Keep Calm & Carry On?

I had my first gig for over a month last Wednesday, at Flix Movie Cafe in Hartlepool.  It's a place I'm very familiar with, that has a friendly audience with a laid-back atmosphere.  And still.... it didn't go great.  I got really nervous as soon as I got up, resorted to my cheat sheet far too early and then depended on it far too much.  Some of the new gags went down well, some didn't, but when I came off I wasn't too pleased with my performance.

Before the gig I'd seriously considered quitting stand-up altogether, and even afterwards I was still in two minds, although other people told me keep it going.  Now, the decision may be out of my hands.  I've just started a temp job for a well-known credit card company that has me working stupid hours and shifts and practically ensures that I won't have much of a social life.  Which also makes accepting and attending comedy gigs equally difficult.  So instead of being an office worker and aspiring comedian, I'll have to go back to just being an office worker.  Which sucks big-time.

I was considering a change of style too, as I have difficulty remembering so many jokes - almost 50 in a 10-minute set.  I did write a more traditional comedy routine, and rehearsed it in front of Yvette.  It got a few laughs but not as many as my rapid-fire one-liners did, so I abandoned the idea and stuck to what I knew.  I could probably have added more jokes in re-writes, but got cold feet instead.

So here it is, for those of you who are interested, the first draft of my alternative comedy routine. Not that it matters now.

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BUS ROUTINE

I take the bus a lot. 

Now, when people ask me why I ride the bus, I tell them it’s because I refuse to clog up our already congested road system with yet another gas guzzler.  I tell them that it’s because I don’t wish to increase my already significant carbon footprint by riding around in a tin box on wheels.  I tell them that it’s because I have no desire to rape the planet with a four-wheeled death machine!

I tell them that, but it’s not true.  I ride the bus because I’m poor.  And because I’m poor, my punishment is to ride the bus.  To travel around town in a metal coffin, populated by all forms of human life.   From the people lacking slightly in social skills, to the completely fucking insane.

I waste valuable man hours waiting in the freezing cold weather for buses that don’t come.   For the buses that are half an hour late and turn up with no apology or explanation.  For the buses that come in threes like the proverbial bad joke.  If I could be arsed, I’d perform the calculations and deduce that WEEKS of my life are lost in limbo waiting for buses.  That’s time I’ll never get back.  But I can’t be arsed.  If I could, I’d have the drive and motivation to get a high-level, well paid job that would provide me with the funds with which to buy a car and thus be able to avoid riding the bus.

The problem starts when the bus arrives and I’m forced to interact with the driver.  Bus drivers are, by law, the most miserable bastards on Earth.  And I say that as the son of a former bus driver.   I don’t know if they receive any special training in being miserable, or whether it develops over time, but 99% of them really couldn’t give two fucks.  They’d rather just prefer driving around town all day without the inconvenience of actually having to pick up any passengers.  

Actually, it must be a gradual thing, because when a new driver appears on the scene, he’s very friendly, very happy and willing to go that extra mile for his customers.   Get on that same driver’s bus two months later and he treats you like a piece of scum that is hell-bent on ruining his day and must therefore be treated with the utmost contempt.  Basically, he wishes you were dead.  Whenever possible I try to buy a weekly pass just so that I don’t have to talk to these people.

The next challenge is to find a suitable seat on the bus.  This is trickier than it looks and requires some forward planning.  It’s no good sitting right at the front, because you’ll just get forced out by coffin-dodgers and pram faces two stops later.  And it’s no good sitting right at the back, because that’s where the gangs of chavs sit.  That’s their turf, and if you encroach on it you get your fucking  face slashed.  And if you sit in the middle you end up sitting next to the smelly weirdo who tries to engage you in conversation.  

There’s only one good seat – it’s just past the middle of the bus on the left hand side where the floor first raises.  That’s the only good seat there is and if you don’t get to it in time then your journey is doomed to fuckery.  For the next twenty minutes you’ll be subjected to inane observations, inappropriate questions and innate desire to end your life or the life of the fuckwit sat next to you.

When this happens, I like to put myself in a state of trance so that I can reach a calm, almost-Zen like state of mind. I can tune out the senseless banter of the chattering classes by transporting myself to a whole new world in my mind.  I can imagine that I am a trusty knight, riding my steed across Medieval England to rescue some fair maiden.  I can pretend to be an astronaut, hurtling through space at a thousand miles an hour to seek out brave new worlds.  I can envisage being on another bus, with fewer people, travelling to a better part of town.  Sorry, I’m struggling for ideas a bit now.

But my ultimate journey during these flights of fancy, is to be on the Orient Express, travelling across an exotic country with some of the greatest  people the world has even known.  Oscar Wilde is sat besides me, regaling the nearby passenger with endless humorous and witty anecdotes.   George Gershwin is playing ‘Rhapsody In Blue’ on a piano in the corner.  Albert Einstein is in the next carriage trying to explain the Theory Of Relativity  to a group of ten-year-olds... and succeeding.   The temperature is warm and the beer is cold, and there is no war or hate, just peace and love and understanding.

And then... everything stops.  I open my eyes, come back to reality, and get off the bus.  But everything is slightly better now.  The colours are brighter, the noises a little softer, the people around me are slightly less annoying.  Because for one brief, shining moment, I left the harsh reality of the modern world around me behind, and went to a better place, a warmer place, a safer place.   And, if only for a moment, I am happy.  Truly happy.

And THAT’S why I ride the bus.  Well, that and because I can’t afford a fucking car...

I'm Living In A (New) Material World

Tomorrow I will be performing my first stand-up gig in over a month.

During the forced hiatus that my health issues imposed, I wrote a load of new gags for inclusion in my set.  Most of them made it in, some didn't.  Some of the old stuff got removed to make way for the new stuff, or because it was weak.  In fact, in the 6 gigs I've done so far, in order to make the material as strong as possible, each set has been somewhat different to the one before.

And herein lies the problem.  Every time I change my set, I need to relearn the running order, as well as the new material.  From day one I've struggled to remember every joke, and never managed to complete a gig without missing at least a few out.

I now have just under 50 gags to tell in around 10 minutes, and I'm frantically rehearsing the night before the gig to commit them all to memory.  To make matters worse, 12 of those gags are new, untested material.  I've put most of them at the end of the routine so I'll hopefully managed to avoid forgetting them.

I may have to take a cheat sheet on stage with me, but I'm hoping that I manage to get through one gig without forgetting a single joke.  I've kind of created a rod for my own back by choosing a rapid-fire, one-liner style of comedy.  If my material was more anecdotal or followed a pattern or story, it might be easier to remember everything.  But I can't write that sort of material, so I write random, standalone jokes that have virtually no connection to each other.

So tomorrow's gig is a test.  If I can remember all my jokes, great.  If not, I might just give up this comedy lark once and for all.

Anyway, back to the rehearsing...