arj barker

Dying to blog. I keep looking at the computer longingly. Funny how the more you have to say, the less time you have to say it. Maybe tomorrow I'll type my little heart out, but for tonight I'll just say that I went to see Arj Barker and he was awesome funny! I'd never seen him before, but decided to take a chance because I hardly ever get to see good stand-up. I figured he was a safe bet, given how fast the tickets were disappearing when I checked them out online. I scrambled for a ticket and got row K, and I only got that because it was one ticket by itself.

The next day I picked up the latest BMA, the local free magazine for the Canberra entertainment scene. It has a rocking 'free stuff' page that I love. Each prize has a challenge and basically most of them revolve around amusing the editor. Lo and behold, what's there? A chance to win...Arj Barker tickets! To win them I had to come up with an original joke. That is harder than I thought. I can usually come up with a good line when I'm playing off what someone else is saying, but starting from scratch was a real challenge. And fun!

Here's my joke (it's kinda three jokes). For the Americans, the Australian Liberal Party is most like the US Republican Party. And for everybody, the Butterfly Effect is a theory and also an Aussie rock band (and a movie, but that's not relevent to the joke).

A: Did you hear that the guys from The Butterfly Effect were thinking of changing the name of the band?
B: Really?
A: Yeah. Apparently every time they release a single there's a hurricane in the US.
B: So why "were"? Did they change their mind?
A: They've decided to hold off on the name change until one of the hurricanes hits Washington.
B: So when they do finally change their name, what will it be?
A: They were thinking maybe something like, "Liberal Party Promises" because nothing ever happens as a result of those.

And I won! The tickets were row F, almost dead centre. That was a cool surprise - most free tickets aren't that great. I took Tickle Me Emo (my new nick for the Little Drummer Boy, who sold his drums and became an Emo boy* (except he doesn't make out with guys...as far as I know). He freaked out when I told him because he was already an Arj Barker fan. I also asked Phi, because he likes stand up, too. (*The faint of heart should probably stop watching that video after the picture of the little sister's cutesy jeans.)

The support was Clint Paddison, a Sydney comedian. He was good. Arj was great. Either one comes your way, buy a ticket quick! You can also check out Arj's blog. It's fun and interesting and gives a good sense of his comedy style.