Tryin' Gigs

First off, let me apologise for the sheer awfulnuss of the headline pun.  I'd change it to something wittier, but I've been working for a whole 9 hours today, so fuck you, deal with it.

When I moved to London I decided not to resume stand-up until I was sorted with both a proper job and a place to live.  Well, since I finally found a full-time, permanent job two weeks ago and I'm not living on the streets, I guess it's time to grace the stage once more.

Only, down in the Big Smoke, I'm finding it harder than I thought.  I've found a few gig websites, and emailed quite a few promoters who do gigs locally to me, but so far.... nada. 

There are plenty of gigs, sure, but a lot of them are either bring-a-buddy or pay-to-play.  Fuck you, London comedy scene, I won't do what you tell me.  Both those concepts are appalling and highly flawed American imports that apparently all but ruined the New York comedy circuit, and the way things are going, London won't be far behind.

If I don't get a bite soon, my comedy career is over before it starts (again). 

In short, somebody give me five minutes of stage time and I'll give comedy gold in return.  Or comedy frankincense.  Or comedy myrrh.

You know, whatever.

Set In Stone

After much writing, re-writing, editing and downright jiggery-pokery, I've finally got a five-minute set I'm happy with.

The trick was to put 30 random one-liners into an order that made sense, and more importantly, something I could easily remember - something which was always a problem when I gigged up North.

I divided the jokes up into 8 loosely-connected themes, such as Jobs, People, Religion, etc and split the jokes up into boxes with these themes labelled on each box. (By the way, I'm talking about Microsoft Word, I don't actually have eight boxes full of jokes on my living room floor.  That'd be weird.)

I've got a printout in front of me and I think I can memorise this set fairly quickly now.  I hope so, because I want to start gigging again and make my debut on the London open mic circuit.  I've been away from stand-up too long, and although I only did 7 gigs last time, mainly due to travel constraints, hopefully I can accept open mics and open spots all across the city.

Let's hope London's public transport system doesn't let me down...

Opinion: Dot.Comedy – Telling Jokes In Cyberspace

 Below is an article I wrote for North East comedy website Gigglebeats, published today:

Opinion: Dot.Comedy – Telling Jokes In Cyberspace

Back In The Game

Well, I did it.  I've written a new stand-up routine consisting of new jokes, the best jokes from last year's set (I only performed it seven times Oop North so they're still technically fresh) and stuff I posted on Twitter that got positive reactions.

I've cherry-picked forty of the several hundred jokes I've written in the past year or so, and though I haven't timed it yet, the routine will be somewhere between five and ten minutes long. 

Now I just have to remember all the gags and rehearse the fuck out of them, and try and develop a personality/style that best complements them.

Crisis Of Confidence

It's now almost May and I still haven't gigged since moving to London.   This is not good.

The problem has been that I got bored of the jokes I was doing, and threw out my entire set to write something new and different.  Trouble is, the stuff I wrote - when I actually managed to write - was not very good and too much of a departure from my one-liner style.

The other problems was that the genre I was working in - wordplay jokes - was littered with people writing the same jokes as me, at least in cyberspace.  That depressed me a little bit and I got bored of writing these gags.  I need to be a bit different and original in the comedy world, otherwise what's the point?

After much soul-searching, and veering between giving up stand-up comedy altogether and back, I've decided to continue with the one-liners.  But I'm just going to work hard to write better ones.  Cut out the bad puns (not that I had many), rely less on easy wordplay material and save the really good jokes for my set instead of wasting them on Twitter and Facebook.

That's the plan.  Now I've just got to write, memorise and rehearse about fifty gags and I'm ready to get up on stage again.

Wish me luck...

Twitter Ye Not?

I may not have gigged at all yet since moving to London, and I may have discarded my entire set after my last gig up North to try something new, and I may have written a new five-minute routine in a different style which I ended up chucking in the bin because it didn't sound like 'me', but it's not all bad on the comedy front.

Since I discovered that a certain comedy chain runs a weekly joke competition on Twitter, I've been spending a lot of time and energy on writing new one-liners for said competition.  Since I've won third prize, and then second prize, within the space of two months, I must be doing something right.  (Although that £100 first prize still eludes me, but would come in bloody handy.)

Asides from the accolades, the competition - and Twitter itself - are helping me to become a better joke writer.  The 140-character limit, and the fact that I'm gaining a bit of a reputation (and more followers) from other tweeting comedians means that I have to work harder to craft a decent one-line joke then ever before.  When I have my days free I can write and post up to a dozen gags a day, half of which are at least half-decent.  Even when I'm working a day job, I can while way the hours by thinking up a few gags and then posting them to Twitter via my mobile phone.

The downside of course, is that by immediately posting my brand new jokes to Twitter, they become public property and can be shared across cyberspace, which renders them void for use in a live set.

The previously aforementioned new routine took me several weeks to write and didn't come naturally.  When it was done, and after I performed it for Yvette, I decided it was not much good and decided against performing it live.  Although it made some interesting points, it wasn't really my voice and the joke count was rather on the low side.

Therefore, I've decided to return to one-liners.  Except that I don't want to go back to my old stuff, because I think I can do better, and I can't use the Twitter stuff for the reasons I've already mentioned.

All of which leaves me in an unenviable position for a comedian - a willingness to return to live comedy, but a blank piece of paper with "JOKES" as the heading...

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...