny, but it's not one that I would tell today, those that go down that road, that doesn't seem to resonate as much, it's an audience that's not there. For that kind of humor. That
makes me think of two things. One is when it comes to maybe you should suit your style, if you can, or whatever is your personal thing to knowing the audience. So maybe those jokes that you mentioned, the style of jokes you mentioned, might go over well, somewhere else. Yes. But you have to know or at least if you're going to have that approach, find the right place. And time to do that. Absolutely.
The jokes you tell your family at Thanksgiving, and you know, the things that you share, there may not necessarily be the things that that go over in an audience of 400. Here, but it's it's a matter of timing. And putting together a story comedy is in comedy sets really are telling telling a story, telling stories about your lives.
Well, the other thing you said is it's interesting, you went back and you looked. And you basically you did kind of like I'm gonna go back and review my work. I'm gonna go back and say, Okay, this worked. This didn't work. I'm thinking back even. You said yours. Yes. So is that a key to the success of if somebody wants to do this in any venue wants to be a comedian, and they got up maybe had success, maybe didn't have success, to go back and really look at what they didn't think about it. Anytime
you get up in front of an audience and you talk to them about a subject, particularly if it's something that you're going to you're going to talk about later you're thinking about it is you have to go back afterwards and think to yourself, did that work? Didn't that work? Why didn't it is there a way that I can adjust that professional comedians have the opportunity and you listen to them is before they get on the stage and, and they do their big club sets, or they film their Netflix special, they spend night after night just showing up at local comedy clubs, working through their bits, until they have something that they'll put out for the general public. Unfortunately, other than maybe practicing in front of their family, our comedians don't have that opportunity to do that.
Or at least not most of them, at least on most of well. So it makes me wonder then, if you are thinking about getting on a stage for the first time, either if you want to be a comedian at this event in subsequent years, because I don't think it's going away. Most popular one that they do at the Heartland Community College Foundation, that or you know, maybe you're going to look for an open mic or something like that. If you are a wannabe stand up comedian, how much should you prepare? How should what sort of things would you do to prep what would you suggest
what I do is and knowing that I am going to do this once a year or think ahead is, and also because I'm a writer, I'm constantly taking notes, you have observations, you see things and that you can build stories. And you you can build jokes around my, you know, and build around things that you actually experienced my grandson one day, he took a look at me and he said, I told him, he had to do something. And he said, Well, how long do I have to listen to you? And I said, Well, you have to listen to me for the rest of your life. And he said, No, I have to listen to you for the rest of your life. Andrew, and just, it's just writing, it's writing those things down. And it is it is a practice, I have been known at times to in conversations pepper it with a story that I'm thinking of using at the fundraiser. And I have done other non for profit emceeing type things where I've told some jokes, and I will test it, oh, do a joke and put it out. Now the one I just did with you was not a test. I've done that one before. So I kind of I kind of knew that it might work. But I've, I've thrown those out. But it is taking the notes, putting it together and working it through in your mind, the one thing that the comedians are kind of shocked by here is there is a time limit. And they're told there's a time limit. It's, you know, anywhere from five to five to seven minutes. And they'll always say, Well, you know, I didn't time at my material, you know, they'll say, Well, I, I'm at 10 minutes, and I'm like, Well, you know, when you practice, you do something like this, and you're not on the stage, one thing that people don't allow for is, is laughter. And if I sit and read something, it may be four minutes long, but if it's good material and laughter, that could go to eight minutes. So it's putting your material together, tighten it up, allowing for laughter, and repetition. The comedians that have been successful, I can see have, they may not have clubbed this out, so to speak, and gone to a club somewhere. But what they have done is they've practiced, they've done it in front of somebody, and they have they have a cadence to it,
you mentioned that some of them go a little long, I would think that maybe five minutes might seem like an eternity, if you're not sure what you're getting from an audience, if you're not getting
laughs, five minutes is an eternity. If you're getting laughs, it doesn't seem like it's like it's very long at all. And that's where it becomes that danger. And where we've had, you know, we get kind of give a signal to the comedian that, you know, we'll give him a yellow, yellow card when they've got a couple of minutes left. And then give him the red when they're done. But there's, there's a few that'll go over. And it's as I mentioned, before, you have that you have that addictive drug. But after a while that drugs starts to wear off and you want to leave on a high where the audience loves you. But it's it's just like, you know, Thanksgiving dinner, you don't want to overstay your welcome. We
appreciate everybody that does this. And I think it takes a certain kind of courage. If you're somebody that works in anything from public relations or media to health care, to education, anything to get up and do this and be in basically make yourself vulnerable to an audience. That said, Without naming any names, or getting too specific. Have you seen somebody just really bomb during any of this or some anywhere else, where you've seen a kind of a venue like this for a first time comedian,
not anybody really bomb, but it is where somebody didn't know their audience. And the material might for this kind of audience might have been a little little blue, or somebody that got a couple laughs and you can tell did not want to leave the stage. And so they just kept, they just kept going. They just they just kept reaching. There's a piece that we used to do. At the end, we had to allow time, particularly when we had people putting individual coins and bills into the jars to vote for the comedians. At the end after the comedians have gone through, you have six comedians is to count that money. And then for the judges to vote. Well to fill that time. We use to allow folks from the audience without us having pre screened them to come up and tell jokes. And we don't do that anymore.
I can see how that would go wrong.
We we had we had one that went a little awry. And Chris and I sort of caught each other's eyes and knew that it we needed to bring this to a close but what we did was and to also kind of save the person is we were in two different sides of the room and we kind of approached them slowly and the audience could see what we were doing. And so we kind of turn that in to into comedy itself.
That makes me wonder as well. What's it like to be an MC instead of a comedian, because you have to keep the crowd engaged, you have to set up the other acts, but you also kind of don't want to overshadow them. But also, you might know if somebody doesn't have isn't as successful, maybe they're a little more nervous or something, you still need to bring that energy, right? Because you got to keep everybody the crowd into it for all of the comedians, that's probably a special challenge that
that is the role. And the difference is and, and learning this. And it's something that I don't believe I did as good in year one that I did much better last year. And in year nine, is that bridge between the comedian's open introduce everybody there for the fundraiser in the logistics to talk about the support for the foundation, the foundation programs, sponsors, how they vote, the silent auction, and then introducing the comedians. But what I've done is I'll look at their bios, and see if I have a story or a joke, that helps introduce them. But what I also have to do is, when I was a comedian, you're kind of like locked in this world waiting to go up on the stage where you're you're locked in your own world, where it's Oh, my, oh, my god, I gotta get up there, I gotta go up, there are that person getting laughs I'm not getting as many laughs as they're going to is I listened to the material. And we'll pick something from a comedians jokes to segue into mine, and then segue into the next one, which, which helps with the flow. And at the end, I've kind of shortened an earlier years, I would, I would be up there a little longer between the comedians. And then at the end, we'd have the joke, tell me, but what I've done now over the past two or three years is kind of shortened my conversations between the comedians. And I do that six or seven minutes myself at the end to close out the show, while they're tabulating the votes, putting the lists and such together. But that's what the comedian is to kind of keep the audience going. And when a comedian hasn't done as well, is kind of like maybe add a little bit spark to that. But also coming behind a comedian that has done very well, is not to take away from that my role is not, I'm not competing. So my role isn't there to be funnier than everybody else. It's, it's there to act as arrange.
Going back to something we said earlier, certain people that have maybe not done as well. But who surprised you the most, you know, we, as I mentioned, we have these amateur comedians from all walks of life. And I don't anticipate that you can remember everybody's name with 10 years of this, but what did surprise you is there anybody or a couple of people that really surprised you with, maybe they didn't seem funny when you talk to him beforehand, and then they just killed it, or they really were somebody that had it all down? It
was, it was somebody that I actually was on the stage with at one point in time. And then there were there as an emcee is one person that I remember very, very low key, very quiet, someone that you thought is kind of mild, got up in front of the mic and told the stories, and did the whole full circle where the final joke tied in to the first one, we have a lot of folks that as part of their jobs, as educators is business people get up in front of crowds. But I have been very surprised by the folks whose job isn't that in front of the public, who have been able to at times out shine those individuals whose job may be more behind a desk looking at at a computer monitor. It's
also something that you never can necessarily tell. They might have a lot of going on internally with thinking they just don't tend to have that personality to bring it out into day to day life. And
it's the people that have, you know, unique stories, everybody has a different story. When they get up. We've had healthcare professionals get up. And so they have they have a different perspective, teachers based on their students lives of people that work in the nonprofit area, and it's capitalizing on that and bringing that unique perspective and sharing that with an audience. And then, you know, wrapping some jokes around it. A
lot of people that would listen to this, are familiar with Heartland and maybe the maybe fewer are familiar with the work of the Heartland Foundation. But for those that don't know the details of it, what is all this raising funds for with this event?
We initially started when I began which was early on in the process is it raised money for the foundation, the nonprofit and that money went to the Challenger Learning Center. And then after that, for a few years, we benefited the Health Sciences Department and Now the foundation identifies some key areas and priorities. And so for the past couple of years, and this year, it will benefit the scholarships for working adults, the family meal program, which is for students who use the college's childcare center, and will have meals to help them with the family. And also, again, scholarships for the for the Challenger Learning Center. So the monies we bring in, go to the foundation and the way we make the money there is the donations for the comedian's. I mean, now, instead of putting the money in, like everything has an app, and the silent auction items, which you know, it used to be, you know, I wondered what a silent auction was, you didn't bid out loud and everything was done quietly. And I learned that what the silent is is on your way home when your spouse finds out, you spent $300 for a block of cheese. It gets real quiet in the car. Oh, yeah, like a good cheese. But that is how we that's how we make the money. And this year, we have six comedians. Last year we have five we have six comedians, and they will come in and everybody will have a chance to vote for them. We have Chris lackey, Jolene, Elvis, who has been a comedian before Richard C. Haas, Abby Scott, Dr. Ed Kolb, and Jeff Williams. It's a great evening and the money does go to for the foundation itself.
Well, Joe, thanks so much for coming in talking about this event, looking forward to it being a great success again this year. It's everybody's favorite. And I appreciate you taking some time to talk about this and talk about stand up comedy.
Thank you. It's been a pleasure.
Joe strew back is the longtime emcee of the Heartland Community College Foundation, fundraiser and event that raises money for Heartland Community College priorities, students and projects. If you're interested in other interviews about comedy performance, or just about any other topic, subscribe to random acts of knowledge on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you found this one. Thanks for listening
