My First Gig... Page 2

Quote: sootyj @ 4th May 2014, 10:44 AM BST

Did she actually invite you?

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Not directly, no. All she did was tell me when the event was happening. For all I know, she's hoping I'll show up with twenty bucks and keep my mouth shut the rest of the evening.

She is acting sufficiently unprofessionally for you to be doing better elsewhere.

That's pretty much what I'm thinking. I don't mean to undervalue what she's done so far and I'm grateful for that. But after the 15th I really just think it would be better to go my own way and try to work on building my own talent pool to draw from so that I can actually do something productive. If that means sticking with the open mics purely for the sake of networking opportunities then so be it.

Well one thing I found is the harder you work, the luckier you get.
Keep hitting the open mikes [not literally, well alright but wear a balaclava and ambush them in the carpark] you'll get better and you'll get noticed.
It will just take a long time.
It's like Shawshanks with less sodomy [I can't guarantee that]
You're a decent writer and your blog shows you're also a story teller.
Have you considered combining the two and writing a 5 minute narrative routine.

Quote: sootyj @ 4th May 2014, 12:05 PM BST

Have you considered combining the two and writing a 5 minute narrative routine.

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Well I have thought of turning a few of them into sketches. At one point I had this whole series planned, but then someone kept breathing into my ear how similar it would be to "Clerks". You know, because Kevin Smith owns the rights to all stories set in the workplace.

Other than that, the closest I've come to what I think you're suggesting, is when I told the audience about an uncomfortably long code Adam (missing child) that happened in our store. The way I got the laugh for that was by just tellin the story and inserting my own thought process during the events. Sort of the like the way the panelists react to certain news items.

Clerks is a long time ago and besides before that there was Are You Being Served and after the Office.

Sounds like a good technique, but I'd take some of your blogs and make them comedic.

If you like I could dick about with them, see what they feel like.

Not just yet, but I do appreciate the offer. I do have some ideas and I'll probably post them somewhere on the forums for critique at some point.

Maybe "think outside the box". Poetry? Songwriters' nights? Literary nights (Here's my writing and here's me reading it)? Speakers' groups? The local coven as its Salem? Unlike you, I wouldn't do Open Mics-too much competition...

The last place I did comedy was a poetry event. I also read a few lines of Macbeth at a café on Shakespeare's birthday, which was being hosted by the local theater company. I did manage to sneak in a one liner before reading the "Tomorrow, and tomorrow" speech though.

Anything music related is always going to be tricky because people want to hear music and all of a sudden, you're breaking up the mood by talking at them. Though I did think about trying to team up with a base player or someone with a set of bongos so they could play a slow steady beat while I did my thing.

There's always going to be opportunities to get myself out there.

If you're not being paid for it and there are other people in the line up not being paid for it, then it's still an open mic whatever the theme. ;P

I dunno there's some very succesful muso-comico types, it's almost a folkie tradition.

Infact Billy Conolly and Jasper Carrott started as singers who told jokes whilst preping for the next song, and in the end the songs took over.