Workshopping My Comedy: Notes, Nonsense, and Nightmares

Alright, Anonymous, buckle up because I’m about to take you on a behind-the-scenes tour of my comedy workshop. Picture this: me, surrounded by crumpled napkins, half-empty coffee cups, and a notebook filled with what can only be described as the ramblings of a madwoman. My process? It’s like trying to solve a Rubik’s cube while blindfolded and riding a unicycle. I jot down ideas that range from ‘Why do pigeons always look like they’re judging us?’ to ‘What if pineapples were actually spies for the fruit mafia?’ Most of it is absolute garbage, but occasionally, buried deep within the chaos, there’s a nugget of gold. Or at least a shiny rock that I can polish into something resembling humor.

The real magic happens when I start testing these ‘jokes’ on unsuspecting victims… I mean, friends. Like that time I tried out my new bit about sentient socks at the laundromat. Let me tell you, the guy next to me folding his underwear did not appreciate my theory that socks develop consciousness after being lost in the dryer. His face was a mix of confusion and horror - which, in my book, is a solid 7 out of 10 on the comedy scale. But hey, if you’re not making someone uncomfortable occasionally, are you even pushing boundaries?

So here’s the thing, Anonymous: comedy is messy. It’s trial and error, mostly error. It’s showing up to open mics with jokes that bomb so hard they create their own craters. It’s rewriting the same punchline fifty times until it either clicks or you realize it was doomed from conception (RIP ‘the existential crisis of a stapler’). But somewhere in all that mess, there’s beauty. Because even when a joke doesn’t land, it means I tried something new. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my Irish family, it’s that you gotta keep swinging - even if you miss more often than you hit.