Comedy please come back soon
The last time I did standup was on the September 24th Comedy Gym show outside at a viewpoint with Paul “Keep it Buttery” Kang, and Jacopo “The Italian One” Spaziani. The crowd was two of Jacopos friends and Paul’s girlfriend. And some random people that passed by. And it was fucking awesome. Really. The weather was excellent, and we were chilling outside with a speaker and mic, havin a good time saying random shit. We even live-streamed it. We were vibing out on a ledge, and it was dooooooope.
Lisbon winter is here now, and it’s cold or rainy or both every day. Not a great time to do an outdoor comedy show. And the city is changing restrictions every other week in response to the coronavirus infection rates. Are shows still happening? You fucking bet they are. Lot’s of Portuguese comedy nights and a couple of English comedy nights. Some get canceled here and there. Because tickets don’t sell or the promoters realize it’s wintertime in the middle of a pandemic. There have been a couple of English comedy nights, and I had the opportunity to kick Cais a Rir back up again. But I’ve skipped out on everything cause it just doesn’t feel like a great idea right now. After the Last Cais a Rir show back in February, I got sooooooo sick for like two weeks. I’m trying to make it through 2020,at least . I went to a couple shows before the infection rates started spiking. But now I’ve been avoiding them. There’s a lot of other ways to keep me busy for now. Stuff to learn. Other projects to work on. I’ve been doing some more short film stuff with Lee A few dudes in a room with a camera trying to make some content. With our clothes on. That’s not dangerous, right? Lee had a great idea about someone trying to do a voiceover. And as usual, we somehow abandoned the written stuff and came up with something totally different. But I thought it turned out well! If the instagram embed below doesn’t work I put it up here on youtube.
But I do miss performing man. fuuuuuuuck. Like the jams were just so much fun. And they were small enough that people from the crowd would get up and perform. Everyone would be hanging out and fucking around on the mic. It was just fun. With Cais a Rir people were paying money, so I felt like I had to put on a dope ass show. Those were a bit more stressful. You don’t want people to be like, “well, that was a waste of 5€”. But there was really no stress for the jams. Getting people a chance to perform and killing it was awesome. And the 86 bar was such a great place for that. The ambiance created by the small room with laughs echoing off the walls had such a great vibe. Like even if only one person laughed, that shit sounded loud as fuck, so when we had that place packed, you really felt the whole room at once. I don’t know if I’ll find another venue like that, but it was definitely my favorite. annnnnnnd now it’s gone.
This has been a year of losses in so many ways. I don’t really have a lot to lose. Some family I care about. uhhhh the comedy shows? I miss basketball. I could probably afford to lose a few pounds at this point at least. The impact hasn’t been huge for me, but I know a lot of people that are just straight-up fucked from all this. People who have lost love ones, their jobs, and so much more. And there’s not really much I can do for any of them. Everyone seems to be going through a lot of shit in their own way. Trying to keep people motivated to get through it is the best I can offer at this point. My life has been mostly tumultuous since day 0, so a lot of this is business as usual for me. Shit is totally fucked? That’s an average Wednesday. So I’ve remained quite productive through all this. But there’s still a long winter ahead, and who knows what else is in store. Maybe life can keep digging deeper here and find a new rock bottom for us all. There’s still time for a meteor impact or alien invasion if we wanna end 2020 on a high note.
Oh well. Heaps of other potential comedy stuff brewing behind the scenes, even though I’m mostly focused on other projects for the time being. Keep doing short film stuff and collabing with people here and there. Maybe some more web shows. Maybe trying to branch out into different areas with comedy. This is an excellent year to take a step back and explore new stuff. If I can find a venue to safely do the shows, I would consider making it happen. If there was a big room where people can spread out instead of spread covid. But most of the places where that would be an option are closed anyway. Maybe it’s just best to forget about all that. Until the infections drop-down back to summer levels. Or perhaps in spring when the weather is better for outside shows.
I will go perform on the side of Avenida Liberdade for people walking by. I really don’t give a shit at this point.