So, I am trying to carve out my "niche" and I am finding a few unique opportunities to help me in that endeavor. I should stop there and say the word "niche" sounds too business-y. I keep using words like "center" and "niche" because it seems strange to talk about my "voice" as something that eludes me, but it does. I tell jokes for a response. The fact is, I can recite a knock-knock joke that would crack you up, but it is not the same as me writing a joke you could never have possibly heard before, and then telling it to you. I guess it is like having the author read his book to you. Every little nuance in his voice, and movement on his face gives a little more meaning to the words, that wasn't on the pages. Add to that if he was reading his auto-biography! Now we've got raw emotion -the most direct version of the story you can get!
So finding my voice has been a frustrating journey for me, because it deviates so much from the "just-be-funny" expectation I had about comedy. I wrote one-liners and puns, and topical jokes to get a laugh. Now I am not happy with just getting a laugh. I want to make sense of my experiences and grow as a person. I have to find meaning in the world around me. And I have to share it. Being funny is the natural part, hopefully. I've been surprised to find how little funny has to do with comedy. Being consistent on stage, easy to relate to, completely brutally honest, and maybe even over the top. These things are crucial to an act, but don't seem to be that easy to pull off everyday.
In my search for this specificity, I have found some groups and competitions to help me along the way. In July, I hope to attend the Clean Comedy Challenge where I will not only lose another competition, but I will get back up on my feet a little bit smarter than before. Something the winner might not get to do. I've shared before my propensity to write jokes that are not up to my own standards. Occasionally one or two slip into a set and I don't realize why it didn't work until afterwards. Thankfully (because audiences can sniff out insincerity) these jokes do terribly, even in a comedy club. But really, even these mishaps wouldn't disqualify me from the CCC. They would keep me from being funny, though. The challenge here, of course is in the Comedy part of the challenge and not the Clean part.
The better part of the challenge is to be more than just the clean comedian, a category I have the luxury of monopolizing in most of the venues I frequent. That won't help me stand out. My uniqueness will depend on how well I present my thing -my style, my humor- to the judges. Now all I have to do is figure out what that is.
