Recommitting Myself

Since getting back from the West Coast, I have been diving back into studying my craft. My master's program in writing has left me inspired. The theatre company I work with has motivated me not only to create and perform more of my own work, but to collaborate with other artists. As I find my voice on the page I am taking that same discovery to the stage.

Summer lulls in the Big Apple, and in between literary translation, a practice paper, and dreading my 5 page practice paper, I have decided to sign up for a film acting intensive. This is different from the classes I have taken at The Actor's Fund and the acting class I took each week where I ended up bringing in work I created. I am in front of the camera with no puppets. Just me learning how to cold read.

It's very humanizing. I am getting the same notes in my writing and in my acting. My mentor in my writing program congratulated me on getting my packet in early. However, she said I was judgmental in my writing pieces. Last night's class the note I got was I played attitude. The first writing packet I forgot to double space. First week of class I foolishly copied my sides and my scene partner had an interesting time. Both my mentor and my teacher were good about it.

I feel hungrier than ever for craft. I am reading Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir. I am reading Lee Strasberg's A Dream of Passion. It's my first time reading Stephen King. I haven't read Mr. Strasberg since college. I read one in the morning and one before bed at night. Both often say the same thing. It's tell the truth.

I go to The Drama Bookstore and if I spend any more time in there I run the danger of maxing out every credit card I have. But I have overeaten, over drank, smoked, and dated people who were bad for me because they felt damn good. I have made worse decisions.

But recommitting myself, it's been a good one in some ways. My mentor in my program is great, but when I get a writing packet back there is always a tinge of doubt. Sure, I am more mature as an actor, but Tuesday night I was talking to someone and the old bullshit came up. I am never the best one in the acting class but the most unique. If it's a place where I write and create my own work with my puppets I rock it. That's my zone. I haven't identified as a dramatic, legit actor for years. I mean I guess I still am, but the time, energy, and passion has gone to being a puppeteer.

Suffice to say this class has me a tad out of my comfort zone at times. I thought about bringing an original piece to perform, but that's not the assignment. If I get a big film role, it won't be my work at this point. And besides I am a writer, it would be nice if I respected the words of others, right?

A casting director I once did a class with said it best, "Growth is sometimes painful."

She was right.

The good news is, by participating in an MFA in writing program, I have the opportunity to learn screenwriting. By taking this class, I have the opportunity to get better on camera. By respecting someone else's words and work, I bring good kharma to my own.

I just want to be perfect all the time. I try so hard to be liked. Everything is personal. It's just the way I am made up. A friend told me to take some time off my reading. I told her I needed to go to the bookstore. She said, "April, if you go you will read. Read tomorrow."

So here I am writing. Not reading. Processing. It's easy to read but hard to live. Growth is sometimes painful indeed. But the growth and process are worth it. Because each step, no matter how arduous, gets us closer to the truth.

t's not monstrous that this player here,
But in fiction, in a dream of passion
Could force his soul to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wanned,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect,
A broken voice, and his own function suiting
With forms to his conceit? And for nothing!
For Hecuba!
Hamlet


www.AprilBrucker.TV

Walking in LA (Missing Persons)

The New Wave hit echoes in the chambers of my memory as my day starts. I see the lead singer of Missing Persons. She looks like Central Casting issued a call for Gem and the Holograms. The lead singer freely informs, “Nobody walks in LA!”

These words resonate in my memory as I start my day. I am in LA and I am a walker in this city where no one walks. It’s because I am transplanted from a city where everyone and their mother take a subway or they walk. In Los Angeles, the transit system is adorable. It tries, but it goes everywhere and no where at once. And no, no one is walking.

Nobody walks in LA.

I begin my morning by heading to class at Antioch University in Culver City. I am 20 minutes down the street. Apparently LA has some neighborhoods you can walk in. This is one, kind of.

The sky is colored like Bob Ross took his water paints and went to town. It’s happy and optimistic unlike the often dreary New York skyline I left behind. As I hit the pavement I see Spanish Style houses. Even the apartment buildings are Spanish style. There are no hulking, gray high rises that remind you that no, you will never be able to afford to live here. LA is expensive, it did that to me on it’s own. That’s why I don’t have a car, duh.

As I wander the suburban sprawl to class, I see flowers in December. There are no flowers in New York at all let alone in December. I breathe in the fresh scent that is totally alien to me. All of a sudden I hear the bark of an angry dog. It’s behind a fence so hell if I know the breed. Either way it senses I am here and is mad as hell, probably because aside from the mailman who is probably a drunk who barely does his job-my childhood mailman was and from what I understand that’s more the rule than the exception-this dog never has a walker let alone senses one.

Maybe this dog wants a friend.

Or maybe this dog is saying, “Bitch, didn’t you get the memo. Nobody walks in LA.”

Yes, I ascribed the dog an identity and am even giving it words. Maybe it’s because I am a ventriloquist and make objects talk. Maybe it’s because I have spent too long in New York. We had son of Sam who had a dog tell him to kill people. Maybe he was a ventriloquist gone bad. Cali has Richard Ramirez who got a girlfriend on Death Row. Every city has their psychos. As someone who makes puppets talk and now is giving a dog way too much agency, I should just focus on getting to class on time. You know, school, the whole reason I am in LA.

This entire time I am drinking coffee as I walk down the street out of my pink mug that says Antioch MFA. It’s pink because I’m a girl and I like pink things. As I sip my pink mug I see no one on the street. It’s still just me. However, I see swarms of cars on the street. They are like bees going to a hive. Angry bees on a mission. They are driving like they are either late for the high paying job that pays the rent, the audition that will change their life, or yoga. In LA it’s yoga.

New York has the same swarm except it’s foot traffic. Both are equally as scary.

I cross the street and the drivers look at me as both a herpes sore on their day and as an alien. A walker is a foreign being. I cross the street with lightning speed like I am Errol Flynn and Captain America, swashbuckling in a foreign land to live my dream on the written page. As I cross I spill my coffee. Yes I applied for graduate school on my own and am financing it on my own too. But I am drinking coffee irresponsibly and walking in a no walk city. I am adulting well and badly all at the same time.

I hit the sidewalk. The hot texture of the pavement has hit my white flip flop and boy are my toes hot. My sun dress is hardly proper walking gear according to most but in New York I have walked from Wall Street to Times Square in similar gear. Heck, as a singing telegrammer, I have worked the tri-state and even walked along Jersey Highways in the dark. I can handle people who drive like assholes. Jersey drivers are notorious. Yet the possible brushes with death never cease to raise my pulse.

I catch my breath.

On to cross under an underpass. It looks like trolls should live there but they don’t. Trolls in LA have cars and wouldn’t be caught dead walking under their bridge. As I cross I see a black homeless guy, tattered and pushing a shopping cart. There are people who would tell me I should be scared. I am a New Yorker. I have dealt with all sorts of homeless. Many are addicts or mentally ill who fell through the system. I try not to make eye contact. While those in Jersey drive like assholes New York has made me act like an asshole.

I am looking both ways to cross the street. Suddenly I catch the eye of the homeless guy. He has a shocked look as he sees me. His jaw drops open. I can tell he is shocked to see someone that looks like me walking. I want to say, “Buddy, I don’t own a car and your credit score might be better than mine……just when I didn’t think I should shock you anymore.”

Seconds later, a school kid enters. By the look on his adolescent face I can tell he’s cutting. He’s walking because he is too young to drive and wants to escape his idiot teachers or bullies. Either way, it’s me, the homeless dude, and the kid. All at the Outcast Table. It’s like high school again. Now I am wondering if there is a LARPer amongst us and who brought the dice.

That is when the light changes and I cross. As I continue my walk, I see the cars and car dealership. I see VIP nails. Should I skip school and get my nails done? I love my program and my teachers. But my nails need refilled. They say I am a graduate student and they trust me. Perhaps they overestimated the fact I was transforming into a character from Beverly Hills 90210.

That is when the white middle class narrative of my youth comes in. I want Dylan McKay to ride up on his motorcycle to rescue me. So what he’s 16 with a receding hairline and looks closer to 30. Damn it he would be my age. Screw Brenda and Kelly, he’s mine! Yeah, that’s not happening.

Seconds later I see Sprouts. My mom was afraid of me getting mugged in LA. I told her I did 10 years in New York. When I told her I was going to school in LA she said, “You don’t own a car let alone drive.”

The way she carried on you would have thought I was getting ass fucked in a video in Van Nuys. So I told her that. To which she bellowed, “I am your mother! I worry about you all the time. Someday you will remember this conversation and I will be dead!” Mic drop.

I continue up the hill. There is a bus depot where a large Spanish population is. I don’t know what they are per se, and I am saying what they are like I crawled out of a Eula Biss narrative on race and class. But they are looking at me like I am crazy for walking. The LA stereotype is poor people and immigrants take the bus apparently. Stereotypes are demeaning.

I want to tell them I am walking because my people have fucked the world up so royally for everyone. I want to tell them I am walking to apologize for our asshole president and the pressure it has put on their families. But alas, that would make me look crazier than I already do.

I cross a second street. I see a motorist looking pissed as hell and yelling. It appears he is talking on the phone. I hear my mom again from my memory. “Does anyone know anything else about this hippie school you applied to?” She asked.

“Mom, it’s a real school. Starboard is doing a low residency PhD.” I tell her, informing her my cousin who’s a dance professor and soon to be mother is juggling life and academia all at once.

“Sounds like a Trump University to me.” My mother snaps. Yes, with this Tiger Mom it’s Ivy or bust. I did NYU undergrad and my brother and sister did Brown. Her heart broke when I didn’t apply to Columbia. After she pestered me to go to grad school I finally did it and it still wasn’t good enough.

I see the car pass again. It’s white and it’s driving like it’s buttons have been pushed. Yup, he was talking to mom.

The postmodern building Antioch is in looms closer in the industrial park which it is situated. I am excited to be in class today, and more excited to see my new classmates which include but are not limited to a former flight instructor, a former Obama blogger, a poetry writing mom of three, a former engineer from Korea who’s pen name is that of a Disney character, a woman who had an arranged marriage that worked out and many more.

I am excited as a piece I shared in workshop marinates. It’s the one about bringing my puppet pal Donald J. Tramp to the RNC as the spokespuppet of an anti-Trump organization. He’s 3 feet tall and 15 pounds and his resemblance to a US President is purely happenstance. I got some amazing feedback.

Should I bring my puppet to school? Hmmm……Are they sure they trust these grad students?

Across I see Holy Cross Cemetery. It’s beautiful and majestic as I see LA sprawled and the massive city over the hill teaming with cars and life. My classes are teaming with life and ideas. It’s a paradox.

Seconds later my phone buzzes. It’s my mom sending me a text. She is telling me she has googled some of the faculty in the program and is impressed they got such accomplished instructors and Ivy League educated faculty. She is also impressed by it’s ranking. I told her this months ago but it doesn’t matter. And then she wishes me a good day at school. Glad Tiger Mom is happy. I will have one masters as opposed to the 30 PhDs I should have by now in her world.

I see Holy Cross and the text from my mom. She is right. Someday she will be dead. And until that time and thereafter, she will be a star in my work because she just gives me endless streams of material. If that’s not love I don’t know what is.

Either way, school is about to start and I see my friends. I am headed to my first learning activity. Sure, I am doing the City of Angels on foot, but I am walking towards my dreams and goals. That’s the way I see it. And while Jesus wore sandals, perhaps tomorrow I will wear sneakers. As long as I am going to walk in LA I might as well be practical.

Buy My Shiznit 

Taking the Plunge

My climb to headliner status has been a rocky one. This past weekend I headlined my first two nighter for real. I headlined and featured at the same time for the past several years never really knowing the difference. It was an appearance and a chance to make money while making people laugh. Sometimes being a woman was what bumped me ahead. Then it was being a prop act. Wasn't bad that I was on TV a few times.

At the same time being a woman has held me back. I have had bookers tell me I was "funny for a woman." Well Sir, these days not only are my people funny but we go to school, become professionals and even run for president. Really. You should see us. (Asshole). Then there have been men who were resentful that I was billed higher. They would tell me how accomplished they were while bad mouthing me when they felt I wasnt around, bemoaning their fate of having a woman who was higher up than them. At one point it got to me so bad I almost quit comedy. Add in the stupidity from male bookers and club owners who felt it was okay to sexually harass the talent in a skirt.

Then there was the fact I was a prop act. A club owner in Vegas would not give me a guest spot to be seen because of my prop act status. He said headliners didn't like me. He didnt even ask the headliner his opinion. It was just a chance to be a dick and close the door.

Then I was on TV, but it wasnt the right shows. I was a reality star. It wasn't Letterman or Colbert or whatever the newest trend was.

They say try to be so funny you can't  be denied. The nature of the beast is that even if you are funny, you will still be denied. Shit sucks but welcome to show biz.

This past year I have really been working my ass off to get to the next level though. I have been good about not letting the bullshit invade my life too badly. My focus has been on my jokes. I have been hitting open mics like Batman hits the Joker. Several events happened, my eviction and a breakup with a mentally ill partner, to make it so comedy was the very thing that kept me from killing myself.

I have become very conscious of delivery and writing in a way I never have. I did a one woman show, which is not the same as a headliner set but it's an hour of you onstage with no break. It's an hour where you leave swimming in your own sweat. It's an hour where you smash the stereotype that performers are selfish because you are giving your all and then some. It's an hour where you feel like eating lots of sugar afterwards cause you need the simple carbs. It's an hour where the next day you feel like you ran a marathon but don't remember running a road race.

This past weekend I was in Trump country. It was trippy and it wasn;t the easiest room because of the layout. It was sort of baptism by fire for my first headlining set. My first night it was a Green Acres learning curve where it was a love/hate relationship between the audience and I. The second night I was more relaxed and had fun. Both nights the room was tough.

Yet both nights the crowds were appreciative. Afterwards there were photos taken and drinks being bought. I sold some merch on the road, but like a green headliner didn't know to ask for a table to sell it. My first night I was reminded I wasnt in NYC as I have a bit where Kim Jong Un calls and a pipe line worker yelled, "Nuke that little fucker!" Yes, there was audience participation.

The next night, Donald J. Tramp has a joke where he goes to call Hillary Clinton the c word and I stop him. Someone yelled, "Call that bitch cunt what she is. A bitch cunt!" Yes, oh comedy.

(Note, May Wilson killed as usual and Mom was a hit)

One of the best moments though was when I went to the front desk before my second show. The front desk lady said, "Oh, you were the comedian, I heard all about you."

I did a shrug, that could mean anything. I was like wow, and then she said, "Oh, only good things. There was one older gentlemen who was nervous when you stepped onstage. He figured you would just talk about sex all night long. But he was amazed at the creativity and originality of your act and he intends to return tonight."

At first I had a laugh. Yes, women. Some of us have substance to my acts. But you should really see my people. But then I thought of all the women headliners who put up with the same shit I did. The same women headliners who also took time and effort to write an act with depth. And then I thought of all the headliners, male and female, who wrote an act with depth and went the extra mile. I thought of all the people who had helped me this past year and continue to help me.

I also thought of the meltdown my mom had about my life. But she also got me an aqua colored notebook. It's a place to write my new bits down. It's a place to bleed my feelings on the page. It's a place to create more bits that bring people together. It's a place where I can continue to do the work. It's a place where I remember how the rest of the comics wanted to impress me this weekend, and where I can continue to be someone to be looked up to. It's a place where I can write a lot of hack shit and have the bad die in a dark basement out of the sight of anyone important. It's a place where I remember it's a marathon not a sprint.

It's a marathon.

That's why I sweat when I leave the stage.

My mom hates my book but she's happy I am eating more fruit. You should totally buy it. Buy My Book

Discipline

Yesterday was one of those days. I had a terrible case of the runs-more than you wanted to know-and had a tech run through at Don't Tell Mama for my show. My pianist came and was feeling the burn from the West Coast as he just got off the road. We both had a long week. Me with my telegram deliveries and him with his gigging. Coffee wasn't enough and neither was vitamin water.

The rehearsal went okay but we clearly needed another before the show. As we are packing up I am talking to a friend who's in the space after me. I was running my mouth, thinking I could put my feet up for a tad before my next destination.

Then on the subway I discover I forgot the ipad at the theatre. FUUUUCCCCCKKKKKKK!!!!

I even screamed it on the train. FUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!

It's the 7 so a lot of the train doesn't speak English, but they understood that word. I go home, drop my shit in more ways then one, and run to to the venue. They have my ipad. THANK GOD!!!! The bartender had a good sense of humor, but they all thought I was crazy. I earned it.

I met a buddy for a gnosh and then went to charge my phone in Port Authority. I dunno why I went there, but finding an outlet in NYC is like finding Waldo in a crack den where everyone is dressed like Waldo. So I find a plug and a homeless dude hits on me. Then a dude with one leg comes over and wants to use the outlet. Of course he's homeless so he spills his booze. Then he gets into a fight with an old homeless dude who then begins fighting with a tranny.

That's when I pick up and find another outlet.

At that moment I am approached by a man speaking his own language. He asks me where Chelsea is and I tell him. He then asks what's in my box. When I don't answer he starts screaming at me. I run. He follows. I run. I lose him. What the fuck just happened?!

I get to a diner and kill some time. I drink some coffee. I talk to the mentor. I watch the clock as I kvetch. He laughs at me. The weather is warm where he is. He's paid his dues. He thinks my life is funny. Is it? I dunno.

Finally I get to the last stop on the train. IT's New York Comedy Club. It's the Paid or Pain Show. I know I am gonna get disciplined by the dom. It's fine. Yes, they have a dom. Jay Nog has worked hard and made quite a show and now it's on Sirius. I'm gonna be on the radio. Life is good.

I am first up. I am gonna get pain. I know it. I even tell the audience as much. They laugh. I pull out Donald J. Tramp. I'm doing fine but it's a puppet. I am gonnna get pain. Jordan Carlos does a great Trump impression where he tells me I'm great but the puppet is a liar. The other judge says I'm funny but a puppet act is difficult to kill with consistently. He's right.

And I do get pain.

The violet wand. It's fine. It's the perfect end to this trippy day.

But a producer offers me more spots. I make new friends. I'm gonna be on the radio in 2 weeks. And I shill out a few bucks for the cab ride home.

Come requires dedication. It requires discipline. It requires a violent wand. It requires a brave heart. It requires just relaxing and enjoying the ride. Sometimes we all need a little whipped into shape

Come see my show
The Lady and President Tramp
February 20, 2017 7pm
Dont Tell Mama
343 W 46 street

Death Threats and Other Things

The Lady and President Tramp had it's New York debut at Don't Tell Mama this past Sunday. LEading up to the show, there had been some fireworks on twitter. A man claiming to be a delegate from Michigan threatened me, and then emailed the venue saying that if they didn't pull my show he would go to the press. This individual who called himself Jack Holmes said he would take me and my message down.

He didn't. The venue didn't pull the show.

However, Don't Tell Mama received several aggressive messages, some death threats, on their facebook page. I didn't know about this until I got to the theatre. To say things were crazy is a complete understatement.

The night of the show was actually successful. At first it didn't look like it was going to be because my tech was a mini disaster. However the show itself was marvelous. The audience LOVED IT! We are even talking about doing a run. Life is good. As a bonus I didn't get shot.

The venue administration was amazing in standing behind me this entire time. When others there were panicked, the owner said the show must go on. It's free expression. It's what America is about.

Now that being said, today I feel a little unimportant. No one is threatening me. I always knew I would be close to a bullet in some way for my outspokenness. This is not the first time. However, it is the first time I could picture the bullet. That in itself was a little scary.

I have a show tonight where I am Lady Gaga. I'm not being political. My mom is relieved.

Someone sent me a message that they saw my show and it wasnt good. This person was a pro-Trumper. Who knows if it's true. People are so tough behind the internet. Either way, it has been an entertaining past few weeks.

Donald J. Tramp and Hillary Clifton debate

Clyde Fitch and Other Things

Last year my life was a lot different. I was at the mercy of a psychotic landlord who wanted nothing more than to destroy me. My living situation exploded in utter chaos, and he was keeping me a prisoner. Knowing much of my property had been destroyed as a result of the bed bugs and mold he refused to treat, he would not reimburse me for my losses. When I attempted to hold rent in order to fix my situation, he began to threaten me. Even when the city worker encouraged me to bring him to court and I paid him what I owed him, he began to torture me with court papers. Knowing I had no where to go and couldn't afford to move, he knew he could force me out and hold me hostage at the same time.

I had been there for 10 years without a problem.......until he saw that if he could get me out he could triple the rent and made it his mission to do so.

The situation came to a frightening crescendo when I went to my last court appearance. His lawyer initially told me to ignore the hold over suit they filed, but then I was told I had to go to court. They did this intentionally knowing I would not have enough time to notify my lawyer. To add insult to injury, they also demanded I paid them $3000 that I did not owe, extorting me, adding to my pain.

Their lawyer, an over dramatic idiot, believed himself to be Daniel Webster. Except Daniel Webster faced off against Satan and actually was able to hold his own in a courtroom against someone not willing to speak to the judge. I didn't speak because I was scared. For weeks, my landlord had been following me around the neighborhood. He had also shut off my water. I was afraid this man was going to kill me.

The day before, he had called to threaten me and said, "I won't stop until I see you homeless."

When I got home from court, my apartment was filled with smoke. My landlord had also been going through my things, and had been taking photos. I found out from one of the workmen later, but he said to leave him out of it, he had a family he had to support. I called the police who encouraged me to get out ASAP. My stove was red tagged by Con Ed, the thing my landlord had left leaking in order to cause me harm. Yes, he knew I wouldn't be home, and new this could and would kill me. I was scared for my life and had to move in a hurry.

One year later my address is completely different. I work with a mentor who is nothing short of a Godsend. My act is also completely different. I have been on a new level of comedy and the edge of history as Donald J. Tramp was the spokespuppet for Stand Together Against Trump (STAT), and we were ever present at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. There was not one press outlet that my dear Donny and I weren't in it seems.

To add a little sugar to the suffle, I recently got to go as credentialed press to the 3rd Presidential Debate. I went on behalf of the Clyde Fitch Report, a Pulitzer Prize nominated publication. I was there with Donald J. Tramp to cover the event, and watched groundbreaking news unfold. It was a tremendous gift and incredible fun to be there with other young storytellers who were recording events for the generations to come. These press people were from all reaches of the globe, too. We all took note as the first ever female nominee, and the first ever part pumpkin debated on the important issues.

My life has changed, but for the better. God is good all the time. I know if things had not unfolded the way they did, I would not be doing the things I am now. What a difference a year makes.



http://www.clydefitchreport.com/2016/10/las-vegas-debate-april-brucker-donald-j-tramp-puppet/

The Birth of Donald J. Tramp

This time last year I began a bipolar journey that would restore the heart that was somewhat lost. The truth was, the last several years have been good exposure wise. I got on several television shows very quickly. Not to mention I was in the rotation of a national show as a talking head. A film I was in was nominated for a big independent award. I was getting press around the world. My DVD was on Finnish TV and I was garnering a cult following. And then I felt on top of the world in that manic sense and then life happened.

Next thing I knew I was at the hands of a maniac landlord who would tell me that he wouldn’t stop until he saw me homeless. He didn’t care I was being eaten alive by bed bugs and could barely breathe because of the mold in my apartment. He didn’t care I still paid rent on time. He wanted to torment me until I left and did so using the legal system. 

I still remember calling my mentor after one of my many court dates. Tired and waiting for the police because my landlord had been seen pacing my street in a psychotic state, I felt like I couldn’t do this anymore. Earlier that day, knowing I had been in court, he  broke into into my apartment turning on my stove that frequently leaked poisonous gas. He had also gone through my things hoping to find evidence to use against me, specifically my underwear drawer. When I had gotten home, a cloud of smoke filled my apartment and I couldn't breathe. It seemed this man would stop at nothing to torment me.

I was scared that this man might well kill me. To make matters worse, I was all alone with no one to protect me. He knew this, and therefore I was easy prey. 

Panicked, I called my mentor who heard all about my landlord issues day in and day out. He said, “This is all getting in the way of your objective.” And the he gently advised me to move. An hour later the NYPD would do so in not so many words. 

Fast forward five days, I was moving under duress. I was leaving behind not only nearly a decade of memories, but also a lot of hurt. There was the heartbreak of a relationship gone wrong with a partner who lied. There was also the painful revelations of who my friends were and weren’t as things unfolded. And there was also the horrendous lesson that after a breakup there are the women friends who stir the pot lying about cheating on his end that might or might not have occurred, as well as the vulture male friends who regard you as fresh meat now that your male is out of the picture. I was just one big, gaping, walking open wound. Hey, when it rains it pours and this is what they call a shit storm. 

Then there was the cancer scare. Yes, me shaking. The nurses asking me what was wrong. Me telling them I fear cancer. Them not denying my fear. My mortality flashing before my eyes……

I didn’t have cancer, but that on top of everything else made it difficult to pick myself up off the floor. Sure, I was being profiled in magazines all over the world, but facebook success doesn’t mean real life success.

Now I felt I was all alone in Queens. There were a lot of unsure nights where I cried myself to sleep. Despite avoiding eviction I felt like a failure because for ten years I worked to maintain that apartment and had still lost it. I also had cut a lot of people out so while I wanted to make new friends, I was afraid to let people in. I am a very loyal person, and when you stab me I bleed. Friends are the foundation of my life, and with this gone I felt crippled.

As if my heart was not already pulverized from a failed romance that ended because of deceit, but also because of friends who were wolves and sheep’s clothing. Then there were the hyena’s who arrived to chop on my dying bones. Yes, the advice machines giving their two cents. These were so-called friends and family members who had an abundance of opinions about why I got myself in the housing mess I was in, why I got my heart broken, and how I was on the no where express. Many of these folks didn’t have their own lives together and their sides of the street were damn messy, so instead of tending to their own house they were telling me how to clean mine.

Wait…….I was nearly technically homeless there for a minute. Hack joke. Needless to say, some of them didn’t make the cut either. Now I was beginning to see some of them were relishing in the fact I was failing, and might have been jealous of my life all along.

I also felt burned out because I had worked at Madonna speed for sometime, and now was living like someone who had squandered her life being lazy. It seemed the harder I worked the less I got. Depressed was an understatement. Picking myself off the floor became damn near impossible, especially when the anxiety attacks that left me without the ability to speak returned. My nerves were shot, and getting onstage became a task. I was unfocused when I got up, my sets would do the job because I was a pro. However, they were uninspired and were nothing fantastic. They were not the work I do when I am focused.

Screw it. I am good at what I do. That’s why I get the attention I do. I said it. Shoot me. Make me a legend.

Still, the anxiety began eating me to the point where I was experiencing irrational stage fright, hoping there was no audience so I wouldn’t have to perform. It made no sense. I had always gotten so much energy from a packed house. And then going out of my house became work.

When I was younger I controlled these anxiety attacks by drinking heavily and eating lots of sugar. Both aren’t long term solutions and backfire in case you are wondering. Either way, it appeared I lost my swagger and mojo. Most nights were spent reading and watching Lifetime Movies when I wasn’t discussing UFO’s with my housemate.

I contemplated quitting comedy for good. But then I had a strange dream. It was during a sick day when I had to take Nyquil because I was too feverish to sleep. A familiar looking clown appeared. He was pushing the spotlight with a broom. With a wry smile he said, “Don’t even think about quitting kid. It won’t let you.”

The dream was a tad frightening and a tad hopeful. Still, I woke up feeling tripped out with goosebumps.  Then I realized where I knew that clown from. It was Emmett Kelly. This was a Wayne’s World Jim Morrison Indian in the Desert moment. Yeah, it could have been a sign or it could have been the Nyquil. I had also seen a poster of him earlier that day. Drugs do weird things to the mind……especially the dreams.

I was even surprised I dreamed, because I didn’t do that so much since my life was falling apart. A week later though it was revealed the clown was right. It wasn’t gonna let me quit. The universe had other plans.

It was after a weekend at a comedy club in Connecticut, an event that deserves a blog all its own. I totally ate it onstage in a way I hadn’t in sometime. It was in the middle of no where, and I didn’t expect to do well. I was a last minute replacement. Stepping offstage I was apathetic. I knew I sucked. It had sucked less than I had expected so I was almost happy. With all that went on in my life I was amazed I even was able to complete a sentence.

Most club owners would have shown me the door but I got lucky. Someday the whole story will get a blog of it’s own, but I encountered a club owner who gave me the smack in the head I needed. A veteran headliner who has performed around the world, and is a regular in Vegas, he had everything I wanted. Needless to say, he gave me the mixture of tough love and guidance that I needed at that very moment.

Needless to say the following night was a different story. The stage fright was gone and for the first time in forever I felt like myself. I felt like I could do this. I also knew that while I had come a long way there was still much work to be done, and there would be no substitution for it. I also had to stop being so angry about the events of months past and get my head back in the game. The secret was to embrace comedy like I had once upon a time, when I was so high strung it felt like the littlest stimuli on this planet would kill me.

And just so you know, since that moment that stupid temporary acute stage fright stopped rearing it's ugly head. 

I was neurotic and life was difficult. Being onstage was somehow easy. I needed to get back to that happy, safe place. That person who knew that if she didn’t get onstage, she was busting out of her skin so badly that she might die. Not this idiot who had been on TV a few times that thought she was a comedy genius. No, not that moron. Please……

I began watching videos of old ventriloquists, brushing up on my technique. It occurred to me that all the attention I had gotten made me really lazy. I wanted to go to the next level. I wanted to  be inspired again.

Around that time my mentor suggested Donald J. Tramp as an act. We both are history nuts and love politics. While I thought it was creative at first I balked. This was current event stuff and the time window would be short. I wasn’t a current events comic. But we talked and I began to soften. Why not? I wasn’t Madame Cleo. I didn’t have all the damn answers. And no, you can’t call now.

After much debate, not only did I cave but I was more inspired than ever. Not only did I want to do this, I was rabid on the phone with my mentor who I sometimes do think is afraid of me.

Soon Donald, or Donny as I have began calling him, was ordered from Scotland from a company called Pictures to Puppets. The reason for this being a great many puppet makers in America are evangelical Christians, and Trump supporters. Plus these days you are never truly sure of how or where anyone leans.

When Donny came in the mail, I began to practice religiously. I also began watching videos of old ventriloquists I admired to brush up on my technique. If I was going to go to the next level, I wanted to do it correctly. Gone were the cheap swear jokes and bad club humor of the old days and in was a new and improved kind of style. I liked it, I wanted it.

I got a second wind when it came to comedy, and almost like I was a 20 year old kid I began chasing stage time like a junkie chases a bag of dope. I was going anywhere and everywhere to get onstage, not caring how I would get home. Being a veteran of the NY Scene, there is a certain jadedness and bitterness that goes with open mics. It’s when as a semi-established comedian you roll your eyes when a newbie gets up and tells really bad race and rape jokes. It’s the memory of why you used to want to slit your wrists out of fear and loathing.

Yet this time I don’t fear that. I don’t feel the insecurity I did as a youngster, fearing I would never get on television. I don’t feel the insecurity I do as an oldster, now that I have been on television that my credits and press will magically disappear. I am someone honing and shaping a new act the best she can. It’s going to the batting cages. Bottom line, there is no substitution for the work.

Donny and I have been coming along nicely. Getting back onstage like I was back before I was almost anyone has been kind of trippy in a lot of ways, too. There are a lot of bad habits there. For instance, I have gotten so used to firing jokes I forgot how to talk to an audience. And when I talk to my audience I get what I want, a laugh. And when I am saying the joke like I am telling it for the first time instead of just looking for the laugh, I get the laugh. Sometimes even an applause break. When I slow down, the laughs come too. When I don’t let my audience see me sweat, eventually they do laugh.

Yeah, I am still working on it. But day by day, set by set, it gets better.

I am also re-discovering the standup community, too. At one mic someone recognized me from one of my many TV appearances and we shot the breeze about it. Teasingly, these young guy comics told me if they were my fiancé, they would have never made me choose. And actually, if a girl chose puppets over them they would respect the crap outta her. It made me feel like I had gained a bunch of accidental baby brothers.

I am also making new female friends in comedy, a network I never had before. When I was younger it felt like we were all lobsters in a boiling pot. Now I don’t feel that. Maybe they have changed or maybe my energy has changed.

Either way, Donald J. Tramp and I have been featured in papers in Germany and Iceland. We got into Clyde Fitch and The Huffington Post. Our videos have over a thousand hits each. I am also on the rotating cast of two national television shows. It’s funny because I feel like this is the most action I have had in America in years.

Still, the biggest victory isn’t all that. Rather, it’s that I love comedy again. So what I cut a lot of stupid people out of my life? I am replacing them with better people. People who love the same things I do and care about the same things. People who aren’t stirring the pot. Sometimes we have to go through it to get through it.

As it was all hitting the fan, a kid comic said to me, “You are about to get fucking funny.”

I thought he was an idiot who hadn’t lived. No, he was right. I am getting fucking funny. And it’s about to get funnier in this bitch. I am hardly defeated. Actually, I am rocking and rolling. It’s just the beginning for this little ventriloquist and her politically charged partner, Donald J. Tramp.

We are letting the world know that something is wrong that Donald Trump is on the ticket on laugh at a time. We are stopping racism and sexism one laugh at a time. We are defeating the evil one laugh at a time. 

I have always wanted to combine my love for activism with my love for comedy. A veteran comic once told me this, "When times are tough you look for God......but you also look for the punchline." 

I think it's safe to say I have found both, and we are both running to the nearest micophone, to the moon, to history, and to infinity

To Be Continued........

Comedy Guide Post: Not Panicking

Lately, in between marathon practice sessions I have been watching the greats for inspiration. During my years as a comedian, I kind of got lazy about watching other comedians that were "greats." Some of it was I became soured by the politics, and also because when you are fighting it out it seems some of the greatest just got that way on their own. They didn't tank and eat it at open mics like you do. No Sir, they were just born amazing.

One bad habit that I have been trying to break is my panic button. It developed during years of doing short sets in New York. If you didnt make the audience laugh right away you were cooked worse than a burnt piece of toast. So when an audience doesn't do what I want them to do right away, I panic.

I freaking panic.

I panic.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

I know the panic button is why I talk so fast and why I race to the punchline, and I do mean race sometimes. Now that I am trying to do longer sets and want to be a hell of a headliner, I am trying to break that habit as I have been whining. The thing is, I panic when an audience doesnt do what I want. "They could smell your fear." A club owner/headliner who worked with me said when I ate it hard but somehow showed enough promise for him to agree to help me........or he wanted to up his kharma. Hell if I know.

This club owner suggested just not even acknowledging the silence by saying, "That didnt work" continuously when that happened. Instead just to keep going. Eventually they would give you what you wanted if you just TALKED TO THEM.

Instead I let them see me sweat when they dont give me what I want.

I even did it today with a singing telegram. They didnt give me what I wanted and I started to panic. That panic is terrible. It's not just me but comedians as a whole who feel it. We push. We try harder. We acknowledge it. What the freeeeekkkkkkkkkkkk works?!?!!?!?!?!?!

What sucks is now that I am conscious of the habit it makes me wanna kick myself more. I know it all goes back to talking to my audience, and then that way it doesnt look like I am trying to hard to be liked. One who is amazing at that is Bernie Mac. He just talks to his people. Sometimes he doesnt get the big payoff at the end of a joke, but he keeps going. Because he is persistent and doesn't let the audience see him sweat, when the does get to the end of the bit the payoff is AMAZING!!!!

He knows how to run the marathon. It's not gonna be dead at the end of a long set. He's gonna rock a short set. He doesn't let you see the panic button, because the man probably took his out. Gosh I wanna get to that point.

What sucks so badly is I want to do so well all the time. Now that I am trying to break all these bad habits the short sets have given me, sometimes I feel like retreating to my room never to do comedy again. But I know when I am breaking down I am just breaking through. It's growing pains.

But I am also breaking terrible habits, and some that are actually letting me see what I am capable of as a comedian. I am good on my feet and need to embrace that more. I take risks, sometimes too many but risks are what make us artists. Not to mention that I am uncovering an ability as a storyteller, one that I wasnt embracing as I was just going joke punchline, joke punchline. Maybe this new layer ain't so bad.

Either way......that's my guidepost for this week.

www.AprilBrucker.TV

Bad Habits

Lately I have been trying to turn a new leaf in my life. As you all know, I live in a new neighborhood which means a new gym. While I was a loyal gym goer in Hell's Kitchen, I went to kickboxing twice a week and lifted or did something else in between, but would go 4-5 days without going. But I did go. And then I didnt. I had bouts where I went  A LOT.......And then I didn't. And then I did. Now I am going DAILY to my new gym whether I am running on the indoor track, weight training or both.

As for my diet, I am trying to clean that up, too. I am eating fruit instead of cookies and pretzels. And I am also trying to eat more meat. I got into a situation where I was unable to eat where I was because of the stress and chemicals being used in my apartment. So I unintentionally lost a bunch of weight. Then I got sick and got anemia. There is a such thing as "too skinny" as in, when the skinny makes you sick. I haven't gained or lost weight but have maintained which is good. I am also not skipping meals and eating JUNK later. Basically, I am becoming a healthy adult.

I am also trying to break some bad habits with my comedy. One bad habit I have grown into is the fact I talk TOO FAST onstage. It's actually an easy bad habit to pick up in NYC. When you do short set after short set because marathon comedy shows aka 10000000000 comedians and HOURS of show are the norm, you only have so many minutes onstage and the audience is sometimes TIRED when you get up. So you get used to shooting jokes at them like bullets, because you have to. Forget building a relationship with them. It's like a one night stand on steroids.

Now that I am being called upon to headline, or will be in the future, I know this bad habit has become a problem. And it's one that makes longer sets difficult. I didn't even know I was doing it until a few weeks ago when I did a gig and this guy worked with me for the better part of 4 hours on my act. Basically, he changed the way I looked at and did comedy. He says to me, "You are running right to the punchline. Talk to us. Stop running in such a hurry to the punchline!"

My mentor said it best. A short set is like a quickie and a long set like a relationship love making session where you care. You need to build a relationship with them. It's Actor 101......what's your relationship. So much goes out the window when you are FIRING JOKES LIKE BULLETS. It kind of sucks to know I do it, because thats part of breaking a habit. But it sucks damnit!

My thing now is I am trying to SLOW DOWN AND BUILD A RELATIONSHIP with my people instead of GOING FOR THE LAUGH and the few times I have been able to do it my audience reactions have been BETTER.

Another bad habit has been my puppet work. Because I have been into FIRING THE JOKES my puppet work has gotten SLOPPY. So now I am filming my practice sessions and working with a stool. It's the only way I can see my bad habits live and in color and man are they UUUUUGGGGGGLLLLLLLLYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!

I have been getting up  A LOT lately. Another habit I am shaking is thinking open mics are beneath me. As someone who has been on TV they kind of are, but they are also a safe place to perfect new stuff, and I am becoming grateful for them.

First mic I did okay. Second one my new stuff KILLED IT DEAD. Third mic it did okay, one laugh break but when I figured the room was dead and fuck it, I started to move Donald J Tramp's head to okay the laughter and it worked. It was a mini breakthrough, because I am becoming more relaxed.

Last night I was dead last with my new stuff and was feeling under the weather. Almost just was like fuck it, dont wanna go up. But then I went up and got no reaction at first. Being last with a puppet is damn hard sometimes. Finally Donald and I just started to riff and thats when the laughter started. I was relaxed, loose, free, and wasnt doing any of the new stuff.

I cursed myself the entire trip home, but then I realized something. The jokes were there and would always be there. I knew my routine, and the purpose of an open mic was to PLAY and HAVE FUN. I was having fun onstage and I was riffing. But most importantly I was HAVING A CONVERSATION AND RELATIONSHIP WITH MY AUDIENCE. The jokes would always be there. I was fixing a bad habit. This was the difference between a tortured lifetime as an envious middler and a headliner.

I was fixing a bad habit!!!!!!!

Anyway, Donald J. Tramp and I are going to the debates tomorrow with our posse. Stay tuned.

www.AprilBrucker.TV

Introducing Donald J. Tramp

Comment whether you love me or hate me. This is the land of the first amendment. We are all entitled to our opinions

Talking to the Hand: Olympic Ventriloquism

I have been working really hard to master the perfect technique as of late. Each day I have been practicing tirelessly. I video myself now, which means my practice regimen has become Ivan Drago like. Actually, it has been helping quite a bit. Over time, I became lazy with my technique because of the street performances and late nights in the clubs. Alas, there is no substitute for the basics.

My mentor has been having me learn a new routine. Each day I send him a video. He gives me feedback. Several days ago he said I looked tired and needed to take a break. I said it was ventriloquist death march. He corrected me. It was zombie ventriloquism.

Each day, I have been delivering telegrams all day and at night I have been practicing. I do not want to hit the clubs yet because I do not want to reveal my new routine. I do not want to hit the open mics because I tire of the amateur hour there. I accept money to do comedy. Granted, while open mics are a safe place to fail I don't feel I get anything done there. Plus what comedians like and what real people like are quite different. It's hard to get certain spots being a woman. That is why I am letting my mentor guide me.

Yesterday we talked about my want to headline. I did a longer set recently, and all would have been a complete explosion but for the help of an understanding club owner who gave me a kick of tough love and got me working with a puppet stand. The stand has made all the difference and has brought my puppet work to a whole new level.

My mentor explained that a headlining set is making love while a shorter set is like a quickie. Still, there is no place in NYC to really perfect the longer set. Again, I will let my mentor guide me on that one.

Either way, I have more ventriloquism to practice. This is how I am going to kick my evil landlord where it hurts. This is how I am going to get my ex who lied and was fucking around behind my back with some cheap swamp trash who accepted her court fines paid with Western Union. (Oh and cheating he was, oh yes he was). This is how I am going to get my fiance back who used to abuse me and wanted to take my puppets away. This is who I am going to restore my faith in myself. This is how I am going to give it to every Goddamn male headliner who ever thought I was chattel. This is how I am going to give it to every dumbass woman who got mad at her husband for sending me fan mail. This is how I am going to give it to everyone who ever made fun of me in school.

Call me Gepetta!

Shit, they are still making fun of me.

Better get back to my puppet stand...........I'm going for the gold. 

Escape From Toms River

Years ago, as a mere neophyte in the comedy game I took gigs anywhere that I was booked. Hungry for stage time, money didn’t matter. There was many a time I lost money getting to a gig, and this inspired some interesting fights with my parents where they yelled, “WE ARE JUST CONCERNED ABOUT YOUR FUTURE. YOU ARE GOING NO WHERE FAST!”

Mind you, most parents aren’t thrilled at the prospect of their kid becoming a professional ventriloquist. They were happier with that than the original plan, and that was to become an acrobat in the circus. Yes, I wanted to become an acrobat. I was a skilled tumbler as a child but after injury continually sidelined me I picked up a puppet. Oh what tangled webs we weave.

Anyway, most of the time I just performed for the sake of food because I rarely ate in those days. Comedy was my only love. I wasn’t jaded then by the politics and sexism involved in the game, nor did I know to be. Heck, I was so unspoiled and humble I would even do a check spot because it meant getting up. Looking back, not having awareness or standards in some ways was a very beautiful thing.

Through craigslist, I got a gig at a fundraiser for a 7 year old girl that had a genetic illness that was killing her, and treatment was expensive. The family couldn’t afford it, so it was going to be a night of music and variety. I asked if there was pay because I always did, plus it was a long way away. Yes, Toms River, the small town one meets before going to Atlantic City. Maybe they would even have food. They had neither, it was a benefit. These days I would probably say no, but then stage time was stage time so I went.

When I got on the bus immediately I knew this was going to be a strange night. In those days, I always travelled with radio blasting in my ear. The bus driver, an old black man resembling Uncle Remus, turned around and told me he could hear my radio. The strange part was, for as loud as my radio was, it’s not like anyone but him was complaining. He remarked that my “white noise” was going to interfere with his driving. Later I understood why. Uncle Remus was a terrible driver, and he needed to concentrate all he could. Yes, it was one of the bumpiest, most terrible bus rides ever.

After getting off the bus, I was so dizzy I was afraid I was going to vomit. While AC was only a stones throw away, this little hamlet seemed peaceful as opposed to the glitzy, sometimes seedy gambling capital of the Eastern Seaboard. People were probably kind and hard working…….boy was I wrong.

Of course, later in life, against my better judgement, I would date a man from Toms River. He’s currently in prison. Don’t feel bad. Prison is better than Toms River. He’s moving up in the world.

However, I had yet to experience the culture and high society of Ocean County. The man who organized the event said it was walkable. So I began to walk. In the darkness, I only saw a handful of streetlights and became rather nervous. That is when a cop car began to follow me.

At first I thought nothing of this cop car following me so close. Maybe he had things to do. But when I turned the corner, he turned the corner. This literally happened for five minutes. I knew I was an outsider in a small town. Still, there are times where outsiders are picked up because the good old boys feel they need taught a lesson, and cops are notorious for hating blacks and women……especially in small towns.

I picked up my step and began to run and the cop car proceeded to follow me. I was lugging May Wilson in tow, suitcase and all. My heart beat as I ran into a 7-11, sweat pouring down my brow. The cop car pulled in. I figured that I would just get arrested peacefully.

Instead, the cop got out of his car. He resembled a mall cop more than regular patrol, and had the look on his face like he was confused as to why I was so frightened of him. “Officer, I…..”

“Are you okay?” The cop asked, confused, his gut hanging over his belt buckle. I wanted to tell him he had only been stalking me for a few blocks and I would get arrested peacefully. Then he went on to tell me how good the donuts at the 7-11 were. Yes, he was going to the 7-11 to get donuts and we both happened to be going the same way. Suddenly, I knew this town was perhaps the safest place ever to commit a felony. All I would have to do was race walk away, and not do it in the vicinity.

So I asked the cop where the venue I was supposed to perform at was. He gave me a look of utter cluelessness. Why would Barney Fife know the town he patrolled ever? I got into the 7-11 and asked the middle eastern man behind the counter whom the cop called Akbar. Apparently, Akbar knew where the venue was. Akbar revealed he lived a few towns over. Yes, Akbar was the one who didn’t scare me in a cop car but would be collared as a terrorist by anyone else. We like Akbar.

The venue was five blocks down, and I figured the night could only get better and perhaps this show was going to be a good one. When I caught sight of the venue, it was glowing the embers of a crisp, early spring night. A sign said, “Help Save Little Kayla.” It had teddy bears and other things on it. This benefit was a darling idea.

But then from the inside I heard the symphony of heavy metal music, and a singer yelling, “DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!” So much for saving Kayla. Wasn’t this because they wanted her to LIVE?

As the melody of the prose of the lyrics caught my ear, I saw two of Toms Rivers finest scholars, Plato and Socrates, on the side of the brick wall. Both were taking turns banging their head on this brick wall. I watched in utter shock and horror as both of this young man approached this mind reducing task with Herculean effort.

Plato said to Socrates, “I bet you that if I hit my head hard enough, I won’t crack my skull and won’t get knocked out.”

Socrates remarked, “Oh yeah, you are probably going to get knocked out first and I’m just gonna keep going.”

Both Plato and Socrates engaged in this intelligent, top of the bell curve discussion and proceeded to bang their heads against the wall for about another minute as I watched astonished. Mind you, I grew up with some geniuses but these guys were of the special, gifted variety. Just then, Plato caught sight of me and asked, “What the hell do you want looking at us all stupid?”

Not even getting into the irony of the statement, I asked if this was the benefit for poor dying Kayla just to make sure I hadn’t entered some parallel universe. Yes, the one who fate maligned when these two able bodied individuals were turning themselves into vegetables.

Socrates, who’s one brain cell appeared to sometimes work told me it was, and Kayla’s stepdad was in a heavy metal band and all of his friends were playing. Okay, so at least these people were using their resources and attempting to do something nice. Granted, file it under fail, but they were attempting which there was something to be said for that. But then Socrates asked, “Which one of us do you think will go longer without getting a concussion?”

Yes of all the eternal questions one could ponder such as the existence of God, the possibility of world peace, or even the end of all war, there was this. Oh this world was beyond fucked. Fucked up the asshole. And the odds of these two reproducing someday were quite good.

I just smiled and said, “Be careful.” Then I went inside. What else could I do?

Once inside, the band onstage was yelling, “FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!” 

Years later, a club owner I worked under told me when a comedian kept yelling that in their act they didn’t have jokes. And apparently when a band yells at onstage they don’t have lyrics. Perhaps they could have benefited from a session with my club owner friend and wrote something meaningful, but in the words of my mentor, “You can’t fix stupid.”

Two girls, high school age were talking. I overheard one mention she had a baby. Quickly I did a double take. While this was not the epicenter of new aged philosophical discovery, it also appeared that at 23 I was already at advanced maternal age. I saw Kayla’s mother wandering around for a minute. She looked to be a little older than me. Kayla was 7. Dear God in heaven, these people weren’t just white trash. This was a snow covered landfill.

I found the event organizer who was in fact very nice. He had heard about Kayla’s plight through mutual friends, and the reason he was able to even put on the event was that he wasn’t from the town and therefore had the only brain in the box. Unlike Socrates and Plato, he spent his time writing music and had performed earlier that evening. I had a feeling his songs had words in them, and not, “FUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKK!!!!!” OR “DIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!”

The event organizer told me Kayla’s bio dad was nowhere to be found. Who knows what might have happened? They may have lost him accidentally when his skateboard went too far off in the distance. Either way, Kayla’s stepdad was picking up the slack and raising her as his own. Granted, while Albert Einstein was not to be found in this quaint hideaway, at least their hearts were in a good place. 

Seconds later, the event organizer pointed out little Kayla’s stepdad. He wasn’t onstage playing, but rather, he was with the rest of the Darwin Award nominees starting a makeshift mosh pit. And the band onstage continued to yell, “FUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!” That is when Kayla’s stepdad stage dove. I took a deep breath. In Toms River, this man was not just a knight in shining armor but a prime catch.

Finally, it was my turn to go on. The room full of heavy metalers looked at me as if I was an alien from another planet. This was going to be interesting. I did some material and to my surprise they gave me polite chuckles. I wasn’t going to hope for a miracle and plus they had seen metal all evening, so polite chuckles would have to do. However, if one isn’t careful polite chuckles turn to silence and that is when I decided to hit them hard and went blue, very blue. This was no time for a clean set.

May Wilson took them home, and they LOOOOOOVVVVVVEEEEDDDDDDD the dirty, shock worthy stuff. As a matter of fact, they laughed really hard. I was surprised that it went over as well as it did. Then I got off the stage. It wasn’t my best work, wasn’t my worst, but I lived. And in comedy, sometimes that is the best you can hope for.

When we got offstage, Socrates and Plato, now my friends both ran up to me. “That was good.” Plato said.

“You thought so?” I asked, now somehow caring about the opinion of two people who I would have probably tutored in high school.

“Yeah, you were good. The last comedian totally ate it.” Socrates told me. “I mean, he fucking sucked.”

“Really?” I was now curious.

“Yeah, he was really bad. So bad we chased him off the stage after the third joke. Not even letting him finish. I mean, it was awful. And then another dude was supposed to come perform, but they saw him being chased off and he ran out scared. You lasted. You’re alright.” Socrates explained.

“How did you chase him off?” I asked, now curious.

“Oh, we got on the stage, told him to get off, and then ran after him so he would get off.” Plato informed me. They had literally chased him off the stage. The fact I had lived through this set was a bigger miracle than I thought.

The conversation with the scholars made me need some air, so I went outside. Standing was a crowd of young women, all who had pitch black hair that looked like it had been sexually assaulted by the nearest can of tar. Their faces had cheap, drug store makeup, and they had so many piercings they would make a metal detector have a wet dream. As for the tats, they weren’t just body art, but you could get Hep C just by looking at these ladies. But by the way Plato and Socrates approached them, these honey traps were akin to Miss America.

One gave me an up and down look of contempt, probably because she felt my lack of trailer park chic made me inferior. Then one whispered to her friend, looked over at me, and went inside. Whatever it was, it was a series of one syllable words. Oh well.

Just then, I was approached by an evil, inbred clone of carrot top with a vicious mop of red hair, a scowl, and crooked teeth rotting out of his mouth.

“You want to know what I thought of your set?” He asked.

“No.” I replied, knowing it wasn’t good and I really didn’t want to talk to him.

“I thought you sucked.”

“Okay.”

“You were way too shocking and too dirty.” He told me. Wow, and this was from someone moshing to a band that kept yelling, “FUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCKKKKKKKK!!!!!” The standards in this town were quite strange.

“Do you want to hear anymore?” He asked.

“No.” I said and walked away. This was definitely my cue to go.

“I have more to say to you!” He called. And I kept on walking.

After my strange evening, I made my way to the bus depot. The streets were dark and I wasn’t afraid of getting killed, but being kidnapped by some of the mutants I had just met. I had also lost my way so I called a cab from a number I had scratched down on a piece of paper before I left my house.

The ride was short and the cab driver was nice enough. He mentioned he had a wife and three kids, and I figured this town wasn’t all mutants. Maybe I was going to be okay. Just as we got to the bus depot, the driver mentioned it was going to be a while before the next bus came and wanted to know if I wanted to talk.

I said sure. So then he asked what my financial situation was. When I mentioned broke he offered me $50 for a blow job. Something told me for as much as the money would have been great, getting out of this situation alive would have been even better. So I jumped out of the car and ran like I saw Godzilla. He drove away, probably a tad upset that his manhood was crushed. But rest assured, if he went a little ways up some of the women at the show would have given him what they wanted. After all, they probably needed the money to feed their throngs of children out of wedlock. Then he would forget about me because they are the standard of beauty in Toms River. 

At the bus depot there were two other people. One was a big black dude and the other was a short, fat white woman. I asked them when the next bus out was, and they said it would be a while. So we began talking. The black dude revealed he had just gotten out of the Ocean County Jail and since the moment he got arrested, all he wanted to do was get out of Toms River. Now he was trying to make his way back to Paterson, an even bigger shithole. But alas, that was his shithole.

The woman revealed she had been in and out of mental institutions for the last three years with various bouts of bipolar and schizophrenia, and was now looking for employment. Despite the fact I should have been afraid, these were the two most normal people I had met since I had come to town. She lamented that she didn’t know how to explain the gaps on her resume. So the ex-con and I began to brainstorm ways to help her. It was team work in the most surreal scenario ever.

The ex-con suggested making up places of employment and using friends as references. It had worked for him. I suggested saying she was caring for a sick relative, and was the only family member they had to do so. She remarked both were good ideas. Then we talked about the importance of helping others.

Just then a ragged kid approached wanting to know when the next bus out was. All he wanted to do was get out of Toms River. He wanted to get to New York to the Salvation Army. Note, the Salvation Army is no great shakes, but it is still better than Toms River. The kid was worried he missed the last bus out. We told him he still had time.

Finally the bus came, and the kid didn’t have enough money to get to NYC. I had $40 on me, and the ticket was $20. Looking at the kid, desperate and ragged, knowing that like the three of us he just wanted to get out of Toms River, I said, “Here, I am your guardian angel right now. Take it.”

“Thank you! How will I ever repay you?” He replied, speechless at my generosity. Note, I am not normally that generous. I pity the fool that is stranded in that town.

“Do something nice for someone else and don’t be a dickweed.” I replied, and off we went.

And whenever something good happens to me out of no where, or someone does something nice for me, I believe in my heart it’s karma coming back to help me for the young man I took pity upon as we all worked to escape that ever hallowed layer of hell before one reaches Atlantic City.

]Moral: Sometimes a crazy night produces a great story, and when in doubt, help someone else because it's the right thing to do.

www.aprilbrucker.tv

More Fear and Loathing

It's after midnight and I have been practicing ventriloquism for several hours now. My practice ritual has stepped up a few notches. In the past the mirror was my friend. However, now I am filming myself. It is intense because not only are you filming yourself, but then you have to play it back and it is terrible watching yourself. TERRIBLE. As a matter of fact, Robert DeNiro hates watching himself.

My mentor in Vegas has me working on a new act. He's such a good guy and we speak at least once a day. The guy is technically my manager, but in the past I have had managers drop the ball on me. He's truly guiding me therefore he is so much more. But I am making the videos of the new act and then sending them to him. And then it is time for a joke by joke. More this, more that, more cowbell.

I also made from this weekend and he is having me send him new material to get his feedback. This is a good guy. Not only is he passionate about comedy, but he really knows what he is talking about. He worked with me on reshaping my act for the better part of 4 hours, and it was like night and day. As a matter of fact, filming myself was his idea. So far it is helping, because as he explained you never get an accurate idea of what you are doing in the mirror. So true.

I have been pouring over old ventriloquist videos, mostly the legends. They are amazing. For as good as I am, and for the successes that I have had, I have a long way to go before I can even touch them. These guys are the whole package in a way my generation of vents could never be. I am inspired, but at the same time I am painfully aware that there is much work to be done. Life was so much easier when I was just shooting off bullshit in my blogs about all the times I killed or all the times my fans recognized me or my puppets. Yeah, I got wrapped up in the bullshit of it all. Bullshit. And here I was so clouded by my own ego unaware that I have such a long way to go.

Or maybe I was aware and the bullshit became like a drug, making the ride less painful as well as the truth. Self-awareness is a mofo.

Either way, I am becoming quite aware of my own mistakes onstage. For me comedy is serious business. If I don't hear the first laugh in a certain time I freak. Then I resort to doing something dumb because the ends justify the means even though it cheapens my act. Mind you I always forget the audience wants to laugh and to have fun because I am so fixated on doing well. Mind you I always chase after the punchline because I am so eager to get there that I rush and I talk superdupersuperdupersuuuuuuuuppppppppeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrr fast. And I forget that I have to sell myself AND HAVE FUN.

Either way, I am wearing the burdens of the last two years on my back. I signed myself away on a project I will not name that made me rather visible. Because I didn't know about asking price, I answered fan mail broke and had people tell me they saw my program on TV when I didn't know how I was going to feed myself. As a matter of fact, I found out I was on Dutch National Television a half hour after getting my second set of eviction papers.

Yesterday, a situation was kind of crazy but I had to stick up for myself. It was a rock and a hard place kind of thing. Needless to say, I probably burned a bridge but oh well. It's fine. I was going to lose by getting a backbone and by being a doormat. There was no winning. It made me second guess the loyalty of some people I had been good to, but the whole situation was impossible. Still, they expected too much from me. I let them know this, but who cares about that?

They say they will make it up to me. Famous last words. Either way, I don't care. As my mentor explained, I have bigger fish to fry. If they call me, great. But if they don't, oh well. Part of me hopes they don't call me. I don't trust them.

Of course as I was having the eternal weekend of growing pains and the week from hell my mentor, the booker and this lovely club owner all let me know this was growing pains. Fucking growing pains. Oh, and I am not allowed to say fuck anymore onstage. Fucking fucktard. So I have to fucking get it out here. I know, I sound like an angry child with nothing to say and it sounds worse onstage, trust me. But I am allowed to have my moment.

Deep down, I do fear I won't get to where I want to go. When I go to Vegas, and I go again soon to work with my mentor, I will pass Caesar's Palace enviously as I always do lusting for my spot on the mainstage. When I pass Colbert, Radio City, or Carnegie Hall I will look wistfully wondering when it will be my turn.

Until then, my throat is sore from my intense new practice regimen. I had a half a plate of steak nachos yesterday as an "I'm Tired and Hate Myself" snack and had the other plate today. I am watching Magic because for as crazy as it sounds Corky is a hero to me, and I hope to be that good even though he's not real. I just sneezed. May is talking to me. Probably time for me to go to bed and maybe interact with people a tad tomorrow.

Dorkin It Up

Lately I can safely say I have been getting my groove back. For months I had felt dead inside. I was putting away some decent sets, but was kind of phoning things in. My act was so memorized that I just did it. A lot of times I was like, okay, here are my jokes. They were always saying I had been on TV and blah blah blah like it mattered.

It wasn't that I was lazy, the last several months have just burnt me. As I said I have been dead inside. I went to a magazine party, and this magazine had done a nice story on me. It was the day after I had the test to determine whether or not I had cancer. Everyone was really cool, but I was just in some fog like someone who's faced eviction, a bad breakup, and now might be dying of an asymptomatic female cancer. Everyone was swapping cards and I was just glad I had a roof over my head and wasn't puking blood.......yet.

Then the sets I did, they were decent but not my best work. Plus I was going too hard for the shock laugh. It wasn't even my fault. I wasn't even being lazy. Every piece of energy I had was gone. When an audience didn't do that I wanted I went for the cheap laugh, and hadn't done that since I had been a kid. I was just so burnt. Yeah, my young audiences loved it because they didn't know any better, and the free spots that I was doing didn't demand a high standard. I had been on TV. I had enjoyed that brass mini ring long before my world came tumbling down. Now I was content to yuck it up in a basement.

Even when I scored the mentor I did I still felt dead inside. We had the chat about my rating and blah, blah, blah. My rating. I promised him I would watch videos of Abbot and Costello and I did......kindof.....when I wasn't busy feeling sorry for myself. Yeah, self-pity, that thing that we indulge in and the thing that cripples us all at once.

But this past weekend changed everything. I didn't want to go and feared it would be a disaster. My friend told me to do it because I needed to focus on comedy again. She was sick and tired of hearing about my eviction and legal drama. She was tired of hearing about the break up drama. She was tired of hearing about how I thought I had cancer. She even told me that if I tanked, it was at least it was going to get me focused on comedy again.

"God is telling you that this is what you should be doing with your life." My friend advised me.

"Or this is the weekend where He shows me I don't have it," I whined.

Needless to say I ate it really hard my first night. But someone was on hand to help me. Someone who knew what they were talking about, and someone who's input and suggestions made all the difference between one night to the next. Needless to say, my first set the following night consisted of huge laughs and even some applause. It was a world of difference. The following set was okay, but not as good as the one I did before. I was more peeved about that than I was about my bad set for some reason. My mentor said I am too hard on myself. But I am an act who either does really good or really bad, doing just okay feels like decaf coffee.......tastes nice but doesn't quite do it.

One thing that helped was the stool. Yes, there is a stool ventriloquists use. I never did use one, because when I was young I enjoyed roving the streets with my children and travelling onstage. However, there was always the issue of dead hang. Yes, the limp body of my babies. And not to mention your hand gets tired. I thought of propping my knee up and letting my kids sit on there, but sometimes I like to perform in skirts and well........

But the stool this weekend made all the difference. So much so that I spent the Monday looking for a stool for my puppets and I. Something to make it easier for them to sit, and something to make it easier for them to seem more real. I called the buddy suggesting I go on the road about my weekend and told her about my mission. She tried hard not to laugh. Her dork friend was back.

I finally broke down and ordered it online after not getting what I needed at the magic shops. My children and I needed a stool. We were getting one from a ventriloquist dealer. Never have I been so excited in such a very long time. I know, weird things excite me.

And as suggested this weekend, I have been practicing in front of my mirror, but rather filming myself so I kill my bad habits. I have been running my new material, a cleaner, wittier version, and performing it over and over again. I want my technique solid before I hit the ground running. In a few days, when I get my stool I will be practicing with that too.

In between, I have been watching the best ventriloquists. Willie Tyler and Lester are amazing, and he puts the mic on Lester creating the illusion that he was real. Otto was the first to admit his lip control was not the best when he was alive, and I know having worked with the man twice, However, the way he masterfully made George come alive is unparalleled and the way he operates the character, after a while you start to entertain the fact George is alive. Dan Horn and Steve Hewlett have voice throwing ability beyond the pale, and something I have yet to have. Paul Zerdin is amazing, enough said. And of course lest we forget Edgar Bergen, the father of all venting, the one who's lip control laxed when he did radio. But Bergen's character's were real, and when the audience didn't give him what he wanted he just kept going. Eventually, after a few beats they did. You never saw Edgar, Charlie McCarthy, or Mortimer Snerd sweat.

Did I mention Jeff Dunham is amazing, and quite entertaining?

And yeah, I am eagerly watching Abbot and Costello as a guide post on how to write.

So the verdict is in. I am a dork. Everyone around me thinks I have lost my mind as I showed my landlord his first Otto and George today and he thinks they are funny. I tell my mom about my stool and she's like, "Baby, you do that," because she agrees but thinks I have gone CRAZY!

I'M A DORK DORK DORK DORK DORK DORK DORK DORK DORK DORK DORK DORK DORK DORK DORK DORK DORK DORK DORK DORK DORK DORK DORK DORK DORK.

Hey, being a dork might make me a dork but it sure as hell beats feeling sorry for myself. Being a dork is constructive.......

Comedy Etc.

This weekend was a good weekend. My first night didn't look so good. It was like being at a party where you meet someone who seems nice but as you talk you have nothing in common. When most NYC comics come across this, they figure it's a gig and they get in and get out, happy they are still alive to tell the tale and laugh it off later. After stepping off the stage I figured they were nice at least, but these werent my people.

However, luck would soon change. The club owner who's also a comic, one who has headlined in Vegas, and does so twice a year, had some things to say. One being, "Things better be different tomorrow night."

Usually when a club owner gives feedback one shrugs and says whatever, or it's good. It all depends on the club owner. At first in my mind I was like, "Whatever, I've been on TV." It's a craptacular attitude to have albeit an egotistical one, but it has kept me going as my life has unraveled the last few months.

However, within seconds my attitude changed once it was revealed he had been doing comedy for 25 years, nearly as long as I had been alive. During some of that time, he also taught comedy and mentored comedians quite a bit. Oh, and he had just returned from a headlining engagement in Vegas. During our talk, he mentioned Abbot and Costello, something my mentor always cites as an example of what a vent act should be. And then he also mentioned he liked the Mr. Okay concept and used Defending the Caveman as an example. (The longest running Broadway show on The Las Vegas Strip). Yes, another show my mentor is very heavily involved with. Something in me, that part that sometimes has a good idea, said, "Don't be your asshole self and listen to this man."

He worked with me for quite a while the next day on my act and had some excellent suggestions. I tried them the following night and it was like NIGHT AND DAY. Even the waitstaff of the club was like WTF?!!?!?

I was talking with the headliner who told me it was good I took suggestions, good I listened. In the end I figure why not? The worst that happens is someone's suggestions don't work and I move on. Or they do and I am better because of it. Either way, I was very happy with the second night and now know what to do to go to the next level with my comedy.

Our headliner who was in several movies has been doing comedy since before I was born I think. Actually, yeah he has. Either way, he was what the owner referred to as a 10 on the scale of funny and headlining. The way this man closed out a show was amazing. I'll admit I pale in comparison, but he has made himself so funny that he's impossible to follow as all closers should be.

At the same time, he's been doing comedy longer than I have been alive. It was amazing how he could just make the room do what he wanted, and didn't sweat about being liked. A lot of comedians do that. Yeah, I am trying to do it less, but when the audience doesn't give me what I want I panic. I go for the cheap laugh. The club owner as he was working with me said don't go for the cheap laugh.........but it's so easy when you aren't getting what you want. I think most comics do it out of fear. Actually, we all do it out of fear. But this headliner, it seemed as if that fear was gone. Maybe it was because he didn't care, that's why he just killed it so easily.

Another comic who partners at the club is also a touring headliner, however, he didn't headline that night but rather stepped in because the club owner was doing a spot elsewhere. He revealed he had been doing comedy for a mere 20 years in comparison to the club owner's 25 and the headliner's 32. We had a conversation about wanting to be liked onstage, and he said the most important thing was to have fun. If you had fun the audience would have fun. And the audience, they are on your side. They want you to do well. How hard that is to remember when you are onstage. But they are on your side......and we both agreed yeah, again, it is hard to remember sometimes.

The fellow who booked the gig has also been involved with comedy for sometime. Maybe not as long as I have been alive but since the 80s. While never a comic himself and always on the booking end, he is an eternal student of comedy and has even hung out at clubs just for the hell of it because he likes being around comedy. When he takes notes at a showcase, he goes joke by joke writing everything down. I know because he has done so for me in the past. Very thorough, he tells you what works, what doesn't and why. His feedback has never failed me. Translated, just like the club owner, the headliner, and the other partner in the operation, he knows his shit.

This whole weekend, my mentor in Vegas was there for emotional support. Of course he's managed some top grossing variety acts who have been on every major TV program ever. And he is actively involved in the Vegas scene, and his people play Caesar's Palace among other places. It is safe to say he's been involved in show business longer than I have been around. Mind you he started his life as a magician touring college campuses and evolved into managing. As I was bitching about all that was happening, he says, "It's called growing pains. That's all."

Eh. Growing pains. Eh. Then again, he's probably also thinking that I'm a little over a decade in, oh poor kid, she's only ten years old........

I guess the point is, you are always still learning and growing. And sometimes it is best just to listen to people with more time at something, because they might know something you don't. Actually, most of the time they know something you don't. Bottom line, you only know what you know when you are supposed to know it. Am I a better comic and ventriloquist than I was years ago? Probably. Still, it's amazing how much I still don't know after all this time.

However, I am also learning to embrace the knowledge and experience of those that do know. It's cool to get to work with those people. It's cool that they were so gracious to guide me. The club owner mentioned that others had done the same for him........like Mitch Hedberg (RIP).

My landlord mentioned the same is true with life, you are never an expert and you are always learning something new. Mind you, he always understands where my parents are coming from being one himself. Yeah, he's got more time on this planet which comes in handy sometimes. It's life.

Comedy is about being real. It's about life. It's about telling the truth. It's about reaching people. Fake doesn't sell. How soon we all forget. Or maybe we don't realize until we are supposed to. Shit this was deep.

Either way, my problems are now I need to perfect my act to go to the next level. I need to purchase a stand for my puppets like the one the club had on hand this weekend that MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD and suggested I use. I need to stop saying the f word onstage. I also need to talk slower. Oh, and I got rid of a really hack stupid bit I leaned too heavily on that was just cheap. Go team!

As opposed to a few months ago when I was being eaten alive by bed bugs and the mold in my place made breathing difficult. Not to mention when I complained my landlord retaliated by trying to evict me. My hair was also falling out because of the chemicals, stress, and other issues involving my living situation. I was in court or a lawyer's office at least once a week. Then when my landlord tried to burn down my apartment I was told by the cops to find somewhere safe, and had to move under duress. Once I moved the doctor's thought I might have uterine cancer because of the way my tests came back.

These days my problems are having my act be funny onstage, and how to make that happen, being the headliner who can reach all audiences like a Jeff Dunham. (The booker mentioned he was the most watched Comedy Central Special of all time). Heck, my sister in law and 13 year old cousin both love him. I can focus on what's important, and that's what I do onstage.

Maybe at times I am guilty of becoming embittered and beaten down by the politics, or resting on the laurels of the successes I have gotten so far, refusing to grow. Both are the wrong way to go because they warp your perspective. I can say that for all the hell I have been through in recent months, for the first time in forever I really and truly love comedy again. I love it. I love it. I love it. I will scream it I LOVE IT!!!!!!

(Of course all those I encountered this weekend have probably had similar feelings to mine at times)

And if it took walking through hell to get me to this feeling and a rough first night in the middle of no where complete with pinched nerve in my neck, I will do it again. Watch me, I'm unstoppable. But first I need to take a shower because I don't want to be unstoppable for all the wrong reasons.

I'll be here all week. Try the veal.