Comedy OFF the Main takes place every Wednesday night in the most bar in all of
Montreal. By bar, I mean room. No more the size of the average college classroom, not
lecture hall—classroom, the modestly appointed bar has 1. a bar 2. two kinds of drinks:
cheap local bottles of beer, and rum 3. a flat-screen t.v tuned into the 24 hour Canadian
game show network 3. a touch screen juke-box no one uses 4. some tables and chairs.

At 8:30 pm, or 20h 30, depending on your lingual persuasion—English or French, the
MC takes over the small floor space in front of the door, asks everyone for five bucks,
and someone in the back hits the lights, dimming the beige room to only a single spot on
the mic. The “audience" hems and haws, a few people hack, feet squeak against the gray
tiled floors, wet from melted snow, and the MC gets to know the room.

“You, in the back. What's your name?"
“So and so."
“Hi So and so. Witty remark, (a few people chuckle) Where are you from?"
“Alberta."
“What do you do?"
“Go to school."
“Witty remark, really? How many people here are in university?"
(the crowd moans, a few raise hand begrudgingly.

The cycle repeats itself until the crowd is “warmed up." An act comes on, sips a
beer, gives a schtic, gets laughs. And so it goes. The MC takes drink orders from around
the room while other comedians do their bits.

The door is opening and closing all night as people go out front for a smoke and
come back. People shed layers and put them back on, the heater keeps cycling on and
off between moments of absolute hell-fury and post-apocalyptic, frozen absence. Too
many people for such a small bar. All the windows are heavy with the visible humidity. It
smells like people, not b.o per say—it is a night out after all, most everyone has
showered presumable within the last few hours—it just smells like people.

“O.K. Well it seems as though holocaust jokes have been the theme tonight. Let's
bring up our second to last act for tonight. One of the founders of this room, she's been
working the clubs around Montreal, and was prominently featured last season on NBC's
'Last Comic Standing.' Give it up for DeAnne Smith!"

I don't know if any of you guys have every watched "Last Comic Standing," which is a great show, and if you did, see DeAnne, but she is hilarious. My words don't do her presence justice, try You Tubbing her, it's worth the ten seconds it'll take.