Venue: Newmarket Hotel
Date: 25 October, 2010
Three things made this performance interesting
-The girls from open mic 4.5 were in the audience tonight, seeing me live
-I was the last one to go on tonight. Literally the last. Usually, they reserve that spot for someone like Mark Mead or Shayne Hunter, but tonight it was me. This doesn't mean I'm as good as them, rather the guy who was supposed to be last canceled.
-I wasn't fully in control
That last bullet point needs some explaining. Imagine being rather drunk, to the point where your mouth is saying things but your brain hasn't yet decided if it's a good idea to say those things. It felt a little like that, only minus the drunkenness. I don't know if it's me getting caught up in the moment, or something a little more insidious.
What I do know is that I dropped some new material (a lot of which was actually old material. In other words, 17-year-old me was in charge for a lot of the show.) and it went over well. I also reworked the secondhand smoker joke, to great success.
I think I need to slow things down a little. Maybe that will give me the control I'm looking for.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
Open mic 6
Date: 18 October
Venue: Newmarket hotel
This was interesting. Interesting indeed.
I invited my housemates to come see me. They'd never seen me perform, so there was some pressure. And I was first. I hate going first, I think. I mean, jumping on stage to a ripe and fresh crowd was an amazing boost of confidence. I came at it pumped and ready to rock some faces and blow some minds.
So the set started out brilliantly, but fell apart as I started the CSI bit. It never really recovered after that. That makes 3 bits that worked (well, two really) and 3 that didn't, if you care about the math. Not exactly what I was hoping for, or expecting.
I think what I need is more consistency. Last time I was here, I told some jokes that went over amazing. This time, I told those same jokes, to the same (good) room and got nothing in return. Different people, but the room should be fairly identical week-to-week. So the thing that must have changed was how I delivered it.
This reminds me of something that happened in high school. I used to do a competitive humorous speech category. After a while, the jokes didn't work. What my coach said I needed to do was to keep it fresh.. to not just go through the motions, but to perform it with something behind it. Now, this lack of skill came about after 6 or 7 tournaments, after I'd given the speech at least 25 times. 25 times made it stale. Here, I've only done some of these jokes two or three times. Some of them aren't good to begin with so there's no saving those. But two times should mean the joke is still fresh, right?
I don't feel like I'm yet at a place where I can give out advice to other young and aspiring comics. What I can do is try and give the reasons behind why I'm doing what I am, and then evaluate those choices after 20 or 30 sets. And what I am choosing to do is to be ruthless. I'm still fresh and I don't yet have a stable of jokes that work every time. I figure I get about 6 to 8 jokes per 5 minute set I perform. So swapping out jokes until I hit that magic 8 good jokes benchmark. Then I just drill that until I get those consistent.
I figure I have 2 jokes that are consistently good, and 2 that might still have legs in them but aren't there yet. This lineup's gonna change a bunch. Let the games begin.
Venue: Newmarket hotel
This was interesting. Interesting indeed.
I invited my housemates to come see me. They'd never seen me perform, so there was some pressure. And I was first. I hate going first, I think. I mean, jumping on stage to a ripe and fresh crowd was an amazing boost of confidence. I came at it pumped and ready to rock some faces and blow some minds.
So the set started out brilliantly, but fell apart as I started the CSI bit. It never really recovered after that. That makes 3 bits that worked (well, two really) and 3 that didn't, if you care about the math. Not exactly what I was hoping for, or expecting.
I think what I need is more consistency. Last time I was here, I told some jokes that went over amazing. This time, I told those same jokes, to the same (good) room and got nothing in return. Different people, but the room should be fairly identical week-to-week. So the thing that must have changed was how I delivered it.
This reminds me of something that happened in high school. I used to do a competitive humorous speech category. After a while, the jokes didn't work. What my coach said I needed to do was to keep it fresh.. to not just go through the motions, but to perform it with something behind it. Now, this lack of skill came about after 6 or 7 tournaments, after I'd given the speech at least 25 times. 25 times made it stale. Here, I've only done some of these jokes two or three times. Some of them aren't good to begin with so there's no saving those. But two times should mean the joke is still fresh, right?
I don't feel like I'm yet at a place where I can give out advice to other young and aspiring comics. What I can do is try and give the reasons behind why I'm doing what I am, and then evaluate those choices after 20 or 30 sets. And what I am choosing to do is to be ruthless. I'm still fresh and I don't yet have a stable of jokes that work every time. I figure I get about 6 to 8 jokes per 5 minute set I perform. So swapping out jokes until I hit that magic 8 good jokes benchmark. Then I just drill that until I get those consistent.
I figure I have 2 jokes that are consistently good, and 2 that might still have legs in them but aren't there yet. This lineup's gonna change a bunch. Let the games begin.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Open mic 5
Date: 14 October 2010
Venue: Hamilton Hotel
So, how'd it go?
Eh. It wasn't anything special. Kind of shit, actually.
But this is open mic #5. That mean's you're 1% of the way there
And your point?
If this is 1% of how funny you're capable of being, think how good 100% is gonna be like
Huh. That makes me feel better. Thanks, unconscious mind.
Here's the story: This was the last night ever at the Hamilton. Ever.
EVER.
I mean, even Shayne Hunter (who's probably top-3 of the open mic-ers here) bombed. Usually he doesn't, and I'll spare you the analysis of how it happened, but it is a bit reassuring knowing that even the best guys have bad nights.
No more of that shitty room for me. Now it's nothing but steak and chips. Except not. See, much as I hated the nights where nothing happens and nobody laughs, (all... 3 of them so far) it's kind of relaxing. There's no pressure. If I only do the Newmarket, I've got a few less labs to try new stuff out. So... I gotta try and get in at The Bank on Wednesdays.
OOH OOH! There's a picture of me doing comedy out there somewhere, Courtesy of Mad Mike Bennett. Nice guy, that Mike. I'll get it here soon.
Venue: Hamilton Hotel
So, how'd it go?
Eh. It wasn't anything special. Kind of shit, actually.
But this is open mic #5. That mean's you're 1% of the way there
And your point?
If this is 1% of how funny you're capable of being, think how good 100% is gonna be like
Huh. That makes me feel better. Thanks, unconscious mind.
Here's the story: This was the last night ever at the Hamilton. Ever.
EVER.
I mean, even Shayne Hunter (who's probably top-3 of the open mic-ers here) bombed. Usually he doesn't, and I'll spare you the analysis of how it happened, but it is a bit reassuring knowing that even the best guys have bad nights.
No more of that shitty room for me. Now it's nothing but steak and chips. Except not. See, much as I hated the nights where nothing happens and nobody laughs, (all... 3 of them so far) it's kind of relaxing. There's no pressure. If I only do the Newmarket, I've got a few less labs to try new stuff out. So... I gotta try and get in at The Bank on Wednesdays.
OOH OOH! There's a picture of me doing comedy out there somewhere, Courtesy of Mad Mike Bennett. Nice guy, that Mike. I'll get it here soon.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Open mic 4.5
Venue: Newmarket hotel, afterhours.
Date: 11 October 2010
What do you mean .5 of an open mic? I wasn't scheduled to be on tonight. I didn't go on during the show, I was just drinking with Mitch, Connor and a couple from Cairns after the show.
Oh and there were a couple of attractive women there too. Did I mention that?
Anyways, Connor and Mitch were on that night and they were great. The woman from Cairns wanted me to show off some of my jokes. So I did. That's why I'm calling it 1/2 of a open mic. It's not a *real* open mic because the audience was 6 people in total and I was just doing it to please them.
Anyways, we stayed around until about 11pm. Which as it turns out is just after the last bus comes by. Dammit indeed. So I had to get a ride to the city from those two women, whom I might have mentioned are cute.
The lesson here: Know when the bus leaves. And drink more often with Mitch. Dude is seriously funny.
Date: 11 October 2010
What do you mean .5 of an open mic? I wasn't scheduled to be on tonight. I didn't go on during the show, I was just drinking with Mitch, Connor and a couple from Cairns after the show.
Oh and there were a couple of attractive women there too. Did I mention that?
Anyways, Connor and Mitch were on that night and they were great. The woman from Cairns wanted me to show off some of my jokes. So I did. That's why I'm calling it 1/2 of a open mic. It's not a *real* open mic because the audience was 6 people in total and I was just doing it to please them.
Anyways, we stayed around until about 11pm. Which as it turns out is just after the last bus comes by. Dammit indeed. So I had to get a ride to the city from those two women, whom I might have mentioned are cute.
The lesson here: Know when the bus leaves. And drink more often with Mitch. Dude is seriously funny.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Open mic 4
Location: The Hamilton Hotel
Date: 7 October, 2010
Let's dive in and look at the biggest scandal rocking the Brisbane open-mic comedy world. Some Journalist decided that as part of her "30 before 30" that she would do open mic. There's nothing wrong with that. More power to ya. (except my 25 before 25 list wants me to be at 200 open mics by that point. Which makes me 200 times cooler than yours.)What was the problem was the way she treated the other open mic'ers in her column.
An excerpt:
Some of them were so relentlessly awful that I felt like taking them aside and just asking what was so wrong in their life that they felt the need to torture themselves like this. I wish I could repeat some of the jokes, but you might be eating as you read this.
This is open mic. We don't have the "10 years of improv training" that you have. Most of us doing this haven't even been on stage more than a dozen times. And we do it because we enjoy it, we do it because we like a challenge. Heck, some of us are doing it just for the hell of it... much like you are.
The column ends with this:
It takes a certain kind of self-flaggelating narcissistic masochist with something to prove to actually get up there in the first place. And hey – now I can proudly say I'm one of them.
Trust us, you're not one of us. For one, we're supportive of each other.
And narcissistic? Have you met me? Granted, I wasn't up that night, but I'm at least 30% humble. The masochism is spot on, however.
Enough of her. Let's focus on me. How did my night go?
Well, the Hamilton is a tough room. Seriously, take a drink every time I say that in this blog. There was something resembling an audience tonight, but most of them only paid attention for the first few seconds, and if they decided it wasn't worth listening to a comic, they ignored him or her.
I did ok. It started off not bad and the audience got quieter from there. I did break out a new joke, which I think has legs. I just need to mime it out better and make it clear what it is I'm doing.
I really want to work on my ability to chat with the audience. In rooms like this, it's got to be the only way to get people to pay attention.
The other great bit of the night: the drunk heckler woman. Stav, the MC for the night (and B-105 morning show co-host) was riffing on an audience member who admitted to working for BP. Drunk heckler woman shouts out 'it wasn't BP'
There was a pause. We briefly considered if she was right
Then everyone in the audience shouts out (mostly in unison) YES IT WAS.
Moral of the story: if you're going to be drunk and heckling, please be stupid too.
Date: 7 October, 2010
Let's dive in and look at the biggest scandal rocking the Brisbane open-mic comedy world. Some Journalist decided that as part of her "30 before 30" that she would do open mic. There's nothing wrong with that. More power to ya. (except my 25 before 25 list wants me to be at 200 open mics by that point. Which makes me 200 times cooler than yours.)What was the problem was the way she treated the other open mic'ers in her column.
An excerpt:
Some of them were so relentlessly awful that I felt like taking them aside and just asking what was so wrong in their life that they felt the need to torture themselves like this. I wish I could repeat some of the jokes, but you might be eating as you read this.
This is open mic. We don't have the "10 years of improv training" that you have. Most of us doing this haven't even been on stage more than a dozen times. And we do it because we enjoy it, we do it because we like a challenge. Heck, some of us are doing it just for the hell of it... much like you are.
The column ends with this:
It takes a certain kind of self-flaggelating narcissistic masochist with something to prove to actually get up there in the first place. And hey – now I can proudly say I'm one of them.
Trust us, you're not one of us. For one, we're supportive of each other.
And narcissistic? Have you met me? Granted, I wasn't up that night, but I'm at least 30% humble. The masochism is spot on, however.
Enough of her. Let's focus on me. How did my night go?
Well, the Hamilton is a tough room. Seriously, take a drink every time I say that in this blog. There was something resembling an audience tonight, but most of them only paid attention for the first few seconds, and if they decided it wasn't worth listening to a comic, they ignored him or her.
I did ok. It started off not bad and the audience got quieter from there. I did break out a new joke, which I think has legs. I just need to mime it out better and make it clear what it is I'm doing.
I really want to work on my ability to chat with the audience. In rooms like this, it's got to be the only way to get people to pay attention.
The other great bit of the night: the drunk heckler woman. Stav, the MC for the night (and B-105 morning show co-host) was riffing on an audience member who admitted to working for BP. Drunk heckler woman shouts out 'it wasn't BP'
There was a pause. We briefly considered if she was right
Then everyone in the audience shouts out (mostly in unison) YES IT WAS.
Moral of the story: if you're going to be drunk and heckling, please be stupid too.
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