Happy New Year!
Here’s what’s new in 2022!

Happy New Year from JenX
and the Cat in the Hat!

We made it through another year!
I hope your holidays were the merriest and you stayed healthy and happy.

Business first: The January class is filling up fast.
Only 4 spots are left for the Monday night program running January 24-March 21st.

This small group meets on Zoom creating their 5-minute sets from scratch to be ready for a March show. In the process, they learn how to turn their bad days into good jokes with super engaging material while having fun.
Where is the downside?
Hit me back with a reply or book a chat here to learn more!

What else is new? Nu-dist?

I’ve got the first gig of the year coming up at a clothing optional resort–where only their faces are covered!

And I’m starting new exercise routines because the watch I got for Christmas bugs me everyday to do it. (Thank you, Ryan!)

Next month I’m doing “the HReart of it” podcast about how to exercise the muscles of courage—by looking at our own vulnerabilities and flaws and sharing them in joke form with the world. My favorite topic!

I hope the new year brings you new hope and opportunities for growth and joy!

If talking about turning bad days into good jokes sounds like it fits your aspirations, hit the reply button or book a chat with me.
And please share this with anyone who might be interested!
I’d love to meet your friends!
Thank you, always, for supporting JenX comedy, the Sofa King Funny Show, and me.
I appreciate you!

Warmly,

Jen Mason/JenX Comedy

PS If you like seeing Murray’s furry face and hearing what I’m up to and want to know more, follow me on Instagram or check out the Facebook feed!

Every comedian’s nightmare is bombing—putting out your new stuff to be met with uncomfortable silence. Or worse, “that’s not funny.”

But it’s a gift.

Going to the gym and open mics are painful for me because I hate underperforming. Bombing s like push ups—I know it’s good for me but I just put it off. I honestly don’t bomb enough.

Knowing that I can say things that aren’t met with immediate applause and laughter and survive is a great thing. Building the emotional muscles to take that risk makes me feel invincible!

Can you imagine living your life without worrying that people won’t like what you say or do? I can’t say that I’m all the way there, but you know what? Every time I step up to a microphone is a chance to either be successful and it’s a chance to build my bombing muscle.

For a very shy person who lived her life in fear of being criticized, this is a big deal. And the secret—support. Practicing with a supportive group so that I know that no matter what happens in this arena or that performance, my home crowd still gets me.

This I wish for you—the gift of support and the gift of bombing. With both of these gifts, you too will be invincible!

When there is so much going on in the world, there are a few perspectives that I seek out—spiritual leaders, experts–and comics.

I trust them to “tell it like it is” because comics cry bullshit when they see it. And I trust them to deliver their truth with a wry touch of humor that makes it easier to take.

To paraphrase Mary Poppins: a spoonful of humor makes the powerful realizations go down.

I don’t mean that you should be cracking jokes at people’s pain or “punching down” at all. But comics have ways of phrasing things that give us little breaks and powerful speakers need to know them.

Do yourself and your audience a favor by learning the 5 predominant joke types and using them wisely.

When I tell people that I’m a women’s comedy coach, they’re intrigued. When I tell them that I show people how to turn awkward parts of their life into material, confidence and joy, they get a little excited and their eyes glow. But then a lot of them say the same thing, “That sounds really cool, but I don’t want to be a comic.”

And honestly, that is music to my ears.

They say “that sounds really cool, but I don’t want to be a comic.”

And honestly, that is music to my ears.

Don’t get me wrong–one of the joys of life is hanging out with funny people and riffing off of each other, but that’s not who I’m looking for in my programs.

I want the entrepreneur who wants more stage presence and confidence but has a hard time knowing what to say and getting people to listen.

I want the woman who’s earned a lot of respect for her hard work and conscientious standards who feels like she doesn’t know how to find the lightness and laughter in her work and in her life.

I want the midlife empty nester who is looking for a new adventure that makes her heart race but doesn’t require a liability release from her medical insurance.

I want YOU to tell me the uncomfortable parts of your life so WE can spin it into comedic gold using the tried and true formulas for comedy. I want you to come away with a 5-minute set that came out of your life and your head that you can use for the rest of your life.

So, you don’t have to want to be a comic. But don’t let it stop you from exploring how playing with your comic voice can make life more fun and your voice more powerful.

It really makes my day, so I thought I’d share a few recent comic comments:

“This is so fun and a nice break from my have to’s during this time. I didn’t tell my family what I’m doing just that I have a meeting on Mondays.”

“I had fun. I woke up thinking about what a terrible student I was which made me sit down and write for today. And I have so many more ideas listening to all your sets.”

“Thank you all so much!!! I was just thinking: So happy to be doing this!!!”

“It’s great to have something on my schedule to work for and to look forward to! And of course, to laugh with you all is the best thing ever!”

As an adult with a work life, chores, and bills, it’s a treat to have something exciting, a new skill and something creative to look forward to every week. During the Covid Quarantine, it’s even more impactful to have a bright spot of comedy to look forward to.

The next introductory workshops of Stand Up for Scaredy Cats is coming up June 1st and June 15th. In 45-minutes you get the basics of stand up and how it could apply to your life’s material. It’s low cost ($25) low risk (45 minutes) way to get a taste of what comedy could do for your stage presence, business, and life.

For an even smaller investment (free!) come see some of the newest graduates on Friday, May 15th at the 6th Quarantine Comedy Show! It’s a free show and I have some guest comics coming to lend support and to give us big belly laughs.

Wishing you good health and humor always!

Jennifer Mason, the AcuComic

If you’ve been to my introduction to Stand Up workshop, (aka Stand Up for Scaredy Cats,) you know that Ali Wong is my favorite comic. Sometimes I even “hear” her voice in my head when I think up my sets.

You can imagine how excited I was to get her book, Dear Girls for Christmas. Very quickly I was happily reading and lol’ing about her adventures and ideas until I got to the paragraph that reached out of the pages and slapped me:

“If you disregard my advice and pursue stand-up, please at least do not ever take one of those “(stand up comedy) courses.

The audiences for those stand-up comedy shows are family and friends of the students in the class…Those classes are a sham because they’re too safe and nobody will respect you if they ever learn you took them. Stand up is not supposed to be warm and fuzzy or welcoming. If it was, everyone would do it.”

Dear Girls p55-56

And I get it—it takes dozens of open mics of bombing to be able to win over audiences that are not your demographic. It takes years to hone your jokes and your comic voice and to get to know the scene and even then, you may never have the warm giggling glow of love that comes when an audience is filled with your friends and family.

So, it’s true.

DO NOT JUDGE YOUR FUTURE CAREER SUCCESS BY A GRADUATION SHOW.

If you want to be a professional comic, you have a long road ahead of you. So why not at least start with a set that you have experienced success with. You’re going to need a positive memory to shore you up against the tides of negativity you will face in the future.

And what if being a professional stand up comedian with a Netflix special and movie deal wasn’t your goal?

What if you just wanted to try something new? Something that would expand your vision of yourself and your stage presence?

WHAT IF YOU WANTED TO EXERCISE A LITTLE BIT OF MICROPHONE MUSCLE SO THAT YOU CAN DO WHAT YOU’RE REALLY HERE TO DO—GIVE WEDDING TOASTS, GIVE KEYNOTE SPEECHES, ASK STRANGERS OUT ON DATES!

After a six-week stand up workshop, a few people have decided that comedy is their future and they’re doing the weekly open mic battle. And some of them are going on into other forms of theater. And others just like knowing that they’ve done it and enjoy remembering performing their 5-minute set and feeling what it’s like to be heard and appreciated, if nothing else, for their bravery.

Ali Wong is right. Her daughters shouldn’t sign up for a stand up class. But I can tell you that there are a lot of people who are happy that they did. If one of them might be you, comment here or message me and let’s talk about finding your 5-minute set.

Comedy Alchemy
20 min talk for Donovan Prison staff
March 8, 2018
5 Min standup

I’m Jennifer Mason and I just turned 50 this year. Except on Tinder, where I’m 43.

When the guys on Tinder found out I’m an acupuncturist, they often said the same thing “Hey, maybe on our second date, I’ll let you poke me.”

Cause you know, that’s romantic. I’ll do my job for free! And I’m like, “Dude, you might give it away for free, but my prick costs $150.”

When I started online dating, it was really exciting because it felt like one of my other favorite activities: online shopping.

So I put all of these beautiful men into my shopping cart. But it turned out it WASN’T like online shopping at all.

There was no Amazon Prime.

And there were no 2 star reviews warning me that

“Item Does Not Match picture or Description”

or “Package may arrive inappropriately early.”

It’s hard to find good dates. As a single mom, I’m in charge of everything–meal planning, taikwondo schedules, naming the houseplants. That’s why I want the guy to choose where we’re going on a date and what we’re doing. Don’t worry. I’ll tell you if you get it wrong.

You know, because sometimes women like being told what to do.

That’s why we love yoga.

It’s someone telling you what to do every second for 60 minutes.

Grab a mat. Bend over. Touch your toes. Breathe.

Grab your ankles. Press your hips back and let your buttock bones smile at the sky.

Relax into it. Deeper.

Now surrender it all on the mat and enjoy the sensations in your body..

Whew! Some weeks that’s the closest I get to sex.

But when I’’m feeling like something more hardcore Something with machines and straps bolted to the wall in a darkened room?

I go to Pilates! Have you done Pilates?

You have to wear ballet fetish wear and when you walk in, they tell you to straddle your machine, stuff a ball up between your thighs, no, not just up between your thighs but UP! between your thighs. Put your hands in the straps, and squeeze the ball! Pulse it ladies! Pulse it pulse it pulse! Pop that booty!

And all the women are groaning and sweating.

It’s the 50 Shades of exercise.

It’s all part of my attempt at weightloss.

I’m already on a super strict health food diet–no sugar no grain no fun, ketogenic paleolithic intermittent fasting diet.

Except for when the Menopause puts me on the “let’s drink all the wine and eat all of the donuts” diet.

Menopause is no joke! It turns a pretty happy woman into a sweaty hungry bitch just like that. I love it!

The world needs more powerful women.

That’s why I think the next superhero movie is going to be a menopausal woman.

Instead of the Flash, she’ll be the Hot Flash!

And I don’t know what kind of costume she’ll be wearing, but I know it’ll be moisture wicking.

Her secret powers will be invisibility to men and the ability to bite people’s heads off when they ask her to sign up for one more god damned PTA school planning committee!

———-

That was part of my first set that I did last year. I had never done standup before but had a vision of myself with a mic in my hand as a 50-year-old woman. And a lot of my friends were fascinated because if you’re looking for middle-aged single moms, you go to PTA meetings and Little League games, not dark comedy stages.

It was a bucket list/dare sort of thing that I couldn’t’ explain, but it made me feel courageous and exciting. There was only one other mom in the class and she was doing it in secret. Every week she snuck out of the house and told her family that she was volunteering for a political candidate. And they’re like “but the election was over months ago…”

How many of you enjoy watching stand up? How many of you have thought maybe you could do it?

Well I think you could and let me tell you why you might try.

You’ve heard the saying, “Laughter is the best medicine.”

As an acupuncturist, I treat a lot of pain–shoulder pain, wrist pain, sciatica. But I also treat anxiety, insomnia, and depression. I treat so much of it that I put together a two-hour workshop on anxiety and one of the things I teach is that when you willingly choose something scary– expanding your comfort zone in any direction, it brings neurotic fears more into perspective.

Let me tell you that comedy is terrifying–for everyone. That was one of the first things that we learned in the 7-week course. “Don’t expect laughs, but always expect to be terrified.” But that’s what makes it exhilarating–you feel like you’re going to die and you don’t. And that makes you feel so alive and surprisingly joyful. It’s like parachute jumping for people who can’t afford great health insurance.

After I went on stage and stammered out my first set, the next time I talked at a business conference felt EASY! I felt lighter and braver and badass.

Now, most of my set is true. I’m just not creative enough to make up stuff and luckily for me, my friends, family, and neighbors are just hilarious. It’s also lucky because the more personal your set is, the less likely it is that you’re a “hack comic” that you’ve accidentally copied someone or that anyone can steal your stuff.

But here’s the other thing–when you use your real life for comedy, the most awkward and painful things turn out to be the funniest. That may seem inconvenient, but it’s actually magical because in the process, it also takes the sting out of it. I call it Comedy Alchemy–turning our pain into comic gold.

So my material is about being 50 and dating a younger guy. (Yeah, he thought I was 43 on Tinder.) About the search for new wrinkle cream and the unwinnable battle of trying to having a tidy house with two teenage boys. Or being left by my husband for a woman at Burning Man (I call her Burning Ho.)

A big part of getting over my divorce was telling people how much I hated our doomed marriage counseling. And what it was like as a stretch-marked single mom entering the dating scene. As I recounted failed dating experiences in the lunchroom the next day, I felt less like failure and more like funny adventurous person! Right? The good dates are great, and the bad dates are great stories.

Now I find myself looking forward to the awkward. When my parents say something that makes my jaw drop, like the time they came back from one of those free marketing lunches but instead of being sold vacation time shares, they were sold a cremation package. And my dad he got the blackened catfish. As they show me the his and hers metal urns, I get a shiver of anticipation and think “this will make a great set.”

The other thing that makes for great stand up is having an authentic point of view. The audience wonders “what is life like for that person?” Or they love it when their secret thoughts are the same as my secret thoughts. So, having a handle on how you see your life is great for your set. And it’s even better for your life. Comedy makes us into philosophers. It’s our own therapy. That’s why comedians do it–they’re all a little crazy and they’re trying to self-treat.

But I honestly think that people who know their own point of view are the happiest. We stop pretending to be who we’re not and we become comfortable being ourselves. Good comedy makes for good mental health.

Here’s another thing: on any given night that I do an open mic, I am often the only female comedian on the list. In other words, the best woman to perform all night! And I’d love to see more women out there. Let the world hear your point of view while your pain turns into laughter!

———

I also do improv comedy– how many of you know what that is or have seen it?
“Where everything is made up and the points don’t matter” Right? Drew Carey?

Improv is the perfect antidote for people with control issues or perfectionism. You don’t know where you’re going to be or even who you’re going to be when you step on stage because your partner might say, “Bertha, I wouldn’t be so smug about winning first place in the hot dog eating contest if I were you,” and you find out you’re Bertha and you have indigestion. You can’t prepare for that!

Improv is playing with teammates. And one thing that we all do before we get on stage is walk around to each person and say “I’ve got your back.” It’s our way of saying that you’re not alone, we welcome whatever we’re gifted with and that whatever mistakes come, we will help turn them into gold.

—————

Do you guys want to try an exercise? You get a free gift and it’s exactly what you were hoping for. Okay? Get into groups of three’s

Good gift /Bad gift exercise–5 minutes

Get into groups of three. A gives B an imaginary gift. B names the gift and says, “Thank you!” and tells A why it’s perfect.

Ex: A: This is for you (miming gifting a box)

B: An orange stripey kitten! My boys will love her!

B to C: “This is for you!”

C: “Gold earrings? These will go great with my new dress!”

Fun right? Sounds like you got some good gifts (ask for examples)

Now we’re going to play another game: Bad Gift. Don’t worry this one is even more fun.

This time A is going to give B the worst gift they can think of. B thanks them and says why it’s perfect.

A: “Here’s a bag of flies!”

B: “Thank you! My pet spiders have been so hungry. It’s dinner time for spiders!

Check back after 3 minutes–what was the worst gift? Why was it perfect? How did that feel?

See how fun it is to turn terrible things into laughter and gifts! I hope you enjoyed this talk and I hope you can bring comedy and that ability into your life.

I had a patient message me asking for an urgent appointment.

“Jennifer, I wrenched my shoulders last night and have painful T Rex arms now. Help!”

When I asked her what happened, she told me she was so startled by an explosion in a movie that she jumped back in her seat and her muscles got stuck that way.

“Is it the movie’s fault? Can a movie do that?” she asked.

This is a good question because we vividly remember the trauma or trigger that precedes big pain, but that’s not the real cause. Our posture and habits set our spine, muscles, and fascia into a precarious Jenga tower.

I said, “Think of it this way. Imagine a vase was placed on the edge of a table. And then a cat jumped on the table and the vase fell down and shattered. The cat may have caused it to fall, but the vase was in the wrong place to begin with.”

Having worked on so many necks and shoulders, I can see it before people tell me. They might have even come in for something else—hot flashes, insomnia, chronic low energy, or stress—and I say,”what about these shoulders?”

I’m not looking for extra things to treat. I’m preventing T Rex arms down the line.

We can release the body into greater harmony so that you can do spontaneous things like dancing or watching suspense movies or playing volleyball without wrenching yourself.

We can move the vase.

Learn more about how neck and shoulder injuries happen and how to keep your upper body pain free by coming to January’s workshop: 5 Keys to Solving Neck and Shoulder Pain. Sign up now with this link: https://vitamin-chi.as.me/shoulders

When people find out that I do improv and standup, they often say something about my incredibly big ovaries. Or that they’d be too scared to even think about getting on stage. And that I am a badass.

This is funny to me because I signed up for improv in order to be bolder. I was looking for a way to find my voice and to get comfortable with the risk of not knowing what to say and feeling like I might be making a mistake.

It was hard to show up for the first day of class. I was afraid that I’d be surrounded by seasoned comedians and I’d be the shy one. At least half of the people were just like me without any theater experience and just wanting to round out their lives.

Improv is a great for imposter syndrome—the feeling that you don’t really know what you’re doing and people are going to find out.

Because growing my business requires boldness and badassery, I made this year the year that I rushed willingly into the chance to make mistakes or make a fool of myself. The “yes and” philosophy as well as the “all mistakes are gifts” mantra were my gym.

In Level 4, we were told to ask ourselves onstage “Who am I? What do I want? What is my relationship to the other person?” and then maybe “Find the funny.”

It’s my goal to be able to answer these in my life every moment. And to not always have the same answers in every scene.

After a few months of going on stage with my class, I had a vision of myself doing standup on my 50th birthday, and that happened. FCI was the first big stage that I did my set, and the support was amazing and phenomenal.

Improvisers are the funnest, funniest, bravest, most supportive people I’ve ever met and I’m so glad I’m one of them. Thank you for accepting me into your pack even as I struggle to answer the big questions.