At this rate I will win it all in 2011

Last night, I was bounced from Caroline’s March Comedy Madness in the Elite 8. I made it to the Sweet 16 last year so this year was an improvement. However, in the Elite 8 I lost to a 5’3″ woman, which is becoming a recurring theme for me.

If there is one lesson about comedy that I can take away from last night it is this: comedy is a solitary business. Or at least it is for some. My opponent seemed to have garnered strong support from the crowd both because of her quality material and the number of people that came to see her. I could not generate the same support. I am sort of at that cross road in my career where I do not have a real fan base to speak of (beyond the 20-25 people that added me on MySpace after Ferguson), but I have lost support from friends/never actually had it. In other words, I may vaguely resemble Barack Obama, but my comedy career looks like Hillary Clinton’s campaign. And for both me and Hillary we are down to women over 50 as the main source of our support.

The problem with being a struggling comic in this city is that you often need help in achieving that dream, which sucks. Stage time at big clubs is either years away or ten friends away. Many comics will have a dozen people telling them to “fu-k it and follow their dream,” but that is because those people’s asses are not on the line and most likely do not have a real dream. Sort of like Bill Paxton’s character in Aliens eagerly agreeing that someone else should go outside where it is not safe.

The bittersweet part of the show was that I was actually killing at the bar after the show better than I did during the last round. Tonight I try to replicate that magic in the basement of a taco restaurant.