And its a wrap for 2008!!

Hmmm…… its almost the new year……

Was a bit of a slacker so now I wish you all a belated merry xmas and a very happy new year.

This Christmas was really quiet for me. On Christmas day I spent the day on bike, riding around London taking photos and doing a bit of exploring. I was hoping the city to be empty like 28th week style, it turns out that although tube and buses are not running doesn’t mean people are not out and about.

I was pleasantly surprised there are quite a few places that are open on Christmas day. Many of the corner stores are open, a few of the tourist focus restaurants around Leicester Square is also open and if you like you can head out to Brick Lane for a Christmas Bagel or Curry, although getting there might be a bit of an issue.

In the end I ended up on Parliament Hill in Hampstead, North London. Managed to found a vantage point that lets you look back to London itself, also did a bit of hill climbing on my bike as well. I was out of breath pretty quickly and started to cram up, definitely losing my fitness.

On Sunday night I did a gig at Arthur Fellows Allotment. This is a variety night ran by Anthea, a girl that I met on the course. Although it was a night that meant to have a variety of performance like bands, magic acts and poetry, there were like 10 of us from the course on that night and it felt like it was the showcase all over again.

I ran some new material that night, which didn’t fared so well. The stuff from my current set brought the house down! It felt awesome to not only have people laugh at your gags but come up to you and shake your hand afterwards to coagulate you and tell you how funny my stuff are. I think after 6 gigs I finally found my 5 mins of comedy gold!!

This is probably my last update before the New Year. I wished you all a happy new year. With the current economic climate, 2009 looks to be a turbulent year for all comers. A year and half in London has instilled me with a strange sense of optimism, which is quite unusual to people that know me. Honestly, I do see 2009 to be a year of opportunity all around……..
See you all in 2009!!

 

William

XoXo

"…..Cause it feel just like you having 2 jobs……."

Sorry for the lack of updates guys. Been freaking busy as….

Well Started two “New” job at the same week, isn’t it great? There goes my free time!

First job is a IT consultant with a mid-size consulting firm. Sounds good doesn’t it? Only than you realised that when it come to the team of the software expertise you are it in UK. Theres another team in Ireland but to para-phrase an old Chinese saying : ” Water in a distance is not good at fighting fires you immediately facing. On top of that I basically parachuted into a existing project to do fire fighting.

Its funny that the project managers/accounts manager I am working for now start booking all the weeks in January. I will be with this client for this week, than onto this client for this week, than back onto this client for this week…………. Feels like I just been thrown from project to project without an opportunity to get into a rhythm where I can focus on work. I worked on IT projects before, but to work alone with project manager who not familiar with the technology is a bit of uncharted territory, we will see whats going to happened.

Being a consultant also mean I have to get a wardrobe of suits, some shinny leather shoes, a blackberry, a work laptop and chargeable work to the client for every 15mins. Thats right! Welcome to my new world of being a corporate prostitute! My work is either satisfying to the client or some form of a  corporate ”STD”, take your pick!

*                                 *                                 *                                 *                                 *                                 *                                 *                                 *

My other job is being a standup comics, and boy has it been a bit of a ride the last couple of weeks!

See after the course and the showcase I was surrounded by this “air of invincibility”. Afterall I got material that I thought was funny and stood up to the challenge and did my first gig! The rest must be just a repetition of the showcase!!……………….How wrong was I!!

I did another gig on Saturday week after the showcase and was gob-smacked by the experience. It was a “pay-per-play” standup gig where they draw your name out of a hat and you performed your 5 mins. There was 16 comics and they got through everyone in the end, I was the second comic of the night and here are a few observation of the night:

1. If you on too early than the crowd might not be warm enough, if you are on too late you and the audience might become too tire to laugh;
2. Do not panic and lose confidence when a few of your jokes bomb;
3. Humour that is immediate,dynamic and made up on the spot is usually funnier than scripted material;
4. Have faith in your material, no matter the circumstances;
5. Humour is a funny animal, you be surprise the difference between where you thought was the punchline vs where the audience thought was the punchline. Only way to tell is just run your material;
6. Attitude is part of the punchline;
7. Slow down! You only got 5 mins but its not about getting through the material, its about making people laugh!
8. Record you set and listened to it again, it might actually tell you the real story about how well/not well you went!
9. New material is the hope of all standup comics, the greatest gag was once a new material…….. embrace writing new material.

I did another 2 gigs after the saturday gig and I believe the last gig I did was the best gig, I learned my material well and was relax in my delivery, now I just have to take note of what people are saying and slow down and focus on pronunciation. It takes alot of time to generate new material though! The writing, the rehearsing and the re-editing cycle is almost a job in itself! My showcase routine is currently on its 10+ draft at the moment, always chopping and changing and trying new gags out!!

TBH I loved this new hobby of mine, I wouldn’t wanted to give it up without a fight! If I dun have to work for a living than I will focus my energy on this, but with the current economic climate you be lucky to be a beggar let alone a chooser!!!

“…..Cause it feel just like you having 2 jobs…….”

Sorry for the lack of updates guys. Been freaking busy as….

Well Started two “New” job at the same week, isn’t it great? There goes my free time!

First job is a IT consultant with a mid-size consulting firm. Sounds good doesn’t it? Only than you realised that when it come to the team of the software expertise you are it in UK. Theres another team in Ireland but to para-phrase an old Chinese saying : ” Water in a distance is not good at fighting fires you immediately facing. On top of that I basically parachuted into a existing project to do fire fighting.

Its funny that the project managers/accounts manager I am working for now start booking all the weeks in January. I will be with this client for this week, than onto this client for this week, than back onto this client for this week…………. Feels like I just been thrown from project to project without an opportunity to get into a rhythm where I can focus on work. I worked on IT projects before, but to work alone with project manager who not familiar with the technology is a bit of uncharted territory, we will see whats going to happened.

Being a consultant also mean I have to get a wardrobe of suits, some shinny leather shoes, a blackberry, a work laptop and chargeable work to the client for every 15mins. Thats right! Welcome to my new world of being a corporate prostitute! My work is either satisfying to the client or some form of a  corporate ”STD”, take your pick!

*                                 *                                 *                                 *                                 *                                 *                                 *                                 *

My other job is being a standup comics, and boy has it been a bit of a ride the last couple of weeks!

See after the course and the showcase I was surrounded by this “air of invincibility”. Afterall I got material that I thought was funny and stood up to the challenge and did my first gig! The rest must be just a repetition of the showcase!!……………….How wrong was I!!

I did another gig on Saturday week after the showcase and was gob-smacked by the experience. It was a “pay-per-play” standup gig where they draw your name out of a hat and you performed your 5 mins. There was 16 comics and they got through everyone in the end, I was the second comic of the night and here are a few observation of the night:

1. If you on too early than the crowd might not be warm enough, if you are on too late you and the audience might become too tire to laugh;
2. Do not panic and lose confidence when a few of your jokes bomb;
3. Humour that is immediate,dynamic and made up on the spot is usually funnier than scripted material;
4. Have faith in your material, no matter the circumstances;
5. Humour is a funny animal, you be surprise the difference between where you thought was the punchline vs where the audience thought was the punchline. Only way to tell is just run your material;
6. Attitude is part of the punchline;
7. Slow down! You only got 5 mins but its not about getting through the material, its about making people laugh!
8. Record you set and listened to it again, it might actually tell you the real story about how well/not well you went!
9. New material is the hope of all standup comics, the greatest gag was once a new material…….. embrace writing new material.

I did another 2 gigs after the saturday gig and I believe the last gig I did was the best gig, I learned my material well and was relax in my delivery, now I just have to take note of what people are saying and slow down and focus on pronunciation. It takes alot of time to generate new material though! The writing, the rehearsing and the re-editing cycle is almost a job in itself! My showcase routine is currently on its 10+ draft at the moment, always chopping and changing and trying new gags out!!

TBH I loved this new hobby of mine, I wouldn’t wanted to give it up without a fight! If I dun have to work for a living than I will focus my energy on this, but with the current economic climate you be lucky to be a beggar let alone a chooser!!!