I made them laugh

There's been so much crazy stuff happened on this planet upon which we reside that my weekly self indulgence seems completely pointless. But then again I've felt like there's a point to what I'm doing for the past 4 years and there most probably isn't so I can either lock myself in a cupboard rocking back and forth seething at all the worlds injustice or I can plough forward in the hope that nob gags aside my attempt at world domination through comedy makes a difference.

I actually feel I am doing ok, this is as close to self praise as I'll ever get as I recall once celebrating a goal with my team mates as a junior footballer and my dad calling me a bighead, a memory I'll never forget, my dad is ace but that really made it difficult for me to enjoy success... Lucky for me I've skilfully avoided having any success just in case! Phew!!

I am doing ok though, although I'm not measuring myself against anything so I could be deluded... Thing is I turned up to MC a gig on Saturday and the headline act had made a diary error which was discovered last minute meaning a re shuffle that saw Jack Gleadow step into MC duties from opener allowing me to close.

Now most people who like sport will know that England were playing in the euros on Saturday against Russia who brought their hooligans along to make our hooligans feel like poor sorry victims (there were a bazillion nice people too who were actual victims it should be said)

So with the football being on I noticed a mostly female demographic in the room... Go back less than a year and if you asked me to close a gig and then do so to a mostly female crowd I would have thought there was no chance... Surely my stuff is too laddy and I can't close, well that was then, now I know my stuff isn't too laddy at all and just because one or two people didn't get it I allowed their shitty opinion to cloud my own opinion of me!

I'm not quite the dogs bollocks so here's a picture of some until I am!

So I'll give myself a pat on the back for overcoming that, and not so much a pat on the back but a nod of approval that I stopped thinking female audience members would switch off once I talked about a big girl in a Yates like it was some kind of lad bants story (it's really not so if you don't get that you're stupid ((I originally typed 'your stupid' so technically I'm stupid)) the gig itself went as well if not better than every gig I've closed so far this year, a tight half hour with stories and silliness I'm actually happy with it and there was enough laughter to justify that! It's not like I haven't worked on it as much as possible to make it solid.

Am I one of the deluded fools that used to pop up on the forums though, Yorkshire folk may recall Roy or Colin Bunyan among the more colourful of characters and Peter Fox of Notts comedy review mentioned a guy who for his 1st gig hired a theatre and did an hour... Yeah I'm not in their ball park so I needn't worry that I'm not in Jim Jeffires or even say Pat Monahans (for non comedy people that's the comedian and not lead singer of Train)

I think measuring myself to anyone else in comedy and any of their standards will only leave me feeling pointless, especially when a promoter tells me I need to try some fresher ideas and then 2 gigs in a row for them their £200 headline act does the same joke I heard when I was 7... Like that's 2 different acts a week apart both of them do the same joke! No one says a word!!

Nah I'll not worry about that (beyond of course mentioning it just now) because a room full of people (about 50) left having had a great night on Saturday because I did what I was paid for and all I really wanted, I made them laugh, I still have my own benchmark and need to push towards that but there's enough rejection in this job already to continue to worry about how I'm doing, just keep doing it and trying to improve and that's all that's needed!!

J x