#69 - Feel Weird This Morning 07/31/18

Honestly, I wake up feeling pretty good most mornings. I don't have a lot to be upset about these days. But I feel...off...this morning.

And I don't know why. I had a good time at an open mic last night, and saw a bunch of my friends. I still say one of the best parts of being a comedian is just sitting at a table with some of the other comics, joking around. I really can't think of another way to describe it aside from a hockey team. You bond with them and start to look at them like teammates. I had fun there, worked on some material (ugh), and then came home and got a good night's sleep.

But I still just feel weird this morning. Everyone has these days I guess. Mornings like this are where I find this blog therapeutic. I'm just sitting here with my dog and my coffee, putting my thoughts down on the page in front of me. Even if this post is completely "blah" to everyone else, it helps me get going with my day.

Everyone has their problems. People put up shields and force a smile sometimes, but we all have stuff to deal with. I think the key is to just remember that you have friends and family that have your back, and there's always someone to talk to. And no matter how bad you think you have it, there are literally millions, maybe billions, of people that would trade places with you in a heartbeat. I try to remember that every time I feel like complaining about anything in my life.

I just find myself drawn home in the evenings, lately. I don't see much of my girlfriend during the week, she works long days and I go to open mics every night. At most, we get an hour or two to have dinner together. So once I'm done my "workout" in the evening on stage, I just want to come home and be around her and my dog. Comedy is great, because it provides me with a platform to go out, and get everything out of my system. I can be as loud or quiet, as angry or goofy as I want to be. Be the centre of attention for a few minutes, and then disappear again.

I was recently on the road with one of my closest friends in stand up, and he said if he could, he would have a car pull up to the stage. He'd jump out, do his act, and then get right back in the car and take off. I feel like that sometimes, too. I really do like hanging out with the other comics, but once my set is done, I can't wait to get home. Maybe that will be a detriment to my career as I go on, but I don't care.

Today will be a good day. Thanks for reading.

Adam

#68 - Poker 07/30/18

I....love....poker. If I'm being honest, I would almost consider playing poker for a living instead of stand up, if not for two things;

1) I'm not good enough. And a poker education isn't cheap.

2) I'm afraid making poker into a career would take a lot of the fun out of it.

I've read countless posts on poker forums by players that decided to quit their jobs and make their hobby into their career, only to find that after playing long sessions every day for a few months, the novelty starts to disappear. The game becomes a chore. Staying up late every night playing cards in casinos with no natural light, no windows. Your co-workers are fellow poker players, and you're all trying to take each other's money.

I can't imagine the stress that comes with the swings when you're playing for a living. Anyone that's played poker can tell you how much fun it is when you're winning, and how stressful and frustrating it can be when you're losing. Magnify that stress and frustration by 100 when you pay for a living, because it's not your beer money someone else is stacking in front of them, it's your rent. Even the best players have downswings (losing streaks), and I don't know how strong you have to be mentally (maybe foolish is the right word?) to battle through a month of losing at poker, knowing that there's no paycheque waiting at work to reload your bankroll with. I like my life to have as little stress in it as possible. Life as a poker pro doesn't sound like it jives with that at all.

As a hobby, though? Pokers the best. I don't really even care about the money. I don't want/need to play high stakes, I just love the game. The math of it interests me, but it's the psychology I like the most. Winning a pot with the best hand is great. But winning a pot with the perfect bluff, and getting someone else to lay down the best hand? That's magic. I love doing chip tricks, that *clack clack clack* sound of someone shuffling their chips...even the *snap* cards make as you peel up the corner of your card and then it fall back to the felt.

I vastly prefer live poker to playing online. I know playing on your computer/tablet whatever is more convenient, and wayyy faster, but it's not the same. I like sitting at a table with my friends and playing while we drink beer, or being at a casino watching SportsCentre in between hands. And when you play online, you don't get to stack your chips when you win a big pot! That's the best part!!

Poker is the shit. Comedy is my job now, but poker will always be the Robin to stand up's Batman. One of my biggest motivations to reach the headliner level as a comedian is to start making more money, so that I can afford to kill some of the time I have between shows on the road playing poker. That sounds perfect to me. Playing in the $10,000 buy in Main Event at the World Series of Poker will be at the top of my bucket list until it happens.

So, if anyone needs a comedian.....

Thanks for reading!

Adam

#67 - Sunday Ramblings 07/29/18

A few of my stupid thoughts with your Sunday coffee?

- This blog is getting harder to do everyday. Some days, it's a piece of cake, and others I'm pretty hard pressed to come up with something interesting to talk about. That said, the number of hits it gets most days is staying pretty consistent. So if you're reading it most days from the shadows of the internet, I appreciate you.

- Worked at the Comic Strip with Dan Clarke and Justin Willman this weekend, and they were some really fun shows. I've liked Dan since I met him shortly after I got into comedy, so working with him is always fun. And Justin Willman is a magician/comedian, and I can't say enough good things about him. If you didn't make it out to one of his shows this weekend, you missed out. Really nice guy, too. It just makes for a funner weekend when the headliner is chill. I got to host, too, and I really enjoy hosting. It's perfect, because I find most of the comics prefer to middle on the show instead, so it works out for everybody.

- It's the total dog days of summer for sports. Blah. Unless your team is contending for the playoffs or your a diehard baseball fan (my team isn't and I am not) the MLB regular season is over. We just have to wait out another, like, 70 games before the playoffs. CFL is in full stride, too, but I just can't get into it. Fantasy football has vastly overtaken any other reason for me to watch that game. (I bet that makes hardcore football fans cringe).

- SummerSlam is a few weeks away, though, and the card looks decent. Outside of Dickhead Reigns and Brock Lesnar, anyway. Just watching the PPVs has made watching WWE enjoyable again.

- I'm completely, utterly hooked on Mario Rabbids and Final Fantasy 3 right now. Rabbids is awesome, and I'm trying to finish FF3 so my buddy Miklos and I can do a podcast about it. I'll never be able to quit video games. I've given up trying. If this is what it's like to quit smoking, then puff away, smokers.

- I miss playing poker. Maybe I'll save it and do a blog about that this week. What a great game.

- Life is good. I'm a pretty happy (and lucky) guy.

Have a good Sunday, and thanks for reading.

Adam

#66 - Writing Is Like a Puzzle 07/28/18

I didn't actually read this advice anywhere, it's just something I've developed over the last couple years in regards to writing. Jokes, stories, whatever I'm working on, I find the method that works best for me is to treat it like I'm working on like a jigsaw puzzle.

When you build a puzzle (does anyone still do that?), you pour the box out on the table in front of you, and then start organizing it. That's I like to do that with writing. I don't stop every 5 minutes to look at what I've done and review it, I just keep going until I have it all out there. Get all my thoughts in front of me, and then I'll come back to it and start looking for the good stuff. Like looking for the border of a jigsaw puzzle.

I've found it to be my preferred writing strategy for a few reasons. First and foremost, it helps me avoid writer's block. It's been said that "writer's block is just a made up excuse for people to not do their work." I'm not sure I fully agree with that, but I do find that if you just force yourself to break through it and start writing, the feeling often fades. Just keep the pen moving; anything that comes to mind, write it down. When I sit down to write, my objective is to fill the page, and I try not to stop until the alarm on my phone goes off. Don't review it, don't read it back, just get everything that's in my mind onto the paper.

Then I take a break and try to do something active. I go for a quick run or walk my dog, and come back to what I wrote with a clear head. Read over it, and see if there's anything there worth keeping. And a lot of the time, there isn't. But I don't beat myself up over that anymore. Part of writing jokes is the thrill of the hunt. The days I do come up with something good make the days I wasted time writing garbage completely worthwhile. And as a bonus, I find that if I write earlier in the day, the thought is jogging through my mind for the afternoon. Sometimes an idea will just pop into my head hours after I finish writing. If this happens, WRITE IT DOWNNNNN!!!! Way too many times, I've banked on remembering something, and then it disappears forever. Just play it safe, and write everything down.

I've mentioned it on here a couple times, but I'm also attempting to write a book for the first time. I'm finding it overwhelming, but I'm trying to stick with it. And just like when I work on my jokes, I just write. I don't go back and read what I've wrote, I just force myself to keep going. My mentality right now is to just finish a draft of the book. Then (hopefully) I can use it like the picture from the box for my jigsaw puzzle, and work from there. I have something concrete to play with.

Just write. Even these God awful blogs. A lot of the time (today included), I just "puke" all of my thoughts out onto my computer, and then go back and try to make sense of them. It keeps me from getting overwhelmed or frustrated, and it helps to just get ideas down while they're fresh. You can always go back and delete the crappy stuff. (I do A LOT of deleting).

Anyways, that's my writing strategy, for the none of you that asked.

Thanks for reading! Enjoy your weekend!

Adam

#65 - The Greatest Player to Never Win The Cup? 07/27/18

I haven't posted a hockey related blog yet. The middle of Summer seems like the perfect time to start, right?

Jarome Iginla announced his retirement this week. 1554 games, 625 goals, 1300 points, and over 1000 PIMs. 11 straight 30+ goal seasons. 2 Maurice Richard trophies, and an Art Ross, too. The Flames will surely retire #12 soon, and the Hall of Fame should be calling the Iginla household in 3 short years.

Oh yeah, he also set up Sidney Crosby for that goal that one time......

What a fantastic career. When you look at everything Iginla accomplished, there's really only one glaring omission. Unfortunately, it's the biggest one. Jarome Iginla never won the Stanley Cup. (He should have 2004, that goal was in. But that's a topic for another day). I was listening to the radio yesterday, and they were having a debate about who the greatest hockey player to never win the Stanley Cup was, and whether or not "Iggy" was now on the top of that list. It was a really interesting conversation.

There's a few candidates that really stick out in my mind. Marcel Dionne is probably his biggest competition for the dubious distinction. Dionne has over 1700 points, and he's 6th in League history for career point totals. But, he also played in a much MUCH higher scoring era than Jarome Iginla did. I think that closes the point gap significantly. That said, 6th ALL TIME in scoring....

Mats Sundin came up yesterday, too. I never thought of him, but I'd totally listen to that argument as well. As much as I despise the Maple Leafs, I always liked Sundin. He was a class act, a great hockey player, and being the all-time leading scorer for the Toronto Maple Leafs carries a little bit of weight, too.

Jeremy Roenick is another one of my favourites. He had a great career but he never won the Cup.  Shane Doan, Paul Kariya, the Sedins.....If you want to include goalies, I think Curtis Joseph enters the discussion. If Eric Lindros hadn't gotten hurt, he'd be a contender, too. Although, I guess you could argue that if he hadn't gotten hurt, he very probably would have won a Cup...

I'll be honest, I'm biased. My two favourite "non-Habs" in NHL history are Teemu Selanne, and Jarome Iginla. I was so happy to see Selanne get his Cup in '07, and I wanted Iginla to win one so bad that I would have been completely fine with the Bruins winning while he was there. But sadly, he didn't. And he gets my vote for the greatest player to never win a Stanley Cup. At least until Joe Thornton retires, anyways. Thornton might get the edge just based on his beard.

I hope a team brings Iginla on in an office role, and they win the Cup. When I think of that trophy and about how much you have to sacrifice to win it, the prototypical player that comes to my mind is a Jarome Iginla. Because I'm sure he'll read this, congratulations on one hell of a career, Sir. You have a fan for life in this guy.

Adam

#64 - Going Through Old Jokes (Ugh) 07/26/18

I found one of my old phones the other day, and I fired it up to see if it had any photos or anything on it that I had forgotten to move over to my computer. I ended up going into the Notes section and finding a ton of set lists and joke ideas from when I started a couple years ago.

Oy......

I know that I was probably trying as hard as I could, and that there's a pretty good chance that I'll look back on the stuff I'm doing on stage now someday and hate it, too. But man oh man, my early stuff is bad. It's so bad, haha. I don't even want to share any of it on here, it's awful.

But on the positive side, I can see how much I've grown as a comic over the last couple of years. I can use these old notes and sets to beat myself up, or I can use them as motivation to keep going, because one way or another, the work is slowly paying off. I think comedians should use old sets, tapes, and jokes as their form of "progress pics". Like when you're trying to lose weight.

When someone works hard and gets themselves into better shape, they don't look back on the "before" photos and get upset, they use them to show everyone where they started. It's motivational. As a comedian, that's what I should be doing with these old jokes. These are my "before" jokes. It's hard, though. And I think that's because the only way to really improve as a comic is to be your own biggest critic. And if you're being honest and critical of your work, the "before" jokes are horrendous, but you'll find fault in the "now" jokes, too. Someone that loses 100 lbs can look at their "now" photo and be proud of it. They may not look like The Rock yet, but they're getting there. For some reason, that's a lot harder to do when you look at your art....

"I may not be Bill Burr yet, but I'm getting there" isn't something most honest comedians can say with a straight face.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that when I started, I thought I was good, but I sucked. And now, I still suck, but I suck less then I did 2 years ago. I'm slowly getting better. Only like, 9, 956 hours to go!

Thanks for reading.

Adam

#63 - Strong Opinions 07/25/18

Yesterday, I posted this on Facebook:

" 'If nobody hates you, you probably don’t have any opinions on anything.'

Soft tacos > Hard tacos. Hate away. "

A lot of people agreed, but that's not the point. I don't voice a lot of really strong opinions. Particularly when it comes to serious topics like politics and the economy. That's partially because I'm very easily swayed. You could convince me NDP is the way to go, and then someone 5 minutes later could sell me on Conservatives and I'd listen to both. Maybe I'm open minded, maybe I'm just an idiot. I also don't voice my opinion on this stuff because frankly, I don't really have any strong opinions on topics like that. 

But that said, taking a stand when it comes to tacos felt good. And I have more opinions I'd like to voice. I don't care who agrees with me. It's time I plant my feet and make my voice heard when it comes to the important stuff.

Soft tacos, before I say anything else, are infinitely superior to hard tacos. I've seen the argument for wrapping a hard taco in a soft shell, but I'll just stick to soft and delicious, thank you very much.

Anyone that orders sandwiches in a Tim Hortons' drive thru is a menace to society. First of all, those sandwiches suck. And secondly, the drive thru is for coffee and donuts. If you want to order a meal, go inside. "But I have three kids. Do you know how hard it is to unbuckle and buckle back in three kids?" No, I don't. But you know how hard it is to stay calm when I'm behind your damned van waiting for my coffee and you get handed 4 bags of food that you have to distribute before you pull away? Go to McDonalds next time.

If you don't pull your car into the intersection when you're waiting to turn left on a green light, you should be thrown in jail. Nobody's asking you to risk your life, but get out there! Get far enough that the guy behind you can squeeze in, too! Let's be better as a society, people.

And on the driving note, if you can't park between two yellow lines, it should be legal to spit on your car. I saw someone post a meme that showed a shopping cart zip tied to the door handle of a car that couldn't figure out how to park, and I applaud them. 

If you're in a public place, particularly a quiet one, like a waiting room or a quiet store, and you're having a conversation via text message, turn the sound off on your god damned phone. You're staring at it anyway, you know when the text messages are coming, and nobody wants to hear your clever "quacking duck" or "Old Spice whistle" text notification sound every 8 seconds. Should be a $2000 fine every notification.

People that don't wash their hands in public bathrooms shouldn't be allowed to use public bathrooms. And if you don't flush? 25 to life.

And finally, if you smoke and you throw your butts out of your car window, you should have to go live on Mars. We all fucking hate you.

That felt good.

Adam