Riding The Flat ‘Til It’s Worn

Tags: Saskatoon, Saskatoon comedians, Saskatoon comedy, stand-up comedy, stand-up diaries, standup diaries, The Stand-Up Diaries, trevor dean, Trevor Dean comedian, trevor dean saskatoon

I did a couple of open mics this week and came to a realization.  Recycling doesn’t get me too excited, at least in terms of my material.

I’ve been doing stand-up comedy for a long time now, longer than any of the current open mic comics in the city.  I also have insight that most of them don’t have regarding joke writing and structure of the material.  Now, that isn’t to say that my insight helps me every single time, because it doesn’t.  Sometimes regardless of how good the joke is, there are times when it just won’t work, for a variety of reasons.  Maybe the audience has heard it too many times, maybe you bungled the setup, or maybe it’s a night of nothing but garbage material from the gutter and the audience can’t adjust.  Who knows?

Earlier this past week I got on stage for the first time in two months.  Normally I would be excited, happy or looking forward to it, but this time was not the case.  I was only at the open mics this week out of necessity to fundraise for the radio show on CFCR.  (yes, I am aware that a condition of me getting the radio show in the first place was not to cross-promote, in other words, not using the show to promote my comedy, but when the fundraiser and your ability to raise money is tied to whether or not you might keep your show on the air, well, for two weeks out of the year the cross promotion is okay).

The material sounded boring, old, and not really reflective of me anymore.  I have pages of material that I’ve written and have been sitting on for months.  In addition to the several plus pages of Christian material, there are several more pages of regular material, that’s clean, of course.

When it comes to the new stuff I’ve written, the material at first glance doesn’t excite me.  Then again, it’s a bit hard to get excited for an open mic where a few people show up and I’m not getting paid.  Some comics like making the other comics laugh, but to me it doesn’t do much for me.  The comics are usually listening differently than the audience so they will find different things funny that the audience might not pick up on.

I think the only way I’d be motivated to get the new material solidified was to perform for people I knew or to get paid at a pro show.  I sure do hope that I get hired soon, because stand-up isn’t that much fun at the moment.  Maybe it’s because of the radio show, having it take away from the comedy end of things?

It isn’t fun, but why would it be when you draw flies and nobody you know wants to come support you?  Then again, I can see why they stay away if they are hoping for clean comics, because that isn’t what you get most nights at the open mics, with the majority of comics.

I just want to have fun doing comedy again.  Maybe I need a girlfriend, or a successful date, people from church to come to a paid pro show, or do a free show at church.  It really sucks feeling like you are alone on an island.  Hopefully this changes soon.