….Cause thats how Max would wanted it…..

Its freezing and snowing in London. Maybe the flip side of global warming is you guarantee a  white Christmas, if only we don’t lose arable land and my landlord can get around fixing the broken window. *sigh*

On Thursday we gave Max his sent off and I have to say its the best funeral ever. (in positive tone)

For some strange reason I woke up in a jovial mood: No I AM sad and upset that Max is gone, but I think its a sense that the day is different to any ordinary day. Maybe the thought of a day off plus there will be plenty of good company around to share memories of Max is what I am looking forward to. It will be sad but there will be some good times ahead today. I did ended up taking the wrong address and late for the ceremony. *Doh*

Even though its a sad occasion everyone focus on the positive: It’s not a mourning of the passing of a son, brother and a beloved friend but a celebration of a colourful life  live well: One which touched so many people from different walks of life who all came to this West London church for a final tribute.

The funeral was different also - everyone were in bright colours at the request of the family. There were no flowers instead everyone was asked to make a donation to the charity Changing Faces  instead. We ended up listening to one of Max’s favour comedian’s standup routines and sign Max’s coffin with our farewell message. (He was cremated so his coffin resembles a cardboard box.)  During the wake we released balloons in honour of Max.

Everyone was really positive throughout given the circumstances. I personally pass on my condolence to Max’s Dad, it was hard not to shed a tear in a funeral. After going through my grand dad’s funeral I realised there are no easy way out when it comes to coping with losing someone you love. I wish the Turner family all the best and thank them for bringing up Max and into our lives.

It’s also great to see so many comedians turn out for Max’s final send-off and not just those who done the comedy course. Us comedians tended to operate in cliques (I am also guilty of this as Max did the comedy course and is part of my “clique”) and tended to hang around our own than branch out. You do social with other comedians but you always ended up hanging around a few that you are closed to. At least a good 20 comedians showed up to pay their respect. Even our “dad” Logan was there!

When it comes to the open mic comedy circuits it does  behave like some form of “dysfunctional” family – sure there are people you see a few times but not close to, a few that you really enjoy their company and a few that you just dislike/hate. But when it comes to something like one of us passing away or leaving the country we get together and support each other. As Max’s dad put it: we are almost like a second “family”. I am glad that quite a few of us took the day off and spent the rest of the day/night sitting around drinking and enjoying each other’s stories. Even though we all ended up walking half a mile to transport in heavy snow it was still worth it. We really should do this more often – hopefully someone dying again!

Nelson organised a comedian Christmas get together on saturday and there were like at least 50 comedians from open micers to pros all coming together for a drink. I mean Wow talking having charisma Nelson! Its good to see all of these people together in one room without having to worry about getting on stage or getting home before the last train. Sure we just kind of invaded a bar and stay there till 3:30 in the morning.

 
Picture courtesy Of Ben Leto

Maybe one day when I made it, I will have a “Charlie and hooker” party for everyone. However since unless you are Ricky Gervais and making Hollywood movies there isn’t as much money in comedy as people like to think. Than again tell me tell me which job pays for people to go on stage for 20 mins to talk about total bollocks. It will be years before anyone of us see decent cash coming from this. In the meantime we are all toiling out of  love for our art.

 The most important point is we doing this for our enjoyment, we will have to figure out how to pay the bills in other ways.

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On a more happier note – This is the third Christmas I am having in London! Hooray! Time to get Jolly…..and Rest!!!!

Merry Xmas ppl! xx

 

Tribute to Max: a life cut short

 

“Life Sux…….Than you die”

A cynical musing that me and my friend Jim and Richard came up yonks ago. 

This week I learnt about tragic passing of my friend Max. I knew Max from the Amused Moose comedy course and hes been the “backbone” of my comedy circle since. Max has striking features thats hard to miss at first glance: his disfigured face and twisted spine due to his congenital birth defect sets him apart. I have to be honest and admit my ignorance and say I thought he was intellectual disabled when I first met him. How wrong was I…

Over the pass year I started to get to know the person: Max is deeply intellectual and very articulated. I have to say that I was ignorant in judging Max based on initial impression. After a year as friends hes no longer just a comic with disability – Hes every bit as normal as you and I, it just we are fortunate to be born without any major defects.

In terms of comedy: I always see comedians as jet pilots and their material is their F-16 fighter planes. Its a union between your material (the weapons, guidance system, navigation etc) and your stagecraft (the airmenship of the pilots) to form part of your act.  As a rookie comedian the first 10 gigs is kind of like flying blind through heavy turbulence while trying to learn how to fly. Some people lost patient and confidence and ended up “crashing” out of comedy but once you made it through the turbulence you will gradually see blue sky.

As a comic Max was brilliant, but like all comics he had a rough start. I remember going to his laughing horse 2009 heat and watched him die horribly.  After the highs of our comedy course showcase it was coming back to earth with a loud thud. He was absolutely gutted from the experience and for a little while it hit his confidence and didn’t gig for a little while. Eventually he came back to the comedy circuit with some new material and reworked material and he starting to hit his stride. He managed to fly through the turbulence and finally catching the blue sky! 

It was a joy watching Max gain/regain confidence and develop his act. The more gigs he does the more his personality comes through. Some of the material he started coming up with were bonkers! The whole “QPR” fan material was really clever; his opener where he played with the audience about his disability makes him very loveable and the whole pretending he was intellectually disable and the reveal in the end to challenge people’s perception was daring and demonstrated his cunning.

However Max is not without his demons: he can get a bit moody and grumpy at times. During the month at Edinburgh Fringe he was non-responsive and isolated himself, he canceled a few gigs that he booked to perform and look really “ticked off”. By than we knew Max for more than 8 months and understood that he might be going through a trough and needed a bit of space. No one is perfect and thats what makes us all unique individuals not some soulless automatons coming out of a Simon Cowell’s production line. 

We (Max’s comedy friends) all knew that he will pull through the lows and eventually be back on the gigging bandwagon. I remember in one of his set after the Edinburgh Fringe he ended it on a revelation: He explained to the audiences that hes been through some bad times recently and did some self-contemplation. After thinking long and hard he realised the thing he love to do the most in life is standup comedy. It was an emotional moment knowing that a friend has come back and rejoin us on the comedy battle front. *sigh* I guess this time hes left  us for good.

Sad to see Max go so suddenly: Max is way better and cleverer joke writer than I am. I just churn random crap on paper, Max has a lot of well form ideas with intellectual bend that leads somewhere. I am sure in a few years time Max will “make it” in comedy and leaving us trailing behind him and cursing him while turning green with envy. If I ever made it in my comedy career I will make sure Max’s picture is on a major comedy club somewhere: that is where he truly belongs!

“Life Sux…….Than you die”

It is still true……….BUT how you play with the hand life dealt you is entirely up to you. In Max case he suffered a few setbacks but he took it on the chin and made the best out of his life. (Bad pun I know! You picked up a few bad habits as comedian ) He made every single seconds of his life count and thats what matter the most. It was tragic his time was cut short but during this time he challenged us all to make the most out of our lives and be a better person.

 

To Max Turner: 
A comedy genius,  a wonderful person and a great friend. 

wherever you are I hope you found peace.
Thank you for sharing the journey in life with us. Keep telling it the way it is!

A year on – progression

When I started comedy a year ago, I really dunno how long, how far or where I am taking with this shebang. To be honest a year on I still have no idea where this is going.

Just over a year ago I finished my comedy course and show case, back than I am glad just to get a bit of stage time and have the “ticker” to make people laugh. I remembered going to Oct 2008 Gong Show and watch and marvelling at the act who go up and give the comedy thing a whirl. Back than I be just glad to last 5 mins.

Went to September 2009 Gong Show just before I went back to Australia and  they were even more nastier than before! Some of the “curve ball” heckles the audience come up with are just down right savage. During than I was wondering how long my Gong show gig will last, I think 45 seconds is realistic. Gong show can be notorious harsh, there are times Comedians gonged off without a chance to touch the mic.

So round comes 30th November I left work a touch early to secure an early slot on the gong show. The earlier slots are better since the audiences are not quite settled in and not drunk yet either making survival relatively easy. The night get progressively worst with the comedians on the last few slots doing more “crowd control” rather than comedy.

Work didn’t really mind me taking off early as a few of them will be coming down to the show later on.  So I arrived at 6:00p.m. and signed myself up to slot # 4 (out of total of 24). The show started at 8:30p.m. with the MC coming on doing a bit of banter and warming the audiences up.  This MC was nice as he didn’t really egg the audience on with their heckles and largely left the crowd to their own accord. Paul (One of the London Circuit regulars) went on slot #3  and did well and at one point looked like he will lasted the full 5 mins. He got gonged off at 4 mins after he went quiet on one of the heckles and the audience started booing. Didn’t really matter as hes already doing 5 min open spots for Comedy Stores already.

I came on next and got a big laugh from the way I said “Hello Gong show!” I was a bit puzzled why it got such a big laugh and will have to look back at the video again when I get my hands on it. The first 3 mins of my set It was going down a treat with people laughing on the punchlines and sometimes at the ad-libs things I do on stage. I thought “I will really have to fuck up to not last the 5 mins.”

Than I got on my stool and started doing the squat toilet material and the audience lost patient and started booing me. It only takes 40 seconds between them laughing and them booing, Gong show can turn on you quickly and dramatically.

While the boos are going I was starting to think I am about to gonged off soon and one of my comedy career highlight happened:
I looked at one of the judges at the front with the red card on his lap with the full expectation that “he will finish me off look.”. The young dude just looked back at me and said “Keep going!”

This was a shot in the arm for me! With this moral booster I got off the stool and started on the Ninja material and the booing stopped. I even have the ticker to tell one of the guy to piss off when he started again! Unfortunately never really have a chance to finish the ninja material: The 5 mins mark is passed and I survived! Hooray!! Something that I can only dream of in a year ago has happened! I survived the 5 mins of the gong show!

There were 4 others who survived as well. Tall Handsome Christian with his very loveable personality, Johnny with his young Jimmy Hendrix looks and his racial observation humour about getting a free holiday from BNP back to Jamaica,. Rick (??) the Asian/Indian comedian with his larger than life persona and beatboxing skill and Tania who came on right at the end and held her ground from a booing crowd to last the full 5 mins. Tania is a great comedian and would go down a storm on any normal nights. Tonight she was doing crowd control “with gags” and feels like she was verbal fencing against a room of  140+.

I didn’t win the King gong: Christian and Johnny won the clapoff in the end and Johnny won the night. Tania should be commended for playing to such a difficult slot and still managed to pull through the full 5 mins.

I was hoping they will offer me a 5 min open slot at the Comedy Store for surviving the Gong show. Although I did survived but I did wobbled with the Squat toilet material. I am booked in again for the April gong show and to come back with some new/different material, if I did well I might just get a 5 min slot at the she store in 2010! Well looks like the bar has just been raised!

Anyway I will chuck the video up on Youtube once I get it. My mission for the next few months is to write some Gong show ready material.

Oh and hopefully before that: I can reapply for my visa, look for a new flatmates and potentially find somewhere to live where it is not comparable to paying the mortgage of a 2 bedroom London apartment. Sigh! The dream is over for now – back to the mundane things that is known as life!

When it rains…..

…….It pours.

The thing about rain in England is that its just a constant rain but never a full deluge or snowing. I guess the weather is kind of parrallel of my life at the moment: Lots of headaches and change but nothing particular hard or difficult and I am sure it will all be resolved in meantime.

I guess biggest thing happened on the weekend is my good London friend Kate is leaving on Tuesday, we all went out for a curry and drink to say goodbye. Compare with all the happenings of the hostel days 2 years ago it was a relatively low key event. Just a few friends catching up and remember the 3 years that Kate and Allan spent in London, I was feeling like a drag for the night: I am not a big party person and I can’t drink for the whole night because of my stomach upset. Still – the curry at Brick Lane was good and this is the second time we been to the resturant. I think I will come back again next time! Their claim to fame was that Prince Charles visited the place back in the 70s and got a photo of him shaking who I presume to be the owner’s hand. I am not sure if everyone in the photo still have any connection to the resturant.

Me and Alan have a bit of a beef during the night. Alan can get quite moody when he got drunk and do things that hes not 100% intended. I didn’t really help the situation by egging Alan on. I guess I am trying to proof a point and hopefully he will remember it afterwards. Alan and Kate are both leaving London for Melbourne and I hope Alan especially can look after himself when he goes there. London is a ”safe” city compare with Sydney or Melbourne, back home in Australia city are alot smaller and different elements of society have more contacts with each other compare with London and its very easy to run into trouble just by ”looking” or “talking” to others in a wrong way. I just hope that Alan can calm down a little bit and look after himself. I know when I am always very careful with myself when my families can’t really effectively look after me when anything happens.

Still: know Kate and Alan for over 2 years now. They are key part of my social circle here in London and it will be tough not seeing them around for 2010. I cried when I said goodbye to Kate at the bus stop. I wished we can have a bigger farewell rather than a teary goodbye at a bus stop in East London – but I believe I will see her again someday in the future. Yeah I am sure someday I will visit Melbourne………

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On Sunday night me and my housemate have an early Christmas dinner for the house and it was great! Steve and Shelley did most of the cooking while Alicia did a very yummy desert. I didn’t do any of the cooking so just ended up doing the washing up. We never cooked as a house before and it really does feel like a family with everyone helping out, cooking, chating and cleaning up.  

The people are great and I would love to live with them for quite a while, but the house was a bit of a dump, in no particular order:

* Water pressure of the shower is bad because the pipes are old and its unlikely Landlord will replace them;
* Lights in staircase wasn’t working. I fitted new bulbs in and they works, however the switch is dead and they dun switch off;
* The heating in the small room I am in cannot be turn down because the switches on the raidator is broken. It gets really toasty;
* The entrance to the kitchen leaks after heavy rain;
* Kitchen windows been broken for 2 months and it still not fix;
* There are no hot water on taps. They go hot for like 20 seconds and than cold again:
* The landlord is not in the country. I deal with his handy man and hes really slow on fixing these things;
* I paid too much for my old room. No one really wanted to take it off me.

So with the lease up for renewal at start of Feb. I am tempted to just pack it in and find a new place to live round next year. Its a shame cause I really like my flatmates and I don’t think they intended to move from such a comvienent location.

Well better get some sleep: I am doing the gong show tomorrow night at the Comedy Stores. yikes!

 

Heres to another winter

Home at the moment sick from heartburn/indegstion. You guys might think I chuck a “sickie” but if I have I would be outdoors rather than stuck indoors in front of my laptop and TV. Doctor asked me how old I am and don’t I get heartburns: I think I have to admit that middle age is finally creeping in, hope I won’t peep my pants anytime soon!

Been looking for a new flatmates for my old room. A few weeks ago a girl moved into my flat and stay in the smaller room for a day and than moved out. The problem was the central heating radiatior was low pressure and ended up making alot of gurgling noise. The central heating is now pumped up and the radiator seens to be ok. Although every now and than it does make a loud “tonk” noise. I believe from my research it might be a case of “Water Hammer“. Not 100% sure if the Landlord can fixed it but I am preparing a pair of earplugs just in case.

Met Kate and Alan and Tarkan and Eva for a sunday lunch. It was good to see those guys again! Unfortunately Kate only have a week in London before heading back, Alan will be staying on till just before Christmas and head to Australia. Its sad to see friends leaving London and going back home, but than this is a journey to us traveller: once it ends it either we all return home and start a brand new adventure in other things. Such is part of growing up and being alive.

Next year will be the most uncertain year for me in that I am not sure what am I looking forward to: 2007 is about moving to London, 2008 is about living a life of independence, 2009 is about me doing the stuff that I always wanted to do and prove I got what it takes. What does 2010 hold? This is unlike the past 3 years where I really didn’t have an explicit aim of what I am really after.

Got a few more weeks to ponder. In the meantime my priority is to recover from this damn bloated stomach and trying to find a new flatmate for the house!

 

Takeout comedy – where the “East” meets “West”

Been Really Busy at the moment – one of the cheaper room just came up for rent so now I am looking for people to replace me in my own room, my flatmate gone through seeing around 20+ people before one of them say yes so lets hope I will find someone quickly. I am preparing for the room to be vacant for at least 1 – 2 months.

Anyway last week I left Sydney and stop over in Hong Kong for 5 days. The Takeout comedy club runs it weekly Open-mic on a Tuesday night. It’s the only Open mic comedy club as far as I know so if you wanted a gig than Tuesday is the day you needed to be there.

My problem is I landed in Hong Kong airport at 6:00p.m., the Open Mic starts at 8:00 p.m. so I literally race off from the airport direct to the venue itself. That is the life of a comedian: if there is somewhere with spots available than you have to do what you can to get on.

My uncle gave me a lift from the train station to Central/Soho in Hong Kong. Soho in Hong Kong is a maze of narrow one-way roads winding up along the size of the hill that I found myself walking on foot trying to find the club. It wasn’t that hard to find as it turns out.

The club is in an old Basement shop re-fit as dedicated comedy room with a well- lit stage and a decent PA. There were around 10 acts on the night most of them are either locals raised or overseas expats. The audiences are mostly made up of acts not on for the night or friends of acts who are on the bill for the night. It’s a very friendly and supportive room.

In terms of Open mic the Hong Kong scene is similar to ones you find in a largish country town in England: It only got one comedy club, there are a few comedians of various skills and abilities. The only difference is this is a small “global” village where the audience/acts are from all parts of the world. The acts hang around for drinks afterwards thanks mainly to the highly efficient MTR system (the train carriages are one and a half the size of you average Tube!) which can get most people home relative quickly.

I went back to Takeout Comedy on Friday night to catch the People’s Liberation Impro group doing their monthly Impro night. They were ace consider how small the Hong Kong comedy circuit. Love to stay for the normal stand-up comedy night on Saturday but family is a lot more important than stand-up comedy.

Overall I enjoyed my experience at playing at the Takeout Comedy and would recommend everyone to drop into their open mic night. Thanks must goto Jamil for building up Takeout Comedy for the last 2 years and supporting the local circuit while bringing international acts in. It is unfortunate that locals are not really into stand-up comedy and other forms of live performance in general. I guess the other point is stand-up since to be a western orientated entertainment. With the modernising of  China and with the young being better educated and more liberal hopefully in 10 years time we will start seeing regular Chinese speaking comedian and maybe, just maybe a professional Chinese speaking stand-up comedy circuit.

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Hong Kong didn’t change that much: since I have to fly back and fore from Sydney to London Hong Kong is my designated stop over point. Than again I am never really a “tourist” and never have problems navigating around the city. Whats different is you can see how the boom of internet affected Hong Kong as a shopping heaven: Most well known brands of clothes/electronics/gadgets available in Hong Kong also available worldwide selling for roughly the same price. The only real saving that you get is VAT/GST since Hong Kong have no sales tax. In these day and age people can import anything from one country to another country so easily (Even second hand grey import cars from Japan) its hard to have items that sells only in one country but not the other. 

However this doesn’t mean Hong Kong is no longer a shopping heaven. Maybe to the Westerners they can buy over ebay for mobile phones from HK, now Hong Kong main targets are tourist from mainland china. Despite the old stigmas of how backward China was, (Yes even I play on this in my standup routine, but you are laughing out of your own ignorance) there is a steady rise of a Chinese middle class who behave very similar to Western middle class – They are well educated, have dispoable income and have the same capitalistic attributes like ordinary middle class. It is the rise of this middle class along with the massive stimulalus package China running to prop up its economy. Will the China’s middle class save the world economy? Probably not since theres still a massive gap between what an average Chinese earn and what an average earn.

So with the rise of China, what will become of Hong Kong? In the short term Hong Kong property are “inflated” by Chinese investment (Similar to Sydney) and running the of risk showing a disconnection between average income vs house price as a multiple of average income. There might be a big “readjustment” sometime in the future but like all ”readjustments” its not the will it happen but its the when it happens that matters, and even the Sage of Omaha can’t predict when the Credit Crunch will happen.

So will Hong Kong be relevant in the long run? With the rise of Shang Hai surely theres no point doing business in HK? Well its a tough one but IMHO I see China will be able to support 2-3 major world class city quite easily! Just like USA has New York/Los Angeles/Chicago and England with London and (*cough*) Manchester. Each city will take on a slight distinct bend – Hong Kong is a distinct “East meets West” setup for years and this status will take generation to ursup. Maybe I should have Hong Kong in my picture in terms of my life’s long term plan. (Hopefully one day it will have a fully fledge standup comedy scene in Chinese and also English! )

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 On a more profound personal note this trip really put my life back into perspective. Visiting Grandma’s grave;meeting my uncles, aunties, cousins and their kids. Watching the generation before you grow old and the generation after you growing up really put your mortality back into perspective. I haven’t been a kid for yonks but meeting the extended family this time really ram home the message.

 Its always good to see family, its a tough pill to swallow that you are no longer a kid. We must always acknowledge reality but than again we should always try to have fun in life!! I refuse to become an old man inside even if I am 75!

Fun in the Sun

Its been a good weekend of sunshine, coffee and catching up with friends.

Caught up with TC for a bit of mountain biking around Manly Dam before he head off to his honeymoon. The old gal (my Giant Reign Mountain bike) held up well. Sure we spent over 20 man hours bleeding those hydraulic brakes and the brake pads replaced but everything else still works great. I have to say I will be selling the bike next time I come back. Manly Dam changed as well with most of the downhill sections now graded so they can get the fire truck through. I think I will really rock Manly Dam next time I comeback because it will progressively get “nerf” as time goes.

Good to see Marky and Brettpei again. The days where we trained together in Budo is now long passed but we still kept in touch with each other via email. It was fun carving pumpkins and hitting pinachette for Halloween. I have never done either of that before. Mark also has a young son of 5 months and is now settling into the routine of a new dad. We are all too “old” to have wild party night but it sure is good to see he had a chance to have catchup drinks with mate.

What visit of Australia will be completed without at least time spent on (or close to) a beach? Sunday was the annual “Sculpture By The Sea” exhibit. Every year the Bondi to Clovelly walk will be converted to a large outdoor “Tate Modern” with sculptures by sculptors from all over the world. I have to say I am no big fan of art or sculptures but it was a really cool concept to combine sunshine, beaches/sea and sculpture.

Stereo Sonic is what he meant. Whats the chance for a sky writing business in London?

The walk between Clovelly and Bondi was pack with people. It was a Idyllic sunny spring day and Sydney and get to spend some good times with friends I haven’t seen from yonks. The best sculpture I like was the flag that was setup overlooking Bondi beach. I dunno how long it took the sculptors to create some of these exhibits and how did they envision the final sculpture and how it combined with the landscape itself.

Yes! I was there at Bondi Beach

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What had changed since last time I was here? Nothing change drastically but everything changes ever subtly as time passed: From friends getting marry, new born kids, people getting new cars, price of things are more expensive than last time I was here, (Starting to be on par with London on something) parents getting older and so is my brother.  Sydney is getting more expensive and buying a house is becoming a pipe dream.

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 What I did notice is there a significant increase in Asian immigrants in Sydney (Especially Epping/Eastwood area) than 2 years ago. I used to be very against concentrate migration into one area producing a middle class racial ghetto. After living in London for the past 2 years my attitude has became mellow: Whether you are Asians, African-Caribbean or British/Australians it is in human nature to gravitate towards people with things in common such as race and language. Poms/Ozzies/Kiwis/Safas to have a similar culture making their integrations more straight forward than other races. One would even argue that these colonies are just “derivatives” of the original colonial master, (the Poms) hence cannot be count as a different culture. (Unlike Chinese/Koreans/Japanese for example)

 My point is this: I used to have a belief that once you migrate to another country you should “assimilate” with the locals. What I did wrong was attempting to discard my original cultures and roots in embracing that of the new country.  Now I learned that there is nothing “wrong” with being born in one culture and adopting another during your life. Most people on this planet never migrate to another country so will never understand what it takes to settle down in a foreign land. Most native population only sees the ills of other countries and ignore the benefits of culture diversity. It is a dangerous hyperbole claiming that Importing people from different cultures with conflicting view will cause culture clashes like the ones we seen in other parts of the world.

If I can go back to my teens and start over I would have done things differently but this will also made me a slightly different person with a different outlook on life. I guess growing up is like walking a complex network of roads: there are many to choose from but as long as you keep moving “forward” you are doing well. I was ignorant of the reality that I am a Chinese person living in Australia with two very distinctive cultures, my children will have a much easier time growing up as they won’t have to deal with dilemmas that I was faced with.

 

Old Habits Die Hard!

When you work full time, you only get around 2-4 weeks of annual leave. Irony is we ended up stressing ourselves try to make the most into the few weeks we going away and totally forgot holiday is meant to be a period of rest and relaxation.

Last few days in Sydney I just taking it quite easy: catching up with various friends, going to some of my favour places in Sydney remember how things used to be and not a rush in the world to do anything. Classic mode when it comes to a quiet holiday

UNLESS…….you are an open mic comedian! Than its your swore duty to get on wherever someone is offering you 5 min spot. It is an occupation disease!  A month ago I booked 4 gigs for the week I am in Sydney with the intention of checking out the local scene.

On Tuesday, Laugh Garage in Sydney CBD runs an open mic night. Laugh Garage is an established comedy club in Sydney with a dedicated club similar to The Stand at Edinburgh. It started like Comedy Store in London as a Pro comedy night in pubs and only recently moved to a purpose built venue. The night usually consisted of 8 open mic standup and a MC, but tonite was different with an American comedian named Rick Shapiro also on the bill trying some new material.

Trudi from the comedy course in London also turned up to watch and end up doing a 5 min slot as well because someone dropped out.   It was a good gig with around an audience of 7 and around 6 comics and MC.  My 5 min went well:  this is the first time I done my 5 min at home and I am amaze how portable my material was in different country.  Trudi did really well having essentially told that shes going on and given 40 min to ready some of her material. After the first gig it appears that our time on the London circus served us really well.  It is a shame that this is my only gig at the Laugh Garage, I will have to score more stage time before I can play with more accomplished comedians.

On Wednesday I scored a gig at The Roxbury Hotel at Glebe. This is part of the “Quest for The Best” preliminary final open mic competition. The room was filled with around 130 punters with 90% here to support their friends on the bill – the chance of winning the comp is nil. With that in mind I just focused on having a good gig. This gig is the highlight of my Sydney tour.

The room is a split level room (only realised it when I stood on the chair at 2:30 mark) and I got thrown by a heckle from someone upstairs (3:30 mark) and got myself confuse. Problem with split levels is that a heckle from upstairs is not well heard by people on the lower level. In a five min set its not usually worthwhile to address a heckler unless they were persistent. Still – the crowd gave me the biggest laugh of my set when I fluffed up my lines. Can’t get a more supportive audience than that!

This is also the first gig where I performed my set at home in front of my friends, some of them are from my high school days and I have seen them for more than 2 years! Its great to see them again and even greater for them to come out to support me!

Thursday gig was a “variety night” on a stage next to a uni bar. To put it kindly the gig was absolutely RUBBISH!!! I don’t usually slag gigs but this one was badly organised in a shitty venue. The stage is next to the student bar with a bunch of drunken students, they all decided to yell “jukebox” at the jukebox for some reason. There is no separate room for comedy and random drunken students interrupt by giving drunken rants to each other. Most of the acts left the venue as soon as they were on to head across town to catch the “best” open mic gig in the circuit. My friend Zed came along with his flatmates and friends to support me and I have to apologise to them for coming to such a shamble.  One valuable lesson for all is that even free comedy night are not “free”, the time invested by acts and audience involved should be enough to warrant the promoters to put in a bit more thought and effort into their nights.

Friday at Comedy Court at Star Bar: This is my last gig in Sydney and like all my friends show up to this gig! The room is really nice – it was a old small theatre inside Star Bar which used to be the old Planet Hollywood restaurant, a 50 seat room with proper sound and lighting! There were like 19 audience and only 6 of them are genuine punters! I brought like 11 audience to a new act competition, Oops!

It was a 8-10 slot and I ended up doing around 11 minutes. For some reason I was a bit nervous because I am essentially performing to my friends which make the whole gig a bit weird. I seen a few gigs where the audience are mainly friends with one of the acts and it makes the gig less of a “gig” but more like some sort of secret society meetings where jokes are only understood by the privileged few. The other problem is I usually run a 7-8 min set and hardly play a half slot (10 min set) I have to take the “covers” off some of the older gags to get to the 10 min marks.

My friends are great audience members. Donte who runs the night is a good compere and made my friends laugh and kept the night running smoothly. The other acts (Ray, Joey and Joseph) are all competent as new-ish acts and all my friends found them funny. I did ok since the gig is filled mostly by my friends so it was a pretty safe room to play to. Couple of my friends pointed out afterwards that I needed to work on my delivery and the squat toilet “conversation” gone for a sentence too long.  Good to get feedbacks and I agreed with them there are room for improvement. It always good to know you have to do better , it keeps you going for your comedy.

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So what is my assessment of the Sydney scene? Well its no match to New York, London and even Melbourne for sure. There are a few nice room on the circuit but IMHO the audience bases is too small to support a stand-up scene. There are more rooms popping up over the last few years but surely if a city like Melbourne can support a fully fledge comedy scene than the biggest Australian city must be able to do the same! Unfortunately this is not true as the few Sydney based comedy club are struggling with the Sydney Comedy Store (No relation to the UK one) currently run by its second owners.

Its a bit sad that a city of 3 millions can’t support a scene. I do not think this is a fault of the promoters or the acts but more a reflection of the population of Sydney itself. The denizens of Sydney are not very cultured compare with our cousins down south and won’t actively seek out arts related activity like theatre or music. (unless its a festival where the big acts are on.) The laws regulating pubs & bars also play a factor: To put on a live performance the venue must have a live performance license in New South Wales, its free for pubs to put in poker machines. Why would any publicans paid money to put on a how which might or might not lift their drink sales when you can just use that performance base to put in extra poker machines. With a city booming due to effects of increase of Asian immigrants, there is more money in gambling than there is in standup comedy.

Another ones Bite the dust – again….

Well just finished with TC’s wedding this weekend. Sydney weather forecast was 3 days of deluge and it was colder than even London! Go figure!!

It was funny how last time I was on these shores it was for David’s wedding, now it is TC’s turn. I hope no one else going to get marry soon or I will be using up all my annual leave just to fly home to visit friends and the folks. Good to see TC and Sophie are finally settling down. Its been a year and a half since the last time I was here and there are a few things that changed (New railway lines, friend’s lives even my dad’s lifestyle) and there are a few things that never changed. (Well the family home and the traffic for example!) Even more than a year has passed this place still feels like home!

Good to see that all the guys are doing well. (Jim and Richard now driving, Denis building a new house, David and Sue is expecting and Bart now has his own place with a cute daughter.) Not sure what will be in store next time I come back but I am sure it will be good!

The day started with the “Bridal games” in the morning. This is essentially a Chinese traditions for marriage, I am not 100% sure the exact origins of these games but I am guessing this relates back to old days of China where the groom and his party has to travel to the Bride’s village to collect her. Since in those days once a bride left her village she will live with the groom and his family and only coming back to visits, the groom has to proof his love for the bride before he can collect her from her village. Usually the key to these is the red packet that given as fee as dowry to the bride family.

In modern days, these games became less formal and more emphasis on “mocking around” and add a less formal friend times rather than the rest of the day where it is more formal and focus on family and the couple themselves. If you do a “time-movement” study I bet the amount of times you spent with friends and amount spent with family will be at least equal if not more leaning towards friends as you grew older.  The weather was terrible for outdoor photos and ceremonies, luckily there are backup plans: We shot most of the shots indoors around Circular Quay and the Queen Victoria Building and moved the wedding ceremony indoor inside Curzon Hall.

Curzon Hall is a chateau in the Northern part Sydney built since 1900, it used to sit on quite a sizeable block of land but since the area around it started filling up with residential houses many of the land are sold off and all that is left is a small lawn area and the main chateau building. I have to say I love the way the Curzon Hall used to be rather than a specialized wedding hall that it is at the moment. It’s a good place to house TC and Sophie’s wedding and the rain largely held out when it comes to doing the photos.

It is interesting to see why some people wanted to do a comedy course for wedding speeches. Denis done a great job MCing the wedding, he introduced people with wit and humour that you will found in comperes for most comedy or variety night. With a few more “gigs” I am sure he can make some money out of Mcing. Mr Lee (Father of the groom) also injected his own humour into the speech with his jokes about growing old and the animal parallels. He captivated the audience during this time and it was definitely a very accomplished feats. Finally the groom himself TC also called back on a joke that Sophie’s dad mentioned in his speech and used it to great effect.

It appears that comedy is an innate talent amongst all of us. Great number of people did comedy course to prepare for best man speech but these courses is only guide us in exploiting what is already there. It never can artificially implant us with a foreign “power” like a radioactive spider can. These guys prepared their speeches in their own voice as an extension of their personality and this not dissimilar to comics exaggerate their persona on stage. What we do as a comic is not that different to normal person afterall!

It was good to see Bhautik and Jacqui came back to Sydney from San Francisco and Adelaide to catchup. Even though it only lasted for a day before everyone has to head home. Now that the weekend of festivity is over we all depart and resume our lives, but not before a week of catching up, relaxing bit of Mountainbiking and a bit of standup comedy.

Home sweet home – Again

Back in Sydney yesterday morning. Its been a long day: Did a full day of work in the office and went to the airport straight afterwards. It was a long day indeed. Managed to get some cat-nap while on the plane so wasn’t 100% knacked when I arrived.

Do you guys know that this “no liquid” aboard policy really put a dent on buying dutyfree booze? I can’t buy any while in London because the security will take it off me in Bangkok, than I can’t buy any in Bangkok because Australian security forbids it in the plane. Only place you can buy it is back in Sydney airport and this REALLY is annoying. More planning is needed for next trip me think.

Sydney changed a little bit since I came back a year and half ago. New buildings gone in, some stuff moved but the town essentially remained the same. Maybe the biggest bit of change is they predicting a deluge over the next few days. There goes the sunshine!!

There is also a sense of anitcipation as well. Catching up with friends who I haven’t seen for over a year. Running my set in front of a Sydney audience which has a large Asian population (thats Chinese not Indians) will be challenge. Of course, its always good to see the family again and eat one of mum’s home cooked meal.

Final bit of news is that Jongulers went into administration with closed of 5 of the clubs. This surely not a good thing for comedy even though Jongulers have a rep with Stag and Hens party, they are also one of biggest and most regular payer for comedians. Not really affecting me at my part of the comedy pond but I am sure quite a few of the circuit comedians will be feeling the sting. Looks like nothing is immune from this recession afterall!!