Taken down a peg – life of a standup apprenticeship

Updates been slow of late, thats because of work and gig demands. Otherwise most of the time I am pretty tired and dun have much time to write.

The new house is working out fine now, have to buy a pair of earplugs to calm the traffic noises. Have also got used to no washing after 10:00p.m., smaller kitchen and lack of pressure of shower. Can be worst, now I just needed a TV.

Played 3 gigs this week:

* Lions Den on Tuesday – Haven’t play here for a few months now. I got on at 11:20 being act number 25 out of a total of 28. Most of the audiences are acts and most had gone home by that time. They did tried to limit the bill to 26 acts but it looks like Tim will have to cut the bill down a bit if he likes the night to finish on reasonable time. The gig actually went ok: it was a quiet crowd and got a few laughs! It also felt good to hold a mic and be on stage again since its almost been a week since my last gig.

* Arthur Fowlers Allotment on Wednesday – This gig is ran by a friend of mine: Anthea and she booked me on the night to do a 8-10 min slot. It used to be a variety night but lately Anthea been putting alot of standup on. This is the first time I stitch all my material together into a 10 min set and quite promptly die on my ass mid-way. a 10 min spot is very different to a 5 min slot and this gig really open my eyes up;

* Downstairs at Kings Head – this gig is different to most open mic nights. New comedians doing 5 min set mixed with established acts doing new material. This gig is not one of those open mic with a rent a crowd audience – this is comedy gig in a proper comedy club. I was really nervous and stressing about my material before I went on, but I spoted another act I met from another gig (David) and started to take my mind off my set and becoming more relax.  Couple of the comedian went on before me struggle a bit, my set went down very well: Not quite a storming because the bits that usually strong didn’t go down well. (But the weaker material went down a treat…….hmmm……odd!)  Anyway the club have a low ceiling and managed to punch the ceiling for comical effect and got a few laughs out of it.

Another key highlight was managing to heckle another comedian with recorded applause by accidentally hitting my dictaphone. I sweared it was an accident, AN ACCIDENT I TELL YOU!

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Been doing a bit of thinking and introspection – looking at the video I recorded, listen back to my own set and hearing what other people have said to me about my act. I came to realisation that I am not quite at the level I think I am at. I still come across as unconfident to a certain extent and sometimes say things too quick. I think i identify the main reason why I am not exactly getting any offer of gigs like other on the circuits that start later if not same time as me.

In a way standup comedy is an apprenticeship – you don’t offcially get a piece of paper saying you qualify, but there is no defined way or period that you qualify. Just like an apprenticeship you have to know your “basics” of comedy and know it well, things like delivery and pacing are critical to performance and theres no other way around it.

With this in mind, I am back to “basics” again: 4 mins of material deliver in a 5 min time frame, slow down to 3/4 of normal pace and concerntrate on puntating the words. Afterall one can never spent too much time on the “basics”!

One of those days when you are feeling blue

I think probably a variety of things making me feeling down at the moment.

Works been busy at the moment. Not full on stressful but just busy, the good news is that my boss is willing to roll the extra 5 days I accrued from last year into this year, so I have a few more days up my sleeves when it comes to coming back to Australia.

Moving is ok too, settling down ok in the new flat with new housemates: It still early days at the moment so have to get to know the people a bit better. The house itself aren’t in tip top conditions: The other day I have fashion a latch out of a coat Hanger because the one on the bathroom door broke. (Actually it was broken before I moved in) It reminds me how good dad was when it comes to jury rigging stuff to repair. Unlike my handy work my dad’s repairs goes the whole 9 yards and should be considered as an “enhancements” more than just a repair.

Spent my sunday cleaning the bathroom, you know someone got to do it when the walls are tinged with Orange and the shower drain been blocked. The drain unblockers certainly did wonder in this case.

The comedy scene is ironicly depressive considering the weather and the Wimbledon Tennis: Everyone gets drunk way too early of a day to go out and end up watching Roger Federer claiming his crowd. The Brewhouse gig that I been doing regularly been pull for quite a few times now and other open mics the numbers are also down.

As for my comedy I think frustration is the best way to describe it, I am doing some cracker of material and getting laughs. In my opinion I haven’t die for a while now and been constantly getting laughs even on quiet nights. However none of these has translated into more gigs from promoters: Still have to hassle them to give me a gig, I still haven’t felt I earned any gigs based on the “merits” of my ability.

Quite a few of my friends from the course are now getting regular gigs from promoters and none of these are because they were good ”pals” with the promoters. They say different people progress at different rate but I can’t help but feeling jealous.  What are they doing different? I just can’t figure it out! Maybe I should spent sometime to pratiace ediction. Did the sunday Open Mic night and feeling pretty dejected after the gig: It was the Slam where all comics did 3 minutes of their material and audience meant to choose the best comic of the night to complete their set. The stanard was ordinary at best and no disrespect to the final winner (The audience are the one to picked, not the acts or the promoter) but I walked off feeling being slapped in the face and being told “You are less than average” by the audience. What do I have to do to win one of these things??

Losing the Slam is only a small piece of the jig-saw: Its part of the feeling of you work all day, get prepared to do a gig even when you tired, did your best to deliver your set with the most upbeat energy, audience laugh at your material but in the end they still think someone else is better and you rolled back home at around midnight feeling no better than you were a few hours ago. If there is such thing as a comedy “rut”, I think I am stucked in one.

I still remember a comedy writer told me comedy = pain + time, I know exactly what he meant!

Anyway, enough whinging. To bed…..

Have you have that feeling that…….

….things aren’t exactly peachy but there are so many things going on you stop thinking about it?

Well: right now I am sitting in the new room in my new flatshare with my stuff shrewd across the room.

Its a bigger room and closer to city by 300m. Than again its a flat share with 5 others with 2 toilets, a power-shower that can’t be turned to max because it will explode, no hot water because the boiler is turned off during summer and my room facing a main road. And its in the middle of a heat wave at the moment so can’t close any windows?  Yeah I get a bit of road noises but lucky I am living on the 3rd floor so I think it is bare able. I will live I am sure.

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Found out yesterday that my 5 days worth of annual leave won’t be carrying over to the new leave year! Fuck! I am a consultant and every day I worked on the client site its billable, this is effectively docking me a weeks of pay but yet still collecting money from the client! Somewhere last few months I worked a week for free. I hope a few African children are saved from scarifice. I hope I can work something out with the consultancy director. I am argue that I was on probation for the last 6 months and because the projects been ongoing for a while so I am in no position to take leave. They also did a terrible job preping me: I spent half a day learning how to fill time sheet and off I went to clients. *sigh* life of a consultant.

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Went and saw Neil Young on saturday. It was a surprise for Tarkan organised by Eva (Now Tarkan’s fiance and soon to be wife)  since we missed him last time he played in this country. This time hes playing in Hyde Park so there can’t be a gig more central than that! I am not a devoted fan of Neil and really didn’t have a catalogue of Neil past albums. Just going by the show I must say Neil is an awesome show man! At grand old age of 63 he still rip up the stage and all the strings on his guitar after a 3 hour set. It was fantastic to watch. And when he did his encore  with the Beatle song “A day in the life”  Paul McCartney did a surprise cameo it was awesome to watch. Will 2 music legend be on stage like this again in my life time? Probably not!

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One final point is  although standup comedy is going really well. I am not 100% feeling happy. One sign of progress is when promoters start approaching you and offering you spot. Its a sign of acknowlegement from the promoters and also a sign of progression as a comedians. Many people on my course or started later than me are being given slots on various night by promoters, I have to say I am jealous that they are doing better than me. I am getting laughs, people are saying I am funny but yet I am not getting gigs. Why? Why do some people get laughs they get gigs but when I get laughs I don’t. Is that something that I am doing? Is it my set or my material? Is it my voice? Or its the subconscious mind telling people that comedians are usually white, middle age and balding like Ricky Gervais and not some Chinese guy with an assent?

I can’t wait till this Western “soft power” to lose influence, I wonder what will comedy scene be like in 10 years time at the very beginning of the Asian Century.