Nothing crazy to report

Normal Sunday. Did the Comedy Store. There were a lot of no shows so the host told me he'd try to put me up later and get me some more time. I was excited as I'm trying to get a good tape. He came up to me a little later and said he couldn't give me more time. Oh well, I was going to tape but I got weird vibes from on the other comics and didn't end up taping. It wasn't that great anyways. Next up was Blarney. I figured I could get a decent tape if it was a good crowd. Well it was not. It was one of the worst crowds so far. There was actually a gal that I had been texting. She is one of the weirdest people I've ever met. Her friends heckled me and the dude actually said, "I will kill you." One of the girls said, "were from New York, just deal with it." People are idiots. I also got heckled by a literally 87 year old man. He also called me vain for taping.

Next up was the competition at Winston's. It was a decent crowd. Most of the people just laughed at their friend's. Basically 2 people brought the entire crowd. I made a little bit of money. I tried to record but the crowd wasn't having it and I just bailed on the set.

Last night was Bar Eleven. It's been pretty much hit or miss for the most part. Last night was definately miss. The show started off about a half hour late. Then the stoner, unorganized host. He is pretty much the definition of new comic that think running a show is getting free drinks and winging it. He literally said I didn't really put the show together tonight. And then closed the show with saying "we need to try to get people here." Might help if you advertise or at least book the show in advance you lunatic. There was aggressive heckling for the first comic, but that guy left and it was slow going after that. The host did way too much time between comics, but as he only does that one show, and has done maybe 25 shows in his life he has no idea what he's doing. There was a black comic that went up for the first time. He must have said the n word 25 times, and talked about farting during sex, etc. It was awful to watch, but of course people love that. Anyways I got up, pretty late but managed to get through the entire set swearfree. I heard someone yell something, which I believe was Hedberg during my smokey the bear joke. It made me recall a smokey the bear joke mitch hedberg told. Mine is completely different, but he does say england uses smackie the frog. I say slappy the frog, Im just going to change it to smacky the clam. First time I've ever been called out on taking other's jokes. Interesting it would happen at a dive bar. I'm happy I made it through clean, and have 4 more chance to record a clean solid tape I'm happy with. I think this is a good experience. It is helping with segways, and making the jokes even better.

Side note: I just listened to the tape. The dude did yell Hedberg. The dude was a "comic" who went up last night talked about beating up a person in a wheelchair. I'm somewhat angered now.

Here is the poster for the show on Thursday. Just got a call that there will be no booze served at the place.... Awesome. I'm not expecting much for the show.

Full week of shows

So I had another week of every night having a show. Tuesday was at Lestat's, the show I pretty much got guilted into taking instead of the Sunday show. Which I heard was standing room only. Anyways I had prepared to tape my set. Well come to find out as I'm walking out to turn it on the dude before me cut himself short. So I didn't have a chance to record it. I don't think it was too great anyways, but we did the proteige thing at the end and it went well.

Wednesday was a bar show in PB. I did it before and did really well. This time was decent. The table right in front was eating food and not really interactive. I chatted with a few people but I should have talked to the people who were on a 21st bday party. My roommate said I did really well, I just didn't feel I did as well as last time. One of the features from L.A. said good job on my out. Kinda of funny she said she was getting an audition to perform on Jimmy Fallon and wanted to record that set. She opened with saying she'd babysit the shit out of Justin Beiber. So unoriginal. She did have some smarter better jokes throughout, but the bar crowd was tough. Kinda weird I looked her up after the show, because I noticed I was suppose to do a show with her before. That night she was all nerded up with dark hair and a long coat. I looked her up to see a blind, quite attractive lady. I wonder if her agent or someone told her to tone it down with being attractive.

Thursday was the Comedy Store. I had asked one of the guys if I could have some time on his promoted show. He said he'd ask and never did. I talked to one of the managers and he said he'd give me time, but late. I understand. So after the promoted show went on and then all of the workers go on, I went up around 10:30. The dude before me did pretty bad. I've never really seen him do well. He's just too low energy, and unlikely. So when the dj mumbled my name, half the crowd walked out. I had intended to do a clean tape. But that was immediately out the window. I chatted with what was left of the crowd and think I did well considering. My friend said one of the other managers came in to watch me and said he was laughing. That's a good sign.

Friday my folks left. It was nice seeing them, wouldn't mind having them around. Winston's was decent. We had a guy headline that last time asked for $25 more. The dude I promote the show with booked him again. The headliner kept asking how much we were paying him. I understand he's a professional, but you have to realize it's a bar show with no budget. Well both people I had on to promote were no shows. One called me, the other is the definition of a lunatic and just bailed. The headliner had a decent amount of attentive people show up, so it went decent. He was also late so I had to have the last few people stretch their time. I did about 10 or so, but it was all different than last week, and a few not new jokes, but jokes I rarely do. 2 got huge responses. I was quite happy. After a few of us hung out a a comics house and that was a lot of fun.

Lotta shows

Wednesday I had a show at Bar Eleven. It's a small room but people do give it up if you're funny. My sis and her bf were there. I learned halfway through the night 2 guys got passed at the Comedy Store. They're 2 of the 3 people I brought to Maine, plus one's my good friend in comedy. I can't be mad at them, I'm happy for them. One of the guys told me he was told the two of them would be passed 6 months ago, and it took this long. I was pretty bummed as I thought I was really making process. I'm still on the open mic every week, but I'd like to be getting more than 3 minutes. What's funny is when I was starting I thought those 2 were the best. I think one of them has gotten better and better, and too be honest I think the other guy has gotten worse. He yells a lot and doesn't do the samrt jokes he did when he started. He gets on a lot of shows, and it just proves that being funny is such a small part of comedy progression.

Anyways my set went ok, from what I recall anyways. I got pretty drunk. I remember a lady yelling at me to stop talking to her and she didn't want to be part of my sketch. I also brought people on stage to take pictures with me. It was fun messing around.

Also got a facebook message from a dude saying he didn't like being put on lightning round and talking about all these places he's performed and people he's opened for. I said if you don't like it don't come back, you bring nothing to the show. He sent me video from last week and other shows, I was away from my computer and didn't respond. He called me a pussy white boy and threatened to fight me. Mind you he's 5' 1" tall. After a little more banter I told him what I have to deal with and all the comics trying to get on the show. He closes with well do it for the love, see you tomorrow, peace. Comics are crazy.

Thursday was the weirdest show I've ever done. I almost forgot about that show, how I don't remember. A dude I've done a few shows with who always seems to put me on his shows calls me at 5 for his 9 oclock show. He said he thought the show was on the 23 but it was the 13. He said round up some comics. I called the people I knew in the area and brought my parents there for their first San Diego show. I've done shows there before and it's always been terrible. Bad location and no crowd. We get there and there's just some people playing darts and beer pong. 0 people in the crowd. The host goes up does a little time, attempts to interact with my family. He gets off brings up the next guy. Mind you all the comics except 3 are people I told about the show. Oh yeah, he went on stage with the music still playing, there was no dj. Well there was no one working there other than the angry bartender. No one checking id's, nothing. So I go in the booth and turn down the music. Someone I imagine is just a regular comes into the booth and turns the music down and goes back to his beer pong game. Anyways the promoter buys us a shot. I go to the bathroom, come back and realize the first comic is still on stage. I look around and the promoter is gone. I decide to light the guy with my phone and bring up the next comic. I'd never seen him before I just saw him at the bar writing out his set on notebook paper. He goes up with his notebook paper and a coke bottle in hand. He's ranting about smoking pot etc for about 8 minutes and I try lighting him. He has no clue what that is. I keep trying. I light him again and he says, "Oh yeah, I should give them a chance to laugh." Wow. So then I walk on stage grab a drink on the back, come off, he's still talking. I then go on stage and walk around. He finally looks at me, with rage in his eyes, and says, "Can I help you sir?" I and everyone else laughs. I say you need to get off, we have a lot of people. He says I was never told I had time limits, I must have only done 5 minutes. When in reality it was over 10. I bring up the next guy, and he comes over to me and says, "Sorry man, I didn't even get a chance to get to my funny stuff." Wow! So the show continues, still no idea where the promoter is, I just run the dang thing. During my set I managed to get a guy to dance on the stripper pole and give a few female comics lap dances... Ya. So we wrap up the show, and I unplug the mic cause I knew the drunk navy people where going to try to use it. Of course the second I get off stage one of the gals gets on stage and starts talking into the mic I just unplugged. She says "It's broken, what's wrong, I can't find the on switch." Finally some dope tells her to plug it in and they start talking. We left soon after but I know more dudes were on the pole. It wasn't the worst show, cause he had fun with it. Oh, there was also a flyer for that night that claimed it was suppose to be a michael jackson tribute show. Do you dance, sing, act like the king of pop. My god, and on the bar's schedule it had micheal jackson show. Yes michael was spelt wrong. I get a message on my wall in the middle of another status saying it was the anniversary of his bro's death and wasn't feeling it. Ok, you could have told someone at least. Just wow!

Friday was Winston's headlining. I was pretty happy with the turnout. Kinda funny more people from work I didn't ask to show came, then people I did ask. There was probably 30-40 which for me is good. I pushed it pretty hard for me anyways. I felt myself slightly nervous before I went up. Not sure if it was because I had two redbulls or what. It was basically only the 2nd or 3rd time I got nervous. I know before the finals of the competition and maybe when I did the show in Maine. I don't recall being nervous then but I must have been. So the set went well. Pretty much one of the only times I felt I was doing really well at Winston's. I could still hear a fair amount of people talking but most of my punchlines hit. Had a few people tell me I did well. It was a nice combination of jokes and crowd work. It's great to do 30 minutes and feel like I could keep going. I'd say at this point I would feel comfortable doing possibly 45 minutes to an hour. There are still little quirks I need to work on, but I'm getting there.

Sunday I did the Comedy Store and Blarney. Store was a little shady, I'm working on a few new jokes and they were new joke quality. I'm somewhat trying to develop them on stage. I think they both are solid ideas so I'm going to keep working on them. Blarney went well, but I felt kinda bad after. There was a dude that clearly didn't want to be part of the show, nor was he doing anything and I kept talking to him. I don't like doing crowd work that is mean.

Last night was Winston's. It was pretty dead. Most people didn't promote and 2 of the comics were pretty late. I gave up their spots but they both showed up last minute, so I took one spot away from a dude and let the other guy on, so we had 9. Some of the people did ok. The first guy basically complained about not wanting to be there. I just don't get why some people do comedy.

Sunday and Monday Funday, Tuesday Tearsday

So my sister is in town. It's nice to see her. It's very weird how it feels were so distant. I guess it makes sense as were 5 years apart. But the first night she kept thanking me for letting them stay there etc. It's like you're my sister obviously you can stay here.

Sunday was a decent show day. Comedy Store was ok nothing much to report. Stuck to my jokes, did mostly older grammer jokes. I felt I stuck to the script and didn't veer off track. It's funny how my crowd personality has taken over even the comedy store. Claps at the wrong time, or sighs can really add to a show. I of course won't make noise during people's set's I don't know but it's fun messing with my friends. I've noticed other comics doing it, and it makes for a much more enjoyable show.

Blareny was typical Blarney. Decent turnout and they were paying attention. I may have chatted a little too much offstage but did apologize after. Funny there was a girl there that I have been talking to off and on but never actually hung out with. I sat next to her for a solid 10 minutes, and she didn't say a word to me. She is the strangest human I've ever met. She really comes across like she thinks she's better than me. And truly there's nothing that special about her. My set went well, lot of chatting and whatnot.

Monday was really fun at the competition. It was lighthearted and the crowd was somewhat receptive. Little more packed than last time, made a few dollars. My set was still eh. It's just so weird going up after judging and whatnot. The crowd doesn't know whether to laugh or leave. No one is really promoting hard so it seems it's a nice balance of funny ruling who moves on. There was a guy that went up for his first time, and it was painful to watch. I think I may have been awkward on stage but I at least had jokes and a point for being up there. So people are just lonely. The guy I run the show with was a little drunk, and was complimenting how I run the shows and whatnot. I always feel weird when people are nice to me.

Last night was pretty awful. Show was supposed to start at 9, didn't start until 10. There was maybe 20 spread out people there. I was sandwiched between a comic who talked about fingering a gal for the first time, and a comic that spoke for 8 minutes about whacking off. I tried my clean approach as my sister was in the crowd. I may have been slightly offensive to a few of the people I spoke to. Not sure I ever had the crowd, but being quite sleepy and not wanting to go down the dirty road affected me a little bit. Had a few people compliment me randomly so that was nice. My friend said I looked nervous and censored myself a little bit. Who knows, I just didn't bring my A game.

2010 quick recap

Winston's was dead Friday. I didn't really expect the headliner to bring anybody and that came true. I put faith in the 2 people I had promoting the show, and neither delivered. Both are definately in the lunatic category. One has been doing comedy for a long time, and is dreafully awful, yet thinks he's amazing. He plans to move to L.A. to focus on comedy, god these guys a nutjobs. The other guy has claimed he can bring people a few times. I gave him a chance and he didn't deliver. He made a poster about 3 weeks ago, and of course promoted back then and did nothing in the past week. People have no sense of reality. My set went decent. My friend brought 3 of her friends, and that was 25% of the crowd. I basically riffed and chatted for what I learned was 15 minutes. I'm getting more and more comfortable on stage, yet less confident with my jokes. I don't feel like telling them, andwhen I do I can't seem to get the rush from the laughs anymore. I kept trying to end on a high point but just couldn't get that big finish.

At the start of the show one of the comics asked me to talk to another one of the comics who felt I was ignoring him. I've discussed this individual before and feel our friendship slowly has dwindled away. He stormed out of the show when I didn't talk to him. I had been somewhat avoiding him since he took me off his monthly show. We talked for about 20 minutes yesterday about things. I realized I should have probably talked about my feelings long before. But I just felt if that's how he wants to be maybe it's just best to let the friendship go. I think we talked out our differences. I'm not sure what will come in the future but at least the hostility is put to rest, for now anyways.....

Well 2010 in comedy had some good points. Performing in Maine, getting to the finals of the comedy competition, and making more connections. I didn't reach my goal of getting regular at the store or the palace. But I really feel like I'm making headway at the store. I think one more year here, and then make the move up to NYC or L.A. I'd like to save a little more money and make some more connections before leaving. I think by then I would have done everything I could in San Diego, comedy wise.

It's been awhile...

Haven't been keeping up with the blog since I made it private. That and nothing has really made me angry lately. Been doing a lot of shows but no real drama. Winston's last week was pretty slow but the crowd was receptive. I did about 12-15 minutes of mostly riffing. It was a lot of fun.

Sunday was the Comedy Store. It was kinda rough. The crowd was tight and didn't laugh much. I put myself in a hole off the top by saying something rude about the host. I also stumbled over my words saying it. Dumb move. I struggled through the rest of the set. We tried to go to Blarney after but I was an idiot and counted on someone to sign me up, and she took forever and never put me down. We hung out for a bit then headed out.

Monday was the first OBC contest. It was a small turnout. No one really promoted. One guy didn't even show up, allowing someone else to step in who ended up getting first. The voting was pretty close between 1-7. One of the guys that brought half the crowd didn't advance. He got no judges votes, nor any of the comedians. I felt bad he didn't advance but wanted to keep it fair. My roommate also didn't advance. He did pretty well but went up early. The 2 people that went last did decent, and ended up advancing. The roomie was bummed and questioning comedy etc. Comedy and competitions are tough and shouldn't be combined. It's a lot of sadness, as only one person is going to get first, and the rest of us are left queestioning if comedy is for us. I had fun doing it, and made a few dollars, that's all I care about.

Tuesday I had a show at UCSD. Got put up 1st, which I guess is cool. The crowd all filled in pretty late. I felt like I was dying up there. Started off a little shakey but turned things around as good as I could. I watched the dude after me who has some credits. The crowd just laughed a little bit, but no loud, long laughs. No claps or anything. Looking back my pacing was a little off, and wasn't as comfortable as I could have been.

Wednesday I had a bar show. It went pretty good. The booker forgot he told me he'd put me on, but still got me up for a few minutes and gave me some drink tickets. I got my drink on but didn't get crazy. There was about 10 people watching when I went up but I felt good about how it went. Combo of jokes and chatting.