And so -

Well, I'm not 25 grand richer - but what a long, fun trip it was.
Scroll down and you'll get the drift of my trip.
I was lucky enough to have a layover in Vancouver, at the same time that Yukyuk's has their Pro/Am nights - a mixture of sets from professional and amateur stand-ups. I had emailed the feller in charge and he gave me the okay to do a set.
It was the perfect practise round for Toronto - and all-in-all, I had a pretty strong set. I was pretty worried about the whole time thing, as in, at these clubs - you have a set amount of time, going over your time is a faux-pas.
I kept everything quick and easy, and had great crowd response.
Naturally, killing in unfamiliar territory is a huge rush.
However, once I got to Toronto - I couldn't stop stressing out. This knot of worry just grew and grew all day on the Friday before showtime. I was actually slightly worried about my growing state of nausea. It didn't help we went to a mediocre Italian restaurant beforehand.
I did a couple of practise rounds in the hotel room, and off I went.
I went into the green room and met the other comedians who would be participating that night. One older comic and I had a great chat about touring. And he was telling me stories about his booker sending him to Fort St-John, and other dives around Northern BC and Alberta - some very interesting and sobering stuff.
Then I joined in the queue of pacing comedians, worrying their hands as they went over the sets, and poured over their notes. At least it was comforting to know I wasn't the only one about to crap themselves.
When my name was called, my stomach jumped and away I went. While it wasn't one of my solid moments (the nerves certainly got to me), I had a pretty good set. Even Mark Breslin - the founder of Yukyuk's, and the very funny MC of the evening, gave me a thumbs up.
It was quite a mix of talent on the stage - and I guess I had been naive in my uinderstanding that you needed to be funny to be a pro stand-up comedian.
A lot of jokes were pretty formulaic, and standard. The MC even made a meta-joke on the subject - though it might have been lost on some of the attendees.
I can say that I know I could be doing this professionaly if I want to. All it takes is being in a city with a lot of clubs, then hitting them up as much as possible. Eventually, you get picked and you journey of living in your car begins.
I asked myself, is this what I really want to do?
I'm not so sure.