Weekend filled with jokes, and ends with :(

Had shows Thursday, Friday, and two last night. They were varying styles, audience members, and jokes. I'd say they all were somewhat successful. Thursday I did a bar show in OB. Before I swung by the Comedy Store to watch Rod Piper but we had to leave before he went on stage. The dude before him ran the light by at least ten minutes. At first I thought he was really funny, but after awhile it got a little redundant. He did a lot of jokes about being a kid. And while they were funny, and delivered with a lot of energy, I kind of got tired of hearing it. He definately was funny and the crowd loved him, just as a comic I was like "Wow this is the same joke." I guess when you have 45 minutes you need to stretch at times, but this was too much. Rod did buy like 15 pizzas for the crowd which was pretty cool, sadly my tubby body didn't get to have any.

Anyways we headed over to the OB show. There was about a crowd of maybe 10 scattered people. We were told a 930 start so we rushed, but when we arrived they were starting at 10. No biggie, just wish I would have known so I could have seen Mr. Piper. We did get a couple drink tickets so that was nice. I got up there and basically toyed around with the audience and the stage and whatnot. I'm not sure if I should be using these opportunities to voice out jokes and gauge other comics reactions. I used to do that at Brick by Brick, and that helped me develope material quickly. I just can it in so often that I never get to try out these countless new jokes I've been working on. I think I did well and got a good amount of laughs considering.

Friday was Winston's. I hosted. The headliner was originally from OB but lives in Boston now. He brought a majority of the crowd, which ended up being pretty large. Sadly they didn't really give anyone a chance other than him. That happens so much at Winston's lately. It's frustrating, but scattered laugh is better than none. I tried some jokes, but nothing seemed to work. Did have a couple audience members aknowledge the tough environment and thought I did well, considering. I had to ask the bouncer to throw someone out for the first time since I took over, and basically only the 2 or 3rd time I've seen someone thrown out of a show I did. I tried to ask the guy to stop and he just yelled, "Screw you, I'm just having fun. I'm part of the show" Ummm ok. He just kept yelling random crap. I guess he used to donate some tricked out scateboard to the show. I remember them. They did look cool, but no one ever bought tickets anyways. People are weird.

Last night I had a show at UCSD. A comic kind of asked me to do it when I did a show with him last week or so. He kind of played it off like it wasn't a big thing. He said I could do 5 minutes or so early in the show. The place was called Porter's Pub. Going in I wasn't expecting much. Plus I drove around the campus for about 20 minutes and was getting a little frustrated. Finally I called the guy and located the spot. I walk in and it looked like the college bar show we did in NH. Kinda crazy they paid us money for that show. I talked to one of the comics and he said the show was in the other room. It ended up having a big stage and seats and whatnot. They even charged people to get in. I would have set up the room a little better but they was a pretty good turnout. The ceilings were pretty high so the laughs to resinate that much on the stage but I got some solid laughs. Did mostly pre Winston's headline, but I did 10 plus minutes with no set list. I could do at least 20 at this point with no set list so I guess that's growth.

The final show was at Blarney. There was a good amount of people there. They weren't really paying much attention to the comics and just talking and drinking. The gal I used to date was there. What I thought was luckily ended up being sad that she left before I went up. I ended up doing all crowd work, but think it went really well. Only 2 or 3 of the things I said didn't get big laughs. Kinda funny that there is starting to be some regular audience members. There's one dude thats been there 3 straight weeks and he's always complimenting me. Somewhat feels like a fan. I still haven't been noticed off stage but I imagine it'll happen. I did get somewhat pressured to give another headlining spot to a comic I don't care much for personally. I guess I have to be a professional and be a team player. I just didn't like his attitude after the last show. Also giving a guy like that a headlining spot does absolutely nothing for the show or me. May sound selfish, but why book a show if I'm not going to get anything from it.

Life stuff. Grandpa died today. Luckily I have no shows this week. I was at work and saw I had a missed call from my Dad. I think I spoke about it before, but one thing about getting older is that anytime I get a call from my Dad it's more than likely going to be bad news. I called him back and of course grandpa passed away. I didn't know how to react or what to say. I just said I'd call him back. I told my friend at work and let my boss know I was going to head home. I know I almost flip out on customers on a normal day, no sence being there dealing with the crap. I remember when my dad called me to tell me my aunt died. I don't know how to deal with serious things. Am I suppose to cry, yell. I joke around 99% of the time, I'm simply not good at being serious. I don't think I'm going home for the funeral. I haven't seen my grandpa in around 3 years, and even then was very brief. I don't really need my last memory to see him dead. I realize everyone dies, but I'd prefer not seeing it. I don't want my family to be upset I don't go. But that's not really a good reason to fly across the country. I wasn't really that close to him. He used to crack jokes and be the funny grandpa but after my grandma died he changed a lot. Somewhat negative and not a real treat to be around. I'll probably regret not going someday, but right now I have to do what's best for me.