Adults Communicate, Bullies Abuse & Assholes Hide Behind A Keyboard

Tags: amateur comedians, comedienne, failure, female stand up comic, Jenn Greschner, Saskatoon, Saskatoon comedians, stand-up comedy, struggles, The Stand-Up Diaries, trevor dean, Trevor Dean comedian, trevor dean saskatoon

This week has not been good.  In fact, I received an unexpected email on Thursday morning that stressed me out and upset me and I’ve hardly eaten.  About the only productive thing I did this week aside from eat two meals was do the soil testing in my garden.  Well, that and I put up the solar powered tulips in the backyard that I got from WalMart.

Now, as mentioned in the header there was a bright spot this week.  Only one, among all the negativity, the anonymous comments left on the blog, and feeling isolated, abandoned and tossed on the side of the road left to die.  Yes, that’s how I feel.  Wanna trade places?

That lone bright spot came from an unexpected source in the form of Saskatoon’s newest comedienne. Yes, a female stand up comic.  One who did really well considering it was her first time ever on stage.

Jenn Greschner is a lady you will hear lots about in the future, I’m sure of it.  She is short in stature, but has a presence on stage that most first timers don’t have.  Look, I’ve seen lots of people try comedy, and some have failed fucking miserably.  Some left the stage running for the door in tears (Jennifer Mitchell remembers that night in Regina, but I forgot…..she’d rather throw me under the bus instead).

The only two female comics I have seen before Jenn both shit the bed, and badly.  Then the host ripped them mercilessly afterwards and they never came back.  I have to hand it to Jenn, she has a big personality, has the looks and the sass and demands the attention of the audience when she takes the stage.  The one thing that impressed me is that she knew her shit.  The material was obviously rehearsed and she delivered it well.  As she gets more stage time the timing will develop, but overall she did amazing.  I have no doubt in my mind that she would fill Buds on Broadway on a Wednesday night the next time she’s in town.

When she got on after me, the first word out of her mouth was “Trevor”.

I have to admit that I was not impressed.  I thought “who in the hell does this chick think she is?  It’s her first time on stage and she’s ripping into me already?”

You have to understand that of all the local guys, even after 4.5 years of comedy I am still the one that gets ripped most often, and the hardest out of all the comics.  Aside from the host there are a couple of guys that think it’s funny to bash another comic.  Well guess what, I learned my lesson a couple years ago that bashing other comics is horseshit and unprofessional.  Again, that’s my opinion.

So I listened intently to Jenn’s opening joke, and it turned out to be an accurate representation of who I was which she’s lucky to have gotten that spot on for not knowing me from a hole in the ground.  Then I went over to Dez after that first joke and said “see, another comic can do material about me that’s actually complimentary!”

The only other time I had a comic be complimentary to me of sorts, was at Pass The Hat in Regina.  I did one joke and forgot the punchline.  I blanked out.  So the host went back up and he figured out the punchline for me.  Good times.

After the set she mentioned to me that even though I was the first comic up, she thought my material was really good (I think she used the word hilarious).  She was  very complimentary and said two things that really floored me.  She mentioned that I was the one comic she wanted to impress the most, and she somehow thought I was the smartest comic on stage that night.  Maybe it’s because my material was structured and had the setup/punchline structure throughout most of the material.

After everything that’s happened to me in the last six months, let alone my time in comedy, that’s been the most complimentary anyone has ever been to me, ever.  Guys usually aren’t that sweet and thoughtful with their compliments, because let’s face it if another guy said those words to me I might take him home for company, because I’m lonely.

I have had some women, regardless whether they were audience members, friends or relationships/dates that have said nice things before about my sets before, but nothing that eloquent and sincere.  Not to take anything away from what others have said, but after being dragged through the mud, ignored, thrown under the bus and judged I was shocked to think that a female could actually be that nice towards me, especially one I didn’t know.

She even made a deal with me….a deal between comedians.  A deal between friends.  It’s a deal that shall remain secret, but one I will gladly adhere to.

This week was so bad to be honest I’d rather go back to the trial all over again, because at least then my faith was at it’s highest point and I had somebody by my side.  If you take all the shit comics in the city have gone through and put it all together, I doubt it would equal all the bullshit I’ve had to suffer through, mostly on my own.  Stand-up comedy is the worst job in the world to do when your life is falling apart around you or if you are really struggling.

When you struggle, you may have somebody special in your life alongside you, but at the end of the day when you hit that stage, you’re all alone.  When you get off the stage you still feel alone because comedy is a singular endeavour which the average person in a relationship with a comedian does not care to get involved with, as far as the performing aspect goes (writing and developing material ideas).

But since I am 4.5 years into comedy and slightly over 4 years for the blog, it would bother me to no end if I walked away from it all now with untapped potential left to discover and bigger mountains to climb, like doing The Comedy Store in Hollywood.  I have to go it alone, and I probably will never have anybody again by my side to go through this comedy journey with.  That’s a difficult reality to deal with, and honestly it’s probably one that will haunt me for the rest of my life.  I’m not kidding.

It would be easy for a new comic to get on stage for the first time and trash the more experienced acts, they might even get laughs.  That to me shows what a person is like on the inside, and thankfully those type of people eventually weed themselves out and disappear.  It would have been easy for Jenn to throw me under the bus to get a cheap and easy laugh like some have done in the past.  But she didn’t.  She made a choice, I believe, to do material that helped build me up instead of tear me down like so many of you have done.

Aside from the fact she is taken, still it’s nice to see that there are some comics out there who aren’t complete assholes.  It’s taking the easy way out to knock another comic on stage.  I don’t do that anymore because I don’t appreciate having it done to me.  Jenn is funny and equally as awesome off stage.

I’d love to tell you more about what I’m feeling and how it will affect my comedy in probably a negative way going forward for the foreseeable future…..again, I’d like to say that.  But most of you probably don’t give a shit.  So neither do I.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the blog to get all the newest posts by email.  Click on the link on the right hand side of the page.