One Week In

11/18/16

Welcome back, its been a good week. I arrived from Phoenix and was immediately greeted by a good friend with good news. I have a pace to live! (Now time to find a pesky job)

Once I met up with my friend we headed to an open mic, where my luck with lottery mics begins. As to say I don’t have any. The room was a small theater space in the back of a lobby/art gallery, a dozen comics waited in the back for their turn. Which is always good to have a feel of home, comics in the back, no audience up front.

I won’t bore you with a daily account of every open mic, but I will say that at the Improv Dana Gould dropped by and so far its been the highlight of my trip. He was so effortless, and smooth on stage, inspiring to watch. Then to get to perform after him… amazing. Or it would have been if they drew my name, but watching a whole array of what LA has to offer was nice. I’m still one of those dummies who enjoys watching people try comedy, and I really like it when people succeed at it.

This is the normal fair for my life currently, wake up, write, go to an open mic, run to another open mic (not get up) repeat. Most shows have been in bars but I have performed at Flappers, hell I even auditioned. Yes, I did go great, so now I’m just waiting on that email that will never come. Its a sprint not a marathon right?!!

But the house I live in is pretty cool, chaotic, and full of dudes. (Seriously I’d say there are 10 people living here, but every time I count there’s one more, so I’ve stopped counting for fear of having to share a bed) Everyone here is either a comic, actor, or musician so the atmosphere is really supportive and “chill”. MIDWEST I HAVE FORSAKEN YOU!

I have a job lined up where I’ll be serving breakfast! What big change from my last job… where I was serving breakfast. Its right on the Sunset Strip which is cool, although to get hired I have to memorize the menu before I even get trained. So that’s added onto my daily regiment, because I need this job. LA is expensive when you forget to move your car and you get a ticket for street cleaning.

Well that’s my update this week, back to reading about pancakes and hamburgers. (I almost wrote “handburgers”… I need coffee…)

The Journey Begins

November 8th 2016

So I have decided to start a blog this is going to chronicle my journeys of moving out of the Midwest to Los Angeles. I feel this will be a good way for me to keep track of all of the things that I would like to achieve by having them put into a public forum at which I can reference and track progress, and also lets my mom know I didn’t die… yet..

A  little about myself I am, as the title says, an ambitious idiot. More or less I’m stubborn (thanks Dad!) and dumb enough to try. My first week of leaving home has been pretty relaxed, I left Indiana with my check engine light on because I said I was leaving the 1st and leaving the 1st I shall! I’m also the football coach of car repair, WALK IT OFF! I went from Indianapolis to Monmouth to get a quick lunch with my parents, after that down to Kansas City where I met a friend of mine who I met online playing video games. Which that always seems to get a weird bad rap, but he only murdered me a little bit, my liver more specifically. We got real drunk it was a good time, I did a couple open mics, and I got to check out the Kansas City Scene. It seemed similar to Indianapolis which had about one mic a night. While I was there I saw two good mics and one mic where the guy running it didn’t even care. He actually left and as he walked out told another comics he was hosting.

I got to eat at a genuine BBQ joint, even had burned ends. One of the coolest thing was that I got to fly in a plane to dinner. WHAAAA am I upper middle class?! My friend flying let me (told me) to take the controls or we’re all gonna die. Most of the trip was just drinking and catching up. But I did fly a plane. What the huh? I’m not a pilot, I can barely drive.

After spending more days than intended there I had it on down south to Texas where I got to catch up with my older brother and a couple of other old friends visiting him at the same time so it was a cool little reunion. I got to do an open mic in Austin, good scene, it seems real strong with lots of mics available each week. One thing I really enjoyed it there website it was very clear and concise. At the show I did was packed, everyone got 3 minutes. I didn’t feel good about my set, for some reason I was nervous and I bounced around a lot and I let them get to me just something I need to work on.

The next day I set off again for a nice 15-hour drive to Phoenix Arizona that catch up with my childhood best friend and his little brother so it’ll be a nice little family reunion,  a nice little treat before I get off to the crushing loneliness the Los Angeles’ glad-handing business.

The hardest part right now is leaving a very comfortable spot where I had a good deal friends, I had company, (if you know what I mean) I had a job that paid decent. It was waiting but you know it’s whatever but I think a handful of those things actually kept me from working hard and pushing, so I’m excited to kind of drop everything and force myself to focus on a new beginning and just more work. I want to dabble in a lot of things when I get out there. I’m currently working on the pilot with a friend from Indianapolis, I have my own pilot I’ve written, I am writing trying to figure out how to write an hour while I’m out there. I’d love to be on Conan, submit a late night packet, get a job writing, tour the country. See you next week.

Love,

The Ambitious Idiot.