I just recently went through something that was really hard.
I thought it would be something that would change the direction of my life.
As some of you know, I do stand-up comedy in order to have an outlet for my silliness, and also to keep me on my toes for being on the radio.
I was recently on a tour of Southern Ontario and I had an opening spot at a show in Sarnia.
I had written my set and practiced it, and felt prepared to say what I thought was HILARIOUS!
I did not excpect what happened next.
After each line, I was waiting for a laugh, there were none. Not even a giggle.
I may have heard a pin drop on a cricket. It was so quiet!
I didn't know how to handle this. I decided to just keep going and get through it.
I was so glad to get off that stage.
I went to a back room and sulked a bit.
Usually, I ask my wife how I did, and she will be really honest.
She thought I did great!
It seems the audience was not on the same level as my references, so they fell flat.
I heard the noise when they fell! It was a silent sonic boom!
In the moments after that experience I wondered if I really had what it took to continue in doing comedy.
Should I just stop?
Had I come to the end of what I was capable of?
It was a real thought for the rest of the night.
I parked myself at the door at the end of the night, just to shake hands with everyone I could and thank them for coming out.
Amazingly, some said they got the jokes I was doing. They just didn't react!
Odd, but a bit encouraging!
I spent the day re-writing the set along with the help of another comedian.
I was way happier with the result, but would it work the next night?
The next show was in Chatham.
I brought my revised set and a backup bit. I did not know what I would do yet.
Right up until a few minutes before I went on, I was undecided. No one wants to fail twice!
The moment came to decide and I knew what to do. I stuck with my plan.
I went up and did the thing I wrote and it did well! Whew!
Another show as coming up in Guelph. Would it work again? It did!
The final night in Brantford, I would do it again, but for some reason I was really nervous.
I was like, gotta go to the bathroom, nervous. I almost didn't go on.
In that moment, I thought, this is the time when people either step up or melt.
This is the time you read about where someone does something courageous.
It's a make or break time.
I'm not talking about going out and maybe failing again, I'm talking about, making the decision to go out not knowing what's going to happen!
I wanted to be SURE I would succeed again. That's never a sure thing.
I went to the bathroom (Just in case!) and went out and did it!
It was good again! What a relief, but even more, I was proud of myself for learning something.
The other comics on the tour were also very helpful. They had loads of advice, because they all had been there before.
I was reminded of the scripture in John 6 where some of the people that were following Jesus, found it harder than they thought and turned away.
We never find out their names. Who knows what good could have come from their lives?
When life gets hard, I think if we stick to it, the opportunities to learn are well worth the temporary pain we might encounter!
Stick to it!
++BONUS FEATURE!++
Here is the original comedy set I wrote for the tour.
Rose and I wrote it while driving to Lindsey for our anniversary dinner.
It started out like this...
Then got written out like this...
Upstanding Comedy Nov 21-25, 2017
Headliner – Mark Christopher Lawrence
Todd Gale Set
I am excited because my wife and I have just celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary.
Our love has remained constant over the years, she still loves me and I still love me to.
I think a big key to our relationship lasting this long is a book I read called “Men are from Mars and Women are From Venus”
I read other books, but this one appealed to me because honestly it sounded like science fiction!
Two planets, space, conflict...it’s all there!
I’m into that. I’m sort of a nerd, so I think that frame of reference made sense.
Some couples say “I married my best friend” or “I married my soul mate.”
After reading that book, I say “I married...an ALIEN.”
That gave me a very clear picture of how to understand our relationship.
We are both aliens, but we’re different aliens and we need help to be together.
That’s why when you get married there’s always one of those men in black involved.
As a matter of fact all the men are in black!
There’s a whole row of them, that’s how much help we need!
No wonder couples don’t remember much of their wedding day. It’s like the do a mind wipe on you during the pictures! Snap, snap, snap...it’s all a blur!
My alien wife is one of the good aliens.
She’s like one of those aliens you see from like Close Encounters. Gentle, kind, peace loving.
(Talk with their hands a lot, nice big eyes, never anything to wear, drives the spaceship erratically...)
I’m like the Predator alien. The alien you don’t see, I try to hide all the time, I’m cloaked!
I have an agenda.
I think that’s alien men in general. We don’t land softly, or come in peace...we invade!
We cause chaos. We destroy things. We make a mess. We’re ugly.
We like to shoot guns, hunt things, take trophy's and live in the woods. We’re wild!
That’s what those crop circles are, just alien guys doing donuts in the corn field with the spaceship!
When you have kids, they are like the ET aliens.
Cute and ugly all at the same time.
They get into trouble and need to be rescued, they touch everything with their fingers.
Ouch, ouch, ouch! (And they eat a lot of candy...)
Another thing you should do to help your alien relationship is go to couples retreats.
That’s like going to Area 51. All the secrets are there!
At a retreat they teach you how to have a fight...oops, I mean a discussion.
They want you to be able to share your feelings.
For the man, having a talk with your wife about your emotions is like...an alien abduction.
Your captured. You have no escape.
You are asked probing questions like “What do mean by that?” until you are curled up in a corner, shivering and traumatized. “Did it really happen?”
Of course the biggest obstacle to any relationship between alien races is communication.
Men and women speak very different dialects.
To the man alien, women speak in a cryptic form of vocal Sudoku.
It seems easy, but the more you examine it, the more complex it is, and harder to solve.
To the women alien, men just speak Klingon.
Just grunts and growls coming out of our ugly face.
But they pick up quick on the translation, it’s not difficult.
It’s either, hey I’m hungry, let’s eat, or I’m going out with the guys to make crop circles with the guys…
Thanks! See ya!
1 comment:
I'm glad you stayed and went on in the Brantford show, because you really are a good comedian. I'll watch and listen to you every time you come to Brantford. Everyone has 'one of those' shows, some more than others but everyone should treat them as a learning situation. I've probably watched and listened to well over 1000 comedy sets while shooting comedy shows over the last five years and I'll tell you now that you don't have to worry about it. Comedy is hard to do no matter what you do or where you are, but 'clean' comedy is even harder to do. Some that go to a show, and discover that it's clean comedy don't always know what's going on, they're waiting for the insults and crude remarks and stories to come out and they listen so hard for what not's there, they loose the whole shtick of what just happened and realize too late that it really was funny, just not in the way they were looking for. Keep doing what you're doing please, I really do appreciate what you do, because you really do what you do really well.
Thanks from someone who listens and laughs at you jokes.
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