Hi Everyone! I miss Twitter! Read my latest news!!

What’s up people! I have never been away from Twitter longer than a day let alone 1 month! YIKES!! Well let me tell ya, I have been super busy! No I mean SUPER busy.. I am in UCLA taking a full time nights program in Movie Directing! YUP! :D So in the future I can provide you all with a more professional and finer level of entertainment! So not only do I do all these things that fill my week, like work full time, try to do my show which feels like it’s on the back-burner temporarily but I’m in UCLA full time nights and I have film projects to do and have to help the members in my Directors Workshop class do THEIR projects too! Holy Smokes my plate is full, I’m even on location with them, like this weekend we shot a short on Venice beach which was loads of fun. So my brain is going and going and going, now my brain is plotting and planning my short stories for my own projects which is hard work, but enjoyable and I am learning so much you simply can’t believe it!

Let me describe the UCLA campus at Westwood, its FREAKIN HUGE! Like an entire town! Nestled between Santa Monica, Beverly Hills and Hollywood and runs along Sunset BLVD, it’s beautiful, I feel like I’m part of the next generation of people who influence the world or something and I hope I do! There’s no feeling like walking around that campus, I feel like its sacred ground! The students are amazing! My classes are mostly students from all over the world, from Peru, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Iran, you name it! They are all here to learn from UCLA’s famous Directors program, which is a world renowned program. Some of my teachers are even CalArts film teachers! Muhahahahaaa! (I never got in to CalArts but now I don’t feel so bad about it, I’m right on coarse.)

So anyway, I with you guys in Spirit, even though I’m underneath a pile of work and creative learning, I have ideas to bring forth and I need the tools to create them, so I am sacrificing some time now so I can shine later! Shine I will with blinding brightness! So even though I do peak in Twitter once and a while, I may not be able to chat like I used to before, just for a little while longer, I will keep you informed through blogs for now, thanks for the Follow Friday shout outs! They keep me motivated for sure!!

OK guys, back to the grind for me. Enjoy this fall season, do good in school and follow your dreams!

That’s all for now,

Rob Redstone

:D

To Be An Artist Is To Fail, As No Other Dare Fail…

The title of this blog says it all! Picture mastering everything you do, and quickly! Picture always having the 'edge' over others, even if you just 'think you do'. Now picture taking a stand-up comedy class with wind in your sails, secretly being in competition with everyone, and planning to be the funniest guy your teacher has ever seen, and mastering this class as you have mastered everything else.

In the military to 'Bomb' is to defeat the enemy! In stand-up comedy, to 'Bomb' is to get up in front of everyone, have your eyes squint from the bright spotlight (that's beamed right at your face preventing you from seeing the entire audience), carefully take the microphone from its holder on the mic stand, and gracefully put the mic stand behind you as you plan to set the audience into hysterical laughter but the complete opposite happens. You get into your set-up, only to find your material fails to 'make them laugh' and you get to your punch lines and your brain has every spot mapped out that you planned on hearing laughter and snickers. But on the contrary, you hear dead silence. You keep going while the capillaries in your face dilate and the room gets smaller, congratulations! You sir, are BOMBING and BOMBING BIGTIME! You have just failed!

Well, at least the sting of embarrassment goes away 20 minutes after you sit down while your praying that your class forgets how bad you just were. You discover after your 3rd and 4th class that this time, you are in something completely bigger than you! This is no easy bit of learning, that to make another human laugh while planning all of this funny verbiage is one immense feat! Only 0.001% of the population actually takes a stand-up comedy class, because most of the population is sane and does not like humiliation week after week. LOL.

But I'm not alone. Every classmate has bombed along with me week after week, and we still come back for more, we at least some of us do, I have noticed the class getting smaller. I did a skit last week were I play a guy who has been married for over 10 years and is attracted to his wife's hot friends and pretends his wife's friend Kelly who is coming over for dinner is the closest thing he has to a date with another woman, yeah this guy is really pushing it but there is this skit in the bathroom where he gets ready in the mirror to the song 'Sexy Bitch' from David Guetta and in theory it was going to be hysterical, but it may have been more uncomfortable to watch than the worst American Idol audition you've ever seen. I can still hear the teacher say, "what was that music?".

But am I learning ANYTHING? You betcha! I am learning comedic timing, how to speak to a large, live audience and actually relate to them. I'm learning what its like to talk on an amplified microphone in a large room or auditorium and hear yourself being blasted out and trying to concentrate or your monologue. I've also learned I can memorize an entire page of script and more, even recite it verbatim. I feel like I have a very high tolerance for embarrassment (if that will get you somewhere, who knows!). I am taking chances that are bigger but falling harder on my face. I am definitely growing a bigger set of b@lls from this experience (or getting mental complexes LOL), and it is only just 1/4th the way down this road.

I noticed that when one of my fellow comics does get a laugh, you can see his face and soul glow with excitement! That is the big payday just knowing that the snippet of material you wrote got a laugh! You note how you said it, the speed the words came out, the attitude you had while saying it, every single nuance you remember for next time. This joke should make people laugh time after time if done the same or better.

So I am HUMBLED! I have a bigger respect for the comics who go out and lay it all on the line and actually make the crowd laugh! Getting into stand-up comedy is no joke. It's a crazy beast. You need to have self confidence and self assuredness more than your average person. You need to have to have a tolerance for failure. A high tolerance for failure. Because you are about to jump into a deep dark pit of failure, with big scary Failure Monsters and are expected to climb out, eventually. Hence, "To Be An Artist Is To Fail, As No Other Dare Fail…" It couldn’t be said any better than that. Can you imagine putting yourself through so much failure? I suppose the fruit must taste delicious from a tree who fought tooth and nail to stretch himself and grow and to be cut down and to stretch and grow even more, and fair well after many storms finally to bear fruit.

Well, under the heading of my blog, I would love to list 'comedian' but not yet my friends, not yet, but soon.

I hope you enjoyed my latest blog!
Rob Redstone