Diaries Of a Dirty Open Mic-er - Nov

I usually start these blogs by trying to have something to say about my feelings on open micing, how it’s going, and the problems that I run into while I’m doing it. I’ve got nothing. Not that everything is going swimmingly—if it was to plan, I’d have been at Live at the Apollo six months after starting stand-up.

I truly didn’t realize that it is what it is. It’s interesting watching people that are just starting doing the same thing—thinking that they will be thrust to the biggest stage within weeks of becoming a stand-up. Ohhh, the naïve beauty of it! And the camaraderie I feel with those comics when I see that dream in cinders at their feet, realizing after a particularly bad bomb that it probably isn’t going to be as easy as they first thought it would be.

I digress… I have no opinions really. The humbling I spoke about above becomes greater and greater as I move through this. Until you become the most humble person—and I’ve bombed a fair few times, so I’d say that I’m probably mediumly humble, but only because I’m so humble, because in actual fact, I’m like the most humble.

So, I’ve just been keeping my head down, writing jokes, gigging as much as possible. If I’m not writing, I’m gigging. If I’m not gigging, I’m writing or watching comedy or listening to comedy podcasts. One I’m enjoying now is Jokes with Mark Simmons.

I love it. I really can’t get enough of doing it. It’s weird; it’s like a kind of sick obsession. It always has been, to be fair. A joke has always taken top priority in my life, leading to plenty of missed opportunities to get laid because rather than seal the deal by acting mysterious and sexy, I’d rather go for a laugh every single time. Making them laugh can get them into bed, but when it’s jokes about poo, it doesn’t work a good 80% of the time. It is worth the 20% of the time where they laugh at my poo joke and still want to have sex with me, though. That’s a true win!

This month, I have done, quite frankly, a ridiculous amount of gigs totaling 16. The best part about them? I didn’t have to travel too far for them. Ahhhh, amazing! I like traveling, but with a full-time job and all that, it is beautiful to do a gig and then get home before 11 p.m.!

Here are the gigs:

Gloster – A tough gig to start the month for me and the furthest one I did this month. I’d give myself a 5/10 for this gig. I did not do very well. I remember calling out somebody with a funny laugh—one of the few that were enjoying my set—and as soon as I called them out, I regretted it because they then didn’t laugh again.

Southampton – This was a lovely gig with an excellent audience. Some of the audience were American, which was nice because I have a few British-themed jokes that I wanted to try out to make sure they would work. After changing the lead-in to the joke slightly, they seemed to really enjoy them, which is a nice win.

Can’t remember – I was supposed to have a gig in Swindon that got canceled, but then I ended up going to another one, and because I forgot to write this at the time, I can’t remember any of it. I don’t know why I’m even explaining myself. It’s my blog. I can do whatever and say whatever I want, and if you don’t like it, fuck you!

Lymington gig – This was a tougher gig. It gave me the opportunity to pick my audience, though. There were people in there that really were not enjoying it, but there were some people loving it, and I just made them my audience! I think we have a tendency to pick out the people in the room that seem like they aren’t having fun. But it is much more fun for you as the comedian if you just decide the ones enjoying it are the main focus. 5/10

Covent Garden – Ohhhhhhhh god, they really didn’t like me there. Every single punchline was met with disgust, which is fine because some of my jokes are disgusting, so I do understand, but it was just a strange reaction. 4/10

The Snug – Went excellently. I was the MC, and I had an excellent time, and a lot of the comics had fun too. It was a lovely show!

Lymington again – Crushed it! Same set that I did at the other Lymington gig, different audience—absolutely smashed it! 8/10

The Swan – Did some real new new stuff to a handful of crowd. Some of it was okay… most of it was crowd work and bad. 4/10

Belgium and Blues – Another excellent night that I MC’d. Loved every second of it!

Yapton – Had a great gig in Yapton, full of people who were really up for it. It was such a lovely gig, and I did well. 6.5/10

Pompy gig – Was a lovely gig with a nice audience. I did okayish. I’d say probably a 5.5/10.

Lymington again again – Booked to be an MC on a pro night that was very lucrative, and it went very well. The audience were lovely, and the comics were fantastic!

Bournemouth gig – Small crowd, but they were lovely, and I was given the opportunity to try out a 20-minute set, which isn’t something a lot of people are offering, so I was pleased to have the time and such a lovely audience. It went really well, and I couldn’t believe how quickly the 20 minutes went. 7/10

Aldershot gig – Was lovely. This gig, the audience were nice and up for it. I think I won them over through my set to a bit of a forced start, but it went well. 6.5/10

Portsmouth gig again – Different gig, in aid of charity, that happens in Pompy every month at The Dolphin. All proceeds go towards water pumps for underprivileged countries—an awesome cause. I did alright. I would say the audience were very nice. 5.5/10

Double header – Two gigs in one night. Ohhhhhh… ahhhhh… applause break bow.

First gig was in Littlehampton, a lovely gig in a café on the seafront by a gym, and it went really well! I had a great time there. 7.5/10

Second gig. Pompy again again, couldn’t have been more different. It was incredibly combative! I had to fight to get jokes out and had a bit of a back-and-forth with people in the crowd, but it was all in good fun. It was tough, but it was fun. Gives you the chance to flex a different muscle, which is welcome now and again. 6/10

And that’s my month, people. For anybody wondering about the scoring system, it’s just how I feel I performed—that is all there is to it. People might look at it that were there and think I thought he was better or worse than that, and they’re probably right. It has nothing to do with anything else other than how I feel I did with my performance. I rarely give myself a high score unless I do very well, and I never give myself a 10 because there is no such thing!

As soon as you do your second 10/10 performance, you realize that your 10 before wasn’t as good as the 10 you have now, and that if that is the case, then that was never actually a 10 to begin with.

That’s how it should be, in my opinion. You should always be pushing to be better than your best performance.

Kiss Ass Section:

This is the section where I mention comedians that I have enjoyed watching at the various gigs that I have been to recently:

Bilal Rashid – He’s a comedy pal of mine. He did a couple of my gigs this month, and he did very well. He does an excellent joke about what white people turn into when they die, and I saw him get an applause for it in two-for-two gigs—it was impressive.

Nathan Eagle - I've seen Nathan a couple of times and for him to be on the line up i almost felt a little bit embarrassed for him. Not that the gig wasn't a great gig... i just felt that given what he brings to the table he should be doing bigger gigs than he was especially on a Friday night. He headlined but the difference between him and anybody else was just astronomical.

Liam Wilcox – Guy is probably one of my favourite comedians on the open mic. Love his style, and he never fails to make me laugh! He has some great stuff, but I saw him kill again two-for-two with a bit about him going to see his doctor!

Shannon Sumfing – She has awful fashion sense, but she was very funny when I saw her, with a very improvisational tone to her comedy. In a discussion with her about how she writes stuff, she apparently writes when she is on stage. She has an excellent bit about how her boyfriend forgets to put things away after him, but she feels he is just lacking the right motivation to do so.

Dan Evans – An excellent comedian who it was my first time seeing. He was excellent—a true professional. You could see why he was opening the show. Really hilarious stuff. One of my favourite bits of his was his mention of moving in with his parents at a late age.

Kirk Fontaine – Gigged with Kirk a few times; he’s a great musical comedy act with brilliant songs filled in with great one-liners. Embarrassingly, I wrote down a lot of the stuff I enjoyed about Kirk’s performance on paper so I wouldn’t forget… and then I lost the paper. But trust me—he’s great, and you should book him!

Pierrie Hollins – What an excellent, excellent act who has a bit of everything. Another brilliant comedian I wrote about on a piece of paper so I wouldn’t forget, but alas, I lost that paper too. He doesn’t need my endorsement anyway. When I spoke to him, he mentioned he was off to Sweden or Switzerland (one of those) to gig, so I think he’s doing just fine without my absolutely piss-poor review!

anyway thats my month, till the next one. if you liked it please comment and all that and if you didn't keep your opinions to yourself.