At last night’s open mic, I ran into a comedian friend who I hadn’t seen in a while. He hasn’t been around as much, he said, because he sometimes finds it hard to muster the energy for open mic at this time of year. To Seattleites, and others in northern climes, this feeling is common enough that it has a name (and clever acronym): Season Affective Disorder.
I don’t suffer from S.A.D., in the clinical sense, but as a biker, I do find Seattle winters to be a substantial pain in the ass. It starts getting dark at 4pm, and when it’s not raining, it’s as cold as frigid yeti balls.
It would be one thing if the trek to a club led to certain stage time, but when you’re still at the lower end of the totem pole, this isn’t the case. I went to three open mics last week, for instance, and didn’t get on stage for any of them. Here’s a summary of my time spent working on comedy last week (not including blogging):
- Writing and rehearsing: 3 hours
- Visiting comedy clubs (inc. travel): 13 hours
- Time on stage: 0.00 minutes
Looked at one way, those sixteen hours could be seen as a colossal waste of time. I don’t see it that way, though, because my material is more polished than it was at the beginning of the week, I got to spend time with my comedy friends, I met some new people, and on at least one of the nights, getting bumped meant a guaranteed spot for the following week (this one). It’s certainly a bit of a grind, but I absolutely believe that it’s worth it.
And while this post might sound S.A.D., I’m actually still enjoying myself quite a bit, and remain incredibly optimistic about the future. I received some exciting news last week, too, about more which shortly…
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