I'm always tired....

So I did a couple shows this week. One was a pop in at the Comedy Palace open mic. There was a decent amount of people in the crowd for a random Tuesday. They were listening and laughing with the good jokes. I have been writing a lot of new jokes lately. I'd imagine it has to do with the elimination of vodka in my diet. But with little drinking means very little sleep. I have been having a few beers or whatever but I still wake up around 7 or 8 AM and can't fall back asleep. It's no fun.

Tuesday I tried all new jokes. Still struggling through making them funny and comfortable. It's weird when I first started I'd write and write a new joke. One joke to turn into 3 or 4. I haven't done much of that style lately. Mostly I just think of an idea and work it out on stage. I have a lot of shows coming up in the near future and want to try to polish these. For the most part I'm only going to be doing 10 minutes at the most but I'd like to be comfortable to do 30 without the aid of a set list.

And then there's Wednesday's show. I am always happy when anyone asks me to do a show. In this case I should have said thanks but no thanks. The good I did get 3 free drinks and $5. It's not much, but it's nice to get a little something for my time. Anyways I get there and see it's a tiny stage, ok, but there's a pool table right out front of the stage. There are no chairs, just a few stools to the right and left. Most of the people were sitting in the back where the bar was and had no interest in standing to watch comics they've never heard of. I came into the show somewhat bitter and took full advantage of the free drinks and got a couple of the biggest beers they offered. I was suppose to go 3rd but got bumped all the way down to second to last. Ok, but with the combination of having an angry buzz and a crowd of 0.0 people that weren't comics I wasn't pleased to struggle through a set. I mumbled a bit, tried a set up, got no response, complained a bit, did one joke, and got off. I felt kind of like a douchey comic but honestly I'm tired of all these comics trying to do their own rooms and thinking it's easy. You can't just show up and have a comedy show. Everyone wants more stage time but really what is happening is the scene is getting flooded with crappy rooms, that there are few good spots.

I want to create a comics convention where we meet and try to get some kind of control. We are the ones that are providing a service to these bars and getting nothing out of it. It's so competitive in the scene that it makes it impossible to make it. I find myself struggling to continue to make Winston's a success as there just are so many random shows out there. I ask one person to be on, and they have a show somehwere else. None of these places can sustained business without a crowd. I'd imagine the bar Wednesday lost money as the booker gave 2 drink tickets to every one of the 8 or so comics, plus paid us $5 each. No one was at the bar to see the show. They basically gave away money. More power to the comics, but honestly what's the point. They should say watch a comedy show, free drink for every comic you watch.