Standing Up to the third power

Tonight was my third attempt at stand up...

I'd like to write "and it was fantastic!" or "it was so gratifying!" or "I can't wait to do it again!" and I feel guilty because of all the nice encouragement I got when I posted I was going up tonight on Facebook, but... it was sorta "meh". I think I was the most comfortable I've been on stage as a stand up yet, out of my three times doing it, and hey that is progress. But I had an epiphany, starting out, to get your five minutes on stage at an open mic, you need to be committed to being in a room for at least, say two hours, in this case a rather loud room, watching person after person not really get any laughs before eventually getting up for your five minutes. To make matters worse for me tonight, after being told I would be going up shortly, the comic who I had been told would call me up called the person I was supposed to call up and then that person called someone else up, and so forth until I went and spoke to the guy organizing the event and he was very apologetic and diplomatic that a mistake had taken place. And you know, shit happens, it's fine, but it really killed any lingering excitement I had about reciting what I'd written in my notebook and had been preparing mentally for the past two hours. Appropriate to the hour (it was just after midnight) the crowd was pretty sleepy. My first few volleys went OK, but I pretty quickly lost momentum and I felt the crowd more or less tune out. I had hoped to take my buddy Chris Anton's advice and work in my "pseudo angry" character that I would do backstage, but I was so not into it at that point and so low energy, it wasn't really going to happen. I did sort of an imitation of it, and referenced said imitation, and that got kind of a laugh and sort of propelled me into my Hamlet bit. I should consider it an accomplishment that I held their attention for as long as I did, and with a fairly high brow joke about the presence of the Oedipus complex in Hamlet (high brow that is for an incest joke, HEY-OH!) but at the end of my five minutes... I just wasn't feeling it.

And I'm sorry to say it, but I feel like that's my relationship at this point to stand up in general. Granted this is only after going up three times at the same fairly difficult open mic night, but I just don't get the same joy that I do out of acting or improv, I don't really think it's a thing that justifies the amount of time and effort required for me to do just five minutes. I know some people really love it... but I just don't seem to. Maybe when I'm able to get there earlier in the night and subsequently go up before midnight, I'll try it again, but that probably won't be for a while. If I do