Bullshit: Straight Up Bullshit

Grumble grumble grumble

OK, first on the bullshit list: my local Asian supermarket used to sell these awesome Pringle knock-offs. They were fucking delicious, much tastier than real Pringles, and cheaper too. I only discovered them a month ago, but I've bought a shitload since then. I walked in today... all gone. All. Gone. And other stuff was on the shelf in its place, so I don't think they're gonna stock them anymore I just found them! And I've never seen them anywhere else, let alone anywhere nearby--I can't even find them online. I'm gonna go check another Asian supermarket tomorrow, but I don't think I'm gonna find them there.

Second, and more importantly, on the bullshit list: I looked at the Sydney Uni comedy page on Facebook today to yet again try and work out how to contact them, seeing as they don't respond to Facebook messages or emails. I knew their show tomorrow might be the last show they do for the year, seeing as they don't put on shows during the holidays. They also don't seem to respond to posts on their wall, even if they're inquiries about wanting to perform; but they do respond to comments on the events they post for each week. Thing is, they post these events, like, 2–3 hours before the show starts, and it's in Sydney; it's basically gonna take me  2–3 hours to even get there, leaving no time for them to respond before I have to leave.

So, given I don't have a lecture tomorrow, what I thought I'd do was wait till they post the event on Facebook, immediately ask if I could perform there, then high-tail it to the train station and make my way up to the bar where they perform. Once I found somewhere with wifi, I could check their response. If it was a yes, then yippee, I get to perform; if not, no biggie, I can still watch the show anyway.

Seeing as it is their final show, they posted the event early this time. Unfortunately, for me, their final show of the year is women-performers only. That shits me up the wall. Not the fact they have a women's only show—it's their bar, they can run the show however they want—but rather the fact I contact them three fucking weeks ago about this shit and couldn't even get a response before one of the other 3 non-segregated shows they had. It's not like I left this till the last minute; I gave myself plenty of time, but there's nothing I can do when they don't reply, now is there? How the fuck do they even set this up if there's no way to get in contact with them? How? That doesn't make any sense to me. Even if they came back with a 'no', I'd be fine, cos that's closure. This is just annoying. I'll try again next year for sure, but seriously, respond this time. Please.

On a slightly more positive note, I've asked the local comedy club if I can do open mic. No response yet (I did only ask last night :P), but hopefully they actually get back to me. These guys were, if I remember correctly, advertising their open mic thingy in town for a while, but when I went to their site, there was no mention of open mic at all, so I don't even know if they still do it. In any case, I shall report when they get back to me.

It also won't intercede with my sleepover; I fucked up the maths on that one. So I can't take my friends to see me perform live, but I can hopefully get it taped so they can watch the video if they want to (or I can just perform it for them, whatever. I don't even know if they wanna see it at all yet :P).




I've also noticed some weird social behaviours of mine. I went to a comedy show recently, and after the show, the comedian offered to sell/sign DVDs and take pictures. I always take that offer when I see it. I get another comedy special to watch, I capture a memory to cherish, and I support someone I want to support--what's not to like? Perhaps the fact that as soon as I walked up to the table to line up for my DVD, I was nervous as shit. I was like "why am I nervous? This guy's cool! He's a cool guy. He's about as far from a dickhead as you can get. What are you afraid of?" I couldn't answer those questions, nor stop myself from freaking out. When I got my picture taken with him, I was incredibly tense; I couldn't relax at all. It wasn't like I was doing anything wrong: he offered to take pictures, and was happy to do it. I really hate that, when I feel embarrassed and I don't know why.

Second thing that happened: I went into town one day, and someone I knew in high school was on the bus. I didn't see them until I got off, when they tapped me on the shoulder to say hi. Everything went fine for about 30 seconds, until I realised he was walking past where I needed to go, and instead of saying "I have to go, talk to you later" or something, I literally just stopped and took out my iPod for a minute, looked to make sure he was far enough away (or at least that he knew I wasn't next to him anymore), then went where I needed to go. Seriously, what was that? Would he honestly have cared if I said I needed to go into the building I was right beside, rather than wherever he was going? It's not like I don't like the guy—had we had a similarly-placed destination, I would happily have walked and chatted with him the whole way—so why did I just stop? That's really weird, and also impolite, something I try not to be. I honestly thought about messaging him on Facebook to apologise :P



Shall post again when I get a response from the local comedy club (and if the 'no response' trend keeps up, you may never hear from me again :P).

Quite a few posts recently but sometimes shit just happens :P

Like this shit:

Which I turned into this shit:

Might even make some more if I can. They're making this way too easy.

Energy: Up Here and Down There

Still no response. Shall give them until next Wednesday, and then I'll just stick a comment on an existing post, a recent one so they can't possibly miss it. If it's out in the open and they don't respond, then I honestly don't know what the fuck to do :P

Also, out of curiosity, I looked up if my local comedy club is still doing open mic stuff -- I think they are, but I'm not 100% sure. I shall ask. One thing I did notice was that seeing as they do comedy every second Saturday, and they did it last night, they'll be doing it again in four weeks, when I'm having my sleepover. I could take my guests to see me perform! Would be a nice break from all the games, and they'd all get to see me make lulz. I wanted to test my material on them anyway, just at some random point over the weekend, but now I might be able to do it properly, on an actual stage, with a less biased audience. May not work out that way, particularly if someone's already scabbed the open mic spot for that week, or if they aren't doing open mic stuff anymore, but still, a thought nonetheless :)  Shall ask tomorrow.

I was also wondering tonight about hooking up, just having thoughts about it. I've been a lot more open to the idea over the last few months, just in general. I know I'd prefer a relationship, something steady and consistent with more to it than just sex, but the idea of fucking a girl is just fascinating the shit out of me right now and I don't know why. Like, I know if I don't jerk off for a while, that's when the urge comes up (which makes perfect sense, really). So that makes me wonder: if I abstained from masturbation up until that urge came up, then went into a situation where hooking up was actually possible (even if it's an environment I haven't been in before, like a club or a bar), would I actually do anything? Would that lust, by itself, be enough to push me over the edge, leading me to try my luck? Or would I still not be comfortable enough to give it a shot? The only way to find out is to actually put me in that situation.

Cos maybe it's like when I'm crushing on a girl: the feelings could get to a certain point and I'll just say "fuck it, I'm going in, I don't care what happens, I just wanna take a stab". In another way, it could also be like when I do stand-up. Though I might be scared before I walk on-stage, I'm fairly comfortable once I've gotten my first laugh; so, maybe I'll be scared before I start talking to the girl, but once things are underway, I'll be ok-ish. In another way, though, this is more akin to when I started stand-up, in that I have no clue what I'm doing and will be hella nervous the first time. Like my current performances, I know confidence is key, so I can go in with that knowledge and use it to my advantage; but though I know I can crack a joke, I don't know if I can interest a woman in any way whatsoever. I have a well-built repertoire of jokes, but not a well-built body--I've been told I'm funny by plenty of people, but have never been told I'm hot, not once. I can improvise funny comments, but not flirtatious ones. Two sides to the coin, I guess.

I dunno. I just like the thought of meeting women, whether it be in a romantic way or a sexual way. I'd be super happy with either, to be honest. I can get kinda down that I've been single for a while, and that I haven't had sex yet, but overall, thinking about doing it brings me up most of the time. And though I'm not doing stand-up specifically to meet women (wrong industry, trust me :P), doing it will put me in the kinds of venues where you can meet chicks, particularly if & when I perform in bars. Seeing as I'm actually making efforts to get into these places now, I may be dealing with this shit soon. Who knows?

What I do know is that it's 3:20am and I need sleep :P

Comedy and (Potential) Tragedy

Soooooooo the people from that stand-up thing at the University of Sydney didn't respond to my Facebook message (or even read it). They've updated the page itself several times in the past week, so I dunno if they either a) don't check messages on that page, or b) it got caught in the spam filter. In any case, I found an email account for their comedy society so hopefully they respond to that (basically sent them the same message, mentioning the Facebook message as well).

Good news is: the first draft of my latest 5 minute set is done! I'm quite pleased with it. A much slower construction process than last time, but also a more reliable set, given almost every joke inside has been posted to /r/standupshots in text format, each being well received. The last one did pretty well (four applause breaks in four minutes, yo :P), but I'm a lot more confident this time around given the jokes aren't completely untested. I'm also really pleased with the ending. Usually, the ending is the hardest bit to do, cos you have to figure out what your best joke is, and find a way to finish on it without disrupting flow. But this time, I started with the end--I was like "nothing is topping that. Nothing." It starts off with my second-best joke, moves into the good-but-not-amazing stuff, and builds from there into the better stuff, finishing on a painful image. If I get to perform at Sydney Uni, I'll test the set out and see how it goes :)

Just need them to respond...

Dreams & Independence

I sent them a message I sent them a message I sent them a message! I asked the University of Sydney if I could perform at their weekly stand-up thingy they do:

Hi! My name is Liam McCann, and I'm a student at the University of Wollongong. I also perform stand-up, and though I'd like to perform at my own university, there's no comedy scene at all at my uni, and I don't have the connections to start things on my own. I stumbled across your page a week or 2 ago and was wondering if I could get involved with your comedy scene, seeing as it's well established.

It says on your page that you run a weekly show -- can people who aren't USYD students take part? If so, I'll happily make the trip up to perform :)  That said, I figure the next few weeks would probably be out due to the comedy comp you're running, but I'm free to come up on pretty much any Wednesday. I understand if non-students can't perform, though.

In any case, hope to hear from you soon. Thank you for your time :)

- Liam

It might seem like nothing, but those two paragraphs took me a fucking hour to write and send on Sunday. I proofread it and edited it at least twenty times. And that's not counting how long it took me to click the Message button and actually write something. Goddamn anxiety, yo. But it's gone now. It's gone (the message, not the anxiety; that's still there). Now I just have to hope they respond :P

I vowed not to write anymore in this entry until I did that. So now I can write :)

I've been thinking about what I wanna do in the future, where I wanna work. The only job I really want is to do stand-up and improv -- if that was my job, I'd be happy. I'd obviously have to learn how to get around, live on next to nothing, book motels, etc., but if one's passion for something is strong enough, you'll learn anything to pursue it. Same with the few girls I've asked out: I crush on a girl hard enough, and I'll ask her out however it needs to be done. Nothing stops me once passion gets in control. It took me a while to muster the courage to ask these people if I can perform, but I still did it. Just took a while, that's all :)

And comedy is the only thing I do without being asked. I like my courses at university -- philosophy is certainly interesting -- but doing the work is always a chore. I like the content, but any assessment I do is only done to appease my teachers and fulfil course requirements. On the other hand, I write comedy just cos I feel like it. Hell, I started to write my monologue for the the next RAW comedy competition back in July, and that competition starts next February. I really get into the writing portion, and I'm now striving to get more involved in the performance portion (which is just as important). It never feels like a chore to edit a bit, or to verbally test a joke, or to brainstorm out loud. I just do it, cos it's fun.

One thing I've seen written a lot about comedy is that it doesn't pay well. Comedians often have to do live down to the wire just to keep afloat (living out of their cars, shit like that). It's a sad truth, but I'm not really fussed. Money's good and all -- it certainly helps make one's life secure and comfortable -- but it's not the be all and end all. It's not like it costs much to feed me :P  So long as I have enough to keep myself alive, I'll be fine. I've also read (not that it needs to be read, cos it's obvious) that it puts strain on relationships, which sucks cos that's something else I really want. Can't have everything, I suppose. Given my current skills, I'm definitely more likely to end up with a place in comedy than a steady girlfriend :P



I saw a quote or /r/QuotesPorn the other day that summed up how dull I think my life can be sometimes:

First off, it's true: the majority of one's life is usually quite boring, and we mostly hear about the interesting bits when listening to the stories of others, particularly when perusing social media.

But on a more abstract note, I really like reading quotes like that. I stopped reading novels and the like when I got into high school, but when I got into comedy, I became a lot more fascinated with language and how it works, how it can be used, exploited, manipulated. And some of my favourite uses of language come in the form of quotes like that: big ideas expressed with only a few words. I like the idea of being able to do that. It may seem arrogant (probably cos it is :P) but I'd like to resonate with people like that. I feel my best jokes are my one liners, ones that don't need a backstory or a lengthy set-up. And I wonder if I ever could resonate with people like that. I wonder if there exists a permutation of words which, when read, would stick with people, change their perspective, alter their behaviour patterns.

And then I think about just writing things. Most of my comedic activity has been written, not performed -- even if it most of it has been written with the intention of being performed, it never actually has been. Many comedians end up writing for sitcoms, doing jokes for other comedians, etc. It seems weird to say that after transferring out of my Creative Writing course to do Philosophy instead, but I'm not talking about creative writing, only comedic writing. I don't wanna write stories; I just wanna write jokes. One liners, funny stories, satirical articles: that's my kind of writing, and the course I did at uni didn't even touch on that stuff. I occasionally write stuff that isn't comedy (I like to write rap lyrics sometimes, see what I can put to the tune of some instrumental track I have lying around), but at the end of the day, the vast majority of my linguistic adventures take place in Laughter Land.

Maybe I'll end up writing other stuff as well as stand-up, make a buck or two on the side. Who knows, right? I can certainly do both at the same time -- all I need is a laptop. I dunno. I'll have to wait and see.

As weird as it sounds, I like the idea of independence. I've always said to myself "why would I ever move out of home? Free power, free water, free gas, free food, free internet, no rent, no noisy neighbours, no shitty roommates: what reason is there to move out?" But at the same time, when mum goes away for a couple of days and I have to live alone, it feels so good, so free. I dig living alone. I get more shit done--I'm doing chores cos I wanna do 'em, not cos someone else wants 'em done. I can talk to myself and not have to worry about anyone else hearing what I say. I can practice my comedy at the top of my lungs without disturbing anyone. And the responsibility involved (having to lock up, fix things that break, keep things tidy, etc.) gives me a strong sense of maturity, something I often don't believe I have. Doing comedy solo would basically be an extension of the whole thing.



So yeah, really hoping the comedy organiser person says 'yes' and lets me perform up there. Might meet some people :D

I don't understand why this wasn't posted earlier, but

good news, everyone!

[please pretend it's Tuesday the 23rd of September so I don't have to change any of the writing below :P]

Soooooooooo I was walking home from uni today, feeling kinda bummed out. This is that part of the year where they decided to put all the essays (and I do mean all the essays), which I'm sick of; and I've fallen behind on my lectures a bit, so I've been sitting in tutes thinking "please don't ask me questions, pplleeaassee don't ask me questions". I'll have to use the break to catch up. But I also feel the same way in a broader sense about my uni life in general, seeing as I haven't really made any friends or established myself in any social circle. In high school, I kinda struggled socially until Year 10, and that wasn't long before I started the whole comedy thing. Comedy gave me a sense of identity: I was that guy who did the stand-up. But cos I'm so socially isolated at uni, no one knows that, so I walk around feeling kinda like a nobody. And though I wanna get into comedy, there's nothing at the uni to facilitate that, and the only other place doing comedy around here is a small comedy club which is itself part of a larger, more general club. Local opportunities are thin on the ground.

But as I walked home, I was like "hold on... that's a false dichotomy. Surely, there are other avenues besides 'local uni' and 'local comedy club' for you to use". Cos my uni has literally nothing in the form of comedy or performance groups, but my uni is also not the only uni that exists, now is it :P  So I went online and searched for comedy things at a few universities in Sydney... boy did I pick the wrong fuckin' tertiary institution to attend :P

These places have entire groups dedicated to just comedy! Regular events, Facebook pages, the whole fuckin' lot. They've got stand-up heats going on, they've got improv groups—seriously, how the fuck do they have all this shit while we have fuck all? Man, they're so lucky. But anyway, I'm gonna look into it and see if I can get in touch with them and sort something else, maybe perform up there sometime :)

One obstacle I did think of would be the independence involved in travelling back and forth between Sydney and where I live. It's not like I haven't been to Sydney before, but I've never been there alone. I've always had at least one person there with me who knows their way around. On the other hand, I've been to this city before, I've caught the train there and back before, and I've even planned trips there by myself before (even if I went on those trips with multiple people). It's not like I'm going to another country alone, being dropped into a place I've never been, thousands of miles from home, where no one speaks my language. People my age have come through way scarier shit than that unscathed :P  The money involved in travel is another issue, given I'm unemployed, but I've got birthday money I can rely on for now.

All the stand-up performances they even list are at, like, 1pm, so I wouldn't even have to worry about being on a train at night.  Though if I perform anywhere up there at night (which could well happen if this becomes a regular thing for me, or if I perform at other venues), that will be a thing I have to work with.

The stand-up group at Sydney Uni is having a comedy competition at the moment, but sign ups closed in July, so I'll probably have to wait a bit until I can perform up there. Still, no sense in not asking these people if I can perform at a later date—nothing to lose :)

Sleepover: Ups and Downs

So I went to a sleepover with some friends of mine from out-of-town over the weekend. As always, it was super-fun :D  We played Mario Kart 8, Super Mario 3D World, Hyrule Warriors; we played Cards Against Humanity and Lords of Waterdeep; we nearly set the host's house on fire by lighting the candles too early, leading everyone in attendance to sing Happy Birthday at 300 bpm so he could blow the candles out faster—it was certainly a fun weekend :)

There was kind of an underlying downside to it, though. There was nothing I regretted doing, and there were no points at which I felt bad or anything—there was just this occasional undercurrent of concern about a few things.



First off, a really specific, inconsequential thing about Cards Against Humanity. The last two times I've played with this group, I've performed miserably. Back in June, I think I only scored one or two points, and when I played last weekend, I score zero points, with both games ending when someone got, like, five or six points. And I remember feeling awful after the June game, cos I'm like "...I'm the funny person. This is that one thing I'm supposed to be good at. I did good back in February, and that was my first time playing! So why am I now doing so poorly? Why?" I wasn't playing to win, necessarily, but it was a strong feeling of incompetence to realise that I was a comedian who'd completely failed at making people laugh, and this failure occurred in a game which supposedly makes it as easy as possible for you to get those laughs.

This time around, though, I didn't really care that much, cos I realised it's just luck-based. It all comes down to what white cards you get, and what black cards are drawn. When I write jokes, I'm not forced to work at the mercy of Lady Luck: I have to actually form the content, the only constraint being my own incompetence. My jokes aren't a combination of two or more existing ideas: it's me creating my own ideas and expressing them in my own way. They're two totally different things. What the fuck am I supposed to do when the only cards I have in my hand just don't fit with the black card? No amount of intellect or creativity can fix that.

And granted, I've only played the game, like, four times, and the other two didn't go horribly at all. So maybe this is just a coincidence, the sample size being too small to draw any real conclusions. But yeah, even though it seems like nothing, and may even seem like my ego talking, it sucks to be unfunny when you feel you're supposed to be funny. And this is coming from someone who's bombed for 45 minutes straight before :P  No biggie though, just a minor thing.



A slightly less minor thing is the fact that I don't have many stories to tell, at least not interesting ones. I feel as though when I'm in the right mindset (which I was pretty much the entire weekend), I can readily listen to people's stories and respond appropriately. Two guys went to the US for a game developer expo of some kind, so I asked them how it was, and they ended up discussing what games they showed off, how they worked, what they planned to add, etc. So I'm good on that front—not perfect, but good.

As for telling stories... :/   I was chatting with one of my friends from the group, and he was telling these stories about his friends and how he met one of them, their drunken shenanigans (he doesn't drink but his friends do), relationship drama—you know, shit that's interesting. But then he asked me to tell a story. What stories do I have? Not many, really. And the ones I do have are all ones where I do something incredibly fucking stupid and have to suffer the consequences for it :P  Pretty much the only story I could even think of was that time where I blogged about a girl I wanted to fuck and people found the blogs. Nothing else really came to mind, aside from one other thing (which I'm not gonna mention cos only the group I slept over with would actually understand the story).

And it's not like I haven't done anything with my life over the past nine years; it's just that the few other stories I do have seem tame compared to everyone else's. I can't remember much of what happened during the school plays or the musical I was in, I haven't been to many parties (and the ones I have been to haven't been anything to write home about), I don't go out to bars or clubs, and most of my friends are relatively similar in that regard. To be fair, the friend in question was talking largely about his friends and what they've done rather than himself and what he's done, but I couldn't even go that route. Incidentally, I do have stories written down as stage material, but it just didn't seem to fit here—that stuff was all about how I told jokes on assembly at high school without permission, and being accused of a whole bunch of shit I never did cos some of the staff at that school were judgemental asshats. It's more "listen to what these morons did" than "listen to this crazy thing my friend did". I mean, maybe the stories I told didn't have to be related to the stories the other person told, and I was just scrambling for unnecessary relevance. Who knows :P

Like the CAH thing, I wasn't super bummed when I came to the realisation I didn't have stories to tell, but it was still somewhat annoying to not feel as though anything I had to say was worth saying. And that's not the kind of thing you can fix very quickly.

But yeah, apart from that, it was a pretty awesome weekend. I've also let them know about the sleepover thing that I'm planning, and the ones who've responded have said they're free, so it looks set to go ahead :D