Just a spectator tonight. Great comedy. Everything from newcomers to TV stars. Almost didn't make it to the show. I witnesed a fight on the way to the club. Ah the wonderful Tenderloin. After the show I saw five guys, all dressed the same in white linen shirts and pants, each carrying a 12 pack of Old Milwaukee, trying to convince a very SKANKY hooker to go with them. She would have none of it.
So, as for the show; 50 Mason puts on some great shows. Next Friday (10/8) the headliner is Bill Santiago. One of the best comedians on the curcuit. Check it out. It's BYOB, but they sell mixers and cups. Buy a cup.
After I finished SAX HEALER I was worried that I'd be able to reach that level again. I realize now that was one of the things that kept me from writing consistently over the last several weeks. This we I was trapped on the train for 90 minutes morning and evening and that forced me to work on a story that's been in my head for quite a while. So now that story has been written and it is at least as good as SAX HEALER. It has less of a plot, but I let myself go in a few places and I produced some nice brain tickling phrases.
I mention above that I was stuck on the train commuting for three days. This was because I had to go to training for this big complicated software package I'll be using at work more and more in the coming months. The training itself was fun. It's up my old alley of perl programming which is nice to revisit. This goes against by goal of being less of a geek, but I'm thinging that this will take some of the self-inflicted pressure off me. Programming has definite solutions, where the analyst part never really has any closure. There are always more opinions and ideas waiting in the wings for the next phase. One project I've been working on for over a year just won't die.
Tonight I got to perform on a legendary stage. The stage rust was severe, but I squeezed a few laughs out of the audience of 4 people. It's getting harder to shift between the story writing and the comedy. I wish I could put the intensity in to the comedy that I lend so easily to the stories.
I love this place. There were some cancelations for the Best of the Bay Comedy Competition so I took one of the vacated spots. Being as rusty as I am right now I had no illusions of winning. There were some great comedians on the bill as well, so this was just for fun. And fun it was. I did all old material. Nothing new. I got some good laughs, but also got tounge-tied in a few places which really turned off the audience. I also managed to offend a few people with my Mel Gibson snuff film reference. Ah well.
Surprisingly, the people I thought would win didn't. Matter of fact my top three picks didn't even show up. Don't understand that one.
Finished a rewrite of the story I mentioned above, then ran it through a screen reader. The computer actually reads the text out loud. It's amazing how much I miss when editing my stories. When I hear it read all this crap jumps out at me. It's a great tool.
Sometimes I am reminded of just how far I have left to go. When I write something I tend to get blinded by my closeness to the material. I don't read it with a critical eye. That's why having Pat as my first reader is so important. It's almost funny how hard she tries not to hurt my feelings when there is something wrong with the story I just had her read. Often my first reaction is to reject her input, but always I come around to seeing her point. I don't always agree with her ideas for fixing the problem, but the problem itself, she has never been wrong. So now I have to do a major rework on what this morning I thought was the best thing I've written. Hey, it still might turn out to be.
The rework on the new story came out good. What I discovered was that I had a whole bunch of facts that did nothing for the story. However without writing these facts, I never would not have been able to write the story.
Went to the indoor kart track in Burlingame today. I got to run on the the left track which I haven't run before. My goal was to get under 30 seconds and I did that my nearly 2 seconds. See the whole story.
I had a pretty good set tonight. A bit uneven though. I've writing stories so much that I am getting wordy on stage. I need to make a clearer division in my mind between the two.
I got TWO rejection letters this week. Both stories are good. At least I think they are. So I've already submitted the stories to two new journals. I'll show them.
For some time now I've been saying that my goal is to write a story that doesn't make me cry. Tonight I did it. It is also the first story I've written that's more funny than story. What I've done is taken my basketball routine and converted it to a story. It's actually worked. It needs a major rewrite, but it looks promising.