So I preformed at the Raw Comedy Melbourne Superheat last night. I did a five-minute bit on being a single dad. I thought it was funny, my mates thought it was okay/good/”no it was fine mate”. It didn’t generate as many laughs as I thought it would. A few in the beginning and a big one at the end (which is important). But not as much as last time.

I was the last to perform in the first bracket. I was backstage through all the sets before me, and couldn’t really hear what was being said, though crowd laughter was clear enough. One guy before me was cracking the entire pub right up. Budge and Rob later told me that his biggest joke was “My girlfriend keeps asking me ‘When are you gonna put a ring on my finger?’ So I took her finger and shoved it up my arse.” When they heard the crowd’s response they both thought “Oh Paul is going to die up there.”

In the next bracket one woman talked about life in her forties. Not much laughter. Another talked about dating men and body image. Again, some giggles but nothing shaking the walls. Then a couple of blokes sang songs while getting dressed in make-up, wigs and women’s clothing. The crowd was in stitches.

So in sum, I guess I didn’t do too bad, but was among the wrong crowd. Footy players and their girlies. Sam Newman type humour. Not really mine. Though I can’t stand sexist jokes, I don’t begrudge the audience for having its own humour, and I’m in no way bitter for some performers’ appeal to it.

I couldn’t stay at the gig any longer than my friends who needed to leave, so I left after the second bracket. I don’t know who won the heat but I’m pretty sure it isn’t me. In the end I’m disappointed, not in the fact I didn’t win again, but in the fact I wanted to win this time, when last time I was just stoked that I had the balls to stand up in a room of strangers and joke about myself.

I saw an opportunity to challenge myself, gain a bit of courage and I took it. I couldn’t feel any better about myself really. Thanks to everyone who supported me, either in person on the night, or by sms and facebook. I appreciate your encouragement and belief in this relatively undiscovered talent. It’s made me want to explore it more.

On another note I had a meeting with my supervisor this morning. My main goal was to show that presenting a four-page document that gives the gist of a thesis chapter is just as good as presenting a chapter. His goal was to convince me that presenting such a document is just as good as presenting a poor excuse of a chapter. We then played rock-paper-scissors and he won four out of seven, which I guess is why he’s the professor and I’m the student. But he thought the document did show a fairly well-rounded review of available literature in both internet-society and media-religion-culture disciplines of research. So now I have to turn it into a chapter. And he did like the cyborg stuff I’ve posted about.

So I am keeping afloat in all the oceans I dare to swim.