Well I guess it's time I gave an update on the events of my last blog. I know I left you all in the dark about what exactly it was that I was going to do on Friday. So I'll start from the beginning and work my way downtown. Remember the word downtown. As it will come into play again, once I get to the heart of the story. Enjoy...
SPOILERS! (Click to view)
So last week I'm on Facebook making my usual rounds of boredom-inspired browsing/antagonizing of pages, when I got an update for the Improv Comedy Club here in Atlanta. So I went to the page and read that they were holding auditions to the public for any comedians to come down Friday and do a two-minute set. With the winner earning a spot to perform for two other clubs in Tahoe and Las Vegas. Now open mics and casting calls aren't exactly rare for Atlanta. But this was the first time that a specific club openly advertised for people to come take a shot at the big stage.
So, I was interested. I love comedy and I have always wanted to be a stand up comic. I can recite entire sets from comics like Eddie Murphy, Katt Williams and others from memory. I follow comic actors like Stephen Colbert and Will Ferrell religiously. And I've had day dreams of performing sketches on SNL. And even catching myself actually making up sets and acting them out around the house without knowing it. I had even become bold enough to call myself a comic a few years ago and was about to take the stage then until life, as well as my own insecurities and fears began to creep up and deter me from seeing it through.
But this time was different. I'm not working full-time, in the military, or school. And aside from my duties as the live-in substitute dad/chauffeur/handy-man/unappreciated man of the house, I have nothing to distract me from going taking the risk and going to this audition. I wasn't even second-guessing myself about it this time. I was really determined to see this through. I'm tired of being a nobody. Tired of being broke and struggling to keep my neck above the poverty line. I want to be somebody. Arrogant as it may be to say this, but I feel that I've always been better than my situation and my surroundings. And I've looked to comedy as a way out. A way out of this city, this family, this life. So come hell or high water, I was going to make this Friday audition.
I spent almost the entire week leading up to Friday writing material. I have a special journal that I bought the first time I wanted to take the stage and I had been writing notes and bits for routines in it off and on ever since. So after much thought and profanity-laced rewrites and "editing", I had come up with a solid routine that I figured would be enough to get me noticed by whoever was judging this thing on Friday. Now I had no delusions about actually winning the competition. I just wanted to go. And at least be able to say that I did what I've always wanted to do. Like hanging out with an SG in person, it would be something that I could cross off my bucket list and be proud of. And I'm not sensitive to criticism (as long as it's constructive and no just you being a dickhole at my expense) in the least. So if nothing else, I would at least be able to find out what it is that I'm doing wrong or need to work on for future auditions or open mics.
And what was I going to talk about, you ask? The only thing that I knew I could talk about and know better than anything else, being broke. I was gonna start by talking about how I'm so afraid to look at my bank statement online, that I look at the page with a hand over my eyes and make a quick peek at the balance from between my fingers. And then I'd talk about how all my student loan bills come with job applications stapled to them. And how I started making counterfeit bills just so I can remember what paper money looks like. Funny shit, right??? Yeah, I didn't think so, either. But its enough to fill up two minutes of talking, so I thought it would be enough to give the judges an idea of where I stand. I was fully ready to be shot down at this thing like surface-to-air missile.
So come Friday morning, I'm ready to get there and do this thing. My grandmother even let me use her car to get there instead of forcing me to take the bus, like I have to do for any other personal business. I can shuttle everyone else in the house back and forth for miles, everyday. But when I have a job interview to go on, I gotta call a cab like I'm living in a hotel. Now grant it, I told her that I was going on an interview that day for a job uptown. But I was going on an interview, kind of. So I wasn't exactly lying to her face. Not exactly. Plus I had decided to wear my Pissed off Unemployed American suit that I wore at the Dragon-Con last year (remember that Amelinda?). So I basically was telling 90% of the truth in order to get the car. Still I was shocked that she allowed me to use it for this. But that gave me even more assurance that today was the day that I would do this for real. I hadn't overslept, even though I had stayed up until almost 3am that morning going over my routine. I got dressed without hassle. There was nobody I had to drop off at work or school this morning. And no child-like, schizophrenic mother to supervise until she leaves to go to the day-treatment facility. Everything was going according to plan. And that's exactly when I should have begun to worry.
So I hope it the car and head on up the road to get to this place by 9am. And hopefully not be too early as they would have turned my back until exactly 9am when the doors would open to receive the aspiring comics. I had even decided to bring my laptop with me so I could report back here on what happened. I was that excited. You should have seen me in the car, blasting the motivational speech track on my iPod over and over like I'm about to run for president. I was ready for this shit. I didn't care about waiting in line for however long, the competition, or even doing stand up comedy for the first time ever. All I cared about was getting in front of those judges, and giving em my best. Anybody that knows me even briefly knows that I'm a character anyway. And it's only when I have an audience that I'm at my most animated.
Yeah, I'm one of those guys. Center of attention, in a group. But get me alone and I. will. not. say. anything. And I'm a walking contradiction. An aspiring entertainer, who doesn't really like people. Or being around people for more than maybe the length of a TV show or comedy special. That's why I'm almost certain that I'll never marry or have kids. Try presenting those personality traits off to your parents, ladies. I doubt that would be very enthusiastic about meeting me.
But anyway, I'm driving along and I'm starting to get anxious because it's almost 9am and I still haven't found the club yet. I've followed the instructions that I wrote down from Google Maps to the letter. And I still don't see the off street I'm supposed to turn on to get to the club. Now grant it, Google Maps did give me like 3 different directions on how to get to the club. But it's Google Maps. They got orbiting satellites that could zoom in on a fly taking a dump on someones hamburger at McDonalds. No way they could screw up the directions for a brand new club in Atlanta, right?
So its well past 9am now and my optimism is quickly degenerating into rage. WHERE THE FUCK IS THIS PLACE? I've gone up and down the same main road looking for the street I'm supposed to turn on like 5 times now. I've had to stop and get gas twice. And I've asked every intelligent looking person I know on the street where the club is, to no avail. Most people don't even know there was a club in this part of town. So to make a long story less long, after a 4 1/2 hour Odyssey of driving around searching for this place. I decide that it's time to go home before I get pulled over by the cops and they find out I haven't had insurance to drive since 2010.
You couldn't even imagine how pissed I was. Having to go back home after all that with my tail between my legs. Mission failed. Not because I had chickened out, couldn't impress the judges, or got hit by a truck. But because Atlanta is nothing but a one-way street filled road map to hell. This is why I hate it here. I've never liked living here. Or in the south, in general. I'm not a Southerner, at all. And I live for the day when I can finally escape this ass-backwards, closeted-racist, glorified industrial furnace of a city. And if it hadn't been for glorious football occupying my mind over the weekend, I'd probably still be enraged.
I've gotten over it, for the most part though. Will I try to take a crack at stand-up again? I don't know...maybe. But I don't know when I'd be to have that much free time to go try again in the near future. Well that's my sad story, folks. Now I gotta go put on my banana suit and get ready to go stand in one spot on the sidelines at the Falcons game to get screamed at all day by a bunch of drunken morons til 1am, for a $100 check that I won't even see for another week and a half. FML SG. FML indeed.
So last week I'm on Facebook making my usual rounds of boredom-inspired browsing/antagonizing of pages, when I got an update for the Improv Comedy Club here in Atlanta. So I went to the page and read that they were holding auditions to the public for any comedians to come down Friday and do a two-minute set. With the winner earning a spot to perform for two other clubs in Tahoe and Las Vegas. Now open mics and casting calls aren't exactly rare for Atlanta. But this was the first time that a specific club openly advertised for people to come take a shot at the big stage.
So, I was interested. I love comedy and I have always wanted to be a stand up comic. I can recite entire sets from comics like Eddie Murphy, Katt Williams and others from memory. I follow comic actors like Stephen Colbert and Will Ferrell religiously. And I've had day dreams of performing sketches on SNL. And even catching myself actually making up sets and acting them out around the house without knowing it. I had even become bold enough to call myself a comic a few years ago and was about to take the stage then until life, as well as my own insecurities and fears began to creep up and deter me from seeing it through.
But this time was different. I'm not working full-time, in the military, or school. And aside from my duties as the live-in substitute dad/chauffeur/handy-man/unappreciated man of the house, I have nothing to distract me from going taking the risk and going to this audition. I wasn't even second-guessing myself about it this time. I was really determined to see this through. I'm tired of being a nobody. Tired of being broke and struggling to keep my neck above the poverty line. I want to be somebody. Arrogant as it may be to say this, but I feel that I've always been better than my situation and my surroundings. And I've looked to comedy as a way out. A way out of this city, this family, this life. So come hell or high water, I was going to make this Friday audition.
I spent almost the entire week leading up to Friday writing material. I have a special journal that I bought the first time I wanted to take the stage and I had been writing notes and bits for routines in it off and on ever since. So after much thought and profanity-laced rewrites and "editing", I had come up with a solid routine that I figured would be enough to get me noticed by whoever was judging this thing on Friday. Now I had no delusions about actually winning the competition. I just wanted to go. And at least be able to say that I did what I've always wanted to do. Like hanging out with an SG in person, it would be something that I could cross off my bucket list and be proud of. And I'm not sensitive to criticism (as long as it's constructive and no just you being a dickhole at my expense) in the least. So if nothing else, I would at least be able to find out what it is that I'm doing wrong or need to work on for future auditions or open mics.
And what was I going to talk about, you ask? The only thing that I knew I could talk about and know better than anything else, being broke. I was gonna start by talking about how I'm so afraid to look at my bank statement online, that I look at the page with a hand over my eyes and make a quick peek at the balance from between my fingers. And then I'd talk about how all my student loan bills come with job applications stapled to them. And how I started making counterfeit bills just so I can remember what paper money looks like. Funny shit, right??? Yeah, I didn't think so, either. But its enough to fill up two minutes of talking, so I thought it would be enough to give the judges an idea of where I stand. I was fully ready to be shot down at this thing like surface-to-air missile.
So come Friday morning, I'm ready to get there and do this thing. My grandmother even let me use her car to get there instead of forcing me to take the bus, like I have to do for any other personal business. I can shuttle everyone else in the house back and forth for miles, everyday. But when I have a job interview to go on, I gotta call a cab like I'm living in a hotel. Now grant it, I told her that I was going on an interview that day for a job uptown. But I was going on an interview, kind of. So I wasn't exactly lying to her face. Not exactly. Plus I had decided to wear my Pissed off Unemployed American suit that I wore at the Dragon-Con last year (remember that Amelinda?). So I basically was telling 90% of the truth in order to get the car. Still I was shocked that she allowed me to use it for this. But that gave me even more assurance that today was the day that I would do this for real. I hadn't overslept, even though I had stayed up until almost 3am that morning going over my routine. I got dressed without hassle. There was nobody I had to drop off at work or school this morning. And no child-like, schizophrenic mother to supervise until she leaves to go to the day-treatment facility. Everything was going according to plan. And that's exactly when I should have begun to worry.
So I hope it the car and head on up the road to get to this place by 9am. And hopefully not be too early as they would have turned my back until exactly 9am when the doors would open to receive the aspiring comics. I had even decided to bring my laptop with me so I could report back here on what happened. I was that excited. You should have seen me in the car, blasting the motivational speech track on my iPod over and over like I'm about to run for president. I was ready for this shit. I didn't care about waiting in line for however long, the competition, or even doing stand up comedy for the first time ever. All I cared about was getting in front of those judges, and giving em my best. Anybody that knows me even briefly knows that I'm a character anyway. And it's only when I have an audience that I'm at my most animated.
Yeah, I'm one of those guys. Center of attention, in a group. But get me alone and I. will. not. say. anything. And I'm a walking contradiction. An aspiring entertainer, who doesn't really like people. Or being around people for more than maybe the length of a TV show or comedy special. That's why I'm almost certain that I'll never marry or have kids. Try presenting those personality traits off to your parents, ladies. I doubt that would be very enthusiastic about meeting me.
But anyway, I'm driving along and I'm starting to get anxious because it's almost 9am and I still haven't found the club yet. I've followed the instructions that I wrote down from Google Maps to the letter. And I still don't see the off street I'm supposed to turn on to get to the club. Now grant it, Google Maps did give me like 3 different directions on how to get to the club. But it's Google Maps. They got orbiting satellites that could zoom in on a fly taking a dump on someones hamburger at McDonalds. No way they could screw up the directions for a brand new club in Atlanta, right?
So its well past 9am now and my optimism is quickly degenerating into rage. WHERE THE FUCK IS THIS PLACE? I've gone up and down the same main road looking for the street I'm supposed to turn on like 5 times now. I've had to stop and get gas twice. And I've asked every intelligent looking person I know on the street where the club is, to no avail. Most people don't even know there was a club in this part of town. So to make a long story less long, after a 4 1/2 hour Odyssey of driving around searching for this place. I decide that it's time to go home before I get pulled over by the cops and they find out I haven't had insurance to drive since 2010.
You couldn't even imagine how pissed I was. Having to go back home after all that with my tail between my legs. Mission failed. Not because I had chickened out, couldn't impress the judges, or got hit by a truck. But because Atlanta is nothing but a one-way street filled road map to hell. This is why I hate it here. I've never liked living here. Or in the south, in general. I'm not a Southerner, at all. And I live for the day when I can finally escape this ass-backwards, closeted-racist, glorified industrial furnace of a city. And if it hadn't been for glorious football occupying my mind over the weekend, I'd probably still be enraged.
I've gotten over it, for the most part though. Will I try to take a crack at stand-up again? I don't know...maybe. But I don't know when I'd be to have that much free time to go try again in the near future. Well that's my sad story, folks. Now I gotta go put on my banana suit and get ready to go stand in one spot on the sidelines at the Falcons game to get screamed at all day by a bunch of drunken morons til 1am, for a $100 check that I won't even see for another week and a half. FML SG. FML indeed.
VIEW 9 of 9 COMMENTS
And after 8 hours of talking to people, I don't talk at all. In fact, I start shooting laser beams from my eyes if people try to have a conversation.
I'm the same way - I perform, sing, burlesque and model, but as soon as I'm off the stage I totally clam up and get really shy.