Two Years of fun. Pessimistic, passive aggressive fun.
Happy 2nd Birthday, Clown College Confessions!
There are two things I would have liked to have ready to post on this, the second anniversary of my little blog:
The First: to have had enough money to finally convert it to its own domain name and;
The Second: to have been able to post photos from Fresh Meat and talked about the upcoming Cream of Comedy show.
But as it turns out, I’m still broke and I didn’t make it onto Cream of Comedy…
SO…
…this adorable teddy bear will have to suffice, OK? ALRIGHT?!?!?! What’s wrong? A cute teddy bear NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YA? Well we’ll see about THAT!!!!
Somebody get me some chocolate cake.
_____
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Clown College is officially over!!!! (with the exception of graduation, which will be happening in June, but who cares about actually graduating??!?! [I do, I made the Dean’s list!]) When I finished University, my Mom really wanted graduation photos, but I never got around to taking them. She might get what she asked for this time around, except I need to warn her, she’s not allowed to complain about the giant red nose.
On a different note, as the impending sense of dread looms nearby, we were given one last educational tidbit before calling it quits for the summer. Pam Thomas, casting agent, producer, manager (etc.,) who’s worked with Lorne Michaels at SNL, with KITH, with some of the SCTV crew and managed Maya Rudolph (etc.) came by to talk to us a bit about what happens après Humber…
Everything she said made sense:
Get an agent
Get a demo reel
Get a website
Move the fuck out of Canada
A one-on-one meeting with the guru turned into a one-on-two with someone who graduated 7 years ago and is currently touring the Yuk’s circuit while simultaneously working retail to get by. That’s what we call an “eye opener.”
I was worried there wouldn’t be much use for a blog that was meant to document my time at Comedy School after I graduated, but it looks like this is really just the beginning. There’s probably enough in the self-reflective element of this business that will keep me (and hopefully you) interested… for the next 7 years at least!
Ever been given a car, then realized because you’ve never been insured before because you’ve been taking public transit ever since you left home for university, so you’re an at-risk driver and no insurer in his or her right mind will get you a good deal on car insurance, so you worry you’re going to dig yourself into a financial hole deeper than the one you’ve already doomed yourself into when you decided to go to clown college and start paying for car insurance two months before you graduate?
Tomorrow begins the last and final chapter/semester of Clown College.
"I don't think any of us expected him to say that."
How do I feel about that? Well, I’m a bit of a mixed bag of emotions right now. This term sortof marks the height of our accomplishments over the past two years. We spend the last month (I think) showcasing our best 4-minute set in front of Mark Breslin & many other important people at Yuk Yuk’s, our best sketches and some of the top-plays will be selected to be put on at another performance – (location to be announced,) and finally, we compete for a coveted spot in the esteemed Industry Show on the Second City Mainstage.
I guess nervous, is what I am. Nervous and excited. Those are two things that really fuel me in this business/world/heavily-dominated-by-psychotic-people-industry so far. Because if I was sortof bored and blasé about the performances, I think it’d be a sign that I wasn’t really into it. I like the fact that for a few minutes before I perform a set, my brain pretty much shuts down and goes into “self-preservation” mode. It means I’m doing something that evolution is telling me scares the shit out of other people. And not even a little part of me thinks that’s stupid.
I like locking myself in my apartment and working my words over and over again until I get them just right. I’ve had help with that ever since first year univ… no wait, high school. Writing something is one thing, but re-writing again and again and again is a whole different skill. It requires patience, LOTS of patience.
What I’m not looking forward to is the getting-into-my-own-head-iness that I’ve been doing a lot; presuming things about people and their perceptions without anything but my own experiences and insecurities to back them (the presumptions) up. Hopefully I’ll try to work on that as I continue in my attempts to cultivate mindfulness and appreciate the significance of being “in the moment” in the clown college atmosphere, because there genuinely is no other atmosphere quite like it.
So, wish me luck with as I embark this last semester with an open mind, that will almost certainly be shut ten minutes into class, because in actuality, I’m a terribly impatient human being.
Also, watching the Simpsons in languages I don’t understand is funny. So here:
I suppose a great way to stick to my New Years resolution of writing more/all the time, is to write more in this blog. I know it’s supposed to be behind-the-scenes confessions about my time at Humber (Clown) College, but well, it’s the Holidays still, we don’t go back to school until Monday, so in the meantime, please excuse my non-school-based rambles.
My cat’s in heat.
(Why do I always talk about my cat? I don’t mean to. I don’t think any cat-owner means to talk about their cat(s) as much as they do. They’re just so adorably distracting.)
Last night we cuddled and spent the evening catching up on hours upon hours worth of Glee. Hey! I don’t care what you have to say! That TV show, love it or hate it, is bringing more and more children into the performing arts. I wish Con had a glee club when I attended school there. We had an improv team that couldn’t afford to go to the only improv competition for French schools in Ontario. It was all the way in Timmins. That’s pretty damn far from the Niagara Region.
We couldn’t even put on plays. We tried to once, but interest and enthusiasm among the cast was so low we had to cancel it (AND I’d nabbed the lead! #unfair) Trying to compare my high school education with high schools on TV is impossible. They don’t write shows for 300 or so French Canadian public school children, most of whom’s ambition remains “staying a live to deal pot to the next generation of Wellanders.”
I think small-town Franco-Ontarian culture does have a place within pop-culture. Somebody get me on the phone with TFO!
I should probably have written that last bit of rantiness in French.
I’ve been down a bit lately with regards to our sketch troupe falling apart. I had all these ideas for sketches. Even when I didn’t have any ideas, I knew that if there was a show coming, I could sit in front of my computer and come up with something funny for the show.
But now, without a sketch troupe with which to perform, I’ve decided to turn my sketch ideas into short stories. The first one I’m working on is Christmas-themed, which is good because there’s no way I’d be able to stage it on time before Christmas. Once we start school up again, people will have moved on from the whole Holiday thing. (Ah, How fleeting is our time?…)
I don’t know if the humour I wish to depict on stage via sketch performers will translate as well onto the page. Maybe it’ll be more difficult when it’s not possible to see the reactions on the actors’ faces.
Hopefully readers’ imaginations are still capable of visualizing such emotional responses in their minds…, if the piece is written well enough!
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