Refocusing on comedy

Well after a year and half hiatus and a lot of women and life stuff, I've decided to try to refocus myself on stand up. I went through all my old notebooks to see if I can get any of that old stuff to work now. I got about a new 15 minutes and I'm enjoying comedy again (for the most part). This week I'll end up going up 5 times. Twice Monday, Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday. Monday I attempted to go up 3 times, but the timing was a little off. I had a Dr.'s appointment at work that last over 2 hours, so I wasn't able to get to the gym before the 1st mic. I stopped by as it was in the same area of the mic I planned to do. It was mostly comics and I signed up 10th. As I weighed my options, I decided that most of the crowd would likely be gone when I go up, so decided I wanted to go to the gym instead. I hit up the gym, then rushed up to do a set at the Mad House open mic. This is the 2nd week in a row that I did it. They have the mic after the show, which is strange. But luckily a decent amount of crowd members still lingered. I had to basically walk in and asked the host to put me up soon as I had a 940 spot at Lestat's. He was able to get me up and I had a fun quick set of working on new jokes. I booked it out of there and headed to Lestat's. This is mostly a music open mic, but there was 2 other comics there. It had been years since I had done it, as it's a random drawing and it was hit or miss whether I would get picked. There seemed to be less people than I remember. I got picked in the middle and chose a spot that would allow me to do the show(s) downtown. My set started off pretty dead. Did some jokes that normally always work and they fell flat. I awknowledged that it wasn't going well and you could stop the recording. This got a decent laugh, and someone actually said, "I like you now." After that, my set flowed nicely and felt I ended pretty strong. A few people said nice job, so that was cool. Tuesday was a bringer show at the Comedy Store. How these are still successful boggles my mind. But every week they seem to get at least 70-80 crowd members. Esp. with the hacky headliner doing basically the same "jokes" every month. I asked the "host" if I could get a spot as the crowds are always super generous with laughing, as most of the comics are new and not great. He said he would get me 7-10 minutes. When I see the list there are like 10 comics on there. The "host" tells me he's getting pressure to cut comics off the list as the turn out wasn't great. 80 plus people on a Tuesday is amazing. The "headliner" is the same tool I had a run in with at the Comedy Palace a few years ago and is super fake and douchey. Anyways he goes into a speil about wanting me to like him and blah blah. I tell him it's business and I get it. He ends up giving me 3 minutes. I do really well. The next comic, admittingly couldn't follow me. Last night I did Winston's. I knew when I got there it isn't going to be as great as I had hoped. The crowd is pretty bare and the ones that are there are pretty drunk. They sit near the front but definately planned to be a part of the show. They weren't awful, but not ideal. Most of the comics are talking withe them and not doing jokes persay. The comic before me did mostly jokes and did pretty well. I knew I wanted to do mostly jokes. I've been working hard on writing and wanted to stick to that. I open up pretty strong to which the group of drunks were enjoying it and not heckling at all. One of them actually said, "I love you," or something like that. As great as I started, I kinda peter'd out as the set went along. I did about 10 minutes, and felt pretty good about it. I brought up the first feature, not realizing I didn't pronounce her name correctly. Felt a little bad as we have been flirty. She's bi and has a finance, but had asked me out for drinks. Then a day before told me it would be strictly platonic. What woman asks a man for drinks and wants to be platonic. It was weird. I'm trying to stay off women, and don't have time for simply platonic ones. Anyways. I kinda butchered the next comics name to which he said I was drunk. And although I am a drunk, I wasn't drunk at that time, I simply never said his name nor care. Tonight I'm doing a set at the Comedy Palace. I haven't been there in about 6 months, or since they basically stripped me of my duties of teaching the comedy class. It was real shaddy and I felt back stabbed by two people I considered friends in the comedy game. I'm not sure how the show is gonna go. I heard the first one was good but the last one was not. I just want to stay out a little later. Saturdays I'm basically off at 5 and am just trying not to drink. Having a show, will keep me off the booze a little longer.