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.

Well, I must have been funny enough because I fucking got through to the next round!!!!!!!!!!

Now I’m even more nervous because I used all of my 37 years of good material in 5 minutes. I’ll have to live my life really quickly now.

Thank you to all who came to lend their support: Bev, Budge, Rob, Meaghan, Fi, Podge, Mickey, Anth, Jo and Jackie – you are the absolute greatest people in the world and I love you.

For those unaware, Raw Comedy is like Idol for stand-up comedians. Like Last Comic Standing, but without the locked in a house with weird competitions and bitchy backbiting that is meant to make a reality television show oooh so popular. Just a series of gigs without fanfare and only the final heat is televised (and they only show contestants performing – they don’t make montages of their families and childhoods and all that crap).

I did it for a few reasons…
1. My friends think I’m funny.
2. People at conference presentations I’ve done have told me I’m funny.
3. People at conference presentations I’ve done have told me I’m so funny I should do stand-up, and get out of this research game.
4. Given I have been presenting my hard work as a researcher at these conferences, and all people want to tell me how funny I am, maybe I should give up the research game.
5. Last year I sang in public for the first time in ten years, which really scared me, so I want to make 2009 the Year of Living Dangerously.
6. I heard there would be beer at the gig.

If you’d like to come along it’s at the Evelyn Hotel in Fitzroy on 14 February at 1pm. You can email me for more information if you want, but I don’t have any.