Antsy

Good afternoon. It has been a several days since my last post, and almost one things have happened in that time.

I did stand-up last night for the first time since Edinburgh last year. (I probably should have mentioned it on here beforehand - sorry)

It went quite well. It was mostly new stuff, and mostly improvised, so I wasn't particularly consistent. But I was pleased with the results on the whole. There was only about three actual jokes in the whole set. I should probably work on some punchlines.

Then again, maybe punchlines are clichéd in today's postmodern, post-comedy world of tweets and shaving foam pies. I think it's time comedy moved beyond comedy. And became something else. Like go-karting.

My favourite bit of mine was...

[Can I have a favourite bit of my own stand up? Isn't that a bit self-congratulatory? I suppose this is the arena for that kind of arrogance. To be fair, I think I condemn myself more than I praise myself, which makes be a noble and level-headed idiot.]

My favourite bit was after a (too-)long improvised bit, saying to Lucy (who was in the front row): "That went exactly as well as I expected".

Because it was true, but also quite a strange thing to say.

Truth and strangeness are my twin pillars of aspiration. I want to be both a rationalist and a noodle in the shape of a backwards question mark.

I'm not sure if I'll do more gigs. I certainly spent the days leading up to the gig wondering why I'd ever agree to do something so stupid. But I was a different person then. On Thursday. All tense and fretty.

Today I'm as loose as a escaped-convict goose. All smiles and winks and pants.

For the relatively small number of gigs I've done, I have performed quite a lot of material. Not good material. But material nonetheless. I should probably have worked on and honed a killer twenty minutes.

Instead, I'm sure I've done about an hour and a half of sprawling, disparate nonsense.

I almost think it would be fun to see what I could do with a full hour.

Edinburgh next year?

I don't think so.

I don't think so.

I'm not sure if I could handle the admin. And the flyering. Maybe I could do some kind of publicity stunt (eg. spitting in the face of Margaret Thatcher) that would remove the need for self-promotion.

I finished my set on a song which I thought of a while ago. It didn't get a laugh.

It's a catchy little number, inspired by the sights of the summer. The tune isn't really important. You can make up your own. It goes:

Flying ants!
Flying ants!
Fly by the seat of their flying ant-pants!

The success of this song (and let me remind you: it didn't get a laugh) is the inclusion of the word 'ant' in the final line.

Without that, it would be very conventional:

Flying ants!
Flying ants!
Fly by the seat of their flying pants!

It makes sense. But it's a bit predictable. Flying ants would have flying pants.

But by making them flying ant-pants, the pants are robbed of any levitational qualities. They are just pants belonging to a flying ant.

Much funnier.

That's what separates me from the comedians who take the easy way out.

And get laughs.

So, what lessons have I learned from last night?

Hmm. Some people's names, I suppose. And probably something about hubris or whatever.