The Old School Is Getting Old

      2 weeks in a row! I had written that last week, then once I posted, I realized it hadn’t been 2 weeks in a row, and I had to go back and edit. Something I don’t normally do, but when it’s so blatantly obvious, I have to. Especially if it’s such a quick easy fix. I won’t scrutinize my content, but an out right lie! No way. Anyway, I’m glad to be able to type it in truth this week. It’s funny too, because I almost forgot again. I was in the office, authorizing the activation of our Windows program. It took half an hour. Apparently, I typed one of the numbers wrong, so I had to go through it twice. Yay, now my outdated operating system is official! But I was sitting in there, on the computer, making sure it’s all still there and working properly after the activation, and never even thought about this. Then I was just standing in the living room, wondering what I should do for the next hour, before I get ready for practice. And it hit me, I haven’t written yet today. I looked at the clock and thought: there’s time. And, a perfectly good use of my time, I might add. I’ve been doing a lot of comedy writing these days. I’m almost up to about 20 minutes. I know it’s not all gold, but that gives me plenty to work with to narrow down the “good” stuff. I’m developing a process that seems to work pretty good. I write the entire idea out free hand. I still feel, in certain circumstances, that I flow better with pen and paper. It’s not always that easy to read, but my hand can almost keep up with my mind. Then, I edit.

     As I think I may have mentioned, I’m getting used to using Word, and it’s pretty helpful for editing. With my handwritten notes, I can barely read what I wrote, let alone count the words. It makes it so much easier using this program. I type the idea in, it lets me know how many words I’m at, then I can decide what words stay and what words go. I can even re-word it if it’s not fitting the style that I’m using. I was told when I first started taking the comedy class that part of the process is getting rid of the words that you don’t need. Word is very good at letting you know about words you don’t need. I don’t always listen, because some of those extra words are my style, but still, being able to see it written, legibly, right in front of me, gives me an opportunity to see which words are necessary, and which words aren’t. Quite a bit different than my style here, were I just let it fly. When I’m doing comedy writing, I’m trying to do as few words as possible. The bare bones, as it were, of what the point is. The computer is very helpful in that regard. Being able to move things around, and delete, or add, content, with just a touch of a few buttons, is practically a miracle. I know I probably don’t have to tell you, you may be wondering what the hell I’m even talking about, but I assure you, it is much better than the old days. However, I am, and will always be, grateful for knowing both ways. I’m glad to have been through the old school. I know why these things are important now. I’ve made it part of my life.

     I have a show this Saturday. My punk rock band is practicing again tonight, to get ready. We’re pretty ready, we just practiced on Tuesday, and we rocked! But just for good measure, we’re hitting it again tonight. We want to make sure it seems like we’ve done this a thousand times. It’s kind of funny because we’re playing at a pretty big venue. A venue that a lot of people would like to be able to get into, and a venue that we spent a lot of our lives wishing we could get into. But now, we play there a couple of times a year, so it’s almost like, not that big of a deal anymore. It’s kind of sad. We’re still excited, but it’s not like “Holy Shit, the Ken Club” anymore. It’s still a show, and we still want to rock. But there is a noticeable difference than there was the first few times. It’s still nice that the owner of the club calls us, asks us to play! But, he keeps saying he’s going to get us on some bigger bills, and play with some bigger bands, in front of a bigger audience. But it’s not really happening. The lineup he has for us on Saturday is not that impressive. Only one band is anyone we’ve heard of. It puts you in a weird situation when you’re the band expected to bring the draw. Stop bringing a bunch of drinking friends, and you stop getting the call. But all of our drinking friends are getting old, and don’t want to be out that late. So, just the nature of things, we have to find new, young people who like our kind of music, who will stay out late drinking. For that, we’re going to have to play in front of some new people, which means playing with good bands, who bring people who like to drink.