Rick Conety

After being urged for quite some time to perform at a comedy open mike night by friends who apparently thought I was funny, or at least funny by their bizarre standards, I did finally sneak off to an open mike one evening to check it out.   I watched  a few aspiring comics perform, and said to myself (as James Fenimore Cooper once said to his wife just after reading a particularly bad novel, and just before launching his own writing career) "I can do better than that."  I went home and wrote some material and went back to the same club on the next open mike night.  By the end of my 10-minute spot, I had gotten so many laughs that I was hooked.

I spent the next year writing monologues, and going to various open mike performances to try out my jokes.  Anytime the room wasn't so quiet during my routine that all you could hear were the sounds of someone in the audience coughing or plates rattling in the kitchen, my performance was considered a success.  I squeezed out every extra second of stage time I could while the club managers flashed "times up" signals at me with penlights until it looked like a disco dance floor; until I knew I was ready to step away from the 7- to 10-minute open mike spots and start to get more stage time.

One year after my first open mike performance, I had my first professional gig (and thereafter incorporated the word gig into my vocabulary to an obnoxious degree).  Since then, I have performed at many locations in Northeast New York and New York City, including performing at Saratoga's "First Night" New Year's Eve celebration and in front of  college and club audiences.

I have also done a number of charity benefits, including fund-raisers for Childrens Mental Health Fund, Center for Autism, Youth and Family Services, and Rape Crisis.

Inspired by my comedic muse, my beautiful wife Elaine, I draw my humorous observations from everyday life, encouraging all of us to laugh at ourselves.