Well folks I'm back from a weekend in Pittsburgh to see my friend Mike Travers and to do a gig for a benefit.
Saturday night was exciting and terrifying at once. I was going to do ten minutes of comedy and to be honest I didn't think I was ready for ten minutes but gave it the college try.
I started my set by dancing to My Lady Lumps by Blacked Eye Peas, always a crowd favorite, and a time filler. But it was a bad idea I was very winded and that effected my stand up it took a few good minutes to be able to be ready to go into my diabetes joke and the delievery suffered.
Although I got laughs for it, it was a loss of confidence for me and I feel the crowd felt it. I went into my spill stumbling over lines and filling in with the definate I'm not confident remark "we having fun?" Always a sign of a guy struggling.
Although I continued to get laughs (thank you crowd for that), I also found out later that I was pretty much eating the mic. I had it up to my mouth muffling pretty much everything I was saying making it even harder for the great crowd to hear every joke. But I still had some winning jokes that got lots of laughs such as my beach joke and my student loan joke and my mom's tatoo joke.
After struggling thru my act I turned it over to a real pro in Mike Wysoki. I sat back and enjoyed watching his set. Soaking it all in. How he held the mic, how confident he was in delivery and his well crafted jokes. I tried to learn as much as I could. Than I went back up there and did another five minutes before turning it over to my buddy Mike Travers who did a great set of comedy set to music.
He also called me up to help with a few songs and thats where I did my best work of the evening. My facial expressions and playing off of what he did went over huge with Mike and the crowd so the night wasn't a total bust and it was a great learning tool for the next time.
Going over with it with Mike got me excited and even more determined to be better next time. I'm going to basically start with 3 minutes and work it until I have it down...timing facial expressions and content. I'm hungry to get better at this and my audience will have to bare with me...I'm really rusty. :)
Thank God I have plenty of Virgils soap to clean of the sweat and fear lol..
Cold Sweats and Stand Up
Dancing Fat Man for Hire
Well, fellow readers, I woke up today to find out that lil ol Dancing Kevin is getting laid off from the job he's had for 11 years.
Can't say I'm surprised, knew it was coming for awhile. I mean, why would US Air pay us when they can contract the station out and save more than half what they pay us in salaries and benefits? So by a business point of view it makes sense.
But now what will I do?
At least they gave us until Oct 15th to figure it out :) I can either feel sorry for myself, or think of it as a blessing. I pick the latter. I wasn't happy at work for the past couple of years (thats a whole different blog post all together). So this is probably a good thing. I've been thinking about going back to school and Colorado State University has a new degree field in renewable energy and green technologies. Something I've been really interested in. Plus, there's my stand up comedy which, in all honesty, I haven't dedicated myself to in the way that I should. This layoff could be the thing that really pushes me ahead.
Then there's my TV commercial career :). That's slowed down and needs to pick up again...so if anyone needs a dancing fat guy for a tv commercial...hit me up!
I always thought that, since my garden is so awesome and I love doing, it maybe I should open up a vegtable stand in my front yard and call it the urban organic gardener LOL. This layoff could also be a real oppurtunity to help my family out and sell Virgil's Fine Soaps because it's an awesome product all natural and made by the loving hands of my mom and dad www.virgilsfinesoaps.com (check it out I promise you'll love it).
Or...maybe I can get a job at my favorite resturant, Chipotle. I love that freakin place and free burritos would be sweet! Maybe I should get a job with another airline or the company that is taking over our ramp. But than again, wouldn't I still be wondering everyday if the axe is going to fall again?
I don't know what I'm going to do yet and when I get more facts it will help me decide. In the meantime, if anyone again needs my services for dancing or stand up let me know and please, please buy dancing Kevin tshirts I'm losing my job! LOL
http://www.cafepress.com/dancekevin
http://virgilsfinesoaps.com/
