No, my underpants didn't actually fall off. But my comedy underpants did. Comedy. That thing I care about and want to be good at. They fell off, and all that was left was my shrivelled pecker of an ego, laid bare for the whole school to laugh at. (My other worst nightmare was being tied to the floor with snakes crawling all over me, but that's not symbolic, I'm just a kinky bastard.)
Firstly let me say I have no complaints about the gig itself. It was a fantastic room, beautiful, well run and nicely set up. If I had one little misgiving it was this: When the MC introduced me, he said "This next act is doing a really interesting little project. He is doing 365 gigs in a year". Now, on the face of it, not a problem. But it was his tone. It was vaguely patronising. The tone. "This next act is doing a really interesting project". It made me sound like a cub scout doing bob a job. No - He made me sound like Chemo boy. Make a Wish project boy. Like a charity case. The subtext here is "This guy wouldn't normally get a gig here, we’re doing him a favour cause he’s special". Thanks. I'm sure it wasn't meant in that way but it sounded shit. I'm going to ask MCs not to mention it at all from now on. At least not before I go on. It has absolutely nothing to do with my act or who I am on stage. Sounds like sour grapes, it's not. I am not blaming the MC for lowering audience expectations. The MC was fine. I am 100% responsible for what followed. But I definitely learned something there, and that is, if you're about to introduce someone on stage, try not make it sound like it's part of a bucket list. (I mistyped bucket list as ‘bucket lust’ Freudian slip? Freud, what a kinky bastard, worse than me. I bet he loved a bit of bucket lust. Whatever the FUCK that is)
Before I dissect in microscopic detail every last aspect of my beautiful humiliation, let me lay forth some back story. My act. There's an idea I have. A premise. The idea is that my character on stage is a psychopath who has no business being on stage. Just really strange, off kilter stand up that offers no punchlines or conclusions. The man is insane and he enjoys his insanity. And the theory is they find the absurdity of the lack of punchlines and weirdness cumulatively funny. This does work a few times, but it's a knife edge. Sometimes they think it's real, that I am actually just a weirdo with no punchlines. But that is actually the joke. The act is the joke. It's anti comedy. But the problem is, because it’s new idea I have no confidence in it. I'm nervous about doing it. I have no conviction. So when things start to go a little bit wrong, I abandon it. I drop character. I do weak little jokes to compensate. Or I outright avoid doing it from the start. I keep backing out of it. Sometimes. Most times. Every once in a while.
Last night, what happened, I immediately started avoiding doing my act by ad libbing about the room looking like a porn set, then tried to ad lib some stuff about the front row. And about them looking like a men's group. It's a new idea, and trying to work it out on stage the last four gigs. They didn't go for it at all. I dropped it, moved on. Did my horse tranquiliser joke. Yes, my only joke. They didn't laugh too much at that either. I am dropping it from now on, it's never really got that big of a response anyway. In any case, it misleads the audience into thinking I have actual jokes. (Don’t want them to get the wrong idea now do we?) Then I started to comment on the lack of response in the room. Then I did another bit that didn't work very well. Then I sighed and said "This is gonna be a long year" which got the biggest laugh. Then I tried to talk to the audience and avoid doing any more bits. They all started to laugh to themselves, looking at each other in bewilderment. ‘What the fuck is this guy doing’. I had no idea what I was doing actually. Actually I do. I was avoiding doing the act I had planned, cause I have no balls. But in doing that, I shot myself in the foot. I let the room affect me. That's the weird thing. They were actually starting to laugh at the absurdity of it. ‘This guy is nuts. He’s shit. He has no jokes’. I had no jokes cause I was avoiding doing an act with no jokes. (Unpick that one if you can. If you manage it, you've got a future in mental health) I said ‘I'm gonna get off’ and they all started to laugh and said No! They wouldn't let me get off. They were laughing at how bad I was, and wouldn't let me off until I told a joke. Bloke in the second row: ‘You've told ONE joke!’ They all laugh hard. That was a key point: What I SHOULD have done, is laughed too, then went “OK” and done a really really weird bit and cackled like a maniac. I should have been obstinate and deliberately did something absolutely devoid of punchlines. But no, I didn't do that. I got weak knees and decided to do a really old ‘joke’ that used to get laugh back in the day. I complied weakly. It got a weak laugh. (Weak knees, weak compliance, weak laughs. My sex life all over again) I apologised pathetically and got off. I don't think they were being unkind, they'd all paid 10 quid each and they wanted gags. They didn't dislike me. Actually I think they wanted me to do well. It was me who didn't give them the opportunity to 'get' my act, cause I fucking abandoned it, again. It will only ever work if I really go for it, balls out. You need thick skin in this business, which is unfortunate cause my skin is as thick as a chocolate flavoured condom.
Afterwards I was so pissed off and humiliated I thought about giving up. FUCK this. But that's the really fucking annoying thing about this challenge. It won't let me give up. It's made it impossible. I can't just decide to quit. So many people have been incredibly supportive about it and I can't just go: ‘I'm not doing it any more’. I couldn't live with myself if I did that. I would be SO depressed. (Or relieved? At last, the dream is finally dead and I can move on with my life. I can finally do what everyone else does, and settle down with an average woman, take an average job, drink tea and complain about hedges and slowly mentally decay like an out of date tea bag.) I've given up over lot less than last night. Having a whole room laughing at how shit you are isn't pleasant. It's not party time in Vegas. I'm not doing this cause I enjoy it. I have no desire to punish myself. I'm not some kind of masochistic sex pervert who likes getting strapped up and whipped with chains whilst wearing a giant pink fitted cloth nappy. (Actually, yes I am. Sit on a bucket and cover me in snakes bitch.)
But I can't give up. However, right now, I am taking a long weekend off. Except tomorrow night, I've got a gig in fucking Essex. Oh, shit.
After such a humiliation, I left the room in a hurry and forgot to get a snap taken with the lady who gave me the gig. Fortunately I took a picture of the stage as it was a great space. Not sure this constitutes proof that I did it though. However, as I said before, I would have to be a fucking mental case to make up a gig where I died on my unholy arse. Gig No. 27 done.
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