How Dez Reed Helped Make The Blades Funny

Tags: amateur comedians, comedy writing, Saskatoon, stand-up comedy, The Stand-Up Diaries, trevor dean

It seems as if this last year has seen the Saskatoon comedy scene grow by leaps and bounds, after what appeared (at least to me) to be years of stagnant growth.  Now that the comedy club is up and running, Dez is starting to to mentor the newer comics.  I never thought I would say this, but until you sit down with Dez and discuss comedy, you have no idea just how talented he is, how me goes over every word with a fine tooth comb and all the practice he puts into it.  With him, every word is connected to a thought, and those single thoughts string together a purpose.  I have a newly found respect for Dez after attending my first writing workshop last Wednesday night.

While I won’t talk specifically about the ideas shared, I can give you a general sense of how the workshop works.  First I have to say that like Dez, I am impressed with the ability of every new comic there offering up their ideas to help their fellow comics out.  What happens is a comic comes up with an idea, and we all go around the room and give that person a line to build on, or a central theme for the joke.  Usually it’s guided by Dez, as he will come up with the central theme and the other guys fill in the blanks.  Of course, sometimes a comic will offer an idea on a bit that Dez wants to use and will incorporate that into the main bit.

My bit has to do with part of the title for this posting, as it relates to the Saskatoon Blades (that’s all I will tell you…..if you have heard the joke before great, if not, well you have to come on down and see it for yourself).  Anyhow, I had this idea rattling around in my head for a couple days relating to the Blades, but I had no way to make it funny.  Wait, I shouldn’t say that.  I had material written based on the Blades that I thought was funny, and could probably still be used in the joke I ended up with.  But Dez immediately went to work and once the wheels started rolling, he pretty much guided the path of the joke, not like it’s a bad thing to have a pro of 23 years helping you!

So, I gathered the ideas together after Dez gave me an idea which way to take the subject matter.  From there, it was onstage to test it out.  Did it work?  Yeah, it did although for some reason the end of the joke…not sure if I’d call it a punchline, but the ending didn’t work with the audience for some reason.  Dez after the show told me that the way I set it up and delivered it was perfect even though the ending lacked the finish from the audience.  Yes, it’s taken exactly one year of doing comedy for Dez to say the word “perfect” in relation to my comedy routine.  No, he wasn’t drunk or high  LOL

Last week the comedy club was sold out for three nights from Thursday to Saturday night for John Wing.  All 75+ seats were taken, a great show each and every night.  With the growth of the comedy club, another comedy festival upcoming next week, and several new comics entering the comedy scene, the local comedy scene finally is getting better.  It used to be that any comedy related to Saskatoon was either at the Park Town or when a major headliner went to The CUC or TCU Place to do a show.  I am very proud to be a part of things after everything I’ve been through in the past year.

By the way, if anyone reading this happens to have an idea to throw my way for material, go ahead and give it to me.  If I can’t produce something on my own from it, I can share it with the group and have Dez help to give it shape.  I already have a friend who I wanted to feed me material, but I haVen’t heard from this person lately.  Maybe they are keeping the good material for themselves and planning a successful open mic debut in the very near future!

I know that the posts haven’t been as frequent as you may have gotten used to, but that will change.  I plan on keeping my blog more current from now on.  Who knows?  Maybe with Christmas coming soon, it might make me a bit nostalgic and get all mushy and offer a retrospective blah, blah, blah  LOL

Again, if you want to comment on my blog, right below the title of this posting is a comment button you can use to offer your thoughts on what I’ve written.  In addition to this, somewhere on my blog, I think it’s on the right hand side of the screen, there should be a button to click where you can “follow” the blog.  This means whenever I publish a new posting, it will show up in your e-mail inbox.  When you click to follow it though, please make sure that you open the confirmation e-mail that Wordpress.com sends you.  Once you confirm it then the postings will show up in your e-mail inbox.