What Can I Say?.......

What can I say?

It's been a while, hasn't it?

I have spent the last 6 weeks or so on a bit of a journey that has had more to do with arguing with the Mrs about the best way to get to the airport than comedy. True to the name of this blog, I have been on a journey on my way back to the Mother Country that has taken me from the tiny island of Rarotonga smack bang in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, all the way to Rome, Venice, Austria, Munich, Switzerland and Paris. And, finally (pause for effect)......home.


I had a little mathematics session on one of my many train trips through Europe and discovered that I have spent 18 months and 14 days away from home. That part didn't take long to figure out. But that journey has taken 593 days, or more specifically 84 weeks and 5 days. Or more specifically 14, 232 hours. Or more specifically 853, 920 minutes. Or even more specifically 51, 235, 200 seconds. That part took a while to figure out. My journey has also taken me through ten countries during this time in which time I have held eight jobs. I have gone from having never done anything close to stand up comedy, to having done 14 gigs in two countries and being (very loosely) involved in an International Comedy Festival. This in turn has lead to me having performed to an accumulation of approximately 1000 audience members and I have been recognised on the street for my comedy on two separate occasions in two countries. Numbers make everything sound more impressive.


But in terms of comedy, I guess the journey has only just begun.


When I got back back to the UK a couple of days ago, one of the first things I noticed on the London tube was the amount of posters advertising stand up gigs, tours and DVDs. Either comedy has always been this big in Britain and I've been oblivious to it all or it has massively taken off over the last couple of years. I also took a brief trip to the small royal spa town of Tunbridge Wells to visit my girlfriend's brother and his lovely wife and new born baby girl. I'm not an expert but I don't think Tun-dub is known for it's vast array of stand-up but I spotted two separate advertisements for local stand-up nights. Even more gaspingly, jaw droppingly surprising was a leaflet I found in my house for a stand-up night at my local nightclub in my insignificant hometown. I think what I'm trying to say is that when I was away, I thought stand-up was going to be quite hard to carry on back home, but now that I'm here I think it's going to be even easier to continue. I'm not saying that I want to do stand-up in front of the pikeys at my local nightclub. But I am saying that gigs are out there.


I think I'm going to spend the next couple of weeks looking into my options while I get settled in and get in touch with the various contacts I made while in Oz to see if they have any gigs coming up. But all in all I think it's looking quite promising.


So I think returning home is a bit of a landmark in the Comedy Journey so I'll end the post with a little summary on what I think was my best gig so far. My best gig so far was (drum roll)...............my gig at The Comic's Lounge in Melbourne, the night before Australia Day. It's my favourite for a couple of reasons. One - it was one of the few gigs that I feel I've nailed and got good laugh time, and two- it was the only gig I've done that was in front of 300-ish people who all paid good money to watch comedy. Plus it's the only time I've shared the stage in one evening with a high standard of comedy A-listers ( In Ozzy terms, at least).

So here's to many more good gigs in front of the notoriously hard to please British public.

Can't wait.

Rugby World Cup Comedian......

A huge hello to one and all,


Since my last post, I have mostly been working and sleeping. With a tiny amount of drinking thrown in for good measure. I have been working at Eden Park Stadium during the Rugby World Cup and it has been amazing. I'm a rugby fan anyway but even if I wasn't it has still been awesome to be a part of a great atmosphere with loads of street entertainers, including dancers, musicians and plenty of hammered drunk men in fancy dress. My favourite street vendor was a 10 year old boy who was stood outside his house near the stadium selling biscuits for a dollar each. Not home made biscuits, just your everyday store bought chocolate biscuits which cost about $3 a pack and this kid had made a fortune! And at times like those, when you're half filled with rage because you can't believe anybody is putting an end to this boy taking advantage of hungry passers-by you think to yourself "Why didn't I think of that?". Watch this space people cos that kid is going to become a very wealthy man one day.

I also had myself a wee gig last Monday (03.10.11) at The Classic in Auckland. I still haven't performed on the main stage yet because they have been filming a TV series there so I have had to settle for the comedy studio upstairs. I have definitely decided that Auckland is my favourite place to perform so far. The crowds here are awesome and they come in quite large numbers to watch an amateur night, and although they don't realise it at the time, they hand over their hard earned cash to see me! I couldn't get my family to pay to see me but New Zealanders seem happy to. Plus The Classic is the best comedy club I've been to, not the biggest by a long shot, but it's a cool place that has a good vibe.

As far as I'm aware it was a pretty good gig. I was happy with how it all went, but I'm yet to sit down and watch the video to confirm this. I have made the personal discovery that my favourite part of any gig is when you stand at the bar after the show and allow people to buy you drinks and comment on how funny you were. My ego is a hungry creature and needs constant feeding.

The only negative on the whole evening was that I got stuck talking to a couple of girls after the show, real intellectual, feminist and outspoken types who I wouldn't mingle with in normal life if mingling cured cancer. One of them was adament that New Zealand was the most racist country she'd ever been to (based on her afternoon in the museum and one night of comedy) and said her "Blood was boiling" over the amount of racist comments made during the night, half of which I'm positive were in my set. The other seemed a bit more chilled out but worked on a TV show in the UK which for some reason gave her the impression the sun shone out of her balloon knot. I think I stood for about 45 minutes nodding and agreeing while these two girls, nae, women simultaneously talked at me. And not one time did they offer to buy me a drink.

I finally taught myself the other day how to convert videos so they can be put on an iPhone or iPod. If you are a performer and find looking at notes particularly boring, I can't say enough good things about having a video at hand to watch at any time. I must have watched my set ten times on the journey into Auckland before my gig and it really helped with memorising everything, seeing exactly where you get laughs and what needs more work. And because I was confident with what I was saying, I feel that I portrayed that confidence and had a better show because of it. That's my tip of the week if you're interested.

One other thing I'd like to bring to your attention is the overwhelming success of the Melbourne Fringe Festival show a few of my dear Aussie friends put on, 4's Kin. I have to say that I'm hugely jealous that they're doing so well and the reviews have been fantastic. If you live in Melbourne and want to go and see a Fringe show, it's too late. They've packed up and finished after a sell out two weeks. But I have no doubt they will be putting on shows in the near future at other festivals so keep your eyes peeled.

Back to me.

I had a quiet word with the manager of The Classic and he promised he'd get me on again before I head off on yet more travels to The Cook Islands at the end of the month, so hopefully that will come to fruition. Failing that, I fear I have had my last gig in New Zealand. At the end of October I will be continuing on through South East Asia for a couple of months where I feel there won't be much of a comedy scene. At least not in English. Then it's back to the real world and Motherland of England to see how my comedy fares there.

So keep tuning in to find out if I manage to get a last gig in NZ, whether I get arrested for streaking at the RWC final or if I get murdered in Southern Thailand.

Thanks for reading,

Sean

Flight Of The Choncords (My Favourite) .......

Taking New Zealand By Storm......

Hi.

How are you? I hope you are well.

Firstly, let me congratulate you on making it along to another blog. Congratulations.

Crikey, what a HUUUUGE response I've had to my plea for more interaction. I've been absolutely overwhelmed by it all and I'm extremely grateful. Two comments. That's two thirds of my entire group of followers. I'm beside myself.

Don't take the sarcasm to heart because it does genuinely get me excited when I see I have a comment.

Right. Down to business.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to grab a spot at The Fringe Bar a couple of Mondays ago, when I was hopeful of getting a last minute gig arranged. But I went along nonetheless and had a jolly good time. I managed to spend quite a lot of money on alcohol, which in turn, made me enjoy the comedy all the more. Everybody wins. Except my bank balance.

However....drum roll please.....I did attend my pre-booked gig last Monday and have now officially performed stand up comedy in two different countries. Just not my own, yet.

I was a bit rushed to get to the gig as it was also my first day at a new job and getting back was a struggle. But I made it, checked in and saw I was on second. It was a lot more nervous than any other gig I had done for a number of reasons. Firstly because I was wildly underprepared to perform a brand new set. And secondly because it was the first time I had gone on stage without the Melbourne open mic-ers in the audience. At least with them there, I knew I'd get some sort of pity laughter if it went horribly. But no-one here knew me so if it went badly, it would just be me and the tumbleweed.

The girl who went on before me was a bit poo (it works two ways, I don't know them either so I don't need to be nice to them). This enstilled me with a bit more confidence because I knew I wouldn't be the worst person on that night.

My gig went pretty well I think. I managed to remember the whole set (just) and got quite a few laughs. There were some jokes that didn't get any laughs and I was faced with a brief wall of silence. But they were just the "Filler" jokes. The jokes in between jokes that are just supposed to keep the laughter ticking along. All in all I was pretty pleased with how it went. I think the new set has potential but needs a bit of work to strengthen it up a bit. Oh and if you are reading this and you are either Dil or Rob.......I'm seriously debating cutting the "Mum story" out of it all together because that was one of the bits that got tumbleweed. Or at least come up with a stronger punchline than "same".

That will make no sense to anyone other than those two people so just ignore it. Or nod and smile along politely as if you know what's going on.

There were six comedians on that night, and when I came off stage after being on second, I really felt that I was the best so far. That lasted until the next guy got on. I couldn't really hear what he was saying because the MC was telling me how he used to work as one of those human statue things that you see busking. But he seemed to get a lot of laughs. And the guy after him was awesome. Before he went on, he was telling me how he was a Christian and had only performed at religious festivals and I thought he was going to be gash. But he made me lol. In fact I lolled a couple of times. I was very pleasantly surprised. Although, I did find out later that night that half the audience were there to see him. But he was still my favourite of the night.

I don't know if it's the competitive side of me or what, but I always like to rank everyone who performed to see where I came. I didn't win on this occasion, but it was a biased audience so what can I do? I think with a bit of fine tuning and a bit more practice, I'd smash it.

I can now tick Wellington off the list of places I've gigged. I'm moving back to Auckland next Saturday for a new job during the Rugby World Cup so I'm hoping to be able to grab a few more gigs while I'm there. There are a couple of venues that do regular open mic nights so it shouldn't be too difficult to get one arranged.

If you have any ideas for a joke I could use, feel free to post them because it would be my honour to take credit for your ideas.

Oh and real quick before I go....I've just started writing the script for a comedy musical show that I've decided I want to perform somewhere like Edinburgh Fringe next year. Obviously I can't play any instruments so the "musical" side of it will be down to my closest friend Rory. But I really feel like it could be genious!

In the mean time, thanks for coming along on the ride.

And I'll catch you next time.

Sean

Are You Sitting Comfortably? Then I Shall Begin.......

Chaps,


    Just to put the world at ease, I'm not giving up comedy. I still want to carry on despite suffering a few performance lows over the last few weeks. Surely that shows some sort of commitment? At the very least it shows balls.
    
     I am pretty much done in Australia though. I have no gigs booked at all at the moment, and I am unlikely to get one with the whole Festival malarkey going on soon. I wasn't even going to go to the workshop this week as I didn't really see a point. I've decided that while I'm still in Oz, I'll concentrate more on rugby and then get back into comedy when I get to New Zealand. I did go to the workshop though and I'm glad I did. I found out that the workshop and open mic night at the Comic's Lounge would be closing over the next 6 weeks as of this Tuesday (22.03.11), but Robbie G, the guy who runs the 'shop, is going to open the Blah Blah Comedy Club, which he runs, as an open mic venue on Tuesdays, to keep giving new comedians a crack at it while the Festival is on. Now, this bares pretty much no relevance to me at all, except for the fact for the fact that due to the move of location, some of the acts who were pencilled in to have a gig over the next 3 weeks might not be able to make it. And I am officially top of the "reserves" list in case there are any drop outs. So there is hope of one more gig in Melbourne yet.
     Other than the workshop, I've been really lazy/unmotivated to see any comedy.


     So, as promised, in place of tales of the Melbourne comedy scene, here's a tale from my past that is humorous for nearly everyone except me...........


     When I was about 15 I discovered alcohol. But not in the "Sipping beer, in a pub garden, on a hot Summer's afternoon" way. More in a "Steal booze from your parents liquor cabinet and neck as much as you can, sat on a park bench, on a cold and wet November evening" kind of way. Me and my friends would all take something from home and meet up and get way too drunk than we should be. When I see kids do this now, I think they look like bell ends and I get slightly embarrassed that I used to be one of them.
     One particular night though I managed to get obscenely drunk and ended up in hospital. It's pretty shameful but it happened so whatever. Obviously I don't remember much, and I think I was pissed for about 3 days straight. Trust me, it sounds more fun than it was. You can't imagine the hangover I had. Anyway, I woke up in the children's ward of my local hospital wondering where I was and why there was a mural of teddy bears dancing on a rainbow in front of me. My Dad explained what had happened, I had a good cry, a couple of even better vomits, then decided it was time for my hangover humpty. That's hangover "poo" for anyone who isn't aware.
  
    I headed to the toilet, still drunk, wheeling along the drip drip bag that was attached to my arm. Sat down on the loo and started proceedings. I must of nodded off because the next thing I know the toilet door has been kicked down by a doctor and two nurses ready to resuscitate me. However I wasn't unconscious and in need of resuscitation, I was mid poo, trousers round my ankles, enjoying a much needed nap. What's more is the fact that they startled me so much that I fell off the seat and landed on the floor legs akimbo, bearing all to those in the room.

     I was very embarrassed, being 15 years old and dealing with puberty, but also very impressed with the professionalism that the hospital staff showed by holding in their laughter.......for all of about 5 seconds. All in all not a great weekend for me. But I did learn, that fateful night, that there is no point trying to keep up with others when drinking if you are a lightweight. I now know that after a brandy snap and a couple of wine gums, I've hit my limit.


     So that's that. Another week, another blog. Tune in next week for more embarrassing tales from my past and possibly other things that are more related to the purpose of this blog.


      Over and out.

                Sean

As Promised, A 13 Year Old Seth Rogan.....

Positives From A Wierd Gig.....

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

My Competitive Debut and the Video That Never Was....

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

How It Works (from what I can gather).....

I won't lie, I didn't go to the workshop last week. To cut a long story short I had to move from one backpacker share house to another one in a different suburb and packing up all the crap you've accumalated over the last 4 or 5 months and lumping it on trains, trams and taxis really takes it out of you. So basically I was lazy and decided an early night was in order.
   What I thought I'd talk about instead, is how the process works of getting gigs and the sort of acts you can expect to see if you ever attend an "open mic" night at a comedy club. Essentially it's easy. A bit too easy really. Because it's open mic, there aren't any auditions. Nor do you have to check with anyone that what you want to say in front of an audience is the kind of thing people will want to hear. Now, I can only speak from my personal perspective but this is what happens - you go to the open mic night and hunt down the guy responsible for recruiting the comics. You tell him you would like a gig. He tells you when the next available slot is. It's done. I told you it was easy.
   I also told you it was a bit too easy, and this is why. Because there is no screening process, literally anyone can have a go. Which is awesome, don't get me wrong, if I had to prove myself worthy and audition I would of never got into it. However there are some acts that are an acquired tastes. They aren't bad or offensive or anything (actually some are, but I'm not here to bitch), but when I think of stand up I think of Billy Connelly, Lee Evans and Peter Kay who do observational comedy in it's funniest form. Some of the guys doing open mic seem to hide behind a built up character. I'm not talking about the kind of characters Kenny Everitt or the Little Britain guys created, I'm talking about Jesus Hitler III and an Italian guy called Tony, who, from what I can see, is a rip off of the guy that did that old song "Shadappa Ya Face". There's also a guy that for his entire routine pretends to be his mum (seriously). These guys have got some dynamite jokes and are really funny people, but the acts don't really work for me.
   I'm not trying to be mean. I'm just trying to paint a picture of the kinds of people I will be following on from when I finally do my first gig. At least I'm hoping it will be one of these guys and not one of the really talented comics they also have there that never fail to make me chuckle when I watch them. In which case maybe there is a successful Melbournian comedian writing a blog about how much he or she is hoping to follow on from the ginger guy that makes inappropriate vagina jokes.
   Well that's kind of it for another blogging session. I just wanted to let you know how easy it is to get into. If you've ever thought about it but not executed the idea because you thought it would be difficult, you're wrong, do it. And also, I wanted to explain that even if you don't have a conventional stand up act, don't let that stop you. I would actually say that there are more "non standard" acts than "standard" ones.
   I'm not sure whether the workshop is on tomorrow or not, so I'll have to check. If it is, I might have some hilarious stories to tell you next time. If not, I'll probably just rant on about some of my other observations. Either way......

   I'll speak to you later all you stand up lovers and wannabees,

   Sean