I went to see hypnotist Gary Conrad at The Funny Bone comedy club last week expecting to be amazed, but all I got was amateur schtick ‹ entertaining, but hardly amazing.At the beginning of the show, audience members who wished to be hypnotized were invited to walk onto the stage while Conrad explained to the remaining audience the importance of remaining quiet during the initial hypnotism process. He talked in a monotone, running his words together while tapping the microphone on his chest to create a monotonous, hypnotic sound.During the first 15 minutes of the show, Conrad took audience volunteers through relaxation exercises while soothing music with underlying relaxation messages filled the small, dark club. I thought the seven people on the stage were truly in a dream-like state and would arise hypnotized. What I saw for the next hour was a comedy show.Volunteers sang, danced, hugged each other, shouted embarrassing phrases and ran around the club, much to the audience’s delight. When Conrad “woke” volunteers from hypnosis, he began asking each one what they were doing. Responses to these questions were just as entertaining. I was amused, but it did not take long to realize the volunteers were not hypnotized. Conrad would repeat instructions several times to the “hypnotized” volunteers. More than once, volunteers would get confused and do something different.At one point during the show, Conrad told the “hypnotized” male volunteers they were Chippendale dancers and their mission was to dance for the ladies in the crowd. After a few minutes of dancing, the men stopped dancing and started to go back on stage. Conrad quietly told them to keep dancing.Although the performance was not believable, it was entertaining. Who wouldn’t enjoy watching people run around the room doing and saying things they would normally never dream of? Especially when one of those people is someone you know.