Happy New Year

Happy New Year to you all!

To celebrate, here is a picture of me measuring up to Basketball hero, Gregor Fucka. This is humour at it's most childish and puerile. But I kind of like it.

Have a great evening and may 2009 be all you wish it to be.

love

Sam x

Sam Brady Stand-up Comedian

Sam the Marketing Guru

If the comedy doesn't work out I won't be taking up a career in Marketing.

Following my publication of that wonderful picture of me with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and my account of his ringing (and totally bogus) endorsment, the total number of people who have signed up for the Sam Brady Newsletter currently stands at 2!

That wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that both of these individuals are the same 2 people who regularly read and comment on my blogs anyway.

I have thought about doing an expensive correspondence course in Internet Marketing. Or maybe buying one of those mailing lists where you spam everyone in the world.

But on reflection I think I'll just try and write some good jokes. In the long run, that's probably the best strategy.

love

Sam x

Sam Brady Stand-up Comedian (no...honestly)

Saturday Night Ramblings

Today I fell off a horse. A big horse. It hurt.

Now, as I sit here trying to numb the pain with Coniston Bluebird Bitter, I'm wondering what the hell I am thinking of - at my age - taking up horse riding. The same thing might be said for stand-up comedy.

Both offer the prospect of lasting damage (one physical, the other psychological) and both present regular opportunties to make a total tit of myself in front of a crowd of people.

OK so let's be honest, there are two reasons why do comedy (I why I fall off horses every Saturday).

1. My shameless need for attention means that every opportunity to make a tit of myself seems to carry a strange appeal.

2. Failure just makes me more determined. If I fall off a horse, I want to get back on (with difficulty - but I get back on). If an audience don't like me, I want to come back and make them like me.

The weird thing is that these characteristics get stronger as I get older. The more flabby, stiff and decrepit I become, the more defiant I become. And why not? I am, after all, Invincible.

Or maybe that's just the Coniston Bluebird Bitter talking.

love

Sam x

Sam Brady Stand-up Comedian

Goals for 2009

I've been thinking about what I want to achieve in 2009. Where am I going with all this comedy malarkey and what do I want out of it over the next 12 months?

Well, the first thing I want to do is to get some decent material. I reckon I've got about 7 minutes worth of tried and tested material that works consistently. I'd like to build this up to at least 30 minutes. This would put me in the frame for longer (paid) sets. So, Goal #1: Get 30 minutes of tried and tested material.

Secondly, I need to continue to improve my stage skills. The best way to do this is to get as much stage time as possible. My aim is to do a gig a week from January to March and see how that goes. I'm also thinking of going on a stand-up comedy course and getting advice and feedback from professional comedians. I'm also hoping to do some MCing, which is great experience and generates a lot of stage time. Goal #2: Improve my stage skills.

Thirdly, I'd like to get my friends, family and (dare I say it) fans more involved. A journey is much more fun when you've got other people to share it with. Whether I become a comedy legend or a failed entertainer, it would be good to have people to talk about it with later. MaybeI'll  do a special 40th birthday show for friends and family. I don't know yet. Goal #3: Share the journey with my friends and family.

Finally, my most important goal is to ensure that my wife and daughter still see me often enought to remember what I look like. This is why I don't just pack it all up and move to London and gig 7 nights a week. My family is the most important thing in my life - the comedy works around them. Goal #4: Keep comedy in perspective and enjoy family life.

Dalai Lama: "Sam Brady's New Newsletter is Crazy!"

The Dalai Lama likes a good laugh as much as the next man.

That's why he is delighted that I'm going to be doing a new monthly newsletter starting this month. Probably. 

But you don't have to be a great spiritual leader to enjoy my home-spun brand of boob jokes and nob gags. Anyone can do it. If they can read English and they have access to the internet. Which I'm guessing you do.

Anyway the newsletter will include a review of what I've been up to over the last month, plus maybe some bits of video and other stuff that isn't on the blog.

It's handy if you don't have time to be visiting the blog every day - ideal whether you are busy fighting the credit crunch or simply trying to get your country back from the Chinese.

To sign up, just type your email address into the form in the right hand margin of this page. If you get fed up with me sending you my half-baked ravings, you can always change your mind and unsubscribe later.

Have a good week.

love

Sam x

Sam Brady Stand-up Comedian

Surviving in the Bush

Last Thursday (4th December) I played the Holly Bush Tavern in Cradley Heath for the first time.

The Bush is a smallish pub in the Black Country with a tiny back room where comedy legends are born. I hope.

I really enjoyed the gig and my stuff went down very well. 

This was not a crowd of middle-class "chin strokers". To be honest it was hardly a crowd at all - there were only about 20 people there. But what they lacked in numbers they made up for in good down-to-earth feedback. 

I came out of it well. At the end of my set, one audience member rose from his seat and raised his hands in the air cheering as if he was at a Birmingham-West Brom derby match. I wasn't sure if he liked the material or if he was cheering because I had finished. To my relief he later informed me that I was a top bloke and funny as f*ck. He was my favourite punter ever.

I had been worried because I only had 5 minutes of tried and tested material. I was planning to tag another 5 minutes of new stuff onto the end of this. In the end, I decided just to add something new into each section of the existing set and stretch it out to 10 minutes. It worked!

Everything went down well apart from the routine about "our Sheila's boob job" which flagged a bit. It usually goes really well but I made a mistake - I said the word "darkness" when I usually say "shadow". I've found that this simple detail makes an unbelievable difference to the effectiveness of the joke. I need to rehearse it and rehearse it to embed the word "shadow" in my brain for next time.

I haven't got any more gigs planned until 5th January - but I aim to do at least 50 gigs in 2009. There's also the chance that I might get asked to stand in for someone at the last minute at the Frog, which I find hard to resist.

Sam Brady Stand-up Comedian

Coming Out of the Comedy Closet

Since I started out on this comedy lark I've been really chuffed about the way that friends, family and colleagues have got behind me.

Standing up in front of strangers and trying to make them laugh would be a whole lot more daunting if I didn't feel that somebody somewhere was on my side.

Generally, when people who know me find out I am doing stand-up, their first reaction is one of disbelief. "Comedy? What? You?"

But the initial shock is usually followed by, "I'd love to come and see you do your stuff - when are you next on?"

At this point, I usually freeze and make excuses. "Well maybe you could come and see me in a few months when I'm a bit funnier," I stutter.

But maybe I shouldn't keep hiding from you all. It's time to come out of the comedy closet. OK so a professional comic advised me to wait a year before inviting friends to come and watch me - but since when did I listen to good advice?

So I'm inviting you - no, entreating you - hmmm, I may possibly even beg you - to look at the gig list (there's a link on this blog) and find out when I'm on near you. 

OK so you might come on a bad night when I'm total crap and I die on my arse. So what? That's part of the adventure.

If I become a comedy legend - you can say "I was there at the start!" 

Or if I end up a lonely old  drunk, sleeping in a gutter somewhere, you can say "I always said he wasn't funny." Either way you're a winner!

Hope to see you soon.

love

Sam x

Sam Brady Stand-up Comedian

The Gigs Come Rolling In

Yesterday I got four new bookings for 2009.

By pestering Hannah at the Frog & Bucket persistently over the past month, I got 3 bookings for the Beat the Frog gong show. One of my goals for 2009 is to get into the Beat The Frog World Series, which is a fairly prestigious competition for new comics and looks good on the old C.V.

Feel free to come and support me at Beat the Frog. Even though I've survived the gong before, there is no guarantee that I'll do it again. But it's a great night out and, even if I die on my arse, you'll be sure to have a good time.

The other booking I got yesterday is for the Smirking Room in Leeds. I think it's a ten minute open spot (i.e. no gong) but i was so excited I forgot to check. I've never done that one before. Will the Yorkshire people hate me? Of course they will! Should be fun.

All the dates of my forthcoming gigs are here on the website, listed under the ingenius title of Forthcoming Gigs. Let me know if you need more info.

love

Sam x

Sam Brady Stand-up Comedian

I need jokes - now!

So, three days to go until my 10 minute spot in the Black Country, and I still only have 5 minutes of material.

Help!

I've been a bit busy recently getting married and doing my day job. Haven't had much time to weave comedy magic.

I'm thinking of doing some stuff about positivity. I'm thinking about talking about a retreat I went on in the US where I learned about being positive and full of self-love. I came back to Britain and thought: Imagine a Britain where everyone was full of love and positivity, where a person could stand up on a train and declare "I am a good and worthwhile person - I'm a talented and beautiful human being" - and everyone on the train would clap and cheer. 

That would be really annoying wouldn't it?

British people don't like that sort of thing. We're not keen on celebrating success. But failure - there's a real cause for celebration - especially when it's someone else failure.

We all want to be good, kind people. I'm very keen on empathy and compassion. But when I see someone trip and fall on their arse I laugh my tits off.

Like I said...

...help!!