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