Second part of being a comedian…

Second part of being a comedian…

 

So, I wrote a post about comedians, and was saying Comedians in cars getting coffee tells you all you really need to know to be a comedian.

And I said I would write more on the topic of being a comedian soon, and it would be a bit of an ongoing story of my experience of going from doing open mics to being a touring comedian.

I don’t think I ever did, if I did, and you actually read it, please let me know lol. But either way I will write a bit about doing comedy, and my experience doing it, in this post.

Because I have to write it while I’m thinking about it, or it might disappear. Because I’m a slacker like that lol.

The only thing I can’t tell you how to do is, that you have to be inherently funny to start with…that part has to be already in you.

I think I did a post about doing an open mic, which we would do many of during the week to try out new material before we would use it while touring, which we did on weekends. 

And Brent Butt from corner gas (Canadian’s will know who I mean) was the MC, This seems familiar so I’m pretty sure I did it. I’ll link to it and any other comedy related things I’ve written, at some point 🙂

So I will just jump into a few insights on being onstage and making people laugh. Which I might have already done as well but who fucking cares right? 🙂

First, you have to know, It’s very, very scary going to the place you have to go to, to make people really laugh. 

Especially the first time you try it on a stage in front of a room full of people, and you have no idea how they will take it, or react to it.

You really have to tell the truth, about things you think about, and wonder if anyone else thinks about, but are too afraid to every talk about out loud.

So you have to really go deep into yourself, and write material about these ridiculously, absurd things you have kept bottled up, because they are really too fucked up to actually talk about.

When you get to the place where you think “there is no way I can do that!” That’s the stuff you have to do. 

So you write about it, lay it out in a way the audience will, hopefully, understand, and know what you mean. But you have no idea how it will be received.

I find when writing a bit, if i keep saying stuff like “no fucking way should I say that” I’m on the right path 🙂

What usually, almost always, happens, is the audience is so stunned, and shocked, that this person on stage, is talking about how they feel deep down inside.

Like, how does he know about that?

And you don’t know if what you are saying is resonating with them, until they start laughing, and when they do, then you know, what you are doing is going to work, 

If you really nail it, they be falling out of their seats laughing, because they just can’t believe this guy is talking about exactly what they think about and feel but would never say. 

It is really the most satisfying feeling when your secret truth resonates so much with so many others. 

And it’s very often the stuff you were going to throw out, that really blows the roof off the place! Like, very often…you just never know exactly what is going to work, until you do it in front of a live audience. 

So we would go to open mics all week trying out new stuff and refining it, molding it, into a killer bit. 

And that process really never stops. The bits I did when I started that worked, have been added to and changed up all the time, as you find out exactly what works. 

The bits literally keep evolving over time.

And you eventually realize you can say anything onstage, ANYTHING, as long as you make it funny. And making it funny usually means telling the absolute truth. 

I would often be talking about a very serious topic and people would be really paying rapt attention, and ready to judge it.

You can actually see, and feel, the disapproval or their discomfort at what you are saying, and then you pull a complete U turn and go in a totally different direction that they never saw coming.

That’s when you get the crazy big laughs, and you keep piling on to it, trying to make them cry because they are laughing so hard. 

At that point you have them and can say anything…it’s a high like nothing else I have ever done

Ok, class dismissed.