Last Keep Up The Good Work Post.

So here I am, beginning and ending the last piece of something I've held on to for many years. Over the next couple of days I'm working on putting together enough comedy material for what will hopefully be 30 minutes worth with any luck. I signed up 2016 Carolina's Funniest Stand-up comic. I'm pretty sure I can win.

Thanks... 

Oh yeah, I have been doing stand-up comedy for a year. Most of the people I suspect will be reading this insignificant blip on the internet radar, will have already suspected this to be the case. I no doubt have sent you an invitation to a comedy show you no doubt did not show up to. And that's kind of okay. Its what I began writing this thinking about. Its okay because I know now what to expect. When I first started doing stand-up in Charleston, South Carolina the Tin Roof Open Mic (TROM for short...or for actual. Come to think of it I never asked) was still called Little Ceasar's Palace and Aziz Ansari was totally cool with doing a random open mic in Charleston at The Upper Deck (whatever happened to that guy?). That was six years ago (and two months but who's counting). The first time I ever got on stage to do standup I told a story that I thought was hilarious. Having experienced it, I still think its a fantastic story...if you'd been there...which you weren't....so you will never find it funny. Ever.

Initial reactions to the retelling of that story.

Later on I was "inspired" by watching Mitch Hedberg perform. By "inspired" I don't mean that I stole his jokes, however, I can say without out a doubt that the style and cadence minus the shades were "inspired." And I did that for a year before quitting after a stellar performance at a stand-up competition. By stellar I mean that heavy drinking finally caught up to my oblivious, minuscule understanding of what it actually took to be good at comedy. I wish I could tell you more about the year or even rattle off one or two jokes from then but its mostly a blur (see heavy drinking). After that competition I didn't really get back into stand-up until a year ago. Sure I tried. And every once in a while I would be funny. Just like before. However, I've come to realize that you don't get good at, nor can you make a career of, something that you inconsistently well at every once in a while.

No sex joke. Here's a bird .gif instead. 

So its five years later and I've stopped making a habit of drinking. I still drink occasionally. Maybe 1 or two overpriced (as it all is) beers before I cut myself off. I'll probably be cutting that down too. Not that its happened anywhere in the past three years, but there are only so many times you can fall asleep in your tub or puke on someone's wall as you try to find the lock because alcohol brain is telling you should totally go puke in the bushes because... "reasons."

How did this get here? That's wasn't my reason.

This is all well and good but why are we even having this one-sided conversation right now, Carlos?

Comedy this past year has been an interesting journey. I moved to Spartanburg, SC for work and got tired of work very quickly. That's when I found out about an open mic at The Upstairs bar and decided to try it out. It went about as well as previous times. I am going to say this once, but I don't think it can be repeated enough: IF YOU ARE GOING TO START DOING STAND-UP, DO IT AS SOBER AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE! Somehow, I managed to figure this out and the quality of my jokes started to change. I'm not going to say it was perfect. In fact it was still awful. I uploaded this video a few months back and watched it twice and have yet to watch it again. In fact this very sentence is an attempt to justify uploading this here because I cringe when I watch it now.

I had about three minutes of material solid material and stretched it out to five. Terrible as it is to watch now, this for me was the turning point in taking this from hobby that I did to kill time on Mondays to hobby that I did to kill time on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday with the hopes of turning it into something bigger than a three to five minute set at an open mic somewhere.

I have been asking myself since I did the Comedy Zone- Greenville "Comedy Fight Night" Why I want to do comedy. Even when you are doing well there are no guarantees. Every comic has experienced it at some point. You kill with a set one night and you drive an hour in any other direction with that very same set and all the confidence of Vladimir Putin riding a horse shirtless and bomb. Spectacularly.

Putin: That joke was horse shit.

I still haven't come up with what I know would be a good answer. I'm pretty sure I will never have a good answer.

 I wrote another three paragraphs on the types of comedians I've seen. The good and the bad. Then deleted it. Its not relative to the answer. Comedy is about making people laugh, no matter what you use to get there (as long as its original!). I'm bored now and have walked away from my laptop a few times now. I get distracted easily so standing on soap boxes and preaching to the masses. So to wrap this up: I was bad at it. I'm better at it now. I can still get better.

Oh right, the endings. This blog is going away. It never really went anywhere in the first place but obviously I never did anything with it so there is no use keeping it around for the sake of it just sitting here. I posted once or twice. There are at least 9 unfinished blog posts from over the years. I never finished them and if this post is any indication, If I'm not focusing on it, My mind will wander.

I wonder what its like to eat gogurt in space...........

Its from a time when being a comedian was not the end game. To be honest, I'm not even 100% sure it is. But I'm going to continue working at it until I see whatever success is suppose to look like these days.

This was really just an excuse to play with pictures. 

Keep up The Good Work.