open mic 41

Date: 21 April 2012
Venue: The Spot Cafe.

An experiment.

hypothesis: if I read this unintentionally disturbing kids book, it will be funny.
methods: reading the book in front of this audience
results: not a lot of laughter

analysis and conclusion:
I really wanted to see what would happen. And in my defense, the first two things I said (which weren't related to the book at all) killed. Explosive amounts of laughter. Could I have just went with that energy and saw where it went? Maybe. And that, too would have been an experiment of just straight up winging it.
But there's a method to my madness. And I realize that I could re-conceptualize it, and make it work. And I have reconceptualized it. But I'm not going to debut the revamp of this for another month. Give it time to percolate.

But those first two lines, man. God damn I can be a funny man.

Open Mic 40

Date 18 April 2012
Venue: The Hollywood hotel

Momentum.

An object in motion will stay in motion. This is true both in terms of the laws of physics as well as the nature of human psychodynamics. In motion; active, it's easier to keep on going. Even that downward spiral of situations that turn out for the worst produces some definite action. The drive to change course, to try new and daring things. Or the panic that sets in, and the need to do something, anything, just to maintain an even keel.  Those two desires are not so far apart.

At rest, objects will stay at rest. The momentum is gone. And this is what happened to me - or rather, this is what I did to myself.

I will be candid about the last 7 months. I feel the need to be open and honest because this blog is about progress. And it is about regress just as much. And for better or for worse, this is a path that simply can't just... end. I feel this blog can't be complete without culminating in an accomplishment, or resulting in an open letter of resignation. My fate is not tied in with my ability to successfully accomplish one goal of many I have for myself. But those things that make me human, my weaknesses and the situations which are thrust upon me and the situations into which I thrust myself, those are things that do matter.

I didn't do much the last 3 months of 2011.
I quit my job, hoping that I would find work doing something that I actually enjoyed. Something where I would have clear objectives and be earning a liveable wage. Or even just the minimum wage. Or even just the $40 a day I needed to stay afloat, to cover all my expenses and have some money leftover for food.

I didn't find that job.

What I did find was that the unpaid internship existed; that undignifying role where you become a tool to be discarded after 3 to 6 months, surviving on that hope that one day you and the hard work that you do will be good enough to actually merit earning a wage. It's insulting, it's exploitative, and I fully believe it is killing the economy almost as quickly as it was killing my hope of bettering myself.

What I also found was that as a freelance production assistant, I had the potential to earn in a weekend far more than my old 'job' paid me in a week. But working only on the weekends, and not even every weekend at that left me with a lot of free time. Or rather, unoccupied time. Time to wish I could justify doing the things I wanted to do. I couldn't. So I didn't.

I would spend days in bed, watching TV. Sometimes I ate. Usually I didn't. Usually, I would sleep until late afternoon and stay up until the sun was about to rise. Objects at rest stay at rest. And stay and stay and stay.

It wasn't until January that I was able to break out of this funk. I had a temporary job where I was promised the possibility of more work, but more importantly I was promised an occasional $10 or $20 every now and then.

It was just enough to get me moving again. Slowly, I would build up the drive to go out and do more things. Opportunities appeared that promised to get me doing the things I loved doing, or failing that, possibly bring me serious money. I never quite got there, but I could at least go from option to option. Each new possibility on the horizon bringing with it the chance that this would be the one.





Oh yeah, the funny parts. That's why you're here.

As long as I had the feeling that my life in general was going places, I thought that I could at least try and apply that energy towards standup as well. So I made a call to a friend at the Comedy Store.
"Book me on the 30th"

With motion comes energy to try new things. Or in my place "ohgodohgodohgod that's in two weeks, what do I do what should I say on stage am I still funny ohgodohgodohgod" Again, the motivations are not too dissimilar. And I started again, with the open mic.

It went alright. Compared with the absolute shock I felt at open mic #1 in this series, this was more like a reminder what the baseline actually is in Los Angeles. The audience was tired, and I was still feeling things out. Old material got the best reaction I could hope for, new material shows some promise. I can always fall back on what I was doing seven months ago, which is probably what I should be doing anyways.

I don't know where I'm going. I don't know whether this will lead me towards success or towards deciding to go try other endeavors.
But I'm in motion.

Open Mic 39

Date 15 September 2011 Venue: The Joke Gym (Viva Zapata restaurant, Arcadia) I only signed up because they were offering guaranteed slots to the first 11 people to comment. That and it had been the tail end of a rough week and I needed to get out and laugh. Good thing that I went out there. Apparently my first time was with a smaller than usual crowd in attendance. The good news was that that gave me 6 minutes instead of 5. And really, that was right about the tipping point for a good open mic. The crowd was really supportive of everybody, but having more people show up would have been even better. I would not have traded a smaller attendance for 7 minutes. You get the feeling that when this place is full, that it's a sweet sweet place to be. I did a lot of the front half of my set, and near the end I talked about my reasons for leaving my job. The first half felt a little performance-y, but at the end it was more like me being me talking to a room full of comics about why I wanted to pursue my passions. Maybe I am making the right choice.

Bringer 2

Date: 7 September 2011 Venue: The Comedy Store Belly Room Vargus Mason puts on this show and there's a lot to like. It's high energy, there's loads of talent and you get your money's worth because people keep getting added to the list. That's the only gripe I have with the show, and that's only because I have to bring friends who still have homework to do in the evenings. I feel guilty about making friends stay out later than I'd told them they would be staying. The performance went well, but I did something I wish I hadn't. I practiced for 7 minutes worth of stage time, only to learn that we had 8. A whole extra minute. A whole extra minute that I didn't actually have solid material for. did you just wing it? umm... maybe? I have a sort of reserve of material that people have liked. It's less structured and less well-integrated. Some of it is things I haven't even officially told to an audience. Untested, unprepared and thrown together? Wasn't this the exact thing I wanted to avoid? This has all the hallmarks of going bad quickly. The fact that the jokes went over well by no means suggests that I was right to perform untested material. It wasn't the right call. I'm going to have to make sure I don't do it again, because it's going to land me right back at the place I wanted to avoid. The place where overconfidence runs right into deep disappointment. The whole set felt solid with the exception of an allusion between Pasadena and the East German secret police. It helped that I had 6 people in the front row who were there to see me. It also helped that the room was very full. This is the kind of room I want to play to a lot more.

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.

open mic 38

Date: 26 August 2011
Venue: Hollywood Hotel
What happened to open mic 37? We don't talk about open mic 37.

This night was a weird one. Not comedy related, but I got a flat tire en route. And you know what? I handed it like an adult. Didn't even call my parents or anything. Little victories.

This open mic was also a little victory. I used it to try out a slightly re-worked opening. Why did I re-work the opening? Because I went through the tape from my showcase and listed how well various jokes did. I even color coded the individual punchlines. For reference, The only other thing sorted by color in my entire life is my t-shirts.

The re-worked opening also needs a little re-working. I'm probably just going to do the standard version when I perform on Monday, but getting that opening solid is on the front burner.

I'm also throwing in one new joke for Monday. Because it's a damn good joke, and it was proven both through twitter and through this open mic. Which is par for the course, actually. It's weird that if you carbon-date the jokes in my set that get the most laughs, 2 out of the top 5 are like 5 years old. Guess I need to start writing more.

Where have you been?

So much for keeping up appearances. I've been bad about going to open mics for myriad reasons (work crises keeping me at the office later, general disinclination and instruction not to) and I've been bad about keeping y'all up to date with the process.

So what's changed?
I completed a 4-week comedy class at ACME. I really needed it, even though I was loathe to admit it. It comes down to something that falls between the basics and finesse. I get the most general understanding of how a joke works, and I'm nowhere near the stage where I have to get pointers about how to appeal to producers, execs etc. What the class really provided was a way to say, "ok I'm serious about this."

Another thing that's helping is Twitter. I'm generally a 1-liner kind of guy, so Twitter is a neat little outlet for the ideas that are kicking around in my head. Being on Twitter with lots of other comics also forces me to come up with new material constantly. I can get material out into the world without doing it at open mics, which was the earlier compulsion driving me to attend.

I've moved into a different arena now: bringers. I get stage time (5-7 minutes) for bringing paying friends into seats. It's an almost perverse motivation: I have to bring my friends for their money. Also, because I have a fairly standardized set which I have to perform, the people who will see me most will hear the same jokes over and over. In a sense, I have to get them to attend not for me, but to see the other comics.

The first bringer is the end of the month. I'll be doing a couple open mics beforehand to hammer out some minor tweaks before the first big day. I'll keep y'all abreast, if only through the open mics' instrumental value. The goal is documenting the journey, so document I will. I'll try and keep things interesting though.