Seeing as some folk complained that they didn’t know when the debut was last week (spoof), I will start off with a plug. If anyone is in Dublin tomorrow night (tonight? Thursday, the 2nd) round 2 of stand-up in Ireland is going ahead in Temple Bar, the more hecklers the merrier! I can’t believe I’ve just advertised on the blog, I have well and truly sold out. How much did I get paid for that? Back to the blogaruu…
Have you ever been introduced to someone, who you already kind of know, but was never properly introduced to them? Sober anyways. And you know that they don’t like you. As in numerous people might have told you, how much that person went on about your immense downfalls or shortcomings, over and over again at a party one night, that kind of thing. And you probably don’t have time for that person either, seeing as they bothered to bitch about you, without ever even speaking to them. However, the person who is introducing, is completely oblivious to all this. Then the third party slowly starts to get a vibe, as it finally dawns on them, that X does not seem to like you, and you don’t seem to be too open to X in return. The great, awkward “Oh, do ye know each other already? Have ye met before” moment kicks in. And the fun is had. No? Me neither.
Have you ever had to catch a train to Dublin at 8.30, but decided to first jump in the shower at about 8.04. With the train station about a 15 minute drive at least, depending on traffic. And leaving any bit of packing to be done, until after the shower? Then wonder why you bothered? Nope? Me neither.
Have you ever then, to make matters worse, actually spent the whole entire train trip making out a demo mix, which you have actually been asked for a while back, and asked again today, by a promoter of a brand new club in L.A. Could be a big break. And you are on fire! One of the greatest D.J’ing performances, known to mankind, is occurring on a train from Cork to Dublin. You will proudly show off your mixing and remixing talent, with this 2 hour mix that you have just performed, and recorded, on the mostly empty section of the train. Until, of course, you realize, whoops, must not have recorded that actually. You are certain that you did, better check again… no, didn’t work for some reason. The job. Anyone? Me neither.
Have you ever made out a highly important to-do list. Vital stuff on the list, in order of priority, buckle down and have to get through it before the weekend, must make this week count. Then, you realize that you have actually put at number 2 on that list, prioritizing it as the 2nd most important thing you need to do, is to buy a pen. Even though you are writing the list with a pen, and have a handful in your bag, you really need this special type of pen, or else you can’t move on to number 3 on the list. Nay? Me nayther.
Final one, have you ever woke up to rain absolutely bucketing down outside your window? Skies are grey, horrendous looking day, it is a bad start. From that alone, if you were to predict what the rest of it may be like, you would think “bleak”. Then, within 5 minutes, or however long it might take you to read a text and check your emails, it immediately turns into the best day all week. By far. So far, anyways. All those annoying things that you were impatiently waiting on all day Monday, started to trickle back your way, all with good news. Good as in progress was still being made, baby steps and all. Yeah? Me too! Today! Pretty weird.
I lied, one last one… Have you thought to yourself “I am fairly tired. Very in fact. I know, I’ll do a blogaruu based around the game – Have you ever? – and it’ll actually be a good one. Yeah, that sounds like a plan” Then, after you type it all up, you realize, eh, maybe that was a horrendous idea? Maybe that did no go as well as you planned. Perhaps you should’ve slept on the train, instead of not recording a great mix? Em, not fully sure, but I think I may have definitely done that one too. Does not bode well for stand-up tomorrow night!
Being honest, now and again, I perhaps can be a bit (very) superstitious, paranoid, neurotic, estúpido, whatever you might want to call it. Nothing dumb like walking under a ladder, or a black cat running across me. That’s just dumb. My peculiarities are far more intelligent. Obviously.
For example, if I have a bad thought about something that might potentially happen in the future, I have to tap my head. Then some wood. Then my tongue. And finally my head one last time. Ha, only joking, obviously… Stupid stuff like having to play the same song first, on a playlist on my iTunes, wreck my head on a constant basis. They’re just two that happened while writing this paragraph. I have no clue at all why I even do half the stuff anymore, but in my head, if I don’t do them, I am tempting fate. Good laugh. So, with that in mind, I will just say that it has been a good week in Dubla. A productive week. Progress being made on this side of the world too. Big weeks. And baby steps. My new horrendous saying.
Moving swiftly on, my Irish stand-up debut in Dublin last Thursday was pretty funny. Maybe not so much my act, but the whole night in general. The MC could not have known that the crowd there was at least half made up of Cork folk. So, when he decided to try and mock one Cork person, only to be heckled, burnt and ridiculed back, over and over by different Cork “langers” in the crowd, it started the night off on a good note.
However, the first guy up, a dude playing a guitar and singing humorous songs related to his STD’s, did not help. At all. Purely because he was fairly good. As in actually funny. Something I was not hoping for. Setting the standard. Thankfully, the second guy up had severe anger issues. After watching the other acts in L.A, I quickly learned that alienating/abusing the crowd as a whole, is not a great route to take. From my point of view, it worked nicely. He did well freaking the crowd out enough that they would laugh at any old dope up next, as long as he wasn’t screaming at them. Happily, this was my cue.
Since my mighty performance, feedback has been split roughly – actually, I would say exactly – down the middle. Between my buddies, and randomers afterwards coming up throughout the night, the feedback has been in two camps… “I liked it, but I thought the parts where you had banter and mocked the crowd were better, do more of that. It was good though, I was surprised” … “Funny enough, but you should stick to your routine more, keep to your own jokes. You kind of did too much stuff with the crowd. Well done though”. Seriously, it has been right down the middle. So, only fair thing to do is take bits from each feedback, and say it was a roaring success! The cherry has been popped.
Cold light of day, I need to ramble less, have more of an act (which I’ve figured out, wuu) and ensure that an angry, psychotic, weird little guy is on just before me. I might ask him if he wants to start a double act. Just one where we’re never on the same stage at the same time. Should go well. And, if anyone is wondering, by far the last guy up was the funniest. Hilarious older guy, who slaughtered two English dudes in the front row. Who were actually Australian, but nobody cared at the time.
One good thing to almost come out of the stand-up, was the issue I have with Dublin. However, unfortunately, she was not my type. Still though, an interesting light was shone on the performance angle. Not that it made a difference. I think the ratio in Dublin is off kilter (what a brutal excuse!)
One last thing that I found funny on the night, is of how many people love asking me… “How much do you make for all this?” For all what? “All this, the stand-up, the DJ stuff, the blog, how much do you make?” Ha, how much do you make? “Ah thats different, I just want to know how much you make” Which is just a dumb conversation I had a few times that night. However, I will now divulge how much I did make for the stand-up gig.
Just as the night was finishing up, news was breaking that Michael Jackson has just died. Around this time, the organizer of the night came up to me, thanks for doing it and all that, here’s the money, and slipped it into my hand. Then, he quickly scurried off. I was finding out if the news about his death was true, so didn’t even check the wad for a few minutes. When I did, I started to laugh. €20. Wuu! No wonder he ran off so fast. That is going in my next act, some funking joke.
The blog has been in hiatus for a few days. Still though, song of the day will have to be a tribute to Michael Jackson. Fair enough he might not have been a saint or anything, but, for me, definitely the greatest entertainer ever. And this song showed he could still produce gems!
I shall not lie, I have never really gotten on well with Dublin. Or in, to be exact. Probably not for reasons which other people may have either. Proper city, multi-cultured, variety, more than a handful of clubs and pubs, all of that stuff that you would expect from a big city. However, something always bugged me about Dublin. And, being honest, I know exactly why. It is the home of my kryptonite. I never have any joy here. At all. If you know what I mean. Obviously there are plenty of reasons why this might occur, but anywhere else in the world, these factors do not seem to all converge together at once. Whatever it may be, no matter how hard I try, I just never clicked with Dublin, in that sense.
Worst part of all, is that the talent up here is pretty good. In fact, today for example, it was fairly savage. Once again though, I got a sign that the lack of action streak would continue for me up here. While walking down Grafton Street, I was trying to multi-task. Phone and bottle of water in one hand. A banana, apple and iPod in my other hand. (Wallet, tic-tacs and notepad in my pockets, so I was weighed down). Trying to eating a second full banana, hands free, so it was sticking out of my mouth. And all the time, trying to get through the busy street towards Temple Bar, while admiring the hot women that were window shopping. It was a lot of multi-tasking. Which I managed to do well. Until I walked into one of the waist high poles that are along the street.
Seeing as, obviously, I never saw the pole, I was fairly surprised at why there was a sudden, sharp, sickening pain coming from my groin area. I thought somebody had kicked me in the rucksack. And left their foot there. My first reaction was to give an inquisitive… Awww?… which, in turn, forced the full banana to pop out of my mouth, and onto the ground. Trying to grab the banana, I almost sent my iPod flying which made me grab out and fling an apple across the street. Kindly, an old lady picked up the now 3/4’s left banana off the gorund, and handed it back to me. Which I had to throw into the bin, not being a fan of dirt. And I think she took that as insulting, somehow.
The whole affair was slapstick, brutal and dumb as funk. Two girls who were window shopping next to me, just stood there and gave me a pitiful look. I think they might have thought I was actually remedial in some way. Not far off, perhaps. I was in too much pain to try and pretend to be cool, walk it off, so I just told them… I’m cool girls, come on, I swear, I am coool, give me another chance! Too late. Once again, trying too hard. That all too familiar sign, which I always get in Dublin. Not going to happen buddy. The pole in the groin is the most action I will be getting up here.
Not to worry though, progress being made on other fronts. Managed to get around to a load of different places today, network on, my level of information and knowledge is growing more and more. Plus, a meeting has been arranged in RTE for this Friday, happy days. And, also, last night I got good news about visa options. I know have two routes available to me. Depends on a few factors, but looking promising. To an extent.
One area, where I might not be as ready as I thought I might have been, is for my stand-up gig tomorrow night. Being honest, I thought I’d get 7 minutes together fairly quickly, an hour or two. Bob hope. I can talk away for 7 minutes fine. It is just not 7 minutes of laughter. In fact, from what I have tried out so far on my able guinea pig (go on the Rink) I do not think I even got 7 laughs. Or half laughs. The best, so far, has been, “Yeah, that might be good. Just don’t use it in the stand-up.” My best joke didn’t even get a half laugh! I am goosed.
Now that I think about it though, he could be wrong. Actually, he is definitely wrong. The blame for the lack of laughter, like the lack of action, is obviously not down to the quality of jokes. Or myself. It is blatantly the people I am wasting these golden lines on. Just not cool or clever enough to get them, I suppose. Obviously. (Worst part of all this is, I am thinking of using that tomorrow night. Oh sweet Jesus).
Rapid fire time, just to get them out, feeling funked and have to get up early tomorrow. Proper early too. As in 9 – 5 early. What a disaster.
We all have people who come up to us when we’re out, and annoy the funk out of you. They think they’re hilarious, or its joint banter, or that you have any clue what they are actually on about. Or, if they are a girl, they seem to think you might like them deep down, so them being a complete ape, won’t really matter. Well, I found a nice subtle way to stop this from occurring. Without being too rude. In the real world at least.
Simple really. Just delete them from your online social networks. It works a treat. I stumbled upon it before with Bobo, and realized it had worked Saturday night too from a deleted Spacebook link. Happy days. The likelihood that someone will come up and ask “Did you delete me?” are very slim. And if they actually were to ask, then maybe they’re not as bad as you thought after all. At least they didn’t shy away and all that. I imagine quite a few people are deleting me right now as we speak. The good news is, that it will work!
One plus lately, is that the blog is serving one of its functions. That is, I do not have to repeat stories or incidents over and over to all of my buddies. Some of them actually read it, good work. If someone might ask me a question, and I reply with a sentence that is basically a summary of a blogaruu, they might cut me off with “Oh yeah, I read that actually.” Which is very handy. Good work by the blog. Obviously, on the other hand, they might have come up with a good way of just cutting off my boring story. One sentence is all they need to hear, before they feel themselves getting lulled in and a bout of boredom approaching, so just pretend to have read it. Good work by them.
In a similar vein, I can now use the blog to cull a potentially boring story, which I might be expected to sit through. If the story is set up for being crap, and deep down I am sure the storyteller knows it is a bad story as well, like a lot of mine are too, obviously, I can simply take out a notebook and pen, and start writing stuff down. This distracts the storyteller… “What are you writing down?” … Oh, I’m just going to do a blog later on how crap this story is, sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt, keep going. So far, this has worked well. It is win-win really, we both get a laugh, no crap story is mentioned, and he can then feel free to use “Good one, put that in your blog” in a sarcastic tone from there on in.
Have you had ever had a full blown conversation with someone, and have no clue who they were? Happened to me earlier, while walking into a shop. Walking in, some random guy greets me with a knowing nod and “How’s it going man?!” So I greeted him back with a cautious nod, and tried to think of how I might know him. The first few things out of his mouth ticked a few boxes… “U.C.C… soccer… you were gone away a while were you? I didn’t get a chance to talk to you the other day.” Which, made me think, maybe, no this sounds right, I do know you actually, how is it going man?! Yeah, just back, baa, baa… all that jazz. Conversation veered off then a tad, when I was informed that “Joe opened up a new studio upstairs, are you still taking photos yourself?” Eh, you’re losing me a bit, photos? On my disposable camera or which? At this stage, I started thinking I might not know him after all. I was going to the first floor, he was going to the second, as I turned off, he gave me a good luck nod, and “I’ll see you at soccer tomorrow shur, you played well last week!”
“Played well” and “last week” confirmed my suspicions… he is not on about me, someone else entirely. I think the look of realization on my face, might have made him click on too, judging from his facial expression. Anyways, when I came back out of the shop, he was outside as well. Had to tell him… Buddy, I think we were way off with the conversation earlier, I’ve no clue who you are. “Yeah, I realized that as I went up the stairs. You must have the same hair as a friend of mine.” Good work by both of us. Good duck.
Final bit of gibberish, is about how some people are actually just plain rude. Seriously. On the train up to Dublin earlier, no matter how many times I pretended to be on the phone, or put my iPod on, or pretend to be asleep, this guy just insisted on starting up conversations with me. Just rude. Christofa, in future, please cop on.
The whole point of this gibberish. Unfortunately, I did not manage to get a slot in the open mic stand-up this Tuesday in Dublin. I had my 3 minute set almost good to go. However, instead, while coming up on the train, I was offered a 7 minute slot in their main show on Thursday. Oh Jesus. 7 minutes, if you do not know, is a big difference than preparing for a 3 minute one.
What you endured above were a few incidents that occurred over the past few days, that I had to rustle together on the train. Reason being, I now need to double my new material for the show. Unknowingly, Christofa got my brain working, good work by him. Quantity wise at least. Quality wise… dear God, I am funked. It will be a long, uncomfortable 7 minutes for all involved. I cannot wait!
Two songs to appease you after that funbelievable gibberish! (Give the first one a few seconds to kick in, patience people!)
Today has been a tad strange. Surprisingly, I mean that as a good strange, an unexpected strange. After the night’s sleep I had, I think the level of productivity I actually achieved is what has thrown me off. For numerous reasons last night (noise, dogs barking, the heat, drunken singing from downstairs, etc.) I got very little sleep. However, the main culprit, who kept me up from 4 in the morning until roughly half 6, was a fly.
There comes a point, when you are after laying in bed for 4 hours, battling to sleep, and you hear something small and innocuous, that you can make one of two choices. Either ignore the buzzing noise that is slightly bothering you, wade through it, keep your eyes shut and doze off. Or, as I did, open them slightly, focus fully on that little buzzing sound, and ruin all your good work. For far too long last night/this morning, I chased a fly around my room. Up the walls, out one window and in the other, running around in circles like a mad man in my boxers, chasing a noise (I only saw the fly a few times). It was all quite… nay, extremely stupid. However, the previous disturbances had me at my wits end so I was determined not to be beaten by a fly.
In the end, all the chasing around tired me out and I dosed off, not sure what time, after 6.30, it was bright outside, and I could hear people pottering around. This was a sober night too, which made it all the worse! I had forgotten that I set my alarm for 10 the next day, so when it piped up, I oddly sprung out of bed at first go, as if my body clock thought I was late for an exam or something along those lines. Standing there, again, like a mad man in a crunched position, in just my boxers, wondering why I had just jumped out of bed at first go, and why was I not so tired after such little sleep, a little buzz in my ear reminded me of the disastrous sleep I had just experienced.
The fly was back in the morning and he was taunting me, darting around my head, buzzing in my ear, whispering insults and ridiculing me, I felt like I was being bullied. When it landed on my right shoulder, I swung blindly for it, missed it, obviously (the fly was far more clever than I could possibly be at that hour) and ended up hitting myself in the shoulder. Again, the fly taunts me by staying close, moving to my lower left back, where once again, like a dumb fool, I swing, miss, and wallop myself in the back, like a slap to the kidneys. At this stage, my lack of sleep is kicking in, I think I am close to losing my mind, let it go, it is a fly, and close my eyes, lifting my head towards the ceiling and taking deep breaths to calm down. Buzz, buzzzz and I feel it brush off my nose. I swing inwards with both hands, flailing wildly, thankfully missing my own face but ending up slumped back on my bed, beaten, distraught, and close to tears.
As I open my eyes and look up, I see the fly across the other side of the room, buzz buzzing at me from a distance, as if he was able to throw his voice, ventriloquist style, just to make me looker stupider. He wins, I leave the room, and let him celebrate, leaving me a broken man, and not yet even had breakfast. As you might tell, as I was eating my porridge, and staring down the barrel of a gun, I did really not expect today to go well, the start alone indicated it would be disastrous.
Strangely, by the time lunch swung around, I was after confirming a meeting this week with the head of the Irish Film Board here in L.A, applied for a website idea competition malarky thing, and managed to be given a successful template which I could use for my sitcom pitch, if and when the time comes around to do so. The template is brilliant, allows me to condense all I want to say, clearly and simply into a 60 second spiel, with the right buzz words, comparisons etc. all laid out.
After lunch, a wave of stand-up material came to me, the material was flowing! I also realized that my opening line, which has actually worked twice, is not as good as it should be. Something in the context like “Oh, this is my first time doing stand-up and I think I might be crap because I’m not funny and no one laughs at my jokes” is not a great thing to tell the audience, at the start of a stand-up. I thought reverse psychology would be good, but thinking about it, those laughs were not as hearty as I would’ve liked them to be. It is kind of like telling a girl, just as ye are about to, ahem, that, oh, I should warn you, it’s my first time, I will not be that good, but look, we’ll give it a go, and who knows, we might at least get a laugh at how bad I actually am at doing it! Same for all walks of life, who wants a plumber who tells them it is her first time doing this job, or a mechanic who warns you that he is crap, but we’ll plough on! (I hope you appreciated my his and her equality statuses!).
Finished the day off by going to the gym, strangely a couple (guy and girl, could be brother and sister too I suppose) randomly came up to me and asked me why I don’t DJ at night in there. I told them I wasn’t too sure, just had been asked to do days, I suppose evenings would be more fun, busier and all. They nodded and left. They then must’ve went to the manager and came back to tell me they got me Thursday and Friday evenings when it would be busier if I wanted to do them – DJ on Thursday and Friday evenings, not the couple, obviously – the manager had said it was cool. Ok… cheers, thanks for that? See, I found that strange, at the time at least, but maybe thats just me?
And, in case you are wondering, the fly was not hurt. We are now friends, and he is curled up next to me in bed. The strange part is, he is almost finished reading my book before me!!! Wahey boss! Oh Jesus, brutal, I should’ve finished up with the last paragraph.
Song of this strange day is this mighty mash-up… Shut Up And Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand – Ting Tings – DJ Y Alias JY
I am a tad worried. Today has been my second bad day in a row. Not entirely sure as to why, but usually I might have one, then plough on through it and be fine again. Two in a row leads me to believe that a third one tomorrow, could lead me to having a nervous breakdown, it is unchartered territory that I would be heading into, oh dear Lord.
Being honest, I am not entirely sure why the bugging/fed up/annoyed feeling is coming on all of a sudden. It might have something to do with small things building up, slowly but surely. For example, my iPod froze today out of the blue and has yet to unfreeze. That got my eye twitching and had me counting to ten for a good few bouts of ten seconds. Or the fact that it seems to me that I am the only person in my house who knows where to empty all the bins when they fill up, or that bins even have to be dumped when they are full to the brim. But that is maybe just me being picky. Maybe, for some reason today, the number of blog readers dipped and this annoyed me? Who knows? All trivial.
However, I don’t think that was it today. Perhaps it has to do with me getting little sleep the past few days. I have it well highlighted and documented within this blog, of how my brain does not seem to work, or want to work for me anyways, during the day. Instead, the past few nights, it has taken up the nightshift, kicking into overdrive the minute I turn off the light and try to go to sleep. A flood of ideas for stand-up, scenes for the sitcom, songs to try out for DJ’ing, and potential websites have being coming to me in the past few nights. Unfortunately, I have taken to writing down every one, just in case one of them could seems good again when I wake up the next morning. In the light of day, meh, perhaps and ehh are my reactions at best, so far. Some sort of compromise will have to be agreed between my brain and I, us working different shifts and seemingly against each other will put an end to the relationship soon.
This morning I got about 10.30, shattered, but determined to be productive throughout the day after the bad day I had (or think I had anyways) yesterday. I made out my daily to-do list, and this is what set me off on the wrong note, I think. This was my actual list for the day…
1. Make out DJ playlist
2. Watch Champions League
3. DJ in the gym (it’s been a while, needed to keep the free buzz tipping over)
4. Do stand-up show
5. Buy birthday card for my Grandad
6. Go to the gym
7. Write the blog
8. Sleep
After re-reading this list, I got highly annoyed. Would you not? To me it was a fine to-do list you might have for a Saturday, or a day-off. However, not really a great one when you’re in L.A on a mission, not a Tuesday-I-must-be-productive to-do list. It is a list of hobbies, the only productive thing really is sending the birthday card home. The rest do not include me working in exchange for money, writing my sitcom pilot, or improving my acting. They are simply a list of things I could do to pass away the day. My view today in my grumpy mood anyways.
Got through the first two things fine, I didn’t really need my brain for them. I then realize I couldn’t squeeze in the actual DJ’ing in the gym part due to a lack of time. Thats ok, it’ll give me more time to get ready for the stand-up. However, my brain takes a nap, and I decide last minute that some toast would be nice before I head off. Already slightly behind schedule somehow, even though I had given myself two extra hours? Then I almost burn my hands on my George Foreman while waiting impatiently for the toast, which I can’t wait for, and end up running down the road with warm bread in my hands. I am sprinting to make the stand-up at this stage, I can’t be late and miss the signing up part.
As I belt across the street to the comedy club, warm bread in hand, shouting and waving the bread at cars to get them to stop and let me cross, it hits me that I have seen people, supposedly crazy, doing this sort of thing around L.A, and particularly in San Francisco. Am I losing my mind? No, no, it’s just an off day, I convince myself. I get to the club, and there is a swarm of people outside, the door is closed, place has yet to open, I made it on time! So I sit down outside the club, and enjoy my warm bread, waiting for the door to open so I can head inside and sign up.
When the door does open, I realize that the person coming out has a sheet of white paper… the list of who has been chosen to go up! The reason everyone was outside was that inside was so packed, it had been open all along, I had just wasted my opportunity by staying outside eating my horrible plain warm bread. Gutted, I head in, decide I’ll try to look for the manager from last week who said he would hook me up with a better time, presuming I would at least have signed up. Found him, gave him my spiel about running late, so sorry, I will be going home to Ireland next week, any hope of getting up one last time? Ok, he said, he’ll put me on first before people notice that I am not on the list, be ready.
I barely had time to get nervous, it was about a minute before I was good to go on. There were a few faces I recognized in the crowd, maybe from their photos being on the wall, but this could be a chance at a breakthrough! Time to focus, whereas last week I was just pumped to go up and in a great mood, today, however, my head was all over the place so needed to get back on track. Name gets called, big enough crowd (as in maybe 50 other comedians? big for my second time) and up I go. Being honest, I get a few cheap, easy laughs to begin – thanks for all coming to see just me, I’m Irish, then more hooting and clapping when I told a white lie and said it was my first time ever doing it (my second time didn’t have the same ring). After that, some jokes were misunderstood and not laughed at, other parts which weren’t meant to be jokes got laughs for some reason, and when I heard one person saying “That’s funny” instead of laughing, I got good mileage out of mocking the comment.
That was the first two minutes anyways, which flew by, I used up what I had thought would be about 10 minutes of gold, ha, no it was not. I told a joke that turned into more of a rant, and made up a new punch line on the spot when the first one wasn’t recognized, it got a whimper. Finally I finished up with a quick one liner joke, and walked off stage. It was only about half an hour later that I realized the reason nobody had laughed at the joke, or heckled me for it being so bad, was that I had forgotten to give the punch line. I think I said it in my head, then my brain took a quick nap, and it forgot to come out. Mighty work.
Overall, I could take bits away from the material, and leave the rest of it on stage. When I went up to the manager to thank him for hooking me up, and then to tell him I would see him next week, he cut me off right in the middle of my sentence, right at the “and then” part above. This is when he said “No problem, have a safe trip home, enjoy the next few months back in Ireland.” Balls, my spiel beforehand to ensure I got on had come back to haunt me, so soon! Eh, cheers man, I’ll see you when I’m back, in a few months, just like I said.
At least it’ll give me time to work on material for the next time I come back to this club! After the elation of the stand-up debut, I could tell from my act this week, what parts exactly need a lot more work. Some of the jokes I tried to tell, were ones which needed a lot of background info, situation and location knowledge, or prior reading of the blog to get the laughs which I desire. I shall have to fine tune them, a lot. Still though, the guy I thought was the funniest of the show came up to me afterwards for a high five, wuu.
Numbers 5 and 6 on the list were going to be put off until tomorrow but I managed to get them in tonight. Only number 8 to do now, and I will have had a productive day, list wise at least. Although it is a big holiday here tonight, and the place is rocking! Cinco de Mayo, never really heard of it (my last stand-up joke was related to the name, I’ll save you heckling material, horrendous). I decided I will stay in though, have a quiet one with my brain. We have a few bridges to build. If we don’t, expect a few more bread and traffic stories.
Earlier today I had a break through, mentally at least, I think I know now what I must do next. I’ll see if I still think it tomorrow. Song of the day, not the easy option of a Doors song but… Until We Bleed by Kleerup with Lykke Li
Enough Talk, More Writing! 