Comedy Adventure: Onto Plan B

...or Plan C. Plan D? How many of my plans haven't worked thus far? :P

I'm fairly sure at this point that I'm not gonna hear back from the local comedy club. I could, but I'm not getting my hopes up. This has forced me to rethink my approach once again. Given local options are exhausted, and daytime options in Sydney are also off the table (at least temporarily), I must now consider night time Sydney options.

It's not all bad, but it's not all good, either. On one hand, there are multiple places in Sydney that definitely do open-mic stuff, which is fantastic--I've got multiple places I can go, making it easier to find a convenient location, and allowing me to perform multiple times to different audiences, allowing a more-thorough refining of my material. On the other hand, it's at night time... and night time is scary cos you can get robbed and shit :P  I can't go alone; I don't have the street smarts a person needs for such an activity to be even remotely safe. And while I know my mum would gladly take me up there cos she's heaps supportive of what I do, I don't want to burden her anymore than I already have, cos I'm in for a lot of favours on her part in the next few weeks (including an already-planned trip to Sydney to see a TV taping, and a sleepover which she's paid for in full). It's not fair to do that to her.

But I did think of one thing that could work: inviting friends! While it's a bad time right now due to exams and stuff, I figure that after exams, I can simply make a post on Facebook saying I'm gonna perform and seeing if anyone would be interested in coming with me. That way I get to have someone with me, so I'm with a companion in Sydney (and hopefully while in transit); and it can be more of a social thing, too. Might go somewhere for food or whatever--maybe we'll even go up early and spend the day up there. Who knows?



I wonder if I'm behind on this whole 'exploring alone' thing. I mean, friends of mine have gone to other countries by themselves without facing harm. But this is going out alone, at night time, somewhere I'm not familiar with, in a body that cannot defend itself. I don't have an issue being scared of that--being scared of that makes perfect sense to me, cos there's a genuine threat of violence--but would other people find that cowardly? I won't even leave my house on foot after 8pm unless I absolutely have to; how am I gonna fare in a place I'm not even familiar with? I know women talk all the time about travelling in groups to deter predators, but surely the fear of being attacked isn't limited to them. Obviously, I don't fear being raped, but that's not the only thing that can happen to you--I definitely fear getting robbed or attacked at night, particularly losing my wallet & phone, cos it means I have no way to get home, or even contact home. The fear of being stranded 80km away from home is legit scary to me. I mean, maybe it's rare for anyone to go out at night alone in the way I'm describing. But maybe it's not. I'm too sheltered to know :P

It's something I need to get used to, though, if I pursue comedy, cos it is a thing comedians will probably do regularly: make their way to/from shows on their own, most of which are at night. And I suppose that'll get easier as I get older--it's certainly not something I have to worry about doing in the immediate future--but it's not a nice thought. I mean, I haven't even gone out at night in a group, at least not super late, early-hours-of-the-morning late, cos it's not the kind of thing I'm into. Part of me wants to try it just to see what it's like bouncing from place to place at night. Just sucks that such bouncing is usually from bar to bar or club to club. As much as I would like to try going to a club one day, spending the night out in that atmosphere, the idea of bouncing from video arcade to video arcade sounds way cooler :P

It's so weird how backwards this seems. Public speaking is a huge fear for a lot of people, but to me, it's piss easy, cos I've done it heaps of times. I mean, I'm nervous as fuck before I walk on stage, but once I get that first laugh, I'm fairly comfortable out there. Most people can't make eye contact with an audience, or talk too fast, or mumble when they talk. Most people also aren't comfortable putting several minutes of their own jokes to a crowd by themselves, for fear of no laughter. Meanwhile, most people my age can go out at night without feeling that nervous, just doing it, and I'm sitting here like "holy shit that looks super fuckin' dangerous, I'll stay home and play Super Mario cos I don't wanna dddiieee D:". I honestly wanna be less scared of things like that, at least to the point of being able to do them. You obviously still have to be careful at night no matter what, cos there are risks involved everywhere you go, and bad people all over the place. But there's way more good people than bad people.



So yeah. Won't be able to even ask until exams are over (at least nearly over). But hopefully I can get a few people together and we can make this happen. Not gonna quit.