To Be, To Be…… Oh, Which Way To Be?

Tags: amateur comedians, comedy writing, dating, Saskatoon, Saskatoon comedians, stand-up comedy, The Stand-Up Diaries, trevor dean, Trevor Dean comedian, trevor dean saskatoon, writing

I know most of you can’t figure out what goes on in my head on a daily basis, let alone try to explain it. Try being me and justifying half the stuff I do.  Yeah, now you can see why I don’t get much sleep, right?

Now that I have an idea how to write for my own voice, I am now able to generate more material more quickly than most comics I know.  That isn’t a fallacy, it’s a fact, and to think it only took me two years to get there!

Now, being able to write material on demand is kinda cool but does present me with a problem of sorts that I haven’t had to deal with before.  Let me break it down for ya.  I am single, for the time being.  I’m also a comedian, at least I try to be one.  So what’s the best way for a single comedian to impress a girl? How about by telling her she is the subject of a new set you wrote?   *** crickets chirping ***

So now that I am a swinging single wild and crazy guy, I have to figure out a way to present myself in the best possible light to the single ladies while trying to be true to myself.  So how does a comedian do that? Well, first of all I have to make sure that the person I tell about my comedy is one that I can trust, one that’s mentally stable who might be supportive of it.

Look, being single in today’s world is tough enough without unknowingly giving someone enough ammunition to take you down just to make themselves feel better.  Seems like in a lot of cases when a woman and a guy are talking that they are waiting for the first thing to hear that they question or freak out about and run.  Since when did dating become like that?  Isn’t the idea to give somebody a chance rather than have them try and fit nicely into that box you prepared for them beforehand?

I read an article on dating a comedian and in it the writer said that if a comic talks about their date/relationship in their material it’s not to make that person look bad.  It’s because they think you will stick around, so there is a certain comfort level a comic has to know that they can write something about their relationship/date and not have it come back to bite them in the ass later on.

When I write material about someone new (that isn’t related to me) I want to hold that person up in the best possible light, to give that person a sense of appreciation for being in my life, providing they hear the material and understand its purpose.  Well, there is only one joke where I take someone that isn’t related to me and make them bear the brunt of the punchline instead of me being the brunt of the joke.

Life is tough enough without being abused physically, emotionally, through silence or ignorance.  At the end of the day as a comedian, I try to tell both sides of the story and be truthful while shedding some light on my life.  It’s not like I set out to purposely find someone to date that I can write about.  It’s just a comfort level you have with that person, where they support you and understand you mean no malice towards them.

I have met somebody new, and this person is the subject of my new material.  I am nervous and a bit scared as to how the material will go over with them, and with the audience.  If she likes it but the audience doesn’t, will that make me feel any better, or worse?

Regardless of how it makes me feel, I believe she knows the material comes from a good place within me. If you do material about your relationship or date in a light-hearted yet playful manner, it will come across as such.  This is a new chapter in my life that I am somewhat excited and a bit leery of at the same time.  The only thing a person can do is try, right?

I will leave the last words to Jack Dee, who sums it up best:

It’s a huge feeling of kind of sharing with the audience your view of the world, and reward from that is that they get you.  Whereas acting is all about character, I think for me, stand-up is about attitude, and that informs everything you do on stage.