G'day, Bonjour, Hola and Hello,
The weeks are passing very quickly and it's difficult to believe that in just a few weeks I will be leaving the land of Australia, where I popped my comedic cherry, and heading to New Zealand where I'm reliably informed that there is next to no comedy scene. Brilliant. On the plus side, if there is no comedy scene, I'm a shoe in for some kind of celebrity status. Perhaps I'll be New Zealand's only comedian. I will be able to walk down the street, making people laugh at will and be worshipped as some kind of handsome God. Or not, we'll see.
So, down to business. It's my first busy week as a comedian this week. I attended a workshop on Tuesday, I had a gig on Tuesday night, and I have another gig tonight, which you'll hear all about either tomorrow or over the weekend. There's not much point in me going over what happened at the workshop. I turned up a bit late, people tried new stuff on stage, I had a couple of beers. That about sums it up. Mr. Alabama, the guy I mentioned from a couple of weeks ago, was the guest speaker and he essentially repeated to everyone there, exactly what he'd said to me in private a few weeks previous. Which was basically don't use the C word and don't fuck female comedians, there will be plenty of girls to go round in the audience. His words, not mine.
After the workshop I headed for Syn Bar, feeling unprepared and ready to die on stage again. I think I'm the laziest person in the world and I can't even be bothered to read through my material to learn my lines. So after a two week break of no gigs, I had forgotten nearly all of my routine. I spent the entire tram ride into the city, and whatever time I had before going on stage, reading through my stuff to try and remember it and felt just about ready approximately 25 seconds before I was due on stage.
Syn has been running a comedy competition over the last few weeks in which the winner gets a number of prizes, the only one of which I can remember is an interview on a local radio station. So my gig was my first taste of competitive comedy. The winner of each heat goes through to the finals to find an overall winner. I was there last week and there was next to no-one watching, and the comics weren't of the highest standard so I was feeling optimistic that I had a chance. That optimism was obliterated within the first 5 minutes of being in the room when I saw not only the standard of the other acts, but the amount of support they had all brought with them. There must have been 30-40 people there, which is massive for Syn. I was up against people like Michael Connell who has years of experience and often travels around Victoria and the ACT gigging and MC-ing at open mic nights. I don't know if he gets paid but he can't be far off.
Dil offered to film me, which I accepted so I could watch it back to see where I had messed up. I'm not overly bothered about watching videos of myself, it seems a bit vain, but it is a good tool to measure where you are with your routine and where the laughs came from. However I have to say, I was very glad he did film it because I think I may just of had my best gig to date. I remembered all of my jokes, including the new ones and I delivered them just how I wanted to. The crowd responded really well and there were alot of people doing full-on belly laughs, something I hadn't experienced before. I think the acts before me must have lubricated their senses just enough to find me funny.
Nonetheless, I was very pleased with how it went and was even thinking I had a potential video to post on the blog for you guys to watch. Alas, it wasn't to be. Dil's iPhone decided it only wanted to film the first 7 seconds and decided to go on strike, leaving Dil unknowingly holding a phone at arms length throughout my 5 mintue set that wasn't actually doing anything.
So after all of that, how did I actually get on in the competition I hear you ask. Well, thank you for asking. I didn't win. I did, however, come in at a not-to-shabby third place. Which I think is pretty good considering the opposition and I have done less than 10 gigs. I wasn't listening to who came in 1st and 2nd, I was too busy making my way to the bar to claim my free jug of beer for coming in the top three. I also get to participate in the "wildcard round", which is for anyone that didn't make it through, to have another go. So that's this Tuesday sorted. Stay tuned to see how that goes.
As mentioned, I have another gig tonight, which will essentially just serve as an exercise to keep my routine in my head and get valuable stage time. But I'll post information on how it goes. I will also be posting more Youtube clips I find that are funny. Most of them will be of stand up, but some will just be funny clips to entertain and amuse while you're desperately waiting for my next update.
So thank you for reading, why not tell your friends how amazingly funny this blog is? Word of mouth is the best advertising, and with three followers, I'm assuming you're not talking about my blog too much at the moment. Rude.
Peace Out
Sean
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