Every Monday night, Modelface Comedy hosts an open mic comedy night at Noble Cider & Mead in downtown Asheville.
Some notable comedians who performed acts on Monday night were Clay Jones, Jason Reel and Josie Beers.
Josie Beers, a comedian in the Asheville and Hendersonville area, works as a waitress at a bar and does comedy as a side job.
“I’m a waitress by day, and do a little comedy on the side. I’m trying to do more comedy, and more podcasting as well,” Beers said.
Beers said she is a transgender woman, and her interest in comedy stems from her past struggles. She enjoys incorporating dry humor and sarcasm about her identity into her comedy acts.
“Usually I just blame my shortcomings on your transphobia, that’s what’s really going on,” Beers said.
Beers also made some punchlines about buying bonds in today’s economy during her act.
“If you bought a bond in November of 1994, you’re a trillionaire now. The news article I’m reading says you could buy now and make a little more money, and then I remembered, I don’t have any money to begin with so what a relief,” Beers said.
Beers followed by making a joke about getting back into the gym.
“I joined a gym recently, it has been a while. I was a big gym rat before covid, and I noticed there are no news channels on the TVs anymore, instead, it’s like Food Network and ESPN,” Beers said.
Another performer who spoke during the open mic was Clay Jones. He was the host of the night, but also has experience as a stand-up comedian.
“I’m 38. It’s a weird age. I’m not old enough to know the difference between a corn and a bunion, but apparently I’m old enough to have them,” Jones said.
Jones said he recently got a new haircut, and jokes about how his hair looked previously.
“I got this new haircut, and the feedback has been coming in hot. A friend of mine the other day said, ‘Well it looks better than what you had before’. Then a couple of days later someone said to me, ‘What’s up Home Alone?’,” Jones said.
According to Jones, he has been married for 14 years, and he learns something new every day about marriage.
“Recently I learned it is apparently acceptable for my wife to eat potato chips in bed, and judging by her reaction it is not okay for me to then call her a crumb dumpster. At least I didn’t have to sleep in the crumbs that night,” Jones said.
Jones goes on to make a joke about paying bills in his household.
“My wife is happy that comedy is paying the bills, she just wishes the bills were rent instead of Hulu,” Jones said.
Stand-up comedian Jason Reel took the stage after Jones and started his performance with jokes about dating apps.
“I didn’t do well on Tinder even though I had some pretty funny bios back in the day. One of them was ‘If you’re really nice to me, in forty years you can have my 401(k)’ nobody ever really took me up on that,” Reel said.
Reel then turned his focus over to children, and said he finds kids to be confusing and comments on how unpleasant they can be.
“Why do kids eat their boogers? Is that some hunter-gatherer DNA left over? It’s like they hunt for it, they gather it all up and then they consume the forbidden fruit,” Reel said.
Reel concludes his performance by talking about his own childhood, and hatred for gym class.
“I was a pretty smart kid. The only tests I ever failed were those presidential fitness tests. Do you know how mad I would be if I failed that and Joe Biden or Donald Trump was the president,” Reel said.
