Influences Then and Now

When I was a kid, we had HBO. That's when I first saw Richard Pryor. It was 'Richard Pryor: Live in Concert'. By far his funniest special. And some say the best special ever by any comic. I was so young, I didn't know what he was talking about, but I still found some parts of it very funny. When he shoots his car! When he imitates a deer drinking water. But by far the funniest moment for me, as an 8-year-old kid, or however old I was, was when he said when you're out in Nature, snakes will make you run into trees. It's like, "SNAKE!" Pow! And he runs into his hand. Hilarious.

This was the first time I had seen stand-up comedy. I didn't even know it as stand-up comedy. To me, it was just a guy onstage saying funny shit. I had never seen anything like it before, but I loved it.

The next time I saw stand-up comedy was on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. I can't remember exactly when it was, but it would've been around the time I was 11 or 12. Around this time, we got three more channels. Before this, we only had two channels - CBC and BCTV, which is now Global BC. The three new channels we got were ABC, NBC and CBS. And at 11:30 at night, there was nothing else on but Johnny Carson. On ABC there was a news program called Nightline. And on CBS, they showed movies. CBC went off the air at midnight, and BCTV still had news on until midnight when they showed movies. That's when I first saw 'The Warriors'!

I watched The Tonight Show almost every night. That's when I really started watching stand-up comedy. Some consider it the first stand-up comedy boom. I saw some great comedy then. Jerry Seinfeld, Rosanne Barr, Jeff Foxworthy. I'm certain I saw more than them, but these three really stuck out.  I used to watch Johnny Carson because Late Night with David Letterman came on after it. To me, David Letterman was better than Johnny Carson. He did some crazy stuff. Throwing TVs off the roof, smashing shit.

Around this time, I also watched "Delirious" by Eddie Murphy. Still to this day one of my favourite comedy specials ever. I bet I can recite every word from it, I've seen it so many times. 'The Cookout' bit is a masterpiece, in my opinion. The first time I saw Saturday Night Live was when he came back and hosted. He did a sketch where he dressed up as a White man.  The second comedy record I ever bought was Eddie Murphy's album called 'Eddie Murphy: Comedian'. It's just the audio version of Delirious. I still own it.

It was also around this time I started watching SCTV. I think it was on CBC on Saturday nights too. Or it might have been Friday nights. Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas as Bob and Doug Mackenzie were my favourite. They hosted a mock TV show called 'The Great White North'. They became so popular they even put out an album. I owned it on vinyl. I remember seeing an early version of 'Wayne's World' on SCTV. He shot it from a van, not a basement.

When we only had two channels, I used to watch 'Wayne & Shuster' on CBC. I guess it was a sketch comedy show. The only real sketch that sticks out was when they did a trailer for 'Rocky 12' or whatever it was. But it was Rocky as an old man.

This entry was meant to be a look at some of the early influences on my comedy. I'm not sure they directly influenced my comedy. But these examples are when I first became aware of comedy. 

After I started doing stand-up comedy, the comedian that had the most influence on me was Chris Rock. I've seen him live a couple of times now. The first time I saw him, my face hurt after the show, from laughing  so hard. When I walked out of the theatre, I thought, "I have a long way to go." It's odd to think of Chris Rock as an influence, because our styles are so different. But his comedy was so smart, and that's what I tried to emulate. Not all of it was great, but some of it was brilliant. There's a few instances where he uses the old comedy Rule of Three. In stand-up comedy, often a comedian will list three things to establish a pattern, and  'the third element is often used to create an effect of surprise with an audience, especially if it differs from the first two' (Wikipedia). Here's an example from Chris Rock. "All the positive Black leaders were there (at the Million Man March), Farrakhan, Jesse, Marion Barry." Marion Barry is the one that doesn't belong. Marion Barry was the Washington D.C. mayor that was caught in a hotel room smoking crack with a prostitute. Doesn't exactly fit the 'positive Black leader' image Chris Rock painted. He uses the Rule of Three another time in the same special. He was talking about the instances of spousal abuse in the Black community, specifically among Black celebrities. "O.J., Warren Moon, Billy Dee Williams." Billy Dee Williams is meant to be surprising on this list because Billy Dee Williams was supposed to be a smooth suave heartthrob movie star. There's nothing wrong with using the Rule of Three, In fact, I bet every comic used it at some point. Hell, I did. With my McDonald's joke. Then I thought, why limit it to 3, and just kept going and it became what it is now. I think it works better that way. One thing Chris Rock did in his first HBO special I didn't like was when he said, "Don't eat no red meat?! No. Don't eat no green meat!" Such a lame joke. Damn, this entry wasn't meant to shit on him. But this is what I think of when I think of his first special.

I'm trying to think of who else directly influenced me after I started doing stand-up comedy. I would have to say Charlie Hill, Oneida comedian. He was smart, funny, and political. Talked a lot about Native stuff. That was his whole act really. But he just stood there and talked, much like myself. He never felt the need to do act-outs, or silly voices, or crazy gestures and movements. His delivery was very dry and deliberate. His jokes were so strong, he didn't really need to put anything behind them, just speak them out loud. I bet they read very well too. Meaning, they could probably get just as good a laugh if you were to just read them. Those are the kind of jokes I try to write.

Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, the comedians on Johnny Carson, Saturday Night Live, and SCTV all made me laugh early on in my life. Not sure if they influenced me, but they did show me what was funny. Later on, it was Chris Rock and Charlie Hill. Currently, my biggest influences are Patrice O'Neal and Dino Archie. But that's for another blog entry.

Podcasts

One of my favourite things to do, besides performing stand-up comedy, and writing jokes, is to talk about stand-up comedy with other comedians. But it's hard to do when there are only a handful of comedians in your town. So the next best thing is to listen to podcasts. For the uninformed, a podcast is like a downloadable or streaming radio show. Some podcasts even include a video component, so it's more like a TV show.

When I was in university, one of my professors said we are now taking part in the 'big conversation'. He said every book written, every film made, every story told is a part of this 'big conversation' about ideas, whether they be politics or history or whatever. And as university students, we are now a part of this conversation. That's how I feel about podcasts. We get to listen in on other comedians discuss stand-up comedy or other worldly events. It's kind of a one-sided conversation in that we're mostly listening. But I look at it this way: stand-up comedy is also a conversation, a mostly one-sided conversation in that the comedian onstage is (ideally) the only person in the room talking. I say ideally because if he wasn't the only one talking, then that means there are hecklers or chatty people in the audience. And you don't want that. Just to go off on a tangent for a bit, but one way to cut down on the occurrence of hecklers, is to make the audience laugh. They're less likely to heckle if they're laughing. Simple. Anyways, like I was saying, podcasts are a great way to take part in the big conversation about stand-up comedy.

The very first podcast I listened to/watched was the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. Dane Cook was the guest. It was like an informal (very informal) talk show, with Joe Rogan as the guest, Brian Redban as  the sidekick, and Dane Cook as the guest. And from what I remember, they talked a lot of comedy. Which I love. I just love hearing comedians talk shop. And what I love about the podcast, is there is no real format. It's just a couple chairs, a couple mics, maybe a camera, and go. It's very freeform, with little to no structure. And it's not like a TV talk show where you have a strict time limit, there's no commercial breaks (at least no in the infancy of podcasting, before sponsorship).

I used to love the David Letterman show because of the interviews, but they were too short. I also loved interview shows like Charlie Rose on PBS, which was a little more in-depth because the show was about 30 minutes, an hour if it was a special guest. One of my favourite shows was Inside The Actors Studio. Just two people talking. But what I love about podcasts is that it's, for the most part, two comedians talking. Charlie Rose is not a comedian, James Lipton (ITAS) is not a comedian. Comedians have a special connection. They know what it takes to get up on stage and try to make people laugh. They know the work involved in writing a joke.

When I listen to podcasts, I listening for a few things. I'm listening for words of wisdom, advice, and inspiration. There's more than one way up the comedy mountain, and I love hearing about the different approaches other comedian's take. I've gotten s much advice from listening to other comedians, that I've started cataloguing it. I even made some videos that you can find on youtube. Just search 'Comedy Words of Wisdom' and you should find it. The thumbnail is Patrice O'Neal pointing a finger to his head like a gun. In the video I included some words of advice from Aisha Tyler. You might know her as the voice of Lana Kane from the animated series 'Archer'. But she said, "You can't really be funny until you're kinda fully being yourself. No matter how flawed or off putting or strange or confusing that is to your audience. You have to fully inhabit who you are, and be brave and unabashed to present it." It seems like simple advice. "Be Yourself". But you how hard it is to just be yourself? It's not easy. When I first started comedy, I wanted to be Chris Rock. But if you've ever seen me, you know I'm nothing like Chris Rock. She also said, "I did not get funny until I stopped trying to be someone else."  I realized I could never be Chris Rock, I could only be me. I've heard some comedians say this, or something similar, "When I first started out, I wasn't really a comedian, I was playing the part of a comedian." You're onstage, you're telling jokes, but it's not really 'you'. When you first start out, you're trying to get laughs, that's it. You're learning how to write and tell jokes. But the longer you do it, you're able to put more of yourself in your material. You're getting more comfortable on stage. It gets easier to be yourself. And I think that's when you get truly funny.

Listening to other comedians, you soon realize that stand-up comedy is a process. Joe Rogan once said, "When you start off doing comedy, you never realize that you are on essentially a ten-year path to competence. You're not just learning jokes, you're learning (about) yourself, through life." It takes a long time to get good at comedy. I say this all the time about myself, "Where I am as a comedian and where I want to be as a comedian, are so far apart." I'm getting better, I think. But I feel like I can always improve. I feel like I'm improving when I write a joke that truly expresses how I think. And more importantly, I feel like I'm getting better when I have the balls (see Aisha Tyler quote above) to tell it onstage and be comfortable with it.

Simon Amstell, British comedian, gave me some words for me to think about when I write and tell jokes. When asked, "Do you ever worry that you're revealing too much of yourself?" And his reply, "No, the opposite. I always think "Have I really said the actual truth of this situation?". That's the thing about the type of comedy I do, which I mentioned in the earlier blog as being confessional comedy, is how much information is too much, and am I really stating the truth, the whole truth? And it goes back to Aisha Tyler's quote about being braved and unabashed about revealing yourself onstage. It's not an easy thing to do. I'm only telling you part of the story. There's a lot of stuff I'm not telling you. And is that being honest? I mean, what I'm telling you is the truth, but it's not the whole story.

I was asked recently by a new comedian which podcasts they should listen to, and I said just enter your favourite comedian's name into a search engine along with the word 'podcast' and surely something will pop up. Chances are they either have their own podcast, or they've been a guest on someone else's podcast.  There's so much content out right now, you're gonna find something to listen to, and hopefully their words will help shape and guide your career too.

Hack!

My biggest fear is being a hack. Unoriginal. Phony. Unauthentic. To me, a hack comic is someone that uses tired premises, and unoriginal thinking. I watch so much comedy now, both good and bad. And if I can guess the punchline in one or two guesses, you wrote a shitty joke. If I can see where you’re going with the joke, you wrote a shitty joke. It’s lazy writing. What I can’t stomach though, is that hack comedians get laughs. But that’s on the audience. Why are they putting up with shitty comedy? I just shake my head when I see hack comics onstage. I never want to be one of those guys. But here’s the thing, I’m never gonna say anything to them. I’m just gonna let them continue being hacks. I don’t want to see them get better. I doubt if even they have any ambition to get better. I mean, they’re already doing lazy comedy. It’s like a shortcut. How do they live with themselves? I could never do it.

One of the ways I avoid becoming a hack is by being true to myself, by being honest with my thoughts and words. And not worrying (anymore) what the audience thinks of me. I think they can tell that I’m being truthful.

Lately I’ve been testing my own material using the ‘bleh’ factor. I don’t know how to spell it, but picture someone putting their finger down their own throat pretending to gag themselves or vomiting. I imagine myself at the Comedy Cellar in New York City and at the back table there is Patrice O’Neal, Rich Vos, Jim Norton, and crew. I respect these guys, and their opinions. And if I got up there and told a joke and they went ‘bleh’, then I would toss the joke. If they saw you doing hack material, they’d let you know. If they liked you, as a person. Because they want to see you improve.

In the past, I’ve written and told jokes that even made me sick, but they got laughs so I continued to tell them. Not anymore. I want to feel good about myself onstage because I'm saying what I truly feel rather than feeling good because I made a few people laugh at something stupid I said.

There’s a quote that goes something like this - “I’d rather be hated for who I am, rather than being loved for something I’m not.” I think it was Kurt Cobain, all my research suggests it is, but who knows. But it sums up how I feel. I’ve told jokes before that made me unpopular with audiences, I could feel their hate, but I didn’t care. I loved it. I was truly expressing myself. I’d much rather tell jokes that truly represent me rather than silly jokes that get laughs.

I did an interview with comedian Darryl Lenox on an old radio show I hosted. And he watched me do 5 minutes of stand-up comedy at a restaurant and had this to say, “You seem to be doing a lot of ‘I-hope-they-like-me jokes’.” Maybe I was, but not anymore.

I can actually pinpoint when my comedy changed and when my attitude about writing changed. It’s a joke I call ‘Good Woman’. You’ll hear it on one of the new EPs I have coming up soon. I tell people all the time that that joke represents me better than any joke I’ve ever written. I say, “It’s more ‘Me’ than anything I’ve ever written. And then all I did was write more jokes just like that.

This one time, I think it was during an interview, someone asked me to tell them about myself. And I said, just watch me onstage, you’ll find out all you need to know. And more. You’ll learn things about me you didn’t wanna know. ‘Oversharing’ is a good description. I actually considered naming my upcoming CD ‘TMI: Too Much Information’. I’ve heard this type of comedy being described as “confessional”. That’s seems pretty accurate. If after seeing me perform you still have questions for me, other than “Is everything you talk about onstage true?”, than I haven’t done my job. And Yes, everything I talk about onstage is true. Do you know how hard it is to think of a joke out of thin air? It’s hard.

This might be another unsubstantiated quote, but David Lee Roth (singer for Van Halen) once said, “All art is autobiographical, whether you want it to be or not.” I might have the quote wrong, or the source wrong, but that’s not the point. I like the quote. And yes, I know it’s pretentious to call my little jokey-jokes ‘art’. I prefer to think of it as a craft. I’m crafting jokes. But my ‘art’ is very autobiographical, by design. I like to think I’m telling my story. In fact, my Haida name (I’m Haida/Cree) is Kil Gan K’aas, which means Funny Storyteller. There is no word for ‘comedian’ in Haida. And that’s what I do, I tell my story, in a funny way. This is another way I try to avoid being a hack, by telling my own story in my own unique way. What could be more original than that?

As I’m typing this, I keep thinking of an album I bought many years ago. It was Steve Martin’s record ‘Comedy Is Not Pretty’. If you’ve ever seen Chris Rock’s special ‘Bring the Pain’, then you might’ve seen it fly by at the beginning of the special. He’s in drag on the cover. He doesn’t look pretty. Here’s the thing, I know my comedy makes some people uncomfortable. It’s because I’m telling the truth. My truth. And no one wants to hear the truth. So you gotta sweeten it, with jokes.

When I first started writing and telling jokes that were truthful, it was uncomfortable. I was always worried what the audience thought of me. I wanted them to like me. But it made me uncomfortable telling these jokes. I wasn’t confident enough. But the jokes were getting laughs. And as time went on and I wrote more jokes in a similar vein, it got easier. Remember how I said that one joke was more me than anything I’ve written, well, as I wrote more of those jokes, I became me onstage. That’s who I was. You know how people always say, “Just be yourself.”? Do you know how fucken hard that is? It’s probably one of the hardest things ever. But the more I told jokes that were “Me”, the easier it was for me to be myself. Now it’s fun. It’s fun to make audiences uncomfortable.

I remember this one time I told a joke, and it got very few laughs (it was a very small audience, in my defense), but this one guy pointed at me and said, “Yes! Exactly.” That’s who that joke was for. Not all my jokes are for everyone. But when the people that it’s meant for, get it, that’s perfect. I just need an entire audience of those people, then I’d be set. It made me happier knowing that that one guy loved that joke, rather than all the other people that didn’t find it funny. Fuck them. Who needs them?

This entry is kinda all over the place, but I have a good reason. I’m tired. I was celebrating the Pittsburgh Penguins winning their fifth Stanley Cup, this one was back-to-back, baby!

Writing

I’ve decided to start writing a blog every two days or so (Sat, Mon, and Thurs), just to get the writing juices flowing. I finished listening to the Duff Mckagan audiobook (Guns N’ Roses) and he said he writes a weekly article for a magazine, I forget which one. I actually Googled how long a magazine article is, and I’m going to write about the same amount of words. 1200-1500 words, by the way. I also just finished the Stephen King book ‘On Writing’ and he also has a strict writing schedule, and he said he listens to hard rock while he writes, mostly AC/DC, Metallica and Guns N’ Roses. I’m currently listening to Chet Baker on Spotify. ‘Love for Sale - Live at the Rising Sun Celebrity Jazz Club’ if you’re interested. On a recent podcast, comedian Willie Barcena stated he is writing his new hour of material by spending all day at Denny’s. He goes there for breakfast, when he’s done, he writes, the waitress brings the lunch menu, he eats, he writes some more, then has dinner. He writes for eight hours per day. That’s a little extreme, but I would like to get more disciplined when it comes to my writing.

Just to let you know where I’m at, I recorded my debut live CD a few years ago, ‘The Bloody Savage’. Since then I started a new joke notebook and it’s almost full. With the new material I’ve written since my first CD, I have enough material for another CD. But when I look at my material, it’s not as cohesive as my first one. There’s no throughline. It’s not all connected. So what I plan to do is record two EPs. An EP is a short album. It stands for Extended Play, and usually contains about 4-5 songs. Remember ‘GNR Lies’ by Guns N’ Roses? That’s an EP. Actually, it’s two EPs. Their first release was an EP called ‘Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide’. Then they recorded four more acoustic songs and teamed them together and called it ‘GN’R Lies’. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to record and release two EPs, but separately. I already have a potential title for one of the EPs. And if I decide to go with that title, I already have in mind what I want to do for the cover artwork. Still working on the title for the second EP.

So I think I’ve written all the material I need for these two EPs, so I’m going to start working on the new material for the next full-length CD. I already have in mind the type of material I want to do, plus a couple of topics I want to hit. For my first CD, I wrote a lot of little jokes, and then I bunched them together and they became chunks. I didn’t write the chunks all at once, they came together over time. The material for the two EPs were written that way as well. In fact, that’s one of the reasons why I’m doing two EPs. One set of jokes is very focused on one topic while the other set of jokes has nothing to do with nothing. They’re still grouped together, but they’re unrelated, if that makes sense. But the second full-length CD will have longer bits, rather than short jokey-jokes. I’ve learned how to write jokes, now I just want to expand on it. To include more of my opinions and worldview. That sounds pretentious, but it’s not really.

Louis C.K. wrote one of his hours of material 5 minutes at a time. He wrote 5 minutes of material every month, and after 12 months, he had enough material for an hour-long comedy special. When I first heard that, I thought that sounded doable. Until you try it. It’s hard to write 5 minutes of jokes per month. But if you look at his CD ‘Chewed Up’, you can see that it has 15 tracks, each approximately 5 minutes in length. Obviously some are shorter and some are longer, but you can see how he’s broken up his act. Each bit is a separate track on the album. So, I’m guessing he wrote one bit per month, each bit was 5 minutes, that’s an hour.

When I look at my CD, I have 12 tracks, most of which are in the 2 to 3 minute range. Each track is a different topic. But I didn’t write them all at once. I just wrote jokes, I wrote what I thought was funny. Over time, I started grouping all the jokes that were under a similar topic together. But it took time. I would have a topic, I’d write a new joke then see where it fit.

The next full-length CD will be written differently. I plan on writing five minutes on a selected topic, write 10-12 bits and release a full-length CD.

When I researched the average length of a magazine article, I came across some interesting numbers. I learned that most people read at about 200 words per minute, so the average blog post should take you about 5 minutes to read. Believe me, it took longer than 5 minutes to write this and type it. I think the trick is to block out all the distractions. Easier said than done. As I’m typing this, I have tabs open for Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and my email accounts. Of course I have my music playing. It’s just background noise. I chose Chet Baker because there are very few vocals, mostly trumpet.

In my research (just now) I found out that the average person speaks about 150 words per minute. So in order to perform 5 minutes onstage, I need to write about 800 words. But not just words, jokes. Otherwise I’d just be delivering a speech. I tend to speak slow. I’m not very energetic onstage. I don’t even know how to describe my delivery. Relaxed? Casual? Casual is pretty close, I guess. I remember reading an article about a comedian and he was talking about his delivery. He said it was very casual and nuanced, you really had to pay attention and the punchline snuck up on you, and really hit you hard, to the point where you were taken aback, like “Did he just say that?” I wish I still had that article, I’m not describing it properly, but you get the idea. That’s the sort of thing I tried doing with my comedy, early on. I’ve said this before, but I’m not a ‘shock’ comic, but my material has been described as shocking. I did an interview for a newspaper and the reporter was this retired White gentleman. And he said, “I’ve seen some of your videos on Youtube, and some of the things you said made me uncomfortable. Was that the intention?” I told him that my intention was to make him laugh, but the fact that I made him uncomfortable, was a bonus. For my next full-length CD, there will be more of that.

I think I’ve grown as a comic since ‘The Bloody Savage’. And hopefully you’ll see the growth on the next two EPs. And you’ll definitely see/hear the growth on my next full-length CD.  

When I write, I speak to myself, in my head. But at the same time, I picture myself onstage delivering these words. So a lot of times, I’ll say something in my head, think it’s funny, then write it out. I may take a different approach for the next CD. I recently discovered speech-to-text on Google Docs. It seems to work okay. I’m just a little shy to talk out loud. I’m not sure why. I’m not one of those people that hates the sound of their own voice. But I think in order to write longer bits, around 5 minutes in length, I’ll have to talk them out, just to get all my thoughts out there. Now that it’s almost summer, I do plan on getting out more and walking. That would be the time to talk out loud and record it on my phone, and type it out later if it’s any good.

Well, I’m almost at 1400 words, that’s enough for now. See you Monday.

Fucken Cliff SMH

Some of the best times I've had in the past few years have been doing comedy.  I've traveled to some places I've never been before, Toronto, Montreal.  And I've shared the stage with some great people, Chris Gaskin, Dawn Dumont, George Leach, and of course Cliff Paul (R.I.P.).
Cliff Paul is one of the funniest people I've ever met.  Every time you think you've heard all of his stories, he'll pull another one out that will have you laughing your ass off.  Driving to a gig with Cliff was the best part about working with him.
But I'm gonna tell you about this one time we did a show with him in his hometown of Powell River.  It was at a hotel and when we got there, he asked the organizer who all bought tickets.  The organizer named a bunch of mutual friends of theirs and then he said, "Oh, and the hotel owner is going to be there, with her Autistic son."  And this totally slips Cliff's mind.  It might've been the joint he was smoking.
So anyway, the show starts and Chris Gaskin is our MC and he kills as always.  But there's this young man in the front row making these strange noises and by the time I get up on stage, I realize this must be the Autistic kid.  And I ignore the strange noises he's making, even though it is kinda disrupting the show.
Before the show starts, we made an announcement that there be no filming of any sort.
So Cliff takes the stage, and he's killing like only Cliff can.  I'm sitting by the bar to the right of the stage and this very drunk Native woman is at the bar and she orders her drink.  She then turns around and faces the stage to watch Cliff.  She takes out her phone and starts trying to take a photo.  She's very drunk and she's having trouble holding her phone steady.  I'm right beside her and can clearly see she has an old phone and I'm pretty certain this phone doesn't have video taking capabilities.  And I can see Cliff looking at this woman every once in a while and he's getting pissed off.
Not only that, but the Autistic kid is still making the strange noises.  And it's starting to interrupt Cliff.  But he's still killing.
Then suddenly Cliff stops the show, points his finger at the drunk lady and says, "You!  Stop filming me!"  And then he points to the kid in the front row, and in a booming voice, says, "And you!  Stop with the Euugghh noises!"
The whole room is shocked into silence.
I just wanna burst out laughing because I realize at this point Cliff has totally forgotten what he was told at the start of the show.
Anyway, Cliff starts the show again and it goes alright, I guess.  But afterwards, he is pissed about how things went.  We pull him aside and remind him about what we were told about the Autistic kid.  And this moment of realization hits his face and he bursts out laughing.
I can only shake my head.  Fucken Cliff.
I miss you brother.      

I Recorded My CD Last Night

I had my CD Taping last night.  I think it went well.  I did two shows, but I felt like I nailed it on the first try.  I had a few flubs, but those can be fixed in editing.  The first show was pretty much sold out, about 60 people.  Good crowd.
In the second show, I made sure the jokes I messed up the first time, I made sure I nailed them the second time.  So the finished product will be a mix of the both shows, but will mostly be the first show.
I listened to the two shows today and the proof is in the tape.  The CD will mostly be made up of the first show.
The CD is going to be called 'The Bloody Savage'.  I will be shooting the cover photo in a couple of days.  I will be painting my face in warpaint.  It will be available on www.cdbaby.com.
I can't wait for the final product to be released.
This is my debut CD, a culmination of about ten years of doing comedy.  Countless open mics, numerous conferences and corporate events.  Some of these jokes I wrote ten years ago, and I've been telling them for years, but it's time to retire them.  Some of the jokes are a little newer.  It's been ten years, but it feels like I'm just getting started.
I feel like Jerry Seinfeld when he dumped all of his act and started fresh, writing all new material.  After I taped this CD, it felt like a new chapter was starting.  I can put all this material behind me and start fresh.  I will not be performing this material at open mics, but if I am asked to perform these old jokes, I will.
I'm very proud of the first CD, but to be honest, I'm more excited about the second CD.  I'm not sure when it will be taped, but I'm excited about the new material I'm writing.  Like I said, it feels like I'm just getting started, but now I know how to write a joke.  Not that I didn't before, but now I'm finding my voice.  More of my personality is coming through in my jokes.  I've already got some jokes written for the second CD and I'm working on new material as well.
The second CD will not take another ten years.

CD Taping

I am going to be recording my debut live stand-up comedy CD on August 17th in Prince George.  I will have two chances to get it right as there will be two shows.  The final project will be a mix of the two shows.
I'm looking forward to getting my material on tape to show people what I can do.  AND I can shelve this material, jokes I've been doing for close to nine years in some cases.
I look back at some of these jokes and think, "Man, these are terrible."  But they get good laughs, which is the goal, right?  But at the same time, I'm very proud of a lot of these jokes, too.  
But these jokes were who I was.  They are me.
The CD will be a good document of who I was at this time.  A lot of these jokes contain 'I' statements:  I'm Native, I'm a university graduate, I'm a father, I'm divorced.
It's going to be called 'The Bloody Savage'.
Here's the link to the event - https://www.facebook.com/events/132579713608856/ 
I'm still not sure what to do with the final product.  Sell it cheap or give it away?  I'll give some away as a promo tool.  And I'm going to make some hard copies to sell at shows.
Did I tell you about the cover?  It's going to look like David Lee Roth's album cover for 'Eat 'Em & Smile'.  I will be painting my face like a combo between Tonto and David Lee Roth.  Red, black and white.  Haven't decided if I'm gonna be smiling or be all stoic.
No release date has been set, but stay tuned.