Sick: I'm Sick of Being It (Sick, That is)

"Have you ever been sick for such a long time that you've actually forgotten what it feels like not to be sick? Sick is your default; 'tis your norm. You are sick."

Me

Quoting myself? You bet! I'm just that arrogant ;D

I am also, however, sick as a very sick dog. I'm not just "sick as a dog", because your average dog is almost completely healthy -- I'm waysicker than your average fuckin' dog :P

It always plays out the same for me:

Day 1: Abnormally high amount of phlegm in my throat. Day continues as normal.
Night 1: As I try to sleep (the gunk in my throat prevents this from actually happening), I feel my throat getting progressively sorer and more irritable.

Day 2: I wake up to feel my throat being gang-raped by every liquid in my body -- it burns like a Nazi bonfire.
Night 2: Due to the gunk invasion, sleep is nigh impossible until I completely run out of energy.

Day 3: Throat no longer burns, but sinuses are completely blocked -- I feel as though I'm lucky not to be drowning in a river of mucus.
Night 3: Sleep is a little easier, but the headache caused by the blocked sinuses (and not aided by the hours of Crash Bandicoot and Perfect Dark >.<) prevents true slumber comfort.

Everyday after that for the next two weeks sees the disease slowly remove itself from my body -- evacuation time is cut in half with some antibiotics. As much as I hate relying on them, I suppose I have to -- my natural immune system is probably some guy standing at the tip of my oesophagus armed with nothing but a garden shovel (a cheap one, too), perpetually scared out of his weak little mind.

I hate getting sick, though! I hate hate hate it! All day long, I have this burning desire to rip my own head off, get a toothpick, and rummage around every nook and cranny to remove any trace of goo and icky stuff. I don't like feeling as though my head is trapped in a fucking vice! At least if my balls are in a vice, they're never there for long -- this lasts days, and days, and days... not to mention I still have to live life as though nothing is wrong! Where's the quilt nestled tightly against my tummy to keep me warm? Where's my chocolate ice-cream and Demazin to keep me alive? Where's my Daria box-set to keep me entertained (I don't actually have that anyway... I want it though!)? Nowhere: that's where. Nowhere. Every morning, I have to wake up, accept the fact I'm an adult, and go to school, so I can give this bug to everyone in my fucking cohort, wanting to kill anyone who speaks louder than a whisper.

What pisses me off the most is that, as a performer, me getting sick = me getting a chainsaw and amputating all my limbs (it's possible if you plan it right). You simply can't perform very well, if at all, when you're sick. A little honey might kill the frog in the throat, and some painkillers relieve temporarily the headache, but the gunk ain't goin' nowhere no time soon, so you look and sound sick anyway! Thankfully, I don't have to perform for two weeks, but if I'm still sick when that day comes, I am sweet outta luck and jolly well fucked. Can you imagine doing ten minutes of non-stop talking and moving with a cold? You can? OK... try *thirty-five* minutes. That's what I'm up against in just over two weeks time: a half-an-hour extravaganza of potential comedy; and doing that with a cold simply ain't gonna be cool.

I've always wondered: "what would happen if I simply took all the antibiotics here and now? All twenty-four of 'em, down my gob in a jiffy... surely, the disease wouldn't stand a chance!" Well, I don't study biology (or any science, for that matter), but I'm pretty sure that'd fuck you up even worse than before :P  The antibiotics would eradicate the disease pretty damn quick, but all the antibiotics that didn't die in the epic battle would still be all pent up -- they didn't get to kill anything! They'd go ape-shit on my innards, releasing their rage by bashing and stabbing any organ or tissue they could find! You think having your throat gang-raped sucks? How about having your liver gang-raped; or your stomach; or your skin; or your brain!? That doesn't sound too good to me! Fuck that shit, man!

Arrogance: Karma's BFF

"Oh... back, are you?"

Indeed I am :D

"Probably here to talk about that fancy of yours -- am I right?"

Go fuck a tractor :D

Believe me, I will be talking about her, but not right now. I can already hear the sighs of relief -- don't try to hide 'em :P

Rather, I intend to discuss effort, reward, and the occasional lack there of. I've been under a great deal of pressure lately to work, and my recent toil has paid off. I've nearly finished a short play I started a month back, I've got a few short stand-up segments together, and I've been through an(other) exam period, one of the few I actually studied for :P   It's been stressful, but (almost) entirely rewarding, with the energy I've spent slowly coming back as good marks and good material. Not everything I've been working on this year, however, is so dandy. I mentioned in an earlier entry a comedy competition I was preparing for, which I recently performed in... and lost :P To be beaten is one thing, but to be beaten by people who prepared less than you and had less experience than you is grade-A bullshit.

Four out of the eight or so performers would go on to the next round, and two of the four chosen were well deserving of advancement. The rapid-fire ventriloquist act and the stand-up comic with a missing ligament were outstanding performers with fucking awesome material, more than worthy of their spots. I regret to inform you that I can't show you their acts, 'cause I would if I could. The third placement was iffy but still an acceptable candidate: a non-sequitur comic with only ~2.5 minutes of material, heavily influenced by Mitch Hedberg -- one of his jokes almost mirrored word for word that of his idol. The fourth choice leaves me stumped: a performer who spent half her performance "umm"ing and "err"ing, stalling, and lacking overall stage presence. This is just bad performing in general, let alone for a competition.

These four competitors only shared one thing: a good reception from the audience -- and that's all the judges were looking for: laughs. Preparation, delivery and structure simply did not come in to play as deciding factors with the placements. Some people were rehearsing with scripts... scripts! If your performing a five minute routine where you need to maintain a connection with the audience for the entire set, the least you could do is learn your fucking lines! Even the guy who hardly had three minutes of material had his jokes written on paper -- from my experience, individual jokes are easy to remember if they're good (i.e. worth remembering), so that confused me. In all my years, I've never seen such reliance on the dreaded reading material. Granted, no one had a script during their actual performance, and to bring your script for the occasional reference in case you fuck up a line during rehearsal is a smart move, but to be reading it top to bottom in preparation only goes to show you weren't doing what you were supposed to be doing yesterday.

I was the only one there who'd done the competition before, with my first stand-up performance quickly teaching me that confidence is vital for any comic performance; and while most of the entrants were confident in their routines, I was the only one who was complimented on being openly confident (by the non-sequitur guy :P) In addition, I was the only performer who received commendation from the comic mentor in terms of delivery, and the only one she said had conversational tone -- she had not one suggestion for improving my act! Not one! "See how he was talking to the audience like that? That's the way to go!" I was the fucking benchmark! Everyone else's routine was altered in some way via the professional's suggestions, but I performed my routine for the audience no different to how I'd performed it in rehearsal. This might have been to due the fact I'd been writing and editing the routine for three months.

That's right: three months of writing to come out with five minutes (little more than a page) of material. Considering most comics perfect forty-five minutes of material in around two years, this is ridiculous even by the industry's standards :P   The time taken was mostly due to a meticulous editing process I implemented in my attempt to utilise every second of the three hundred I had to strike lolz with the audience. The set had to start strong, end with a punch-line, and stand out from the rest. My opening lines were carefully written to get the audience laughing as soon as possible, and the end was (in theory) a great round off. Unfortunately, the audience wasn't as bright as the (considerably younger) student body I'm usually surrounded by. Here's the opening gag (I'm holding a bottle of water):

"Let me take a drink of water here... they call this a bottle of water -- is this really a bottle of water? Think about it: if a stack of chairs is a stack made of chairs, and a pile of leaves is a pile of leaves... then what's a bottle of water?"

Do you get it? Huh? Do you!? The audience didn't! They didn't have a fucking clue! Surely, an educated, literate adult (like those that filled the audience) can do the math and figure it out: it's a bottle made of water, which isn't structurally possible and hence absurd to consider. When I recited the same joke for a pack of students, I was cut off by laughter -- they got the joke before I even finished it! Irony was girding its loins well before the actual event :P

All this boils down to one thing: my unadulterated, ego-fueled arrogance. I was not only the most experienced comic, but also the cockiest, and it takes a downfall like this to teach a very valuable lesson in one single blow: shit happens. Karma has been in the education business for a very long time, and his experience in this field is unrivaled by that of any other spiritual concept. I went in thinking I was the most talented when I was only the most conceited; but I was also the most prepared, and I will continue to question the judge's criteria and the audience's intelligence for weeks to come. There is the small chance of a wildcard bringing me to the next round, but with the appalling reaction I got compared to previous performances, I highly doubt it.

...fucking amateurs... I hate being one :P

EDIT: I got the wildcard... yeah, I'm confused too :P