"……Why do swines, suddenly appear……"

Spend most of Friday and Saturday feeling quite ill from the flu. I am ok and over it now and since I haven’t been to Mexico I am sure it just your Garden variety of flu that knocks out newborn, old ppl and AIDS sufferers. Last time I check I am dun really fall into any of those category. Although I was ill start of the weekend, I was well enough to make it to Stevie’s Laughing Horse semi-final. He didn’t make it through which is a shame, but kudos for getting through to so far!

The suns are back out and summer is around the corner, Londoners are alive again! A city of grey and drewy Brits are finally coming out of their watering holes and enjoying the sun: alias still with their drinks in their hand.

I found this place when I wrote my bike to Victoria Park in Hackney from my house.

Ok, this isn’t the actual place I am talking about, more like a picture taken from “the place” I am talking about. I found an “Island” in the middle of the canal where I can have my bit of piece a quiet from the rest of London. Its actually a Loche on the Canal and the island is the divider between the waterway and the slip-way. Besides canal boath pilots and a few walkers you get very little pedestrian traffic on the island. Perfect place for me to relax and write some new material! And there are a few in the pieline!!

On tuesday my mate in comedy Stevie invited us to play at the talent night hes running for his company. It was a very interesting gig: I was expecting it to be a local pub with 20 people from the IT department – it turned out to be a booked club with 100 people from Stevie’s company!

Luckily it was a talent night so there are various other acts on to not make us the only attraction, but it is quite intense when you are external from the company and brought is as a “showcase” of the comic talent! Theres another 3 of us on the course that was there and a few of us are feeling the pressure of higher expectation. TBH I really only felt pressure just before I meant to get on.

In a way I see going on to stage a bit like a soldier going to war: It is all very scary and no one is sure whats going to happen when you are in the thick of it, but you also have a job to get on and you have focus on getting the job done. Any shits that might happen on the way you worry about it as you go and not get to hung up about it.  I know you “die” in both jobs but soldiers do come home in a body bag, but there is a bit of parallel in both. Once you picked up the mic, your job is to entertain the audience! Get on with it and dun worry! I think the years training in martial art (to have discpline) and mountain biking (to handle fear and adreanline) does help with Standup comedy.

Also play at Arthur Flower’s Allotment on Thursday night: it was at the Etcetera theatre in Camden. Its a small 50 seats theatre ontop of a pub. Its the first time I do standup in a theatre than a pub! Its a very different experience with the bright lights shining onto the stage you really dun see much of the audience at all! Now I know how it feels like being an actor! TBH with such a bright light shining on me it does feel I am acting my set rather doing it.

Anyway: this week is a busy week for me. With 3 gig scheduled and a work project starting to reved up! Will be challenging just to see the end of the week! We see!

“……Why do swines, suddenly appear……”

Spend most of Friday and Saturday feeling quite ill from the flu. I am ok and over it now and since I haven’t been to Mexico I am sure it just your Garden variety of flu that knocks out newborn, old ppl and AIDS sufferers. Last time I check I am dun really fall into any of those category. Although I was ill start of the weekend, I was well enough to make it to Stevie’s Laughing Horse semi-final. He didn’t make it through which is a shame, but kudos for getting through to so far!

The suns are back out and summer is around the corner, Londoners are alive again! A city of grey and drewy Brits are finally coming out of their watering holes and enjoying the sun: alias still with their drinks in their hand.

I found this place when I wrote my bike to Victoria Park in Hackney from my house.

Ok, this isn’t the actual place I am talking about, more like a picture taken from “the place” I am talking about. I found an “Island” in the middle of the canal where I can have my bit of piece a quiet from the rest of London. Its actually a Loche on the Canal and the island is the divider between the waterway and the slip-way. Besides canal boath pilots and a few walkers you get very little pedestrian traffic on the island. Perfect place for me to relax and write some new material! And there are a few in the pieline!!

On tuesday my mate in comedy Stevie invited us to play at the talent night hes running for his company. It was a very interesting gig: I was expecting it to be a local pub with 20 people from the IT department – it turned out to be a booked club with 100 people from Stevie’s company!

Luckily it was a talent night so there are various other acts on to not make us the only attraction, but it is quite intense when you are external from the company and brought is as a “showcase” of the comic talent! Theres another 3 of us on the course that was there and a few of us are feeling the pressure of higher expectation. TBH I really only felt pressure just before I meant to get on.

In a way I see going on to stage a bit like a soldier going to war: It is all very scary and no one is sure whats going to happen when you are in the thick of it, but you also have a job to get on and you have focus on getting the job done. Any shits that might happen on the way you worry about it as you go and not get to hung up about it.  I know you “die” in both jobs but soldiers do come home in a body bag, but there is a bit of parallel in both. Once you picked up the mic, your job is to entertain the audience! Get on with it and dun worry! I think the years training in martial art (to have discpline) and mountain biking (to handle fear and adreanline) does help with Standup comedy.

Also play at Arthur Flower’s Allotment on Thursday night: it was at the Etcetera theatre in Camden. Its a small 50 seats theatre ontop of a pub. Its the first time I do standup in a theatre than a pub! Its a very different experience with the bright lights shining onto the stage you really dun see much of the audience at all! Now I know how it feels like being an actor! TBH with such a bright light shining on me it does feel I am acting my set rather doing it.

Anyway: this week is a busy week for me. With 3 gig scheduled and a work project starting to reved up! Will be challenging just to see the end of the week! We see!

A few lessons in the school of comical "hard knocks"

Pass weeks been eventful and uneventful at the same time. Eventfully uneventful? Uneventfully Eventful? You catch the drift.

Been working from home another week and its depressing. Its like being sick when you not sick, you have to stay close to home but yet you have to stick close to home to get internet access which meant you can’t go anywhere. Ironic by the end of the week I was sick so I can actually stay at home.

Beware of the Red light

“As you gentlemen know, red means danger. Therefore, I advise to you not to step into this warning arena if you want to go on living. Stop here and go down stairs. Life is precious!”

Chi Hon Tsoi, Game of Death.

Last staurday was a Laughing horse comedy competition semi final and my mate Phil and Denis are both on the bill. Both of them done extremely well: It was the first time I seen Denis did his music material in a “proper” gig and it gels really well. His set was so well that he didn’t needed his signature gag to make it funny.

Phil was great also. His perfect dead-pan delivery was absolutely on the spot. Its the same material as the one he did for the quarters and the crowd was laughing on cue. He was the last act for the night which in general is the best slot of the night.

The unfortunate thing about the night proceeding was that Phil didn’t ended up being in the top 3 and Denis was disqualified because he was a minute and half over 6 mins. Everyone in the venue agreed that he was the best of the night and it is a shame that hes not going be in the final which he deserves. I really do felt gutted for Denis and love to see him in the final, but its frowned upon the circuit to run “severely” overtime. See I was in a gig once where every act ran overtime by so much that one of the other act has to cut his slot down from 10 to 5 mins and I didn’t even have a chance to get on. Blessed is the promoter she s going to give me another slot on another night.

Guess theres a lesson here for all of us: Time your material, build in some ”slack” and beware of the red night.

Most profitable audiences

There is a saying in Marketing that 80% of your revenue generated by 20% of you customers, the challenge is to found which customers are part of the 20%. It can also be applicable to comedy in that certain % of your material will appeal to 80% of the audience, the trick is knowing which % of your material are appealing to the 80% of audience you are playing to.

I played a gig to a room of around 17 punters on saturday night and quite frankly die. I was hoping if I can do the full 8 mins of my material and ended up cutting and running in 5. If they not laughing at Midget Ninjas, than they not going to laugh at Street fighter stuff.

The thought of me having nothing to deliver makes me adopted the  ”cut and run” option. I wonder what is the etiquette in standup comedy when you are dying? Do you plough through your whole set and run the risk of killing the room further? Or do you just cut and run and hopefully the Compere will salvage the situation. Luckily in my case Chris Mayo is a great Compere and warm the crowd backup. Liam who follow me was a great comic and pump the audience backup with laughter and energy so no one got hurt in the end.

In hindsight, maybe I should have stuck it out and see. Think I will give that approach a go next time.

 

A few lessons in the school of comical “hard knocks”

Pass weeks been eventful and uneventful at the same time. Eventfully uneventful? Uneventfully Eventful? You catch the drift.

Been working from home another week and its depressing. Its like being sick when you not sick, you have to stay close to home but yet you have to stick close to home to get internet access which meant you can’t go anywhere. Ironic by the end of the week I was sick so I can actually stay at home.

Beware of the Red light

“As you gentlemen know, red means danger. Therefore, I advise to you not to step into this warning arena if you want to go on living. Stop here and go down stairs. Life is precious!”

Chi Hon Tsoi, Game of Death.

Last staurday was a Laughing horse comedy competition semi final and my mate Phil and Denis are both on the bill. Both of them done extremely well: It was the first time I seen Denis did his music material in a “proper” gig and it gels really well. His set was so well that he didn’t needed his signature gag to make it funny.

Phil was great also. His perfect dead-pan delivery was absolutely on the spot. Its the same material as the one he did for the quarters and the crowd was laughing on cue. He was the last act for the night which in general is the best slot of the night.

The unfortunate thing about the night proceeding was that Phil didn’t ended up being in the top 3 and Denis was disqualified because he was a minute and half over 6 mins. Everyone in the venue agreed that he was the best of the night and it is a shame that hes not going be in the final which he deserves. I really do felt gutted for Denis and love to see him in the final, but its frowned upon the circuit to run “severely” overtime. See I was in a gig once where every act ran overtime by so much that one of the other act has to cut his slot down from 10 to 5 mins and I didn’t even have a chance to get on. Blessed is the promoter she s going to give me another slot on another night.

Guess theres a lesson here for all of us: Time your material, build in some ”slack” and beware of the red night.

Most profitable audiences

There is a saying in Marketing that 80% of your revenue generated by 20% of you customers, the challenge is to found which customers are part of the 20%. It can also be applicable to comedy in that certain % of your material will appeal to 80% of the audience, the trick is knowing which % of your material are appealing to the 80% of audience you are playing to.

I played a gig to a room of around 17 punters on saturday night and quite frankly die. I was hoping if I can do the full 8 mins of my material and ended up cutting and running in 5. If they not laughing at Midget Ninjas, than they not going to laugh at Street fighter stuff.

The thought of me having nothing to deliver makes me adopted the  ”cut and run” option. I wonder what is the etiquette in standup comedy when you are dying? Do you plough through your whole set and run the risk of killing the room further? Or do you just cut and run and hopefully the Compere will salvage the situation. Luckily in my case Chris Mayo is a great Compere and warm the crowd backup. Liam who follow me was a great comic and pump the audience backup with laughter and energy so no one got hurt in the end.

In hindsight, maybe I should have stuck it out and see. Think I will give that approach a go next time.

 

Downside of life in this metropolis

In a city of around 8 million people, the chance to fall victim of crime is almost imminent. I got my work laptop snatched on tuesday night walking back from the station to home. I am ok and since its a work laptop its covered by insurance and got a replacement. Still I felt a bit shit because I felt if I was a bit more alert the result might change. When the local chav come upto you on his bike and start asking you for the time, alarm bell should be ringing. This city just keep teaching me more lessons in life…….

In terms of the week all things are good. Work is a bit quiet at the moment but the project I am working on will be reving up really really soon. This project should do nicely and set me up for the next month in terms of work.

This is a bit of down week for me in terms of comedy, haven’t really organise anything and gigs I am doing are kind of just turned up. Did the London Open Mic Olympics on wednesday with 30 acts on the night all doing 3 mins each plus a few feature acts on the night it was a hectic night. It was divided into 3 section with a clap-off at the end of each section, you are only allow to clapped to the act that you wanted to go through so alot of acts are getting either silence or that odd clap which felt a bit awkward. Tried my Street fighter material there, now I got the whole looks to go with the material so it looks awesome!

Went to checkout Shane’s gig (One of the fellow aussies I met on circuit) on saturday night. Wasn’t even thinking about playing but ended up going on for a slot and I have to say glad I did: It was the best gig I have done. The audience was beyond warm, they were having such a great time that they all wanted to be part of it! I mean I have never experience where they ask me so much questions and almost jumped up and grabbed my set from me. TBH since they paying the money I really dun mind if they wanted to be part of it as long as they are having fun. Doing the set is not the key as long as the audience are having fun.

After the gig Shane, Denis, Paul and I ended up staying around for a drink. We ended up walking around London 3 in the morning trying to find somewhere to drink. Gosh! No where is open unless you like to hit a club or something. We ended up having a late evening chinese noodle session to finish the night/morning!

Its not all that it cracked up to be.

Working from home that is. Sure it would be nice to work from home if you ACTUALLY don’t have to work, but it really lacks the human contacts and makes your life feel quite miserable as you can’t really stray far from your house.

TBH lots of things are not what they cracked up to be, not even comedy. Behind every sucessful comic, there are thousands of budding comics playing to a room full of fellow comics and not much else. You might be getting somewhere say after maybe 2 years on the circuit, until than you might have to write a year off just maybe you get somewhere. Am I prepared to write a year off? And discussed my solidly wage-slave middle class life style? Who knows! If I get a redundancy than maybe, even than it won’t be much of a payout.

Anyway it looks like this project I am on will have me slowed under till end of may, it sure is nice to get work, maybe a few weekend days here and there. Guess we will have to see.

Purpose? Purpose!

Shamelessly stolen from Avenue Q…..

Actually at home at the moment, my client that I been working for at the moment are based around the Bank of England so I was told to stay home today and work from here! Thanks G20 protesters! Can I called it a G20 holiday??

Last saturday went to saw the last show of the current production of the Musical Avenue Q. Its a great puppet musical and I recommend everybody to check it out! The central theme of the show was basically around a character down and out on his luck and searching for a purpose. In the end he realise his misery stems from his narcissistic view of the world. The cure is to stop the self pity and take time to focus on the needs of others.

Looking back the last 6 months of my life I have not felt any depressive state i was ever in the first 6 months here in London, at least I haven’t felt the need to write it on this blog anyway. I been lucky that my comedy kept me going for so long and now I haven’t got much time to reflect on how lonely life can be sometimes. Having said that comedy could be quite a lonely path to tread and I been lucky that the bunch of Amused Moose graduates is gigging quite regularly. Some of the characters you met on the circuit are very nice people as well. On the point of reflecting on self and meeting new people Brooke and Alan came along to my gig on Monday and its good to see some of the guys I met from my hostel days is still around and kicking. Its a bit of a shame that by the end of this year all of them would have left this country but thats part of life I guess.

At this point I really dun know how long I will be staying here, at least till the end of 2009 where I can extend my visa for another 3 years. I am just afraid that once I am back home I will missed my life here in London, some of the guys who went back to NZ/OZ will know what I mean. Still…….I have long met anyone for the last year and a half that can replace my friends back home. We haven’t seem each other for a year now, but they will still be there in OZ and when I go back we still catch up with each other as old friends would. Look forward to TC’s wedding end of October!

 

Take care!