Wha Choo Say?

Posted by Trevor Dean on Feb 17, 2019 in Stand-up Comedy | 0 comments

I would have picked a title a bit more phonetically correct, but I really don’t care at the moment.

I find it interesting that people around my age who take their lives for granted seem to forget what it’s like to struggle. I attend church trying to get around positive people and build up my hopes, only to be talked down to afterwards. It’s as if I should just look past the fact my life is in the toilet at 45 years of age and help out around the church. Yeah, I really want to be around that type of environment. I’d rather go to mom and dad’s house, which is void of any kind of joy whatsoever. I can’t believe I just said that.

Let me clue you folks in on a few things. Just because I am unemployed for 5 months, with no kids, no relationship (no prospects in sight either), no money, unable to drive to get myself to the new church outside of the city, that doesn’t mean people who seemingly take their lives for granted have a right to shit in my backyard.

When you get to be my age and live in this black hole, you start to rearrange your priorities. Family doesn’t mean anything at this point, and probably never will again. There is my church family, but it might work out better if I steer clear of talking with anybody after the service. Why would somebody talk down to me and try to suck the positive gains out of me from the sermon? I might as well go do comedy, for the lack of support I receive. But more on that in a minute.

Sometimes, I just stand on the sidelines after the service when others are pitching in to help move things in preparation for the new building. When you are depressed or believing you don’t have much worth, it’s difficult to get involved or want to get involved. At the risk of sounding selfish, sometimes we need to be celebrated or valued. How do you feel valued when others feel the need to call you lazy, in so many words? I am supposed to go and help move tomorrow, supposed to is the key phrase. No, it was more like I was asked to help, suggested that I should. Funny thing is, before everyone at the church got all gung ho helping with the new property, I was already volunteering and making a difference years before that. Does it make me lazy? Nope. I’d rather be at the Friendship Inn because I’m valued there, everyone says thank you for my help, I don’t feel dumb, lost or confused. I do my own thing and fill the needs. It’s a great feeling. In fact, if I had an employer that treated me the way I’m treated at the Friendship Inn, I would only have one job on my resume instead of the tons of jobs already littered on it.

So, what’s my point? Well, the first point is people need to lose the attitude and keep their critical comments to themselves, or I am going to start biting back. You forget that I am a comedian, and have comedy training. I know how to hit back and neutralize a situation and shut a person up. I don’t go looking to start stuff, but I will start ending these condescending conversations before they even get started.

What gives a person the right to open their yap in the first place? I believe if they start talking down to me, it’s because they take their lives for granted. I’m convinced of that. The stresses of life and failure when you are in your 20s are exacerbated when you fast forward the time machine about 20 years and you hit 45. Before you think you are doing the world a favour by “calling me out”, think about what my life is like. I have nobody in my family that is supportive. No relationship, no money, no vehicle to drive to get to an interview. I have nobody to talk to during the week that can help keep me on track. Only people who abandon me and talk down to me. How refreshing.

Baptism is something I maybe shouldn’t have done, in hindsight. It changed nothing and just made what I feel that much worse. How can you feel like you are being celebrated when your Christian friends don’t show up and you are one of over 20 people getting baptised? I didn’t feel like I was being celebrated at all.

Then I go to comedy open mics where people don’t show up to support me. That’s a great feeling, especially when you are venturing out on new Christian material, the only comic in the province doing this. You would think Christian friends might come to support me? Nope. Maybe talking down to me comes way easier to them? In the last three years I’d say, only twice have people come to support me and take in a show. It would be nice to get a Christian’s objective opinion on my new material. It seems to be going over well with the non-saved crowd, but still, it would be appreciated to know that somebody would take the time to come out and see how it goes.

When I dated my last girlfriend, I had my head so far up my ass that I ordered her to sit in the very back of the room so I couldn’t see her. Now, all I wish for some days is to have a familiar face sit where I can see them. And by a familiar face, I mean a female. It sounds sad but guess what, I stopped caring what you think.

I was supposed to spend the rest of my Sunday after church vacuuming and cleaning up my place. That never happened. Being talked down to like that made me frozen, sitting on the couch and not moving. No, I didn’t watch the NBA All-Star Game on t.v. I just lay on the couch and thought, and thought, and thought.

I don’t have any ambition to enter these comedy competitions that CBC and Sirius XM are holding this year. The booking agent for the comedy club I am associated with stopped replying to my emails a few months ago. I have tried to email the booker for the other pro club in the city and I just get ignored there as well. I attend job interviews where they tell me they will let me know, and they either ignore me completely or re-post the opening. How’s that for a confidence boost?

I can’t even be celebrated by one of the people running open mic rooms in the city. I’ve been doing comedy the longest of the current open mic crew and I get the least amount of recognition or respect. Has any headliner asked me to perform with them? Nope. Have I been the focal point of an open mic show where I would get advertised on the event poster? Nope. So tell me then what motivation I have to put together a kick ass audition tape for these competitions? I can’t even go to Los Angeles this year to try and redeem myself at the competition in Oakland. I don’t have a light at the end of the tunnel. What is there to look forward to in comedy or in life for the rest of this year?

Will my comedy suffer as a result? Probably not, because my life has mostly been unfair since I started comedy and at least I’m at the point now where I am good enough that I can go through the motions of my material and not give a shit and still get laughs. It’s just really sad when people think they are helping, when in reality they are taking a dump in your backyard and walking away from it. Classy or what?

People can make excuses all they want. Once I’m dead and gone, maybe then they might think they could have celebrated me more, supported me more or been more of a friend. Yeah, hindsight is always 20/20 when you take what you have for granted and can’t see the forest for the trees.

I don’t have the desire to be around people who talk down to me, and from now on I am going to hit back. I have comedic training on how to deal with hecklers. Now, I realize that people who gang up on me at church aren’t hecklers per se, but I have to utilize the tools I have at my disposal to diffuse the situation immediately. Walking away isn’t an option, not when you’ve been thrown under the bus as many times as I have. I may go and help move stuff at the church tomorrow, but I’ll be keeping my mouth shut. I am not in the mood to give anyone an opportunity to start spewing their attitude, because that is what it feels like. Yes, comedians are hyper-sensitive and ride the wave of emotions moreso than the majority of you who take your life for granted. If I have to be a dink, I have to be a dink, but at least I won’t have these people engaging me in conversations that are unhealthy for me. How is it healthy for someone to sit on their high horse that has never failed, and tell you you’re a lousy employee, you are lazy, etc and that’s why you can’t find a job. Really? If they threw in a few swear words they would be just like my dad. You don’t know my story and take things I say out of context to pounce on me, how brilliant a strategy.

Would things change if people came out to watch my sets, whether they be friends or from church? Maybe the ones from church might mean a bit more just because I “thought” they were my church family, and last time I checked, families are supposed to support each other, right? I have ten pages so far of Christian material written, maybe I will just stop writing new stuff and recycle the same material for each open mic. What motivation do I have to do otherwise and keep my act current when those around me don’t give a shit enough to support me?

There is this thing called a calendar on the blog main page that shows the upcoming open mics I will be a part of. They are the same every week, Sundays, Wednesdays and Thursdays (although the Sunday shows won’t happen again until the beginning of March). I’m the cleanest comedian of the open mic comics and I get ignored. Should I be like everyone else and be vulgar and crude? No thanks. I’m too old to be talking about sex and drugs.

I just want a normal life to have a job that is steady, to be able to get off social assistance and have money for the things that I need. It is true that at the start of the 2019 calendar year I had some big goals and expectations, but after today they all got sucked out of me and went straight down the drain.

It’s one thing for me to know my life is unfair. It’s totally another to have people get on their soapbox and make me feel worse. Maybe I will start taking those condescending conversations from church and put them into my act. I would have already done that by now, but I don’t have the ability to create material that sarcastic. I don’t feel like writing and editing my material. I don’t feel like doing much of anything at all except getting a job. Then the people who run open mic rooms tell me that they really enjoy my sets, but obviously they don’t enjoy them enough to have me on their shows, even though I’m probably the cleanest comic of the ones they have on stage. How reassuring is that?

This sucks. Thanks for making it worse. How about you get left with nothing at my age then you might see how much of an ass you are. I don’t feel like doing comedy much either, but during the worship today all I thought of was the fact I’ve stuck it out in comedy for over seven years and have had comedy coaching for over 6 of those years.

Before I got that coaching, nobody believed I could succeed. Nobody but my comedy coach. He got an email from someone that said he shouldn’t help me, that I am wasting my money. The next day this person emailed him back and apologized. He has these videos of Ask The Joke Doctor on Youtube. I am the comedian he has answered the most questions from, with 4 videos made just for my questions. Me, a nobody piece of shit comedian that gets railed on my members of church, my family and a select few of local comics. He’s in Los Angeles, a time zone and a few thousand kilometers away, yet he lets me know that he supports me, celebrates me and encourages me.

He’s in L.A. and makes me feel valued and like I’m doing some good, and he never talks down to me, always encouraging me. What’s your excuse?