Happs on the crapps...

So, to the four or five people that may actually be reading my "blogs", or IF anyone is reading for that matter, you might be asking "How come he doesn't write in his journal more often?" To which I respond, "the way I see it, there's generally nothing in my life to talk about, until there's something in my life to talk about." - much is the life of the struggling comic. My personal daily/weekly struggles/chores remain pretty much routine. On the days I work, I get up, go to work, and then hit a mic after work - OR go home and go to sleep 'cause I'm too tired. On the days that I don't work, such as today, I get whatever errands I need to get done, done. In the evening, I go to Aikido class for an hour to two hours - and then I go hit a mic, or go home and go to sleep because I'm too tired. It seems like I may have a lot of time in between, but actually I don't. For me, I have defined what's important to me, and what I must do to accomplish the goals that stem from what's important to me. The things that are important to me right now are: 1) getting better at comedy, i.e., writing more, writing better, finding my voice, and gradually moving out from the open mic circuit. I am getting tired and bored of the open mic scene, and when that happens, more than likely it means you need to be challenged more. For me, it means doing better rooms, tougher rooms, expanding in general. Open mics in L.A. generally consist of more comedians than audience, and that's really never good, because you can never trust the validity of material against other people you're competing against - and open mics are more often than not, just painful and grueling - not to say that I'm Chris Rock, but there are a lot of people at these open mics that are just not funny. So now my "career" is at that point where I'm trying to get from the low point on the totum pole, to the middle point - networking to do better rooms/audiences, getting tapes made (so you can send them to various people), and just writing and performing, performing and writing. I will know when I have officially left the low point on the totum pole, when I either find an agent or manager who believes in me, and wants to represent me, or I am making an actual living off of doing comedy. It's actually not THAT hard to make a living doing comedy. You can do well from bookings on the college circuit, or from bookings in clubs...it just takes a lot of leg work. I myself want to give myself a couple more years before I do that - again to help establish a voice, become stronger. In the meantime, I write to find that voice...I did have a contest that I performed in last week...I didn't place, which I feel I should have at least been third. The fact that the people who judged talent that night, didn't recognize what I felt was strong material in the set I peformed, does not bother me now, though it did that night. After all, this was a contest in a bowling alley in Canoga Park, and not at the Improv or Laugh Factory. Many people told me that night after I performed, that I had excellent material, so I know it wasn't just me. But as one my fellow comic friends who placed second in a different part of the competition stated, "there are no points for second place." For me, at this point in my "career", nothing could ever be more true. When I can't perform, and make it obvious that I should've won hands down, then I have to get better than everyone else. I am dead set on accomplishing that...2) I am in the process of working on my own business right now, and no matter how simple a business is, such is mine, planning must be done, which is what I am in the process of doing now-concurrently, while I'm working at a job I'm desperately trying to get away from, while I'm peforming, and trying to write new material. Though I don't anticipate my business to start until February 2008, just like the movies, certain things must be in place before that time, so that when I'm ready to market it, everything is ready to go. That is also on my plate...3) I'm into my Aikido training, it is as equally important to me as my training in comedy. I will have that, even though I may not know how comedy and my eventual business will turn out. It is something you just understand or you don't. Plus I just like it...I wish I could say I had some sort of social life, but I don't. Actually I don't really care about socializing that much out here in California. Honestly, I don't like the people too much out here, but I'm trying to get better on judging people on an individual basis. There are good people out here though - even some that are native Californians... It would be nice however, to have someone that I was seeing on whatever downtime I had during the week, and on the weekend. But L.A. is an extremely difficult place to meet a cool young lady. I keep thinking to myself, if I was in D.C., it wouldn't be like this. But when I think about it, if I was in D.C., with a girlfriend, would I be as focused on what I'm trying to accomplish at this point in my life? Would I be out here in California taking my best shot at life? Someone who I used to work with at Safeway, back at home, once gave me great advice. She said, "get your career together, and the decent women will follow." I'm exactly in the point in my life, where I should be able to expect a certain quality of woman, not settling. However, I'm not exactly at that point where I have established myself, where I can say I'm certainly bringing something to the table- I'm exactly in that transition stage, and it doesn't help to be genetically flawed either. So I must continue on, remaining focused, as unexciting as this part of my life may seem. All I can say is, it ain't easy to be focused. Unless you look like Boris Kodjoe, all focus gets you is into the loyalty program at the local twenty four hour porn store....Dad, hope you pulling some good strings for me up there...