Newsletter: Why? / Hair-Brained Schemes
I'm trying to get to heart of my new show and getting mad at negative people along the way.
We have to stop covering kids eyes in scary movies. It’s way worse! So now I just have to imagine what’s happening on screen? Do you remember that bit in Volcano where the subway guy melts in the lava? I had to cover my eyes and just listen to the guy succumb to the red hot magma. Ten years later I saw the scene on TV and realised how tame it was. If my eyes were open I’d see that the editor cut away from the gory bit. But the imagination never cuts away.
I had a massive January. I thought January was supposed to be sleepy.
I don’t like when a barista tells how many shots are in my coffee when I order a large. “That’s three shots, is that OK?” It feels like a challenge to my manhood. Now every time I demand that they add another shot.
I have a favour to ask. I’m doing Adelaide Fringe and Melbourne Comedy Festival and it would mean the world if you told your friends about it. Head to my socials and share a post or send them a link to tickets directly.
Entrees
The warm-up bits.
The Best Note for Writers
I ran a trial version of my new show recently. The best note came from my mates Bec Melrose and Steph Broadbridge (two of my excellent friends who have helped me shape a lot of my work.) They simply asked the question ‘Why?’
In my case the full question was: ‘Why are treats so important to you?’
It’s a question that the writer often knows the answer to but may not be communicating effectively. They also might think they know the answer but when pressed can’t articulate it in a concise way. It can also be clear at the beginning but get lost along the way.
‘Why?’ is an excellent place to start when developing your own material or giving notes to friends.
It made me recheck my drafts and my subconscious to see if I was conveying what I wanted. I had to discover if it was just a sentence, paragraph, or an entire page of explanation that was missing. Did it have to be in the text? I guess so, it clearly wasn’t coming through in the subtext.
I asked myself ‘Why am I doing a show all about treats? Is that all it’s about?’ I watched Jacqueline Novak’s Get on Your Knees on Netflix. That’s all about blowjobs. She digs into one subject for ninety minutes and it’s a masterpiece. She uses the subject-matter as a backdrop to a coming of age story. It’s sort of oxymoronic in that it’s all about blowjobs and also totally not at the same time.
I went for a swim and after my third lap, I had a eureka moment. I’ve been trying to figure out how to make the b-plot of moving house work alongside the origin story of why I love to focus on the lighter side of life. I have a story about being upset about my friend eating a cookie while driving instead of savouring it. How do I convey to the audience why I find it so frustrating that someone would eat a biscuit while steering?
Sometimes you’ve got to put your subconscious to work. I’ve been getting a lot of 6am moments of inspiration when I get up to put the dog out to wee (I wee too, it seems our bladders are synced up.)
My subconscious fed me one word: movement.
A slice of cake, a chocolate bar, a massage, whatever form the treat might take, all involve stopping. The phrase is “stop and smell the roses.” The slogan is “Have a break, have a kit-kat” not “Eat this chocolate while seeing what else you can get done.”
As a busy person who has moved house every two years for the last ten years of my life, I treasure moments of pause and stillness. A dessert is best enjoyed seated, static, and savoured. If you’re going to eat a cookie behind the wheel of a car, then are you truly appreciating all the cookie has to offer? And by extension, are you appreciating any of the finer things in life?
First thing I did when I dried off from the pool was send Steph and Bec a voice note sharing my epiphany, hoping that they would be satisfied with my answer to their question.
Now I have to work on it coming through in the show. Hopefully my audience will know why I just spent an hour talking treats.
“That Was Light”
Despite a stressful household, mum always made an effort to find the positive. I feel like some people make an effort to find the good even in challenging times.
Take the example of movie night at our place.
We’d do our best to choose a worthwhile rental from Video Ezy. It was always challenging. Back in those days, the movie you rented was the movie you watched. You couldn’t stop it five minutes in and opt to re-watch old episodes of The Office instead. You had to commit.
Even if the movie wasn't great, mum would always say “That was light.”
As soon as the movie cut to the credits those would be the first words out of mum’s mouth.
It was mum’s way of saying, “That wasn’t a masterpiece but at least we all shared a moment. At least we got to sit down for a bit.”
She is also very fond of pointing out nice scenery during films. Just another example of trying to find something nice to say.
At the time I thought “That was light” was a peculiar thing to say. None of my friends parents sounded like my mum. Can’t you just find something to complain about like all the other parents? “That was stupid”, “That was too long”, “How did Michael Jordan get looney-toon powers?”
My mate told me that his dad would reach for the newspaper if it hadn’t grabbed him five minutes in. If it was particularly bad he’d leave the room and do the crossword. The rustle of a newspaper signified dad had checked out and it was no longer a family activity.
I feel like some people choose to be negative. At the very least, they’re making no effort to make it a good time for anyone else. These are the same people that you go out to dinner with and they spend the whole time telling you how much they hate what they ordered. It’s impossible to enjoy your meal when the person across from you keeps announcing how much they hate what they’re eating… as they continue to eat it.
Main Course
Some chunky bits now that you’re settled in.
Hair-Brained Schemes
A few weeks ago I ran a retreat for members of the Comedy Writers Group, a community I created on patreon a few years ago. All of our meet-ups have been over zoom and now here we were in the Blue Mountains. Members from all around Australia came to Katoomba to connect and create comedy.
I’ve dreamed up a lot of schemes and projects over the years. It’s always been a dream to be able to have my own small business that could generate income alongside stand-up. My brain chemistry has never been excited about the 9am - 5pm lifestyle, always on the look-out for an income source that I could self-generate.
Ten years ago I would be the sort of person that would run head first into a project without really considering whether there was a market for what I was making. I call this the Fingers-Crossed Method. It’s led to me selling literal lemons on the side of the road hoping that people would take advantage of the discount compared to Coles. They didn’t.
All of my projects and companies faded away due to lack of interest either from the market or me. When you need a job and instead devote your time to creating a start-up chances are that you’ll get distracted by bills needing to be paid. It’s not to say that they were all misguided, overly ambitious or hair-brained schemes.
There was a radio play podcast that invited folks to submit their scripts for plays that were gathering dust. It lasted for two episodes. There was the children’s theatre company. We did three productions. I thought it could make a lot of money but forgot the part where it would involve a marketing budget and a lot of cold-calling. There was the series of Youtube videos I made for a fundraiser, an improv podcast we made during covid, and another podcast that never made it to the internet. I edited people’s self-published erotica on Fiverr. Each festival show that I’ve produced over the years is yet another project that I hope will pay off. I’ll never forget Adelaide Fringe 2020; feeling very burnt out and wondering where my next dollar would come from.
Cut to lockdown and encouraging my brain to squeeze out one more hair-brained scheme, and I found myself coaching stand-up comedians over zoom. The one-on-ones were working well but I wanted there to be a range of opinions and POVs available. I decided to put on some online open mics and writers groups every now and then for my regulars. Remarkably there was enough interest after lockdown to continue and thus The Comedy Writers Group was born.
The CWG has demonstrated strong staying power. There’s a hunger for mentorship and community in the comedy industry. My plan is to continue to build into a place rich with resources for beginner and intermediate comedians to excel in their field. I hope it continues to attract a range of comedy writers with a range of backgrounds and experience levels who can learn from learn from one another. It hasn’t grown large enough to pay my rent but it has enough members to sustain itself. It also means I can afford to pay all the comedians that I hire as guest mentors. I hope it will be around for years to come.
Fortunately my other project that I’ve fostered over the years is building a reputation as a coach, mentor, and director. Last Friday I had five clients in one day. If you want to work with me, you can book me in for a one-on-one right here.
I don’t regret all the little projects over the years. A lot of them were a heap of fun and became longer ventures. Our children’s theatre company Disco Turtle Productions became the production company for the venues we curated for the Adelaide Fringe between 2014 - 2019. Not everything was a flash in the pan and each experience helped me get to where I am today.
My head is so full of stuff acquired from across the years and I’m so glad I’ve found an audience that find it valuable. Being at the Writers Retreat and seeing over thirty members (of our 140+ member community) in one place really brought that home for me.
The feedback has been so encouraging and I’m so excited to see it grow. If you want to join or support it, go check out the patreon page.
Comedy Pet-Peeves: “I Did That Bit Once… ”
Every month I discuss an element of comedy that irritates my pedantic brain.
A comedian finishes their joke and after the laughter subsides they follow it with, ‘I did that bit once…’ and proceed to tell you about a past performance of that joke where something noteworthy happened.
“I did that bit once and a lady in the audience called out [blank] and I was like [blank.]”
It’s a pretty standard move and you’ll see it used all the time. I’m not against the bit per se but I do think it ought to be used sparingly. There’s a few reasons:
It pulls back the curtain. It breaks the illusion that up until this point the comedian was making it appear that these were thoughts and ideas occurring to them in real-time.
It takes out the “liveness” and immediacy of the performance, underlining that this is all planned out. This is all scripted and I said the same stuff to a different audience last night. This show is therefore not special.
Where does it end? Can you follow up a “I did that bit once” with another “I did that bit once”? I.e “I did that bit once on stage and a lady called out ‘fish fingers’! And I said, ‘Thanks mum!’ [audience laughs] Anyway, I told that story about the fish fingers lady in the audience at another gig and this guy called out and I said ‘Thanks dad!’” [And the Comedy Award goes to…]
My point is that while this is a useful move, it ought to be used sparingly. Ensure that your material isn’t full of too many meta-moments as it might begin to affect the trust of the audience. The more times you call attention to the contrived nature of stand-up, the less the audience will buy into your act.
Not to mention that the more you talk about other gigs, the more the audience will begin to wonder why you don’t focus on this one instead. I’ll never forget the comedian I watched where all their jokes started with either, “I was on my way to a gig”, “I was at a gig”, or “I was on my way home from a gig.”
Anyway, I wrote about this peeve in another newsletter once and one of the readers was like, ‘Isn’t this a bit pedantic?’ and I said, ‘That’s sort of my whole brand.’
The Comedy Writers Group: February
We are over 140 members strong! It’s so exciting to see the community grow. This month our members get to work with Cameron James, Bec Melrose, Bron Lewis, and more.
What is The Comedy Writers Group? The CWG is a community of comedians from around Australia. We have five online meet-ups a month ranging from workshop sessions, Q & As, and group writing time. At our workshops we’re joined by special guest professional comedians who help guide and mentor our participants.
You can sign up for just the podcast for $5 per month or attend all the workshops for $10.
“The Comedy Writers Group has empowered me to keep writing (and more scary yet) performing my comedy in Australia. After listening to 3 podcasts, I even made the leap in applying for a fringe show despite being very new to comedy - the pod was just that helpful that I felt equipped to do so. Love the generosity of this community.” - Rayannon
LIVE SHOWS
Adelaide Fringe is on sale for my solo show and for The Newlyweds.
MICF is on sale too! Book for Let Me Eat Cake and The Newlyweds.
Dessert
Here’s some stuff I’ve been enjoying lately.
Listen: I’m listening to Maria Bamford’s book which I plan to finish off on my drive to Adelaide. I’ve also been listening to James Acaster’s music recommendations from his book Perfect Sound Whatever.
Watch: I adored Jacqueline Novak’s Get on Your Knees. It’s so well crafted and unique. I also loved season two of Reacher. The show is such well-made trashy TV.
Read: I loved Garry Gulman’s Misfit. It teleported me back to my own childhood. It reminded me of growing up as a tall kid who was often pushed into sport but much preferred comedy and doing anything else.