The Decision On My Future

Posted by Trevor Dean on Aug 25, 2017 in Entertainment, Life, Stand-up Comedy | 0 comments

This is a post that I honestly never thought I would write. But not only am I feeling the need to write this, I also feel at peace with what I have decided.

I will not bore you with the history that’s part of the Trevor Dean narrative of stand-up comedy. That will be for you to peruse through the previous posts of this blog. I will get right to the point.

Tonight I did the Dope Fades online comedy show for the first time since I was in L.A. on my birthday. Up until tonight I had not done a comedy set for several weeks. Usually when I get the go ahead for the Dope Fades show, I usually get prepared, or a bit nervous even. Doing it online is a bit different especially when you hear yourself on the delay through the Skype call.

But when I got the go ahead for tonight’s show, I was surprised by what didn’t happen.

I felt nothing

No sense of pride, not being nervous or excited. I felt nothing.

If anything, I felt a bit panicked because I had no material to go with off the top of my head. What would I do? Luckily I went to my Google Drive files and found the last set list I used at the open mic.

When I am on stage for the first time in a while, I usually don’t miss a beat from a performance aspect, mostly because I am very comfortable in front of a crowd. But this time I didn’t feel that at all. It could have been because it was online, but even still I didn’t have the same emotions or feelings associated with the moments before the Dope Fades show.

I had a bit of trouble with my set because I was on the Skype call and saw the live Twitch TV feed of the show that was delayed. So I would tell my joke and 5 seconds later the audience would hear it. Normally that delay does not bother me at all. But this time it made me uncomfortable and feel awkward. The set had a disjointed feel to it.

Then, once it was done, I didn’t feel anything. Didn’t feel angry or think to myself I could have done better. I felt nothing. That’s troubling, especially when I feel like there is nobody to sit down with and discuss this.

I am dealing with the same issues from when I first started comedy. I am back to being unemployed again. I might as well get that one out of the way. Last week I was told by my boss that I was too slow and lacked common sense for my job. The last several years I have had seven jobs. Five didn’t last probation. One I quit and the other threw me under the bus and gave me my walking papers after two years.

Now, combine that with a failed relationship that took two years of my life, being homeless, my relationship with my family deteriorating and let us not forget the court case where I was almost certain to be sent to P.A. for three years, and most likely die there.

Life right now is not fun at 44 years of age. I am surprised that I hung in there dealing with all this stuff for as long as I did, and still do comedy in spite of it.

However, times have changed.

I hereby announce that for the rest of the 2017 and 2018 calendar years, I will NOT be performing stand-up comedy as part of the local comedy scene. The local scene has done nothing for me, so in return I give it nothing. Now, if somebody wants to interview me that’s fine. But the only comedy I will do in Saskatoon will be with The Laugh Shop. That’s it, and the Dope Fades show. And going to Los Angeles again next summer for the competition and to do more open mics.

But for all intents and purposes, I have no effort, desire or wish to be part of what I am already being left out of. Thank you for not including me in any shows outside of the open mics. I’ve had enough. I am beyond tired and it’s worse when I have zero family support and nobody in a relationship sense to help me navigate through this.

Right now I must focus on building my faith and striving towards the promises God will fulfill to me, as spoken in the prophecy given to Pastor Steve Stoffleson a few months back.

At this time, I cannot say if I will come back to the local scene after 2018. I just know that I need to get some long overdue stability in my life. Comedy doesn’t define me anymore. Instead it weighs me down. I have no desire to write or rehearse.

It’s almost been six years I have had this blog. Every single month I have written at least one post. That will change immediately. At the end of this month, I will not post anymore entries to this blog. It will still have previous posts available, but no new blog posts, and no local open mics for the rest of this year, and all of next year.

Dope Fades will be done once every month or two, and it won’t be announced ahead of time. As for the Laugh Shop, the earliest I can get booked is for January of 2018. If the Laugh Shop books me then great. If they don’t, that’s okay too.

Until then, I thank you for the support you have given me. But now it’s time to shift my priorities and focus on me for the next 16 months.

The comedy pages will be unpublished at the end of this month, and the blog will cease publication at that time also.

For now, I say goodbye. For how long the goodbye lasts, well that’s anybody’s guess.