MTR waste

Look at all the lights that are on at this MTR exit in Kwun Tong. I took this photo at 3 in the afternoon. It's a beautiful sunny day, extremely bright. So why are there so many lights on?

You know it's a little hot on that covered walkway, why don't we put AC there too? As long as we're being wasteful right?

little late

well i'm a little late on this one. at least that gave me a little more time for me to think about what i want to write. and something actually happened the last couple of nights that i'd like to write about.
of course, this blog will include me talking about comedy. but before i get to that i just wanted to mention how cool it was to have my friend joseph visit from the US and show him and his wife around. they got along pretty well with my friends and my girlfriend. and we even went to a place i've never been before, temple of 10,000 buddas. what a long walk up that hill! after the first few hundred i was like "ok. i get it. there are a lot of buddas." but they just kept on going. i don't know what the point of that is.
anyway it was fun being host.
as for the shows this weekend, they were interesting to say the least. first off, on friday i tore it up. i killed the audience and that was fun. it's nice to go up with the kind of confidence when you know you can deliver. at least i thought it was until last night, which was the exact opposite from the show where i could do no wrong. saturday night i hosted and to say the audience loved me would definitely be a lie. they kind of hated me, but in a really good way. i don't really know how to explain it but i think ryan put it best when he said that i was the guy "they loved to hate." and its true. they weren't really laughing at my jokes, or anywhere i wanted them to laugh. but they seemed to love it when i made fun of myself not being funny. they ate that up! and then as soon as i'd get down every comedians first joke got a great response! never felt that before. i don't hate the feeling, don't get me wrong. it's just not the goal in your head when you're goin up to perform.
that said, i did the hosts job. the comedians looked good, and the show was held together. i felt like i was the only one pattin myself on the back for a while until a couple people pointed that out. one audience member even made a point of telling me that i did a great job. i don't think she was just talking crap either because she went out of her way to tell me that. taught me that you can't always judge and audience by their laughs.

important lesson in dating

if you treat your girlfriend more important than you're friends, make sure she knows it. that's my lesson from yesterday. i mean i thought that's what i was doing for the past two weeks. nope! i was way off! and sometimes the problems can all boil down to the words you choose.
"ok babe I'm gonnna go see my friends now."
"why do you put them ahead of me?"
"i don't. i just haven't seen them in two years."
"whabout me?"t a
"i see you a lot. we live together." (this is a very bad thing to say. expect something bad from her now)
"maybe we shouldn't live together."
At that point consider your night over. Either you'll blow up and call out the threat or try to get really, really comforting to make her feel better.
It's tough. It really is. Every guy wants to be a nice guy ( well most) but there is always the inner battle between that and the guy who doesn't get pushed around. You never know where to draw the line.
I guess the toughest thing i've had to learn about the whole relationship thing is the compromise. you just can't win every battle. and i'll admit i'm usually never the first one to give up in any disagreement. that's not really a good thing because i'll contradict anybody about anything, even the dumbest, minute deal. that attitude really helps in comedy, but freakin sucks for girlfriends.

Right on time

Here I am writing a blog after 10 days just like i said i would. Maybe it's not that hard after all. 10 doesn't come around too quickly and leaves just enough time for stuff to happen that can write about.
Anyway today's post comes from San Francisco where I'll be for another two weeks. I was really looking forward to come out here for a number of reasons like visiting family & friend, and showing my girlfriend around my hometown.

But one thing I was really looking forward to do was perform some comedy out here and I did that last night a cool little place called the Clubhouse (clubhousecomedy.com). This place is the comedy club extension of the San Francisco Comedy College. I was suprised by how nice it was. With a nice big stage and capacity to hold up to 180 audience members I can tell this place is great to perform.

Probably the coolest part of being on the show was being able to perform with some real talent in the comedy world. Two of my favorite comics named Reggie Steele and Kevin Avery were there and I was kind of in awe that we were sharing the same stage. When talking to them I have to remind myself to act normal and gush over how awesome their skills are.

As for my set I was pretty happy with it. It was short as hell but I didn't want to risk going over on my first time at that club. And as for the audience I give them an "A." They had that infectious lingering laugh that I like a lot, really helps me relax.

Now that last night's show is over I'll probably only perform at open mics the rest of the time I'm here. That's not the best but it's a hell of a lot better than doing nothing. And I'll at least be able to meet some other comics in the San Francisco scene.

Also I'll need to keep on top of my writing while I'm here. In Hong Kong it's easy because it's part of my regular routine. But while I'm on vacation I'll need to make a special note of it because I have no schedule here to keep me on track.

getting a bit serious

Ok. I have to be honest and admit that I’ve have been very bad about keeping up this blog. There is only one thing to do about that. Get serious with it. I usually read a blog by a friend named Vivek Mahbubani (It’s easy to spell his name. I don’t know why many people have a problem with it) If there is anything I’ve learned from him it’s to wear deodorant. The other thing I guess I’ve learned from him is to make a plan and stick to it. For example he does a blog entry every 10 days so I think I’ll try something like that myself. So starting today, that’ll be my new rule (I’m actually scared that I won’t follow this one. Wait and find out!)
I do feel a little self-conscience about writing this blog, although I probably shouldn’t because nobody is reading it anyway. If you are then please leave a comment so that I know that you were here. And as long as your doing that you might as well tell me what you liked didn’t like about my blog. Believe it or not I’d like to improve this a lot so that I actually get some readers.
Why do I want a blog you ask? You probably didn’t do that but I’ll answer since I’m rudely assuming you did. Well I want a blog because I’d like to do some regular writing that can be viewed by the public.
“But Chris” you say, “Why the hell would you want to do that?” Well I’d actually like to be a professional comedian someday and I think one good thing to help with my popularity would be to keep a blog that is updated all the time.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not putting everything into comedy. I think that for the next few years I’ll be fine just doing my regular teaching job while performing stand up on the side. Regardless, it would be a good idea to get started in the habits of what a comedian should be doing. Such as regular joke writing (30min a day for me), as much stage time as possible, and trying to build a name for yourself (blogs help).

In the meantime though I’m just concentrating on having fun with comedy. I don’t want to lose the love I have for it. Cuz then what’s the point?

1 year and counting

well, i've been doing stand up comedy for one year now and i feel pretty good being up on stage now. when i first started i felt so stupid. i hated everything. my jokes, the way i acted the, audience. no i never hated the audience, but i really hate it when they don't laugh. especially if it was a joke that worked for the last 20 times in a row. when that happens i want to tell them that the jokes funny- that they just don't know it and that's their problems not mine. but obviously you can't say that and you just have to smile and move on to the next one. it's kind of weird how when a joke bombs and you just move on. after a while that becomes so easy because you're basically used to getting embarassed so after a while you don't feel bad about it.
take the last gig i did. i did 5 minutes of english for a mostly non-speaking english crowd. i knew they weren't going to understand let alone laugh. but i did the 5 minutes anyway, and some people did laugh and that really made my day. anyway the point i'm trying to make it don't do drugs. unless you can afford it. cuz it sucks to be in debt.

opening for paul ogata

last saturday i opened for paul ogata. i haven't had that much fun doing a set in a looooooong time. it only lasted for eight minutes but wow, the audience was great!
comedy seems like a roller coaster though and that week was definitely a good one. i was able to write a bunch of new stuff that all worked and it felt great. but then this week came and made me realize that comedy is extremely hard and sometimes you're not so lucky. that feeling came to me when i was trying out new stuff at open mic a couple of days ago. now i know open mics are completely different than a regular audience, but it always sucks when you don't get laughs. still trying to get used to that after a year of doing comedy. i guess it will take a while longer.

the thing that got me most about the open mic was this guy just staring at me from the third row. i'm used to it if there are people in the audience that aren't laughing, but this guy looked downright angry! i felt like my jokes were pissing him off! his face was stern and he was frowning. at the same time he had his leg folded on his chair with his arms wrapped around it. so that made him look even more uncomfortable. i wish i could tell him to relax.

this reminded me that audiences have no idea how much they actually contribute to making a quality show. if a show is good or bad i think a lot of that boils down to the audience. but they don't know that, and we can't tell them. so we have to do the best we can to make it a good one. tough job