Charity Spruiker Awareness Day

Written for and first presented at Happy Yess Comedy April 2014 - Good vs Evil

They've come to us from foreign lands
With nothing to offer in their sunburnt hands
They meet our eyes and we look the other way
They're forced to spend their lives on the street
Begging for money from the people they meet
So Australia won't you join me

For Charity Spruiker Awareness Day

Who do you turn to when you need an answer
On endangered species, or a cure for cancer?
But whatever the issue we know the story ends:
"I'm just bringing you this information
I'm sorry but  can't except a cash donation
But if you'll give your credit card number we can still be friends.

Because if every Australian could donate
The cost of one cup of coffee, or a single plate
Of spaghetti a week to get behind the task
That would give our spruiker friends here
And income of approximately 5.38 billion dollars a year
Come on Australia, is that really too  much to ask?

And I know that every single one of us
Has been stopped by a spruiker when we're late for the bus
Saying "Can I ask you just one question" and standing in the way
But if we didn't these people to attack us
We'd lose a chance to flirt with hot backpackers.
So join me tonight for Charity Spruiker Awareness Day.

Make of that what you will.



Garry with 2 Rs

Garry the Grey

Written for Alexa and Angus on the occasion of the World's Greatest Shave, 2014 and performed at Bogarts in Parap.

Life can be hard work
When a strange genetic quirk
Sends you grey before the age of seventeen.
Instead of flowing raven locks,
I was the teenage silver fox.
The youngest grey nomad the world had ever seen.

Now all the girls might give a cheer
For George Clooney or Richard Gere
In a charming smooth romantic comedy.
But can't you see?
You might tell me it's distinguished,
Like a gentleman who's English.
But it's still fifty shades of rubbish to me.

Salt and pepper. A speckled spray.
Even Gandalf the Grey.
So many names to hurt, malign and injure.
But whatever I've been called
I'm just grateful I'm not bald.
And I thank the Lord I'm not a freaking ginger.

Make of that what you will.



Garry with 2 Rs

Showcase

Last week Top End Comedy put together a week long workshop as an attempt at professional development for the impressive gang of comedians we’ve assembled over the last 18 months or so. After a crazy amount of effort on the part of the formidable Amy Hetherington, we secured a government grant and flew an international comedian into Darwin to spend some time honing our crafts.

I probably spent more time on sandwich eating than on craft honing, but that’s not to say I got nothing out of the workshops. The chance to sit around with a room of comedians for three days and bounce material off each other was fantastic, and set the stage for what followed.

On Friday night we put on a showcase of local comedy talent, followed by a set from Nik Coppin, our illustrious international guest. Twelve of us got up, each delivering a five minute set that we’d spent the past three days working on. Even with a couple of inexperienced performers (and one fantastic first timer) no-one bombed; in fact we delivered a solid two hour line-up of quality presentations. And Nik obviously did a great job at the end too.

Raw Comedy is coming up in just over a month and I've registered to go again. Top End Comedy has come so far in the last twelve months that the NT heat isn’t going to know what hit it.  I can’t wait for our first Happy Yess gig this week.

Yah dumplings!

Garry with 2 Rs

Christmas Part One - Clever Girl

Earlier this year at a Happy Yess Comedy gig, I threw a few saucy velociraptor references into my insightful and side-splitting discussion of the role of chivalry in twenty-first century masculinity.

It didn’t go very well.

I was concerned that my sociological discussion was perhaps not quite as funny as I had believed, but was later relieved to discover that the problem wasn’t so much that I wasn’t very funny (I’m freaking hilarious), but that a disturbing number of audience members - to say nothing of fellow comedians – had never seen Jurassic Park.

Those few of us who had had the knowledge and fear of raptors instilled in us during our formative years regarded it as our moral responsibility to address this cultural deficit, and set about planning a Top End Comedy Jurassic Park Christmas Party. We waited until one of our number had left Darwin, and then invaded her house, set up a Christmas tree and decorated it with small plastic dinosaurs. This is what we do for fun in the Top End apparently. Once the tree was appropriately bedecked, it was time for the main event: A full length viewing of Jurassic Park on the second biggest TV I’ve ever seen.

As much as I love it, as a film Jurassic Park hasn’t aged well. The animatronics, which were astounding at the time it was released, don’t really stack up against the computer generated miracles we can create these days. The computer systems in the ‘state-of-the-art’ facility left us laughing even harder than the multimedia demonstration of how DNA works.

These days there probably isn’t a better way to enjoy the film than in a room over crowded with slightly intoxicated stand-up comedians. The night ended with those of us who had already seen the film grinning and remembering our childhood and remarking to each other how awesome Jurassic Park was, while those who had just seen it for the first time seemed comprehensively underwhelmed. I felt a bit like Sam Neil’s character trying to explain to the scoffing child that velociraptors are much more than just over grown turkeys. And no-one except me seemed to agree that “clever girl” is among the great lines of English literature.

In the end it was a great party with great friends and a great film. It’s just a shame that they never made any sequels.

Ever.




Garry with 2 Rs

Headliner

Last night I checked a major goal off my checklist of stuff to do at some stage by headlining Happy Yess Ccomedy. When we put the program for the year together earlier on, we decided a musical comedy night would be fun, and the committee (which at that stage consisted of a few friends sitting around in a pub thinking about what we wanted to do (actually, it still does)) immediately suggested I headline it, and we locked it in for August. I was flattered at the time, because I can think of at least two other local comics who are a) better musicians and b) arguably funnier than me. But I definitely grabbed the opportunity with both hands and set about putting some material together. I really didn’t want this one to be the sort of gig that I threw together at the last minute. I’m done with that lifestyle, remember?

So I finished writing my material the afternoon of the show. Yeah, well I’ve always maintained that the last minute is the most powerful moment in all of time and space. Deal with it. On top of that, I also realised that I hadn’t really written an appropriate song to finish with, as the song I had managed to compose that afternoon was not sufficiently uppity. So I resolved to write an extra one between the start of the show and when my set came up. No biggie.

Actually, I had plenty of time in the end; Happy Yess Comedy is usually done by nine, but we kept on rolling until nearly ten o’clock, mainly due to extra set-up time and a few acts with a creative interpretation of ‘five minutes’. But I finally got up, did my set and got down again, without causing too much damage to myself or anyone else, so that was an achievement.

Happy Yess Comedy has really come a long way this year, to the extent that we’re now looking at shows in other venues and have rebranded ourselves “Top End Comedy”. We’ve got shows, gigs and maybe a trip to Adelaide in the pipeline, so make sure you keep an eye out for us.

Make of that what you will.

Garry with 2 Rs

Ladies Night

So I’ve been freaking out a bit  about performing stand-up comedy at Ladies Night this week. I get a little bit nervous when it comes to thinking about jokes about women, or jokes by women, or just being a room with women.

Basically the short version is women make me nervous. And usually that’s okay, because the world of stand-up comedy is founded a long tradition of goofy guys who are rubbish with women. There’s nothing funnier than a guy paying himself out for being relationally inept right? Well, maybe monkeys riding unicycles. But I don’t have one of them, so instead I spent my ladies night set presenting a researched treatise on the socio-economic and spatio-political influence of goofy lonely men, and how I’m basically better than all of them.

I think the real strength of goofy lonely guys doing stand-up about being goofy and lonely is that it’s a like a theatrical/romantic model for both socio-economic capitalism and Hegelian dialectic socialism. It also has a lot in common with the messianic writings of the ancient Jewish scholars and also films by the Warchowski siblings.

Basically the premise of capitalism is that in order for a few to be prosperous, the majority have to struggle. So the while the dream might be that if you work hard and use your money well, one day you’ll be rich and successful. It’s basically like The Great Gatsby.

And there’s another thing. Last week I read a review of Baz Luhrmann’s latest effort on the Great Gatsby. I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry, when critics, who wrote as if they knew things worth reading about, complained that the Great Gatsby was “over the top” and “all style, and no substance”. If you’re going to review a film, you should, as a bare minimum, know something about the book it’s based on. Apparently “Baz Luhrmann fetishizes romance, rather than feels it”. In other news, Star Trek Into Darkness, was  abit too science-fictiony for my taste, and we were all disappointed that Titanic ended so sadly.

Where was I?

Yes… Romantic capitalism

So in stand-up comedy you’ve always got the big names. The celebrities who made it as professional entertainers. And beneath those bright lights, you’ll always have twisting seedy undercroft of goofy lonely guys, desperately clinging to the dream that women love a guy with a sense of humour. At open mic and amateur comedy nights all across the country, goofy lonely guys are slogging away, working towards the dream. And eventually the goofy lonely guy comedic energy reaches a critical mass, and one lucky goofy lonely guy is catapulted from obscurity onto the grand stage of Australian sketch comedy to enjoy the world of celebrity, where in theory they’re supposed to be able to get any woman they want, but really they continue to be goofy and lonely, but at least they’re slightly less impoverished.

And all the others left behind look up and see the success of the lucky one and salute the new inductee with a heartfelt “oh I could do that” and then get back to writing their next five minute set for open mic night at the RSL club. And the system keeps going.

Now if all of that seems a little dark and cynical and not quite as funny as I had hoped, take heart. My children there is yet hope. Because in every good Jewish messianic scripture, or Warchowski siblings film, there is the coming of the One. The one person who has the ability to turn the system on its head, free the oppressed, bring justice to the streets and punch Hugo Weaving right in his face. And tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I can announce that tonight this Warchowski film has been fulfilled in your presence. I am the one. I’ve turned the system on its head, because despite my long history of writing a series of increasingly ridiculous songs about being single

I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND!!!!!!!

Just in case anyone had somehow missed that over the last nearly eleven months.

She’s a lovely girl from Cincinnati Ohio, in the United States of America, but this presents a bit of a problem for my stand-up comedy career, which up until quite recently has consisted of me writing a series of increasingly ridiculous songs about my now defunct inability to get a girlfriend. So since that comedic well is now dry, I now have a new and fascinating life goal to write about, because in August, I get to travel over to the United States of America to meet my girlfriend’s family.

I do have the usual worries that go with meeting your girlfriend’s family for the first time, now combined with the added concern that if they don’t approve of me, they might just shoot me. My girlfriend has very lovingly tried to reassure me that this is unlikely to happen. She actually said these words to me:

“I promise you there are no guns in my parents’ house. We’re a little bit worried about our next door neighbour, but there are none in our house”. So as long as nothing goes down in the house that’s likely to startle the neighbours we should be fine.

Anyway, it’s probably the easiest thing in the world to write a series of increasingly ridiculous songs mocking the United States of America, but I’ve been assured in no uncertain terms that if I do that, I’ll be back writing songs about not having a girlfriend in fairly short order.

So I guess I’ll stick to political/economic commentary. That’s much funnier.

Make of that what you will

Garry with 2 Rs

Surprisingly Awesome

So our monthly comedy gigs at Happy Yess are ticking along nicely. Last night we had a virgins night- A night for all first timers doing stand-up comedy. It had potential to go either way, but we were all blown away by how much fun the night was.

It started out with the usual panic attacks when we realised that we had an hour and a half to fill, and only two comedians on the list. None of the regulars had prepared anything, so we were all wandering around figuring out what we could pull off at short notice, when Amy wandered in with four other comedians in tow and we went from there.

You wouldn’t expect to get seven good ones in a row at a first-time amateur comedy night, but that’s exactly what we got. Everything from dark yet somehow self-deprecating socio-political commentary (from someone else this time) to an entire string of mother jokes made about the comic’s own mother (who was in the audience). And one particularly inventive man who attempted to pick up the previous comic by impersonating an amputee construction worker.

Basically the point is that Darwin is awesome, hilarious and packed full of more talent than most would expect. I suspect it’s something to do with laughing to distract ourselves from the weather. So next month we’re having Ladies’ Night at Happy Yess Comedy. A night when we all get to make fun of… no wait, that can’t be right…

Make of that what you will.




Garry with 2 Rs

Press Release

(Written for Happy Yess Comedy 4 April 2013, and posted here in lieu of anything else to write about)

Good evening ladies and gentleman and thank you very much for your attendance this evening. As you would no doubt be aware from the press briefing notes we spoon fed you this morning, our party is taking this opportunity to announce some bold, audacious and courageous new policy directions. These new policies are designed to give more Australians a fair go, and to more responsibly, sensibly, reasonably and responsibly spend the budget allocations for this sector.

Just like many Australians, our party has been disturbed, concerned, troubled and indeed disturbed by recent revelations regarding the transport of live creatures around Australian and to destinations in South East Asia among others.

It is the firm belief of this party that such wanton disregard for the value and dignity of life is unacceptable. To cram so many in to such a confined space, for interminable amounts of time on route to Asia is beyond reprehensible and cannot be allowed to continue.

Therefore under a brand new initiative, our party will be forcibly disbanding Jetstar, replacing it with a transit system that doesn’t leave at one o’clock in the freaking morning and placing a blanket ban on those stupid orange uniforms to go with it.

Our party is very cognizant that Australians are concerned about the state of our environment, about climate change and about Anthropogenic Global Warming. As a political movement, we want to reassure all voters that not only do we have a firm grasp on what these words mean, we take very seriously the science behind the debates and the entirely rational discussions that go with it.

As an extension of this, our party will be revamping the Carbon Tax. It will no longer be a flat rate tax on polluting industries, which damages our economy, but a more fairly, evenly, equitably and fairly distributed tax on all carbon-based life forms and their footprints. This is to ensure a strong and sustainable future for our country, free from carbon and the manifold problems associated with it. The science is clear on this issue; remove all the carbon-based life forms from our economy and we’ll remove the human causes of global warming altogether, for a cleaner future for all Australians.

Turning to the very complex challenges facing us in the area of immigration, asylum seekers, people smuggling and political refugees; It’s important to understand that issues such as these can only be addressed with very simple, straightforward, sloganistic campaign messages, and in accordance with this principle, Australia has a very clear approach to the development of appropriately populist immigration policies. As far as this party is concerned, if the immigration policy of this country can’t be summarised, satirised or debunked in a three line internet meme, then it needs to go back where it came from.

With this in mind, our party is committed to eradicating people smuggling by the year 2175. In order to take the first steps towards this realistic, measurable and accountable goal, we will not only abolish the Pacific Solution, but we are in active negotiations to abolish the Pacific Ocean altogether. We have put out a number tenders for sub contracts, and the consensus from the private sector is that complete elimination of the Pacific’s 622 million cubic kilometres of water could be achieved over a period of three years at a cost of three hundred kajillion dollars. We have therefore set aside the necessary 1.7 billion dollars and we are confident that the project will be delivered by Christmas.

Naturally some budget cutbacks will be necessary to fund this venture. It would irresponsible, reckless, careless and, frankly, irresponsible to make a huge sweeping promise like this without having any idea how to fund it, and Australians expect more. That is why we have elected to generate funds for the Pacific Dissolution by closing twenty seven hospitals across the country and completely disbanding the Department of Education. This is an important sacrifice that we are prepared to undergo on behalf of the Australian people, as we are firm in our belief that draining the entire ocean will stop the boats. Probably.

Our party is firmly committed to these policies, as a central part of our nation building platform; a platform which is engaging, sustainable, equitable, and – above all – engaging for all Australians. Full details will be available on our party website, just as soon as we get the NBN working.

Ladies and gentleman, I’m Garry Condoseres. I thank you for your time.

Make of that what you will

Garry with 2 Rs

As Raw As It Gets

About nine months ago I started doing stand-up comedy with my friends at Happy Yess. We started out small and token, but this year we’ve launched a re-vamped and rejuvenated version with themes and headliners and organisation and everything. I’m really excited to be a part of it, and putting some time and energy into developing my own stand-up stuff. Having tried a few different ways to stand up on a stage and make an exhibition of myself, I can confidently assert that comedy is both the most challenging and the most instantly gratifying of all the theatrical arts.

On Friday night I took it to the next level. I decided to enter the Melbourne International Comedy Festival’s Raw Comedy, which is a national amateur comedy competition. It was a significant step up for me, having only tried out comedy in the comfortable shelter of Happy Yess, and it was certainly a much larger audience than I’ve ever tried to be funny for before. Apparently there were about 400 people in the audience. Not that I could see any of them for the bright stage lights.

A few of my fellow contestants were trying out comedy for the very first time. And I was surprised at how many of the others had never been backstage at the Darwin Entertainment Centre before. These days I’m as at home backstage as I am in a bar or a church, but I suppose not everyone has had the same theatrical background as me, or lived in Darwin for as long.

There were about a dozen contestants, all of whom did a pretty good job, and the crowd were, for the most part, really good and generous with the laughs. There were only a couple of instances of heckling, and they were reserved for those who could obviously handle it. And at one point a little girl jumped on stage and asked if we had any fish for her.

Phil had assured me that the best strategy with Raw Comedy was to do a musical number, so that was what I did. I’ve been writing little musical numbers for Happy Yes for a few months now, so it wasn’t a big stretch to write full song for the competitions. And it went over pretty well.

I really hadn’t been too fazed by the whole process, but when the winner was announced and it wasn’t me, I discovered I had wanted it a little bit more than I realised. I was a little disappointed, but no so much as to harbour any ill feelings.

In the wash-up, Phil asked me why I had done a song. “I’ve spoken to the organisers,” he said (apparently this is still the sort of thing that just happens to him), “and they told me they’re really not looking for musical numbers these days.” I don’t know… one of these days.

I think I’ll probably give it another go next year. We’ll see what happens.

Make of that what you will.




Garry with 2 Rs

Stand Up For Yourself

Over the past few months I’ve been getting involved with an open mic comedy night at the Happy Yess club. If you’ve been reading this blog for any extended period of time, you’ll be arriving at the conclusion about …

…

… now that taking my sense of humour and attitude towards other people and giving it a microphone might be a very bad idea. And you’ll be right. The thing is, despite congratulating myself about how edgy and theatrical I’ve become, until recently I’d never actually stood up to do ... stand up. I’d acted as MC, I’d written songs and helped out with the impro teams, but I’d never climbed up on stage with the sole intention of telling everyone “look at me, I think I’m funny". It's a really weird thing to do.

To make matters weirder, I’d managed to have this completely peripheral involvement in the comedy nights for about six months without it ever occuring to me that I’d never got up to do a set. In a Herculean feat of self-delusion, I had it in my head that I did comedy all the time, despite the fact that I'd never done comedy. The mind blowing reality only hit me last Thursday, as I finally got up to do my first ever stand up set..

 Normally I walk around the Happy Yess like I own the place, confident that I can handle myself in conversations about music, writing, drinking, left wing politics and even vegetarianism (you don't have to bite the spinach to know it's gross). I’ve also achieved a major goal of being able to walk into a club and ask the bartender for “the usual”. It’s getting to the point where I’m as at home on the Happy Yess stage as I am in my own kitchen. And the output is usually much less disastrous.

So it came as quite a shock as I made my way up to the microphone to find myself suddenly overtaken by the awareness that I’d never actually done this before, and that I had no idea if it was going to work. It’s quite an exhilarating sensation to approach and then deliver your first punch line, just waiting for the all-validating and all-forgiving laugh from the audience. It wasn’t nervousness as such, more like the sudden realisation that I was standing on the edge of a bridge I’d never crossed before, about to take a flying leap over the edge.

And leap I most certainly did. Fortunately I landed safely on the trampoline of external approval, turned an improbably tight somersault over the jagged rocks of self-doubt, settled on the far side of the routine with a graceful splat and round-house kicked the Tyrannosaurus of misplaced metaphors to the ground. Take that Nancy!

Yes. So apparently stand-up comedy is something I can do now. Make of that what you will.




Garry with 2 Rs