Dear Diary,

I wasn't on stage last night, but not to worry, I spent my time trying to slide new jokes into existing setups. I'm having a hard time coming up with new "topics", and at the moment I am really just adding jokes to my current ones (i.e., more skiing jokes, more work jokes). The problem(s) with that; maybe people aren't interested in skiing, and it's hard to add/change jokes and bits I've been doing for a while. New dogs and old tricks or something like that, I guess. Last night was kind of reminiscent of the Boondocker, by which I mean the audience was a bit rough. Monday night I stayed at home and wrote while watching "Brewster's Millions" with Richard Pryor. I'm trying to get into a habit of writing at home; I've been writing in bars and clubs for so long, it's weird to be in my living room on a comfy couch instead of in a smoke-filled room on a crappy chair. Writing with television on kind of reminds me of college, when I would do homework with cartoons and comedy central on. Back then I used to watch standup about 6 hours a day (I had tapes and tapes full of recorded specials and Premium Blends). Nowadays I don't watch much standup on TV, because I am either not around or my roommate has the remote. I'm not sure if I would watch much if the conditions were changed, as I get pretty afraid of subconsciously lifting someone else's material. Plus I get tired of the “why didn’t I think of that” stuff that goes along with seeing a really clever comic. I think the real trick to writing that I have to get used to is, that writing is like gambling. You keep “playing” though you won’t win every time, and the more you play the better chance of hitting the jack pot.