Just to give an you insight into how a comedian works,

let me tell you what a "set list" is.

A set list is a piece of paper that reminds the comedian what he is talking about now. Audiences often find it useful that the comedian know what he is talking about now. It helps prevent stumbling around and grasping and scratching his head as he tries to remember what comes next, or even the important points in a piece.

In the professional world, comedians are apparently loath to admit that they use a set list. They'll hide it on a small piece of paper taped to the back of a water bottle or inconspicuously sitting on a stool. "Shhh! No one's supposed to know that I use notes!"

I don't care. I never cared. You're not supposed to use a wireless mic, either. Pros don't use them, apparently. You're supposed to play the part of the comedian and lug a handheld mic around for an hour.

That's nice.

For a one-hour show, I had about a dozen sheets of 8 1/2 X 11 paper taped to the front of the stage, running left to right across the width of it, hidden behind the stage lights or amps or cables or whatever. This equipment hid the sheets from the audience.

The sheets were printed with extra-large type with reminders for my jokes. If you tell the same old jokes night after night after night for five years, I suppose you don't need a set list. I did.

I do a mental set list every day when I rattle around the house in the morning fixing my coffee. Here's how one might look:

• Prog. Metal
  abstraction layer, car, politics, New York
• Holocaust fraud
  
• Beat piss out of Jews for a while
• Rahm Emanuel
  guns, works for Nazis
• Stimulus bill
  
• Truth Commission
  Pick one, here comes the killin!

This twelve- or fifteen-page set list would be spread out across the entire stage, and on top of the pages I would draw with a red marker. This red line traversed the long line of pages and had peaks and valleys and plateaus and gave me, at a glance, a reminder of where I was supposed to be as far as some "emotional tenor" of the show goes. "Ah. I'm supposed to be at that level in fifteen minutes. I need to go easy on the downers and pick it up some."

It's not for nothing that I do the material that I do. It all has a purpose. I don't do material for gratuitous reasons. We are following some arc precisely as it needs to unfold, while making it responsive to the events of the day.

If I take the time to go on and on and on about the dangers of Nazis and satanists and how your future looks like the inside of a Nazi camp, instead of bursting into tears you need to wonder whyever I might be covering it.