AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On the eve of my second big Yuk Yuk’s set, *hint hint – come see the show (TOMORROW @ 7:30!!,)* I can’t help be contemplate the fact that half a month has gone by since my last post!  I can’t believe it, ladies and gentlemen.  Time flies! I don’t remember time passing this quickly in the past.  Maybe, MAYBE it seemed that way in France, but other than that, there’s no comparison.

Here’s a rundown of what funny’s been restricting me from talking to you lovely people:

Stand-Up!:  I’ve been performing at a few open mics, here and there around town, mainly at one very friendly room hosted by some of the second year students.  I’ve only done two performances outside of their immediate influence, and it was awkward and slightly painful, which is quite common for beginners, so I must force myself to go to more of those.   Some of the kids in my class put on a special performance on campus a while back, which was a lot of fun.  Hopefully we’ll produce some more of those and hopefully get more kids from campus out to watch/participate!

Improv: Not much to report on this front, other than regular class-attending.  My two-person troupe is starting to research some particular styles we’d like to perform, long-form-wise.  Also, I’ve approached my parents about taking courses at the Second City and they seemed to be on board with that.  Hopefully that’ll be a project for the New Year.  2011 – The Year of Making Shit Up!

Sketch: The members of my class-assigned-sketch-troupe are currently in rehearsals with performing our own written sketches.  Mine is a Top Gun-ish-type parody involving tapioca pudding.  Intrigued?  I’ll bet.  We’ll post the videos as soon as they’re up!  One of the kids in the class has been graciously video-ing most of our performances in an effort to eventually throw all this material up on a web-site that’ll show the world how incredibly talented our small class of misfits can be!

The Rest: More bruises from my shtick class and bruised egos in the acting class.  We’re starting to work on choreography in the Physical Comedy class, which is cool for me, because as some of you may or may not know, I danced for 15 years before leaving my home town, oh so many years ago.  I’m glad the guys in my group have some rhythm so we can get some sweet moves down for Thursday!

The other crap:

The nature of socializing has shifted slightly.  Due to my involvement with some stand-up outside the classroom schedule, I’ve begun to see some students more often outside of class, including significantly more of the 2nd year students, which has been helpful and motivating.

We’ve been getting our own crew of participants to our weekly improv-workshops, which have also been a heapful of fun, mostly. These have included some friends of friends, visiting from outside the Humber program to contribute their knowledge, skill and expertise.

In the non-com world, I had the pleasure of taking a trip to Ottawa a while back.  It was certainly refreshing to see my dearly-missed pals.  And, all of them got MANY words in, considering I could barely speak any.  A change in the social dynamic, and certainly a change in morale, attitude and spirits since my departure late this summer. Time passes and teaches.

And this post is getting way too* introspective.

*way too = Wellandism.

 

I’ll let you ALL know how my SECOND BIG SET at YUK YUK’s goes!  Stay tuned!

AND: For those of you coming back to the GTA around Christmas-time, I have ANOTHER set booked at Yuk’s on December 21st.  Set that date aside for laughs and freakin’ EGG NOG!   Ahhhhh yeah.

Holy crap!

Life’s flying by like a freakin’ whirlwind over here, guys and gals!  Things have gotten a little crazy since my last post, so I’m pleased to announce that they’ve calmed down enough that I can sit down with my best friend “MacBook” to hack out an essay due tomorrow and some new material in preparation for a set I’ll be performing on Thursday evening at Humber, organized and put on by some of the b’ys in my class.  (If anyone’s interested…)

I spent the weekend away from the comedy scene, which was very relieving though I certainly didn’t lack the provision of comic relief, showing up in Ottawa with a voice no louder than a whisper.  Listen kids, if you’ve got a cold, stay home and treat it.  Otherwise people will mock you relentlessly and you’ll only have sign language to defend yourself as a result.

I’m currently writing a paper about Peter Pan Syndrome and realizing that I have it pretty fiercely.  I mean, I know I constantly mock man-boys whenever I get the chance, but I’m afraid to say it… I think I may be a lady-girl.  Everyone in Ottawa I hung out with this weekend seems so figured out.  Here in Toronto, most everyone I meet are where I was when I started out in Ottawa.  There’s this whole no-man’s-land gap between both social groups.  Why has it taken me 8 years to end up somewhere I should have been?  Am I caught in some kind of strange time-loop?  Are these the ramblings of a lunatic? Can I get my eggs over-hard please? No pepper.

Whatever.  I don’t care that it’s taken me 8 years to get here.  This is where I belong.  I know that.

Is it already November?  I can’t believe this!  Not since my time in France has life seemed to be flying so quickly or… drunkenly.

Anyway, our last stand-up assignment was a fun one.   We were given one random word and asked to write two-minutes of material with some background research to support our jokes, making the set both entertaining and informative.  My subject: Skipping Rope.  It was a lot of fun and it got me thinking this would be a great exercise to keep up!  So, if anyone’s interested, please send me, here on WordPress or on Facebook or Twitter, one single word or topic.  I’ll pick a few of them and try to write some material.  If I can manage anything clever, maybe it’ll end up on stage as part of my set.  I just think it’ll be a good way to get me even more motivated to perform stand-up. (Also, it speaks to my lack of creativity, since otherwise, I could just come up with these random topics myself, am I right?  I mean…. wait… damn!)

I’ve started going to some open-mics, in fact I’m performing at one this evening.  Recently, I went to a club where someone I consider to be very funny basically lectured myself and a colleague about how our lives should revolve entirely around stand-up (or comedy, more in general) and nothing else.  “If you have the option between going out and performing a set or staying at home and watching a movie, do the set.  If you have the choice between getting laid and doing a set, do the set!  etc.”  The teachers at Humber all seem very encouraging, but there’s something exceptionally motivating about having someone outside of the sheltered college out in Etobicoke, who knows what it’s like and who’s been through it all,  who’s coming out on top to pressure us rookies into succeeding. Thanks for that, Fry!

Improv is another area that has been drawing in a lot of my focus.  I’ve recently been strongly considering, in addition to the program at Humber, taking courses in Improv at the Second City.  I’m still working out all of the logistics, and I may have to wait til next semester, if at all while at Humber, but it’s certainly something to think about.  We’ve been doing lots of after-hours improv workshops and other types of events and a friend and I spoke to our Improv teacher about trying out some new stuff on our own.  It’s all been very exciting!

Finally, I’m also trying to do something I’ve been meaning to do for years now, which is learning to play the guitar.  I’m hoping that one day, I’ll get good enough to incorporate music as part of my act, so… more to come on how that progresses…

Well, life goes on and I’m still busy, busy with new assignments popping up in each class all the time.  Check back often to find out more about my adventures in clown college!

Fun Fact – I live VERY near the high school where two of Canada’s greatest comedians, Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster used to attend class: Harbord Collegiate.  Cool, n’est-ce pas?  Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_and_Shuster if you’re interested in finding out more about Wayne and Shuster!