With things coming together, I’m finally relaxing, which means of course my body has chosen to be sick. My body’s pretty great, in that it stores up illnesses when I’m stressed out for when I have time to deal with them. Either way, I got a great tape at The Comedy Studio last night, and I have another fun show at Improv Boston at 9pm this evening.
Here’s a clip of my reaction after the first strong set I had of this tour, in Durham, NH:
After stealing Wifi from multiple locations and much waiting…my first Youtube video of the tour!
“Hey, I guess NY was helpful!” is a kind of gross title, but I’ve been wondering if I made a mistake with my choices in New York for the past month. I got heavily involved in improv, because I loved it and viewed improv as accruing performance hours onstage more quickly than doing just stand up. And it forced me to be okay with things not going my way — which in improv, is constant.
After the first show of my tour on Saturday, it felt like I had gotten worse since I moved from Boston. But I’m quickly appreciating how hard NY was. Each show I’m doing better, and more importantly, I finally feel like myself onstage, rather than some character of myself trying to impress people. I’m having so much fun performing at places I previously would have had a lot of anxiety about. I booked three more shows tonight, plus I gave away my first business card ever!
As far as show business is concerned, I’ve always only focused on the show, assuming my eventual greatness (bleh) would take care of the business side. Sadly, I have yet to become so funny, people will take care of all my mundane tasks for me. So time to adult-up and do them.
Still working on uploading videos to Youtube. 80 min left on the one! Tomorrow I go to Maine for two shows, and Thursday I meet with the Instacart people to hopefully have a job. Couchsurfing-wise, I’m staying at friends places, but I’m trying to use Couchsurfing.com if anyone has any suggestions on how to get people to let you stay at their place? I’ll need to know how to traverse that site when I traverse to places I don’t know anyone. Other than that, things are great so far!
Sunday I made my first video with my new camera, but I guess the internet where I’m staying has difficulty with Youtube uploads. Currently, a video I’m trying to publish has 305 minutes remaining! Hopefully I can find a better connection soon.
The tour has officially begun! I finally finished purchasing my 2005 Corolla last night in NYC. Today, I drove it to my show in Boston, and then to my Mom’s place in NH: 350 miles, or 9 “Style”‘s by Taylor Swift even though you keep changing the radio station. A long enough drive where I liked “Style” but hated the chorus at first, but by now I’ve been Stockholm Syndromed into loving it!
The show went fine. It’s tough seeing the Boston guys who I “left behind” but are doing shows all the time and are so much better now. However, it does give me confidence that I’m making the right choice with this rip. I’m happy for what I’ve learned in NY, but I’m not developing the act I would like to, and I do think the type of audiences you’re in front of tends to determine your act (you keep what gets laughs). More details soon, it’s just 2:30am, and I’m exhausted.
Also, if anyone has a part-time job in Boston I could do for the month, please let me know. That and the couchsurching are my next steps.
I think I’m getting a Corolla! “Think” meaning I have a strange, complicated, and anxiety inducing agreement where I’m purchasing it on Monday. Something about Title Transfer papers. If this falls through, it will be the 10th car that’s not worked out in the past month. Craigslist has not kind to me. That said, if the car works out, my adventure starts in Boston next week!
Big move: I’m buying a car and couchsurfing around the country doing stand up. Starting April 1st which is in a week! I’m going to film it, make a documentary, and make my first comedy album. Soon, I will be updating this blog several days a week! A GoFundMe exists if you’d like to donate or retweet it. And if you think, “Screw you, Tom, and your constant greed!” Please write that on all your social networks with a link to the donation button! More to come!
Hey everyone! I will start actually having a web presence shortly. Here’s something from early January when I was in Chicago for Sketch Fest with my sketch team Baby Shoes:
“Hey fans! I’m in Chicago and finally relaxing from Sketch Fest, which was fantastic. The great and overwhelming thing about NY, is there’s constantly comedic things you could do. There are open mics at 4pm or earlier every day. Chicago is a wonderful city, but this is not the case, so I’m forced to write, instead of avoiding writing with performing, which is what I feel like I’ve been doing for a while. Constant performing. Constant working on something. That said, I really feel like writing now, so maybe it was all fine and I didn’t need to worry about any of it? That’s seemingly the theme of my blog/life.
Hey fans! I’m in Chicago, finally relaxing from Chicago SketchFest. Yes, I’m on a sketch team now too.
I’m finally figuring out how I want to aim my comedy. I’d love to do something like John Oliver’s program, Last Week Tonight. The show blurs the line between actual journalism and a comedy show. They bring up stories the media isn’t really going into detail about, and both entertains and enlightens (me) with important issues, like local voting:
I looked up the stats: 60% of us vote for Presidential elections. 40% vote for midterm elections, and an exciting 20% of us vote in local elections. While one vote may not statistically matter, 80% of the vote does. This maybe coincidental, but things are really great for the top 20% of incomes in the US, and a bit of a struggle for most everyone else. Maybe they’re the 20% that vote in every election. Of course, corruption is another factor, but most of us are giving up what little voice we have.
Research has shown, and this is crazy, but the more minorities and lower-income people vote, the more spending they get directed towards them. Or the other way, the less you vote, the less money goes towards anything that would help you. Here’s a great article on it: http://www.governing.com/topics/politics/gov-voter-turnout-municipal-elections.html
Anyway, these types of posts are more what I want to do. I’ll weave in some stuff about my own life when its exciting, but I’m more interested in researching and joking about ways to reduce inequality, because that will make me feel like my comedy is more than just a distraction! Hooray!
Tom Dunlap 