Bringer 1

Date: 29 August 2011 Venue: Comedy Store Belly Room. I thought that this would be what "making it" feels like. In one way it is, but in another it so so very very lacking. It's a step, maybe a step up, but definitely a step that isn't backwards. There's such an element of anxiety that accompanied this show that I couldn't really fully enjoy myself. Most of this is because I'm a tense person. You can tell me to relax, and I can slip into a less outwardly tense state. But full on chillin like a villain? Impossible sans copious amounts of alcohol. The first level of tense comes before the show even begins. The part of bringer that matters most is the 'bring', the root word meaning that other live bodies with wallets and vocal chords will accompany you. I did my damndest to bring people. I only needed 2. And yet, people flaked. There was a problem with calling people who could come, who then bailed. So it goes. But thanks to a friend I had not spoken to in years coming in at the last moment, all was not lost. Then began the new problem: my set. I suffer from another form of anxiety, that of the variety which sneaks into your brain and causes you to forget or fumble even the most basic of things. Two, one person to go before me, and try as best I could, I could not remember the words to my set. I truly believed that I would step on stage and nothing would come out of my mouth. How is this even possible? These are my jokes? Things that I myself have made and I can't even string them together to form a complex thought. Did it happen? No. I think my only saving grace is that I intentionally start the set with a blank stare and uncomfortable silence. That's the first joke. People laugh at that and the words come flooding back. Not all at once in the uncontrollable mental flood that I've experienced before thanks to a unique combination of antidepressants and beer. This was very deliberate, limited. Just enough of a preview. Like a highway sign: Twitter: 1 mile. Sketchy friends: 3 miles. It went over alright. I'll be invited back. But part of me thinks the tone of my set might need a bit of tweaking. I don't want to seem pathetic. I want to tell people "I had this bad experience in high school. It's totally cool to laugh about it." I actually might just say that. Comedy, tragedy + distance, etc.