Alright, life doesn't suck.

Okay, so my last entries have been a little bit dark and bitter. What can I say, after traveling to the other side of the planet and having an okay show, then a 'good' show, I was feeling a little fucked up and lonely. When you've been doing something long enough that you think you have a handle on it, and it slaps you around a little, making you feel like you have no idea what you're doing, it can sting a little. Thank god for last night.
I was tripping balls for the show, because I knew that there were three papers coming in to review me and I didn't have many tickets sold. So I handed out some free passes, had some walk-ins, and the room ended up being full. Not only were there butts in seats, but they were there to enjoy themselves, thank...fucking...christ.
Aside from lobbying to fill the room, I also got in there at around 2pm to flip the stage around with two of the Tuxedo Cat techs. This was mainly to avoid the issue I had the first night of late-comers walking in and the door being right next to the stage, making it impossible to ignore them. With the stage on the opposite side of the room, people are now able to slip in/out without disrupting the show, which is huge. Moving stuff around added some more problems as there were holes and loose floorboards where the stage had previously been, so I was hurriedly nailing the floor back together about an hour before the show started.
With the new layout and a great crowd, I was finally in a place where I felt comfortable up there and was even able to branch out from my regular material. I was more honest up there than I think I've ever been before. The first two shows were a great adjustment period as I realized I was getting a big response when just talking about some of my experiences which related to my material, as opposed to just the straight material. Figuring out the subtleties of what people want to hear depending on where you are in the world, and more importantly how they want to hear it, is one of the bigger reasons I came over here and I'm glad it didn't take too many shows to pick up on aspects of it. With fifteen more to go, I'm excited about how far they will let me take some ideas I've had stewing in my head for awhile, but never felt there was a place to put them.