A New Hope

Ladies and Gentlemen, how nice it is to see you all here. If you are only looking at this in your reading feed then you should come over.

First of all welcome to the end of the year; my-oh-my has it flown by. There is a theory that our perception of time is based on memorable experiences; the more memorable experiences (good or bad) you have close together the more that period of time ‘feels’ slower. If this is true - shit is about to get slow

I have exciting news folks, not only have I made the big move in with my girlfriend, more to come on that later (not a euphemism), but it just so happens that today marks the launch of the 2014 Adelaide Fringe Festival...

You know… the largest arts festival in the southern hemisphere?

The second largest arts festival in the world; second only to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival…

To be honest I was expecting more of a response; I'll give you some more information then:

I'M DOING A SHOW! (I may be excited; just a little bit)

Translation: I am proud to announce that I will be performing stand up at the 2014 Adelaide Fringe.

Drum-roll please...

You guys might remember a certain peanut butter nut by the name of Michael D’Agostino, well he and I decided to join forces and jump in the proverbial deep end and put a show together. The show is called “Mike and Rusty jump in the deep end”. At this stage Mike and I are excited and petrified, because as the name suggests we are really jumping into the deep end here. This is not a show we have been booked for, we are using our own money and backing ourselves; whether we win or lose can only be attributed to us.


Put pressure on yourself much?

Mike and I will be releasing stuff leading up to the shows, but for now you can buy tickets at FringeTix

Rusty

10 things you should learn

In lieu of writing anything with substance, I give on to you another list. I know I have promised some more videos of some of my stand up, and they are coming, I am just waiting until I nail a performance and have good footage of it.

This list came about when I was lying in bed coughing my guts up last night. I am sick. I don't get sick very often but I am sick. SA has a public holiday on Monday, the Fringe Festival is in town (the second biggest arts festival in the world), I have new jokes to prepare for a gig coming up, and my body has decided on being sick. If I didn't know better I would think my body is being a jerk.

1. Changing your name to Bob will not make you more buoyant. Palindromic, but not buoyant. 
2. Only make friends with people who are shorter than you, you will forever be their King. Plus you get to show off by getting things off shelves.
3. Exercising willpower is harder than exercise. I would rather eat a packet of Tim-Tams and run 8ks than do neither.
4. When life gives you lemons, open a market store and flog them for 50c each.
5. Economies come and go but jeans are forever, and sometimes that long between washes.
6. Pillow fights are only fun when your winning or you're all in underwear. In which case you're winning.
7. It's not the heat or the humidity that kills you, its constant need to tell me the weather on Facebook.
8. Bottled water is bad for you, because paying for it just proves you're an idiot.
9. Fitted sheets are only impossible to fold when you care.
10. I let someone walk a mile in my shoes. They got a new perspective, I got athletes foot.

10 things I have learnt so far

Happy March eve people of the Internet!

I have not lived for very long, I'm closer to 30 than to 25, and in the grand scheme of things it is not very old (the Earth is 4.54 billion years for example, and still doesn't get health care), but here is a list of 10 things I have learned

1. If you post comments on YouTube someone will think you are an idiot, whether you are one or have convinced yourself otherwise
2. The fastest way to reach a conclusion in sickness is a get well card message: “A tree died for this card, so get well soon or I'll kill another tree”
3. People who play video games don’t necessarily want to shoot people, just like people who play football don’t necessarily like group sex
4. People will only take climate change seriously when the Pacific Islands have nothing but beach front property
5. Melancholy tastes good with cheese
6. If something is too good to be true, it is probably a cop undercover
7. When people complain about Microsoft, I ask IT to give them Linux for a while
8. Dancing like nobody is watching is nowhere near as fun as doing the "sprinkler"
9. Pets are not just for Christmas, just like hepatitis
10. One does not earn “Respect”; you pay the royalties like everybody else.

Too Raw

I am ashamed to say that this is not a new post. This is from March earlier this year to report back on how I went in an Unearthed Australian Stand-up Comedy competition. I am extremely proud on how well I performed on this night, and I want to share it with you all on DudeWrite. 





Earlier in the year, a whole two months ago, I revealed one of my goals this year was to do more stand-up comedy and to enter into the Raw Comedy Competition. It is the premier comedy competition in Australia and one that has introduced many famous acts to the greater Australian public.

I have been doing comedy for only a short time and I have grown to love it. Nobody is guaranteed fame and fortune in this competition, but not the reason why I wanted to do it. There is no greater feeling than making an entire room of strangers laugh. And nothing worse when they don't. Every rush has a price but I want it.

Being a competition, I chose the best jokes I had from my previous performances, all three of them, and developed my set of "gold" from there. That way I would have a chance to at least get something other than crickets, but no two audiences are the same, and you are never guaranteed that every joke will work every time.

Leading up to the competition I had an opportunity to attend a workshop with Greg Fleet. Greg is a well-known comedian in Australia and a legend of the scene. He showed me how to identify weak spots in my performance, shared how he develops his material, and offered suggestions to help make jokes pop. For example, if you move about on stage when you talk, make sure you are still for when you deliver the punch line.

The workshop filled me with ideas and enthusiasm, and I hungrily developed the “script”; which is more like a series of punch lines in dot points. I did a few run throughs, changed the order, more run throughs, tried to change the words to “enter” into each joke differently, changed the order again, etc. using suggestions I had learnt from Greg.

I had more than 7 minutes of material on average. During the competition I would have only 5. Some jokes had to go.

Culling is hard. Like any other creative endeavour, cutting your blood, sweat, and tears is hard. I liked all the jokes, they were my children, but I had no choice. I brought them into this world, I had to take them out, and it was tough to let go. I got to around 5 minutes, give or take, and now needed a test audience.

My girlfriend is amazingly patient with me, and has an invested interest in my happiness and no choice to be anything but my test audience. She is generally not a fan of the jokes I try and crack day to day, and we have different upbringings and experiences growing up which allows her identify if I am being too niche or not making sense. Therefore she is perfect, and as a test audience (see what I did there).

And awesome. Her feedback and suggestions helped bring more of me into my act and in two hours, I no longer sounded like I was whinging, the weaker jokes were gone, and stronger overall. There is no doubt I ever would have been as good without her.

All I had to do was practise.

The night of my heat arrived and coincidently was bloody hot. I got to the venue early to sign in, but my name was not on the list. “Shit! Fuck!” screamed my eyes, "I have friends coming, most didn't know I was trying stand up. The organiser called me last week to confirmed, I confirmed, I'm sure I did, why am I not on the list?"  but my mouth went “um… err… um… are you sure?” but only just.

The lady at the door, who was really nice about the entire thing despite me panicking, went and checked with the organiser who apologised. I was on the list, but for some reason not on the door, probably when she moved names from blah blah blah. I breathed an audible sigh of relief; Copy + Paste thou art a harsh mistress and I will never forgive you.

The crowd started arriving and the room filled quickly and soon was at capacity. I found out I would be on in the second period and started pacing my drinks accordingly. The MC called my name, I had a mouthful of courage, and I headed towards the stage...

It was amazing. By far the largest crowd I had ever performed to; there was not even room enough for all of the comedians to watch the other performances. Although I did not progress to the next round I performed my arse off despite my nerves trying otherwise. It is the best performance I have done so far and one I am extremely proud of.

If you would like to see the original rendition of some of these jokes, you can find videos here and here.


Cheers,

Rusty

2011 is dead, long live 2012

Now that 2011 is disappearing in the haze of firework smoke, it is time to reflect on achievements and setbacks and hope for a feeling other than regret or shame. Hoping to avoid the feeling not unlike using tissues by yourself when you are not sick. 2011 must have been fun because it disappeared faster than the dips on Christmas day. Or was it just our dips that the flies covered? I'm not so sure now if that is an appropriate metaphor.

Anywho...

I tried a bunch of new things this year and achieved two out of the three goals. I went climbing on real rocks with a bunch of mates and now go climbing regularly, albeit indoors (it is just too bloody hot at times). I did get together with the Chess Hammer guys and did silly voices in a microphone. The only thing I did not accomplish was the first draft, but I am halfway there (whoa, living on a prayer) and look to finish that in the next couple of months when work dies down in two weeks. I have not been avoiding writing, I have just been writing things other than the novel.

Plus now I am inspired by the A Beer For The Shower's debut novel "The Missing Link", available at all good Amazons as an ebook. It is super funny and hooks you straight away with jokes about fat cats with diabetes (not a competition entry, the book is actually funny). Read their blog and get in to it.

Big shout out goes to Greg at Dogs On Drugs, your website is one slander case short of legendary and your insanity is helping me keep track of mine. I hope someone makes you a sandwich soon, preferably someone famous.

The Simple Dude in a complex world is worth a look if you're not already doing so on a regular basis.

Scott at It's MY Mind can manifest a good chuckle, get in to that too.

For 2012, life is going to get pretty busy.

• I will finish that first draft, and if it is any good, start the second draft.
• I am getting back into long distance running despite what I have said before. It is mostly because I like food too much, but there are a few ultra marathons that I want to do.
• I'm going to do more stand up comedy. I have entered into Raw Comedy, which is an emerging stand up competition in Australia. I hope to develop my act, get more comfortable on stage, and be better at writing jokes in general. The less time my girlfriend rolls her eye the better I would imagine. But with more puns.

Let's see how that goes for now, I can always re-evaluate in a few months. That's the point of goals over resolutions.

2011 is dead, long live 2012.

Look after yourselves,

Rusty

Colour my life

In lieu of writing anything new, here is another attempt at stand up from last night. I tried some new jokes, jokes that I didn’t steal from here for a change and some went down pretty well. Others, not so well. Still learning, still writing, still keeping my day job.

Try to enjoy, and remember to have a crack yourself at some point, it is great fun.

1 in 12 men and 1 in 400 women are colour blind in Australia,  I do not know the exact stats anywhere else but they are roughly on the same level in western countries, so I am not a freak.

But I may be a super freak, because some geneticists believe that colour blindness mutated so that we can see through some animal camouflage, including the dicks who wear camo pants in Rundal Mall. You are not fooling anybody but yourself. Unless you are in the actual defence force, hunting and you are out bush, or in a forest trying not to be seen, camouflage gear is never appropriate.

Is it my super power? I would have to say no.

Those who think they're funny, please Stand up

Of all the things that made headlines last month, this wasn't one of them. 

My girlfriend dobbed me in to have a crack at stand up comedy. There is an open mike night here at the Rhino Room every Monday, and the people there are awesome and very supportive. Check them out if you are in the area.

The guys from The Chess Hammer and the Chess Hammer collective came out for support, we had a few local beers and pear ciders, and it turned out to be a good night.

I loved it. I was shitting myself, but I loved it. It is an amazing experience to make a room full of people laugh, and equally amazing to hear silence. 

Some of the jokes were adapted from this blog, and I will be having another crack soon. I will let you know how that one goes. It should be within the next week or so.

Unless I die in the arse...