archives...

I love finding crap I have written before and forgot about. I love it because it reminds me what an excellent writer and truly interesting individual I am and how lucky you all are to know me/read this stupid crap.
Jenn found an add on Craig's about people in Providence looking for voice-over talent. I do voice-over stuff, and am working on the talent bit.
A couple of years ago, I did a long stretch of being laid off. During that time I tried to get a voice-over business, via the INtraWeb, going. It didn't work out very well. But I did have a couple of snazzy demo presentations made. They are on a back-up CD from my previous machine.
As I was looking for them this morning to present to the Craig's list ad people (which I am 100% sure are 100% legit), I found the below, which ties in nicely.
Enjoy.

A couple of years back, I spent a period of about 18 months absolutely unemployed. The first three were great. It was summer, I was still getting paid. It was an extended vacation. With my resume, I felt quite confident that I would have a job as soon as I really started looking.

As the time stretched out and out and out and I was really looking but still not finding anything, I researched different ways to keep myself occupied and to maybe make a little money.

I tried starting a voice-over business, as I have always been told I have a lovely speaking voice. Apparently forty million other people have also always been told they have lovely speaking voices as well, because that’s how many people have voice over business.

Those who have read some things I’ve written have told me I have a lovely way of writing, so I tried my hand at small time publication. I was not quite as successful as I had been while doing voice over work.

Time wore on and on. I became panicked a lot of the time as every unemployment check was one unemployment check closer to the LAST unemployment check. I had no idea at all what I was going to do after the last unemployment check.

I was depressed.

I felt worthless.

It was time to do stand up comedy.

A club had opened in the Providence Place Mall. It was a Jazz/Comedy/Bistro arrangement. It’s no longer in business. Go figure. Who could have guessed it would fail?

They had open mic night on Wednesdays. For those who are not initiated, open mic night is not exactly what it sounds like. They don’t let anyone in the crowd just come up and start yakking. There is a process. It’s not an extensive process, though.

Allow me to describe the process.

One Wednesday night, I went in and found the guy who was the leader of the open mic scene. His name was John. He was a good guy. Did not strike me as a hell of a happy guy. As it turns out, most of the people who are doing stand up comedy are not hell of a happy guys. Me included.

This Wednesday night, the show, if I may use the word, was already under way. I met John and asked him about a spot. He looked at list of names scrawled on a slightly damp napkin and asked me if 9:30 was okay.

I said, “9:30? When? Next week.”

“No.”, he replied, “Tonight.”

It was 9:10.

I said I didn’t think I’d be able to make it without at least a half hour to prepare something. It was a joke. I figured I was talking to a guy who did stand up, he might appreciate a joke.

Piece of advice. Don’t joke with stand ups. They don’t seem to like it much.

I was serious about preparing though. I was going to prepare and prepare thoroughly. When I was nineteen, I had my first experience doing stand up. It took me about fifteen years to get up the nerve to do it again.

There was another comedy club in another mall in Fall River. This was like ’88 or something. I had just graduated from high school and I was king of improv class. I was a riot. Everyone said so. I killed all the time. I was pure genius.

I gathered a group of friends and brought them all to this club to watch me. I prepared exactly nothing. On purpose. I was going to get up on stage and wing it, flat out.

I did a great impression of both Fat Man AND Little Boy. I was a smoldering crater.

Not this time. I was not going to make the same mistake again. This time I wrote exactly seven minutes of what I thought was pretty good material.

A couple of weeks later I got up and I did well. John could not believe it was the first time I had been on stage. I decided not to tell him about when I was nineteen. The only person I had in the audience I knew was my sister. People laughed and clapped and she was very proud of me.

I really dug it.

This started a series of about three months of doing open mic night in a comedy club in Providence. One thing doing open mic night in a comedy club in Providence taught me, was never do open mic night in a comedy club in Providence.