Madhouse and akward lady encounter

So I went on at the Madhouse. I talked to the host guy last Friday but he forgot to put me on. He was nice enough to put me on. I basically got lost and angry on the way there, so the tight planned set I intended to do went out the window. I don't know why but for the 2nd straight week, I had an fast nervous delivery. I didn't feel nervous I just delivered it that way. I did ok, haven't graded it in awhile so I'll say a C+. I tried some new jokes and tried to work out some old stuff. It was a really small pretty much comic only crowd. When I left at 9 there was maybe 6 people in the audience. I feel like I should stay and it looks bad when I leave but I just hate hanging around watching comics work a room of 7 ppl.

So the weird encounter. I have been training up north the last coiuple days and tomorrow. A girl I used to date lives up there and were still friends so I figured I'd stay there. It seemed she didn't want me to go, but I told her to just tell me. She said she had a few friends over, which I wasn't too concerned about. I get there and find out the friends are dudes. Not a big deal, wasn't trying to make any moves but it was pretty apparent I wasn't wanted there. So I just watched so tv on her computer in her room. She ended up never talking to me, and just sleeping with one of the dudes in her living room. It was really strange and next time when I sense it will be weird I will trust my judgement.

Comedy Store

I finally made the open mic list at the Comedy Store and they put me up first. I was a little worried because first is always tough and there was very few people there. I ended up doing really well. I stuck around for a few more hours trying to talk to ppl. I spoke to another open mic dude who I thought was good and invited him down to Winston's on Friday.
The dude that made the comment about me needing hosting work was there and was pretty nice. He told me to come back and he'd put me on the alternates list. Unfortunately I have a show at their rival club. It seems if I put the effort in I could break into their Sunday and mid week crew.
I went through my material today and discovered I have a solid at least 30 minutes. I'm going to do ten minutes Friday at WInston's and a different 10 minutes at the Madhouse on Sunday. I'm slowly getting set, I just need to get lucky one time.

Hosting/ running Winston's

Hosted Winston's for the 2nd time last night. Ran the show for the first time. I enjoyed doing both. I didn't do many jokes but that's fine, I'll have plenty of time for that. I was going to do some time until I got a kick in the stomach from one of the comics I thought I had good repour with. He's a rather short comedian who followed another short comedian. I brought him up as "Let's bring up another funny tiny comic." When he got to the stage he didn't shake my hand and said, "You have a lot to learn about hosting." I guess he's right, but it was just kind of a wake up call and hit me pretty hard. He told me after he was just kidding, but I'm pretty sure he was serious. With people that have been doing comedy for a long time, they take things pretty seriously.
Anyways, running the show was cool. I like being able to give people a chance to be funny. There was a good crowd. They were mostly coming to see the headliner, who was one of the founders of doing comedy at Winston's. He started off really strong, but it's really difficult to hold a bar crowd's attention for 40 minutes. I talked with the guy that I'll be helping run the show, and we want to limit the headliners time to 25 minutes max. I think this will give a lot more time to more comedians and make the show run smoothly.
Welp I'm off to work for the 4th of 11 straight days. I don't mind it, I enjoy the people that I work with. Comedy store tomorrow, bigish show at the Madhouse next Sunday, well see how they run it.

Madhouse

Decent show tonight. Really small crowd, mostly comics, some people trickled in later. Fot the second week in a row I followed a guy who did a crack baby inside a mother and Hitler impression. Nothing is more different from what I do then that.
I got up there and started off really rough, stumbled my words a lot. I turned it around and ended up doing pretty well for a small crowd. I felt like my pacing and focus was a little off but people were laughing so that's always good. I did some new jokes and they worked that's always a good feeling.
Welp I'm going to play with my new computer a bit, maybe I'll try out the webcam.

Bought a laptop

Finally broke down and bought a laptop. Wanted to cap my spending at 500, but paid 550$. Not bad. Crazy how inexpensive they are. They try to have you buy a 3 year warranty plan for 250$, half the price of the computer.
Life stuff is going well. Making friends and hanging out. Still no lady but I'm making headway so that's a start.
And comedy. Been pretty busy. Had two shows last Friday. Both were pretty crappy, oh well. I did one last night in Coronado. It was an ok crowd, it was a bar which is always a tough sell. I did a lot of dirty jokes, and people seemed to enjoy it. Some people dide really poorly, and a couple guys did really well. I need to try to pick up the energy for the bar shows, which is tough because most of my jokes are dry and smart. But I'm working on it.
Also took a huge step in the comedy career. Winston's my Friday night spot, that I've only missed twice since I started in April asked me to take a bigger role in the show. Well I more put myself out there. I will be involved in booking the talent and running the show. It could be a lot of responsibility for little to no money, but that is basically what I had when I ran GTV in college. I've been trying to run a room somewhere, and Winston's is the perfect spot. I want to change some things around and try to help local comedians break through. I hope it can be a success. I'm going to start taping more of my shows again. It was tough without a computer.

Competition blew

Not sure why I thought the comedy competition was going to be a big deal. It sucked. I knew whoever won brought the most people. But the dude that won is a nice guy and I was happy for him. There was some big time band on after the comedy so much of the crowd was just there for the band and had no interest in hearing comedy. I should go to the Madhouse tonight and tomorrow but I just don't feel like it. Kinda getting burnt out a little, maybe I need to take some time off. Who knows.

Comedy Competition

There's going to be a comedy competition at Winston's tonight. It's kind of weird to do a competition at a club I do every week. Esp. considering there's always the same comics. There's going to be one winner and a lot of jealous comics. I wouldn't say I'm the jealous type but I am quite tired of watching comics who either steal jokes or just plain arn't funny getting better gigs than me. Yes I've gone pretty far in the 5 months I've been doing it, but it makes me sick the time and effort I need to put in simply to get booked.

I basically need to sit outside and be a door man for no money at these clubs to get booked for the shows. I really don't have the patience or the time really to be doing that. If I was still unemployed it would be a different story, but I want a life outside of comedy. I don't want to be there every night hearing the same jokes, from the same semi talented comics. There are definately a lot of comics much better than me, but even they are doing the same jokes night in and night out. I guess I didn't realize the sucking up I'd have to do just to have the opportunity to make people laugh.

I guess I'm just bitter and maybe too competitive. Hopefully I can have a good set and at least place in this thing at Winston's tonight. Either way I'll keep with it, hopefully good things happen soon. My time table is ticking.

Ups and downs

Had one of my best sets at WInston's on Friday. They put me up 3rd to last and let me go for about 10 minutes. I had a friend come watch who'd never seen me before and he said I did well. The headliner for the night even came up to me and said I was funny. That was a cool feeling.

Then Saturday I did the Dirtbag show, which was ten dollars for all you can drink beer and wine. It was really hot and kind of a tough crowd. I did ok. Not sure the promotors liked me too much so we'll see if I get back on that show.

Life has been going ok, still too much drinking. There's a comedy competition at Winston's Friday. I'm trying to get some people to come as it would be awesome to win that. Not only for the money but the title. One of the comics is telling me I need to stop being so competive and that comedy takes awhile to break into. And although I realize this I just want my break to happen now. Oh well. Still no laptop, but we don't have cable or internet at our place anyways.

Small show

Did a quick set at the Madhouse Tuesday. Small crowd but all my jokes and everyone laughed at every punchline. It's a good feeling to kinda "kill" with a crowd of 10. Wrote with a fellow comedian for 3 hours today. Good experience and got some workable material.