Melanie Maloy arrives at the Funny Bone comedy club with a quart-sized water bottle in the pocket of her coat and a knapsack on her back, her long hair forming a blonde, slightly wild halo. It's about an hour and a half before she will emcee three Saturday night performances at the Station Square club, and her charge this evening will be to warm up the audiences for head-liner Eddie Gossling and featured comic Dwight York. She'll introduce each comedian a total of six times, and do three, 10-minute sets of her own material. But the last thing Maloy, 29, wants to do is think about the five-plus hours that lay ahead of her. 'The less thinking I do, the better I do onstage,' she says during a pre-show meal at a Chinese restaurant. Being a comedian, a head-liner, has been a goal of Maloy's for almost four years. It's the only real job she's had, save waitressing and a few other temporary positions, since she graduated from St. Vincent College, near Latrobe, in 1994 with a degree in communications. That is, if you can call telling jokes and being funny, cocky and brash in front of an audience a real job. The hours are long (she performs at clubs out of town approximately two weeks per month) and the pay is less than lucrative. But Maloy has no intention of giving up just yet, even though she admits that sometimes just paying her rent is a struggle. 'It's addictive, fulfilling,' she says. 'Sometimes when I finish a gig, I want to get right back up onstage and do it again.' Maloy's preparation for the evening has been minimal. She's spent the day doing chores around her apartment in Crabtree, Westmoreland County, working out to a Jane Fonda exercise video and riding three miles on a mountain bike. When a friend dropped over a few hours before she had to leave, Maloy was pleased rather than annoyed by what some might consider a distraction. 'I have to have something to do on the days when I perform, or I'm too hyper when I get onstage,' she says. At 7:15 p.m. sharp, Maloy, wearing a long black skirt, a black top and boots, finally takes the stage. 'Hey! How's everyone• How are my peeps?' The audience applauds politely, laughs a bit. The emcee typically has the hardest role to fill, priming the crowd for the featured performers who will follow. But after a few jokes, there's a swell of laughter throughout the club; not the roar that will sometimes rise after Gossling or York tells a good oneliner, but enough to know that she's connecting with most of the audience. And although her animated stage presence seems manufactured and overzealous, spend any amount of time with Maloy and it's evident this isn't an act. It's who she is. FATHER'S PRIDE Jack Maloy remembers an incident when his daughter was 15, at a Stevie Nicks concert at Three Rivers Stadium. A man nearby was asking people whether they had any gum. 'She just took that phrase and repeated it all day,' says Maloy, a longtime radio personality at WDVE-FM. 'But no one minded. It's something I liked to do, but she manages not to offend anyone.'

'A lot of kids are the little clown, but they don't seem to go anywhere,' he adds, noting his daughter's penchant for making witty comments. 'I don't know how many times I've heard people talk about someone at a family gathering who imitates their Uncle Joe. But you don't ever know if it's any good until you try to do something with it.' Four years ago, Melanie Maloy decided to finally test herself onstage at an open mike night at the Funny Bone. Not surprisingly, she and her father have different views of the performance. 'She was awfully smooth even then,' he says. 'I was so scared,' she says. 'After I watched the tape, I almost puked. I was talking so fast.' What really happened, of course, probably fell somewhere between a father's proud assessment and a performer's harsh evaluation of herself. Melanie Maloy rates almost every performance she does on a scale of 1 to 10, and usually grades herself no higher than 7. 'I feel I can always do better,' she says. When Maloy first started comedy, comedian and WDVE-FM personality Jimmy Krenn told her father it would take five years for Maloy to make her mark. 'Jimmy was the one who first encouraged me to pursue comedy,' Maloy says. Her first paid gig was with Mark Eddie at the Casino Theater in Vandegrift. Eddie saw her open mike debut and thought Maloy was talented enough to open for him. 'He felt I was OK, that I had potential,' Maloy recalls. 'That helped me a lot.' Her pay for the evening was a paltry $50. But again, just a few minutes onstage confirmed to her that there were possibilities. 'Just the fact that I can make people laugh, get them respond to me, that keeps me going,' she says.

The Melanie Maloy file Age: 29. Residence: Crabtree. High school: Greensburg Central Catholic, class of 1990. College: St. Vincent College, near Latrobe, bachelor's dree in communications, class of 1994. Career highlights: Opened for comedian Dom Irrerra at the Stress Factory in New Brunswick, N.J., February 1999. Emceed show featuring Chris Rock at The Funny Bone comedy club, Station Square, summer 1998. Played Hilarities in Akron, Ohio, in February 2001. Played The Comedy Store's upstairs room in Los Angeles in September 1999.

SOCIETAL STIGMA On the second floor of the Funny Bone is a small office that serves as a dressing and lounge room for the comedians visiting the club. Maloy walks in and hugs Gossling, a rotund comic from Austin, Texas, and warmly greets York, who hails from Minneapolis. Then she excuses herself and sits in front of a smudged mirror to put on her makeup and fix her hair. Gossling and York have both worked with Maloy before. They both think she has an aptitude for comedy. 'She's got a great stage presence,' York says. 'I think she's got great potential, especially because she's saying things off the top of her head. She'd be great at doing a live, woman-on-the-street sort of thing.' Maloy also has her gender working for her - to a point. Because so few women pursue comedy, there's an opportunity to stand out. But ... 'There's a stigma attached to women,' Gossling says. 'There's not a lot of women who headline clubs, and there's not a lot of women who are perceived as funny enough to do it.' It's a societal situation, according to York. 'Once you get up on stage, it's OK, but it's the guys who tend to be the class clowns,' he says. 'It's unusual when you're in the third grade for a girl to be a class clown, and it all stems from how society views how girls and guys should act.' FINDING HER MARK The 7:15 p.m. Saturday night slot at the Funny Bone is usually a more problematic audience for comics than the later shows. First, it's a nonsmoking show. Nonsmokers usually drink less than their nicotine-inhaling counterparts, Maloy says. And alcohol lessens inhibitions, which makes the laughs flow more easily. But Maloy, after a somewhat nervous beginning, starts to find her mark. She teases a man whose with a shaven head, asking whether he and his girlfriend rub oil on it. 'I bet you will now,' she says, as the crowd erupts in laughter. Maloy never plots her shows in advance, although there are areas and themes she almost always uses. There are relationship stories - she's dating a local comic, P.J. Williams - and she relies on her ability to react quickly to different situations without offending people. 'I can usually tell who to pick on by their body language,' she says. 'If a person doesn't want to interact with me, I can usually tell.' Maloy also draws upon her experiences as a waitress, a part-time job that's necessary to make ends meet. 'The people who don't dress as well definitely tip better than people in suits,' she jokes. 'You get a guy in a flannel shirt, and it's like, 'Here's my wallet.' '' After her first set, Maloy is a bit subdued. She admits knowing she's being watched by a reporter made her a bit nervous. 'I'd give it a five, maybe a six,' she says as she sips a beer while watching York perform. 'I was a little too excited. I always do that. I was too hyper, too wound up.' After York's set, Maloy takes the stage to introduce Gossling. Before she does, however, she acknowledges those who have come to the club to celebrate birthdays. There are about 10 groups at this show who think a night of comedy is a great way to toast a pal's birthday, and Maloy's job is to call out their names, find them in the crowd and acknowledge their presence. Each group then yell's out the birthday person's name and applauds, but one poor fellow seems to have less than a big following - the sound of one person clapping echoes through the club. Maloy seizes the moment. 'Aw, don't you have many friends,' she coos. 'Why don't you come over here and join these guys• Maybe they'll help you celebrate.' 'I know it's not a big thing, but she does a good job with the birthdays,' York says. 'That's not saying much, but it's something you've got to do in her situation.' 'PRETTY GOOD' The 9:30 p.m. show goes much better. Maybe it's the smoke, maybe it's having more time to drink, but the crowd seems to laugh a bit harder at the same jokes and stories Maloy told during the first show. 'I just felt better,' she says. 'The jokes seemed to flow better, but the main thing was I slowed down a little when I got onstage. The people seemed to be slightly more into it, and I feed off of them.' Maloy varies her brief 10-minute set, telling an off-color story about a gig at the prison in Moundsville, W.V., and a trip to a strip bar afterward with 'Tony, from Ohio,' who books her out-of-town shows. The 11:15 p.m. show also goes well, with Maloy again interacting with the crowd. She's poised and confident, and seems elated when the show ends. 'That was pretty good,' she says. Around 1:30 a.m., the evening is finally over, and Maloy, Gossling and York wait patiently to get paid. Her compensation for eight shows over five nights comes to $342 - before taxes.

On the road, where Maloy is usually as booked as a the middle or featured performer, the pay rate is slightly better: $100 per night. Accommodations are usually provided (most clubs have condos set aside for comics), but there are additional expenses - gas and food - that make her waitressing job necessary. 'If anything major goes wrong with my car, I'm in trouble,' Maloy says. 'I don't have anything extra. I'm living on a pretty tight budget.' So tight that rather than pay $5 to park in a lot at Station Square, she leaves her car on nearby Carson Street and walks to the club. TO GO OR TO STAY Although Gossling speaks highly of Maloy's potential, he says she has to decide whether comedy is going to be the focus of her career. If it is, she has a hard decision to make. 'She has to get out on the road more, and she has to leave Pittsburgh,' he says, noting that he will soon make the sacrificial move from his home in Austin to Los Angeles. 'She can do fine here, but she's not going to reach her potential unless she takes the next step.' 'She needs to go out and have more life experiences,' York adds. 'She needs to go out and do more, see more things.' Maloy has thought about leaving, but there's one problem: She loves Pittsburgh, and can't imagine living anywhere else. She's especially not fond of New York City and Los Angeles, the dual Meccas of comedy where the Jerry Seinfelds and the Jay Lenos of the business honed their crafts. 'I want to stay here,' she insists. 'And what I'd really like to do is something live, on television or the radio.' John McIntire, host of PCNC-TV's 'Night Talk,' says he thinks Maloy has the talent to succeed in such an endeavor. As a guest on his program, she's exhibited a quick wit and a sharp tongue without offending other guests on his Friday night panel discussions. 'She was completely unprepared and completely spontaneous, and I think it worked for her,' he says. Until she makes inroads in television or radio, Maloy plans to keep her routine. Two or three weeks per month on the road, a week emceeing at the Funny Bone, a couple days per week at Houlihan's. 'I like emceeing, and I like waitressing,' she says. 'The best compliment I get is when I'm at the restaurant and someone says, 'You should be a stand-up comedian.' I don't tell them I already am one.'

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