Breaking Through

This was going to be a chronicle of my journey into stand up comedy. Ive journeyed for a while now without bothering to chronicle. For a while I was frustrated that I wasnt getting more recognition, wasnt getting booked for gigs, wasnt getting invited to eat at the grown up table. I saw people who did worse at open mics getting booked for shows, while I and other people I thought were funny got nothing. Im learning how much of this is socializing/ shmoozing; probably about 80%. Im starting to get there. Last week there was a woman at an open mic looking for comedians to work a show she was organizing. I volunteered, and apparently thats all it takes some times. Did that show (hula hula comedy/karaoke) yesterday, and another comic who was there who has definitely seen me on stage at least a dozen times told me that he wants me on his next showcase in september. I dont know if this is based on the strength of my set yesterday, or just because we got to talking a bit. I hit a nice little personal milestone. The VERY first time I did stand up was at the odd duck. There was one non-comic and 4 comics in the audience. I did three minutes and got one laugh on one joke. It was a horrifying experience. Last thursday I went back for the first time. There were two non-comics in the audience and 4 comics. I did ten minutes (actually 11, but I was supposed to do 10), and every single joke landed. All of them. It feels great to go in front of a great audience and get a ton of laughs, but it also feels really good to go in front of a tough audience, when other comics arent doing well, and do well. Tomorrow I head down to the Royal in Olympia with Billy and Patrick and some guy named Jeff who is a bartender at the underground. Gonna do the same 10-12 minutes that ive done at these last couple of gigs. I expect it to go really well. I feel like I can definitely refine this chunk of material, but I also feel like its solid. I have a good ten minutes that I have in my back pocket. Time to write more. Time to work on the next ten minutes. When Im in the right state of mind, I can be quite prolific. Generally Ill write a lot on a subject, then throw out the weak part and im left with some thing decent. Ive also found that the more I do, the more I live life, the more material there is. Laying in bed and writing blogs doesnt run you into the unfamiliar and the odd. Time to go do something worth making fun of. ALSO: heres video of me from Hula Hula. Kelly asked us for plugs, which is the only reason I would tell a bunch of people in belltown that I was appearing an hour away in a couple of days (and doing almost exactly the same material) Chris Leher, a fellow comic, was kind enough to film this https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3jFe0FZRbnJQm9yc281Q1Zoelk/edit?pli=1#