Tommy's Journal

Saturday, September 27th

I haven't journalled online in a while. Things have been interesting to say the least. We did get hit by the hurricane where I live and there was quite a bit of debris, but no real damage. Some of my neighbors still don't have power, but for the most part things are back to normal.
I was in California when the hurricane hit, working at one of my favorite comedy clubs, Rooster T Feathers in San Jose. We have posted one of those shows on my website, www.tommydrake.com. It is a free download in five parts. Make yourself a CD or put it on your ipod. This is hopefully the first of lots of free downloads we plan to post on my site.
I'm back out working on cruise ships now. I'm writing this in my cabin on the Carnival Legend as we cruise back to Tampa. I will be overnighting in Florida and flying up to Canada to board the Carnival Victory for a couple of shows. Carnival has changed their show schedule and now instead of doing just one midnight show, we do two late night r-rated shows. Technically it is more work and we don't get paid by the show, most of us get a day rate, so some of the entertainers are complaining about this change. Personally, I think it is great. I had two shows two nights ago and two last night. I was better in the second show last night because I had just done a show and I knew what I wanted to do differently next time. The more I work, the better I get, so this is a good change for me.
This is a good time for me creatively. I'm not really a political comic, but I do like to discuss what is going on in the world and in our country. Audiences are very informed right now and I'm enjoying discussing the election and the energy crisis and the economy. The downside, it takes me about a year and a half of doing a new bit before I find the best way to deliver it and most of this stuff will be outdated in four months.
By the way, if you really want to know what is going on in American politics, get into a cab in another country, Belize is a good one, but any country will do, and all you have to say is 'how are you doing today?' or 'how's business going here?' Foreign cab drivers are genius political commentators and they are so connected to their own economy and gas prices through their job and the rest of the world, particularly vacation spots are dependent on the U. S. economy, that some of the smartest and most interesting observations I have heard have been explained to me through a thick accent over the back of a car seat.
[Karma: 2 (+/-)] tommy on 09.27.08 @ 08:27 PM CST [link] [2119 Comments]

Tuesday, August 5th

I had a late show last night. It starts at 12:15 on this ship, which is 3:15 a.m. my time. I felt completely exhausted before my show, but once I hit the stage, all of that goes away. The crowd was very nice. I felt as if parts of my show were moving too fast last night. One of the downsides to doing one show in the big theater and the next in the little lounge is that the two venues have distinctly different feels which require different timing. I have spent quite a bit of time on this ship in the last two months which is nice because I have actually developed relationships with the staff here. They come to my show even though they have seen it before. This gives me extra motivation to try new material and to do a better show than I did last time.
I'm very fortunate that the few people that I deal with on ships like me and like to work with me. Work on cruise ships is based almost entirely on reviews and reports from the cruise director and their staff so it is important that these people like me. About half of the entertainers that do this job are not well liked by the staff. Their futures are insecure and their schedules are rough because of this. It is interesting to me the reasons why some entertainers are liked and others are not. It has very little to do with the quality of their show, at least directly. It has more to do with how they conduct themselves offstage.
For the most part, fly-on entertainers like myself have one of the easier jobs on the ship. Pretty much everyone we encounter has to work more and harder than we do. That being said, until you have done the job, done the waking up in the middle of the night at home to travel all day and do a solo show in the middle of the next night on the ship without proper rest or proper food or a proper shower you can't appreciate exactly how difficult this job can be. So to sum up that last paragraph, while the job is one of the easier ones on the ship, it is at the same time harder than folks think it is. When your whole job is the show, a solo show that is all you, and that show doesn't go well it is very hard to deal with. When the folks around you don't appreciate how difficult your easy job is, they can say and do things that would cause you to over react. When the guy with the easiest job over reacts to a little problem, he is labelled as a head-case, a drama queen, an asshole. I am well liked on cruise ships because even though I am a head-case, a drama queen, and an asshole in my personal life, I don't bring it to the ship.
Being well liked on a cruise ship as a fly-on is like being a good student in a kindergarden class. Show up on time, do what you are told, don't ask questions, and even if they are completely wrong about what they are telling you, don't ever correct the teacher. Also, if you must cry about something, find a quiet corner where nobody can see you.
There are about fifty reasons why the show last night shouldn't have gone well. It did go well, but there are lots of reasons why it shouldn't. If for some reason it turned bad, regardless of the reason, it is my fault and only my fault. There are all kinds of technical problems, all kinds of distractions that could come up that are completely out of my control, but as the comic, it is my job and only my job to deal with those problems and make the show as good as possible.
Ask any comic, any solo entertainer to tell you about one of their best shows ever, or the biggest round of applause they have ever received from an audience. They will not tell you about a perfect performance with a perfect audience that was perfect technically. They will tell you a story about a disaster, a nightmare, a series of unfortunate events and how they adjusted on the fly and improvised and worked through it and how much the crowd appreciated what they experienced. And they will take full credit for it even though the two guys that started fighting or the lady that choked on the olive or the technician that tripped over the plug for the light board and banged his head on the volume control for the microphone knocking himself unconscious deserve at least partial credit.
Perfect performances in controlled environments are great for TV and movies, but live shows are special and exciting because of all of the variables, all of the little things that could go wrong. I embrace the fact that every show is different, it is what makes my job great.
[Karma: 13 (+/-)] tommy on 08.05.08 @ 03:53 PM CST [link] [226 Comments]

Monday, August 4th

I've always had a plan, a method that I use to go about my business. I have created a set of rules, guidelines for myself. For the most part, they are pretty simple, pretty basic.Things like work as much as possible, write every day, over tip bartenders. No brainer stuff for the most part. As my career has played out and as I have gotten older, many of the rules have changed and quite a few have been added to the list. Rules like no drinking before the show, don't ask the audience questions, try something new every show have all been added along the way. Some rules get taken away. I used to stand in the middle of the stage and leave the mic in the stand, I now hold the mic and move around.
Many young comics have asked me for advice about how to advance their career. The first thing that I tell them and the first step is always to perform as much as possible until you can perform every night. Stage time is the only way to get better. Every night that you don't have a show is a night that you don't improve. I've become so adjusted to working every single night that on nights off I am often edgy and uncomfortable.

I've also always tried to remember that while this is a job, it is also a dream. I'm doing exactly what I want to do for a living. I try to not complain and to remember to enjoy it each night and every step of the way. Right now I'm on a very nice ship in Alaska in August, there really aren't many nicer places to be this time of year.

Two weeks ago, I spent five days in Amsterdam with my wife, Becky for her birthday. It was a real vacation. I don't take real vacations. I work, all of the time. My job is my vacation. Sometimes Becky comes with me while i am working, but I am still working. This was different. This was me not working.

Since I've gotten back to work I've had quite a few shows on ships and every single one of them has been great. I am really having a good time onstage and finding ways to work in new material and to give new life and energy to the older stuff. Turns out, taking a vacation actually helped me do my job better. I was wrong, two shows a night, every single night isn't necessarily the best way for me to work. I'm still going to keep a very full schedule, but I've decided that it might be good to walk away from it for a few days every couple of months.
[Karma: -12 (+/-)] tommy on 08.04.08 @ 01:47 PM CST [link] [2944 Comments]

Tuesday, July 1st

I had a full work day yesterday. I flew into Cozumel on a direct flight to board the Carnival Glory. I had three shows last night. Two main shows (50 minutes) and one late night (35 minutes). I lost my voice during the second show. Even when I lose my voice, I can still talk and be understood, I just sound quite a bit sultrier (I'm pretty sure that's a word, but not sure how to spell it).
We are doing the late shows in the lounges now instead of in the big room. The lounge last night was pretty packed, all the seats were full and there were folks standing up against the wall. Pretty much all of them had seen my other show earlier in the evening and came out to see more. I love going onstage in front of a crowd that already knows me and chose to come to the show. That is what it must feel like to be a famous comic. Everyone in the audience is familiar with you and choosing to see you, not just whatever comic is in town this week. When I work comedy clubs there are always about a table full of people who have seen me before or heard me in a radio interview who come out to the show, but the other 195 people in the crowd are just folks who decided to go to a comedy club. These folks have to be 'won over' early in the show. Last night was the opposite of a comedy club. There were about 295 people in the audience who had seen me earlier that evening and didn't have to be won over. Then, there were the other five.

When I showed up in the lounge it was already full about fifteen minutes to showtime. I was drinking hot tea to recharge my voice in the thirty minutes between when my last show ended and the late one was set to start. There was a drunk guy onstage wearing sunglasses and being cheered on by four others in the front row center table. These folks are real vacation party people. They were all drinking mixed drinks and ordering Jaeger shots constantly. They were loud. The two guys sitting closest to the stage had their feet up on the stage. I was tired, I was still sweating from my previous show, I had burned my tongue on my tea so even if my voice hung in there, my tongue was already starting to swell.

It is going to sound downright silly to lots of you, but there are things that I do mentally before my shows that work for me. They are affirmations, positive thinking and visualization about the show. I always look at the crowd and think 'this is potentially the best crowd I've ever had'. Then I think 'I am going to do the best show that these folks have ever seen'. Over and over I try to make myself believe that my performance and my audience are going to be the best they have ever been. I'm still creating some sort of backup plan in my head in case the Jaeger shot crew gets out of control, but at the same time, trying to believe that this crowd will be better than any I've had.
The drunks were disruptive for the first minute of my show. They shouted stuff twice but it wasn't loud enough or well timed enough to cause any real trouble. The other 295 folks, the ones who saw me earlier, were such a great, friendly crowd that the drunks fell in step and behaved for the rest of the show.
[Karma: 37 (+/-)] tommy on 07.01.08 @ 12:15 PM CST [link] [30208 Comments]

Tuesday, June 24th

My late show last night was kind of a dead, tired little crowd. They weren't not having a good time and they were definitely into the show, but they had the energy of folks on vacation who have been being tourists all day. I didn't mind too much. In that lounge I am performing on a dance floor and there are quite a few support beams blocking sight lines, so I move around the whole show to fill the space and keep everyone involved. I was supplying the energy for the show from the stage instead of the crowd supplying the energy.
Quite a few crew members showed up and sat or stood in the back of the room for my show last night. This is very flattering and it really helps. It adds the same aspect to a show as having a bunch of local comics in the back of the room at the comedy club. I always go to the other shows when I am available to on a ship. First of all, I love the other shows, I'm a real nerdy fan of all kinds of live entertainment and I know way too much about musical theater. The other reasons why I go to the other shows is because I know how it feels to have crew and cast members in my audience. I feel like it keeps us sharp to know that you are going to see the folks in the back of the room the next day in the mess during lunch.
I wasn't planning on it, but I talked briefly about George Carlin toward the end of my show. I wonder how his show went last night.
I have three more nights and two more shows on this ship.
[Karma: 12 (+/-)] tommy on 06.24.08 @ 02:08 PM CST [link] [1808 Comments]

Monday, June 23rd

So I'm on the Spirit for six nights and I'm working four of those nights. I'm staying on for the end of one cruise and the beginning of the next. This is the same ship I was on last week. It is really nice to be in a familiar place and to know the deal. Often, I am travelling into a mystery. I arrive on a ship but I'm not sure when my shows are or how many or even where the shows are on the ship. There is so much turnover in this business that I often don't know who I am going to be working with. It is much easier to have confidence in your performance if you can visualize it specifically. If you know what the venue looks like, how the crowd is going to be, you can plan out the show as you want it.
The Olympics are coming up and you are going to hear a lot of sports folks discussing things like 'peaking at the right time,' 'visualizing the perfect race,' having confidence in one's abilities.' These things can apply to anyone's life.
When you are a solo performer, you have to believe that you know what you are doing whether you do or not. If you show any fear to a crowd, they pick up on it and even if they want you to do well, even if they are rooting for you, they start to doubt your belief in yourself and then they start to doubt their belief in you.
I'm doing my second of the four shows on this ship tonight. It is a midnight show in the lounge and I did the same show last week. I have no doubt it will go well. I know exactly how the room is going to feel, how the crowd is going to look and what I want to say. It won't be exactly as I imagine it, but there won't be too many surprises.
My show went well a few nights ago, the orchestra pit is still stuck open on this ship, so shows on the main stage are a little tough being stuck behind a big open hole. I knew what to expect, though and adjusted accordingly. Tonight, I am in the lounge, very intimate. I look forward to being able to develop a more intimate connection with this crowd.
George Carlin died yesterday. Of course, he was a hero of mine. Carlin at Carnegie Hall was about as good a comedy special as anyone has ever taped and it made HBO something that everyone needed to have.
George Carlin did things in this business that sound simple but that many of the 'greats' have failed to do. He continued to perform live and create new material when he no longer had to. He paid as much attention to what he was saying onstage as he did to how he was saying it (many are good at one or the other). His range of material stemmed from simple and cute observations "You ever find an empty plate in the fridge? Maybe the olives ate the peas?" to poignant political statements "I don't vote because voting implies a consent to be governed."
George Carlin is not only one of the reasons I started doing comedy, I believe he is one of the reasons there is a market for live comedy today. Many blamed television for the downfall of the comedy club boom. The idea was that if you could see comedy on TV, you wouldn't go out to the club to see it. Carlin's specials made people want to see comedy live and he continued to perform live himself his entire career.
I don't know how to end this rambling blog so I'm going with, "Hooray, lizard shit, fuck"
[Karma: 5 (+/-)] tommy on 06.23.08 @ 06:53 PM CST [link] [4837 Comments]

Wednesday, June 18th

My late show on the Spirit went really well a few nights ago. I get to go back to that ship in a few days for the same run pretty much. It is very nice to go back to the same place two weeks in a row because I already know what to expect. I am sitting in the airport in Vancouver waiting to fly home through Denver. The internet is free. I love Canada.
American tourists drive me crazy. Just wait in line patiently like everyone else. Because you made a scene, I get a bad name internationally. It is all pretty simple at the airport, they have signs in various languages telling you what to do and where to go and even if you can't read, you can look around and do what the other people are doing.
Okay, I'm done being mad. If you are abroad and you have an American passport, try not to be an ass, thanks.
The only real downside of this last trip on the Spirit was that I had two nights off. I really don't like not having a show every night. I had some pretty interesting stuff to occupy my time. I got to see two shows on the ship on my nights off. I also got to see the playoff between Rocco Mediate and Tiger Woods for the U.S. Open. Certainly one of the finest rounds of golf ever televised.
Last night I also got to watch the Celtics win the NBA finals. Usually, blowouts aren't that entertaining, but for some reason, this one was pretty fun to watch. The fact that they won the series with dominant defense and rebounding really made the modern day Celtics look like the Bill Russell era Celtics. Before I got obsessed with being an entertainer I wanted to be a basketball player. I grew up watching the Celtics and the Lakers. I felt like I was nine years old again watching that series.
Well, I'm half way through a month of just working ships. It isn't making me as crazy as I thought it would. I will be back in a comedy club in early July, but until then, it is just cruises. They have moved the late night shows back into the lounges on most ships. For a while, the midnight show would happen in the big theater, but now we are putting them back in the little lounges. I really don't care where they tell me to do my show, just as long as I have a show. The main difference is that the lounges only hold about three or four hundred folks at the most depending on the ship, so most of the time, people who want to see the late show will get turned away because the lounge is full. It is very exciting to have a show where everyone in the crowd is sitting ontop of one another and people are standing in the aisles. Also, the lounge feels more like a comedy club so it does lend itself to more experimentation out of me. In some of the lounges, they do Karaoke. It really isn't my first choice to do a show after they wrap up Karaoke, but now that I think of it, in the big room I am often following a game of bingo.
In the lounge on the Spirit, there is an amazing cover band from Romania that played right up until five minutes to showtime. That was very cool. I felt like I was doing a set on the Midnight Special going on after a fantastic rendition of 'I Will Survive'. I love that Midnight Special DVD infomercial.
[Karma: 18 (+/-)] tommy on 06.18.08 @ 03:43 PM CST [link] [2933 Comments]