How to be funny.
So, I filled out this survey thingy. You get a little thingy, like for when you vote for like, the president. Seeing as how I've yet to cast a vote, this is my first one.
Yeah, I'm lazy. Screw you.
Bush or Kerry? nt
But there was a question, asking who knows I'm a furry. I actually had to punch in "common knowledge." Yeah, about a year ago, that would've never happened. Hell, I was honestly thinking about quitting the fandom. If you can do that. You know what I mean. Just giving it all up. You know, going human, I guess. But I made a decision. I said, yeah, furry kind of sucks in a lot of ways, but I like it. So, yeah, I'm going to stick it out.
But I didn't just go and shout from the rooftops. That's not how me being furry became "common knowledge." No, about July, I made another decision. I got up on a stage, and I told some jokes. It went over all right. See, I've always liked stand up comedy. Or, at least since NBC started airing "Last Comic Standing." I looked at that and said, I can do that. That looks fun. So I did. And it was a very nice open mic night I found, so they would've asked me back even if I did suck.
So, I've been doing stand up comedy for about, oh, nine months now. Every Wednesday night in this little, well, it's an art gallery, actually. Lot's of musicians doing singer/songwriter stuff, occasionally even poetry readings; I'm the only regular comedian, though both the MCs are also amateur comics. Ironically, the place was suggested to me for the poetry; I'm a writer, maybe I'd like to hear some poetry? Yeah, that's not how it ended up.
For a while, I was coasting, and finally, I just died. This was about six months ago. I mean, let me tell you, you do comedy, you're eventually gonna die. It happens. Here's how it went down. I'd had a good performance, and done what I call the "Nala" joke. It's actually on this lj somewhere; "my first crush was Nala ... just kidding, it was the Whoopi Goldberg hyena" and then followed up with some off color lion incest jokes. It did alright, but I never used the word furry, for, well, reasons that most people reading this thing would probably appreciate.
So, I do this set, it does fairly well, not killing, but a few solid laughs, and one of the MCs, he gives me a piece of advice. Direct quote: "Go with the furry thing." I, remember, had not said the word furry. That was kind of scary. So, I totally ignored his advice next time up (I think I was going about twice a month at this point instead of every week), and I also totally died. 5 minute set; no laughs. Oh, it was horrible.
But I decided, right then and there, next week (not two weeks), I'd do the furry thing. Went from total death to killing. I was like some comedy slasher monster. I mean, I had to explain as I went, but when it comes down to it, furry is a pretty funny concept. And it was a pretty young, Internet savvy crowd; they knew enough, and the older folks could Google it later, you know? (I think someone actually recorded my performance, but I've never seen the video. That thing would go straight up on YouTube if it was up to me.)
But, that very night, a local professional comedian, he was out and about, basically advertising a brand new comedy open mic. He saw my performance, my break out performance, and said I had to come. So, next week, I made an appearance for the first time in my life at an honest to God bar, did my thing, and have been, basically, the only comedian to appear at that open mic every time. And, I'm just going to say it, I'm usually one of the better, if not the best, comedians on that little stage.
So, the second open mic at the bar, it turns out a guy who I worked with at Pizza Hut was in attendance. I didn't know this until after my set, which included jokes about fursuit sex (not for me, if only because the giant, not to scale mascot head makes all other body parts look smaller than they already are). So, that's how me being a furry became common knowledge at work. That was really freaky. But, didn't really change anything. My attractive female boss loves it; she showed up for a more recent show, and was disappointed in the lack of furry material (even though it was a fairly furry set; how does a Christian furry make any sense? Well, haven't you heard, there are no atheists in foxholes.).
I mean, I do kind of play a persona on stage; I do exaggerate both furries in general and me in particular in a way that would get me banned from FurAffinity if anybody knew. I think anyone actually aware of my feelings for furry would admit I'm not in it just for the furry porn; it's more hilarious to pretend, though. And furry, oddly enough, does have a bizarre kind of stand up tradition. I mean, I don't know how one goes about getting onstage at a furry convention, but I'd like to do one.
But, I'd also like to do it for real, you know?
Hell, it's not an easy job to get; that being said, in this economy, McDonald's fry cook isn't an easy job to get.
Night, folks! I'll be here all week!