A day in the life of student and comedian Tim Godfrey.
Kavahn Mansouri
– Art & Life Editor –
It’s a crowded night at Westport Plaza’s Funny Bone Comedy Club. Two waitresses serve a room with more than 80 people seated. Stand-up comedians take to the stage ready to perform. It’s open mic night, a comedian finishes up his set, another comes on. It’s getting late, and the waitresses are serving bills instead of drinks. The MC thanks the last comedian and announces, “Coming up next is the very funny Tim Godfrey.”
STLCC-Meramec student Tim Godfrey describes himself as a family-oriented person, sometimes goofy and immature, but nonetheless a hard worker, willing to take on any goal he sets for himself.
One goal Godfrey set for himself was to take to the stage and force the laughter out of every single member of his audience.
Godfrey said he first got introduced to the idea of pursuing stand-up comedy through a co-worker.
“There was a guy at my work. He would go to different comedy clubs and he told me ‘Hey man, you should go and try it.’ I put it behind me because I didn’t think I could ever do that, I had only dreamed of doing that,” Godfrey said.
Godfrey put attempting stand-up comedy on hold, but the idea did not stay away for long.
“I decided I’d go down there and see what would happen, so I told 50 people I was for sure going on. I actually had no idea if I was going on or not. I just went down there, signed up and did my thing,” Godfrey said.
Godfrey takes a second, reminiscing about his first performance at the Funny Bone.
“The guy [MC] says my name and when the applause comes I get psyched up, and I get arrogant and loud, and walk all over the stage and it works out. After it, it’s like a huge sigh of relief like taking a big dump,” Godfrey stops and laughs to himself for a second, “or like I just told the truth to somebody, and it feels great,” Godfrey said.
Godfrey said at first jokes didn’t come easy.
“I’ll start writing like a week away, the first time I did it, and I did it like six hours before, because I didn’t know what to write. So I just did little recordings on my phone like an idiot. This past one, I had a week, I wrote jokes about four times, and each time I’d chip away at them. Right now I would write a joke if it came to mind,” Godfrey said.
Godfrey said that after each set is over, he remembers to take mental notes about what went well and what went poorly.
“I realize each time that I’m not as good as I think I am before I go on. I try taking mental notes of what I think I did wrong. Some positives, but mostly work on things I thought was not so great.”
Godfrey said that his first time on stage forced him to take a deep breath and go with it.
“I am always full of myself, so confidence isn’t really a big problem for me. The nervousnes and the stage fright kind of gets me. When I go up there, I feel like I’ve inhaled all this air and I can’t let it out,” Godfrey said. “So I’ll just cough or something and let it all out, have no regrets, not thinking about any mistakes I make and just go with the flow.”
Godfrey is not alone in his conquest for laughter. When he got started, he shot the idea at his friend and fellow Meramec student Tim Doty.
“When I first started the idea, I told Doty me and him were both going to do it. Well of course, Tim said ‘You go first’,” Godfrey said. “I finally dragged his ass down there, and from then on I said ‘every time I go down there I’m going to call you up ’.”
Godfrey and Doty met during their sophomore year of high school at Oakville Senior High school. Doty recalls himself singing the Jim Croce song “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” when Godfrey chimed in during the chorus. Doty said that from that day on the two grew to be good friends.
Doty said that Godfrey is someone who sets goals for himself that he will not give up on.
“Tim is a very determined person, when he sets his mind to it he’s going to do it. He said almost a year ago, all the way back in January, ‘Let’s do it.’ I was a little hesitant, but I knew he was going to go do it. I had written a little bit of material, but performance wise I didn’t really want to do it. But then I saw how into it Tim was, how pumped he was for it, and I said ‘You know what, I’m going to do it’,” Doty said.
Doty said the brainstorming process he and Godfrey share helps their writing process.
“It’s a back-and-forth between us. We both bounce ideas off each other. Friday nights if there is nothing going on we would go meet at a restaurant and bounce ideas off each other, give each other input and feedback on our material, and really say ‘Oh, I think this would be great if you said this, this describes you exactly’,” Doty said.
Doty said that it is impressive to see Godfrey stand in front of a crowd.
“It’s a big support thing, because how many other people can say that they’ve gone up and done standup in front of a fairly large crowd. It’s not something that’s easy at all. That’s another thing about Tim, he’s determined, no matter what the difficulty is he’s going to try his hardest at it,” Doty said.
Godfrey always brings his family and friends to the Funny Bone when he performs. He said this helps him with his nerves and gives him more to take away from the gig.
“It’s the experience, seeing family and friends, supporting me. The fact that I can make them and strangers laugh is a great feeling,” Godfrey said.
