Fuck you critic!!!

Fuck you critic. I was going to write about some type of positive crap that I can't remember at the moment because all I can think about is that son of a bitch that comes to my open mic and doesn't do any comedy but knows everything about it. I see the dude around town and it's not fun for me, maybe for him, but our interactions from my perspective are a little hellish. He gave me a lecture on comedy this morning.

How is it that people who don't do any comedy seem to know so much about it? I actually know because I used to be that way too, but at least I would just talk about the comedians to my friends behind their back. I would never approach a comic and give him advice on what's funny.

The worst is when you get comedy advice from someone whose never made you laugh. Unsolicited advice. In my face!

I'm on a winning streak right now. Duke it's OK, you're a winner.

I've created order in my life. I got rid of a bunch of clutter in my home and the house is now running like a well oiled machine. I'm on top of my game. I feel like the captain and commander of the ship.

Sometimes when you clean up the outsides the insides feel clearer. More energy is available to you and that's been the case for me lately. I've been able to take a step back from the talk show, a step back from crazy people, and I've found a way to generate an income without taking too much out of me. This leaves me with some creative energy. This extra time and creative energy has got me writing. The writing is helping me to get focused.

I love to laugh. I seem to have the ability to make people laugh in a natural way. This is what I want to do, this is the direction I want to head.

I do know this time to keep my eyes open and pay attention to the results. The results of your actions are always important to be aware of. It's these results that give you insight to the course correction that is necessary in your life.

My goal: Be a stand up comic. My immediate goal: get 20 minutes of solid material.

Much easier said than done. They say when you get a person who is hilarious around his friends and you put him on the stage to make people laugh, he lands in the furthest possible place from the one he was at when he was funny.

Here's a story I heard. There was a millipede with a thousand legs who walked beautifully. Someone was admiring his walk and said, "You walk so beautifully, how can you possibly do that with a thousand legs?"

The millipede thought about it. He looked down at his legs. There's so many. He thought, "How do I do this? How do I coordinate each foot? This is impossible." And he began to trip over himself. All of a sudden he found that he couldn't walk at all. He didn't know how to walk. He had too many legs.

Eventually he practiced and practiced and learned how to do it. Now he knew.

Comedy is similar. I don't know how to make people laugh. I just do when I'm in my funny place. I don't even know how to get into my funny place. I have spent over 8 months working on an act. I have maybe 7 minutes of material that I like. I want more. I'm scared because I don't know how I even got the 7.

My only answer is what I hear from every pro comedian, which is "Write and perform."

I have a negative head because I know that I'm the type of person who will commit to something and put his head down and not look up for years. This is why it is important to look up sometimes.

One thing I have learned about myself is that my greatest asset is my ability to just do something and really plow into it even if I don't know what I'm doing. Another thing I've learned is that my greatest liability is to continue plowing into things when I really don't know what I'm doing. I guess I have the ability to do something and suck, which can help me, but sometimes I just keep doing something that sucks and it hurts me.

So I want to do comedy. The advice from the pros is "Write and perform." I'm doing it, fuck it.

What I was trying to say is I've seen people working at comedy for years and they are still terrible. They have a commitment to writing everyday and to performing, for years they've been committed to this.

They suck.

I'm scared of becoming this guy. But I have a small voice in my head that says you are not this guy, just do it. It's basically the voice of procrastination, but hopefully it's that voice that will allow me to be aware of the results.

This brings me to the fucking judgmental prick sitting in the audience not laughing at anyone. I saw him this morning and I said, "That material I was working on was brand new."

The response I wanted, "You know what Duke? Some of those jokes were pretty funny. You might have bombed a certain portion of your set but some of those jokes you really nailed it. I've got to tell you Duke, you've got balls. It takes commitment to sit down and write new stuff everyday and I've got to hand it to you, getting up in front of strangers with never tested material takes some guts. Keep writing, let go of the bad stuff and hold on to the good stuff. If you keep this up you'll have a pretty solid set in no time."

I was working mostly on one liners the other night.

The way it actually went down was, here's me again,"Most of that stuff from the other night was brand new material."

Him, "It was was pretty bad. Everyone that night was pretty bad. The thing is, one liners are terrible. They come from no where and they go no where. I go to that comedy night for my sister. I write a lot of her material. You see I can write a lot of great comedy because I can draw on my life experience which is so rich with material."

Hey critic Fuck you! You don't know anything about comedy and on top of that you're not funny. And you're fat. So go on a diet and let me worry about the comedy, you asshole.

That's the worst because I'm disciplined at the moment. I'm writing everyday. Everyday in the morning the first thing I do is write comedy. Every morning I try to write some jokes. I take out the worst stuff and try it out on some friends on Monday. Then I take out the stuff that didn't work and try the rest on Tuesday. Some of them worked. I'll be able to keep some of it. This is the process.

Then I have Mr. "Know it all" basically telling me I suck.

I guess this is the life of the beginning comic. You have to go through it. Fuck it, I'm going to put my head down and plow forward!