Eye Contact, more Commitment, and a shot of Jager

Well, first of all, let me wish ALL of you a happy and safe 2010! What is my New Year's resolution you may ask?? It should be that I should show a lot more love to my blog, website, and videos...but we'll get to that soon enough.

I wanted to talk a little bit more about commitment. I talked about it in a previous post and I dunno if I got everything out that I wanted to talk about...so it might be a little repetitious, so just try and go with me on this. So what is commitment?? It can mean two things I think. One, the way that you present a joke and how you are behind it. If you're up on stage talking about George W. Bush, pancakes, or Post It notes, none of it really matters if you aren't behind it 100% and actually give the audience a glimpse of your actual feelings on that topic....although, I dunno how passionate one could be about Post It notes, but hey..whatever floats your boat I guess.

The second thing commitment could mean is actually having your mind set on nothing but stand-up comedy, by going balls to the wall, and not letting anything hold you back. So what kind of commitment is that?? Writing for a few hours a day?? Standing in the wintery cold for 3 hours barking to a city that wants nothing to do with you?? Quitting your day job to do everything in your power to "make it??" Whatever the case, there are so many different comedians out here that are on their own path to destiny and they all have their limits of commitment...or lack thereof.

One thing that I've known from the beginning of all this is to maintain eye contact with the audience, at ALL times. Recently, I've realized that there are many of times that I'm not keeping eye contact with the audience and I think it really hurts the joke and connection with the crowd. I recently did a show where I maintained eye contact throughout the whole set, and I learned that on some, if not most, of my jokes, I can get an extra laugh just by looking at the crowd. Whether it be a face of shock, disgust, or sarcasm, it seems like a little bit of eye contact and silence (which comedians fear) can get you a little bit further.

And as far as "and a shot of Jager" in my topic...that was simply just a Happy New Year to you all...or as I like to call you all...Happy New Year to yinz!