Rightio,
I know that sometimes I can blabber on about things that aren't in the slightest related to stand up comedy, comedians or even things that are not even remotely funny. But I enjoy it. It's like therapy for me. So here's another experience in my Australian adventure that made me chuckle. Bare with it because it's pretty dumb....
I was in a Woolworths store near my flat (Woolworths is the second biggest supermarket chain in Australia, like Sainsbury's in the UK). I was having a think about what delights I could put with my baked potato that I planned on having for lunch when suddenly I remembered how good ratatouille is with baked spud. Now this story is only funny because I'm assuming everyone knows what ratatouille is? And if you're not completely sure, have at least heard of it as a food product. Here's the lesson.... ratatouille is a variety of roasted vegetables such as courgette, tomato and onion in a tomato sauce. It's served in a lot of french dishes and is awesome with mozzarella and baked potato and you can usually buy a cheap canned version of it.
Anyway, I couldn't find it on the shelves so asked an employee if he knew where I'd find it. He explained he wasn't sure what it was so I described it and told him I planned to have it with jacket potato. He told me he'd ask and as he walked away turned to confirm "Ratatouille, yeah?", to which I nodded. He came back about 5 minutes later and said "I've asked both my manager and store manager, and they've only heard of the animated movie "Ratatouille", did you mean that?". I wasn't a smart arse and decided to bite my tongue but, honestly, how do these people even have the intelligence to drag themselves out of bed in the morning. It's not so much they don't know what ratatouille is, it's the fact that even after explaining what it was, he came back and asked me if I meant the animated movie. I felt like saying "Oh, yes, sorry, you're absolutely right. I am indeed looking for the animated movie "Ratatouille" to have on my baked potato". Jesus.
Rant over. Now onto business.
So I had a gig at the Monastery on Church, a venue I'd only been to once and hadn't performed at yet. I was actually much more nervous than usual because I knew there would be next to nobody watching, therefore was more susceptible to panicking because I wasn't getting any laughs. To his credit, Micah, the MC, told me not to worry and that it was a very relaxed room and a great place to try out loads of new material. He was bang on with that analysis.
I barely got any laughs, there were a lot of chuckles and smiling faces but no laughs. Plus I was the only comedian that did a five minute set. Everyone else had at least 15 minutes to get through. This made me feel like I really need to get my writing hat on and get some new good material. So in terms of the reaction my stuff got when I performed it, it wasn't great. But I was able to take a couple really good things away from this gig.
Firstly, I have found the ideal place to try lots of new material without feeling the need to perfect it to death in my flat before it's even seen the light of day. Something I've been guilty of recently. I can now write something down and perform it to an audience before I've decided it's crap. The second thing to take away is the fact that it's obviously really good to keep gigs ticking over and tweak your set here and there. When you don't do so well, it's easy to get caught up in having a bad gig. But the important thing to focus on is how well you performed regardless of audience. Such as - Did you deliver punchlines correctly?, Did you remember all of your set? Etc, Etc.
I definitely feel like it was a worthwhile journey getting there and banging out my material in preparation for other, bigger gigs.
One other quick thing. I received a call the other day from Dil, sounding terribly excited. He explained that he went to take a photo on his iPhone the other day and his handset went a bit spastic and claimed it was "Updating library", whatever that means? Anyway, after his phone had finished having an epileptic fit, the video he took of me performing at Syn last Tuesday suddenly appeared. Result. He's going to try and send it over to me or post it on Youtube for me to post on here as and when he can, but he's a busy guy, juggling the sexy world of accountancy with the ugly world of comedy, so it may not be until later on this week.
I don't really have much more to talk about, so I won't keep you. Hopefully you're enjoying the videos I'm putting up. I'll keep posting them in between "Real" posts as I find them. In fact I may post one I found the other day of Seth Rogan, of Knocked Up fame, doing stand up when he was 13! It's pretty raw and will never be a classic, but it's a great video that shows we all have to start somewhere.
Also, I will be double penetrating Melbourne this Tuesday with two gigs in one night. I'm on at M.I.B first, then I'm running over to Syn to perform there. I, personally, feel that rushing around like this and relying on people to keep to time will only end in disaster. But we'll see.
Lots of Love Chums,
Sean
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