A New Cure For Insomnia……Success?
Tags: amateur comedians, comedy, failure, Saskatoon, stand-up comedy, The Stand-Up Diaries, trevor deanI am feeling out of sorts these last few months. I can’t remember the last time I had a decent sleep, as I usually don’t get to bed until 1:00 a.m. or later during the week. The time I look forward to the most is Saturday when I’m done work so I have two days off.
When I do go to work, it’s a 3 km. walk each way that takes about a half hour per trip. Aside from all that walking I spend that time productively as I rehearse my comeback material over and over and over again, to the point where I can run it off the top of my head. I try and tweak it here and there, changing up the intro slightly or playing with the timing of a joke til it sounds right to me.
I watched an interview with Billy Crystal on Charlie Rose a couple weeks ago. He said early in his career, Bill Cosby gave him a great piece of advice. Never let the audience see you work. When you are up on stage, it should flow and be natural and free, just like you are talking to the audience where it sounds polished enough that it doesn’t sound like material, but it sounds like a conversation with the audience. I think my material is a conversation with the audience, albeit a one-sided conversation that I deliver. For doing the material only twice I have a very good idea of how to properly deliver it now, as I’ve had one successful set and one not so successful set with it.
To add to the sleepless nights is the fact that I am single, and alone. When I come home at 6:30 p.m. after work, I’m just drained from work and don’t feel like making anything to eat, and if I do it’s usually something quick because to me, what’s the point of making an elaborate meal for just myself? Maybe I should get a puppy…….
I have been unable to reach my comedy coach for a couple months now, and there is nobody here to talk to, nobody to help motivate me or to bounce ideas off of for comedy writing. It will be 4.5 months between stage appearances when I am on stage in Regina the weekend of the 18th. During that time comedy is still going on, not sure if the comics are getting better or not, but they still get some laughs, and opportunities to do fund-raising or out-of-town gigs.
Now, I know in the bible it states that there is a due season where you shall reap what you sow, I get that. I really do. But, right now I feel left out of pretty much everything, whether it be my social contacts, or comedy. I have ideas for material but I need help to get them out, and let’s face it. Nobody is lining up to help me succeed. There may come a time down the road, whether it be six months, a year, or a few years from now where I make it bigger than all these guys whose egos won’t allow them to succeed outside of Saskatoon, let alone the province. I’m focused on the here and now, where I currently sit, stuck, seemingly alone with no motivation to put anything of quality down on paper that resembles a joke (although I did think of the first new joke I’ve had in months as I was in the shower).
Some are probably yelling at their computer screen, wanting to tell me that I should find the motivation from within, that nobody can change it except for me. Well, that’s partially true. Then again, you haven’t sat down with a professional comedian, a successful professional comedian who runs a comedy school and has the ability to read you accurately and help develop a character based on what he sees and hears. He believed enough in me to help write that comeback video performance in several hours (in several sessions). Don’t get me wrong, I was looking forward to the comeback, but when you have someone helping build you up, not tearing you down, you slowly see the pieces being put together and it gets you excited and more motivated than before because you know it’s going to be so good, that nobody, and I mean nobody will believe it until they see it for themselves.
So, I will continue to refine my routine and work with it until the show in Regina on the 18th.
If I present the material the way it’s intended to be done, it will get the desired reception from the audience, which are laughs. Maybe then I can get some sleep.