Would you laugh with me as we enjoy my first live stand up comedy performance at SteemFest² in Lisbon, Portugal?

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▶️ Watch Source (IPFS)
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Edited Performance Transcript with Pictures!

@roelandp: I want to invite up to the stage Mr. Jerry Banfield.

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Jerry:

Thank you.

I can't believe @roelandp actually let me do this. I sent him one idea and he didn't respond. I was listening to Kevin Hart's book who is a stand-up comedian, a real one, and I thought, "I'll ask @roelandp if he'll let me do stand-up."

@roelandp says, "Have you done comedy before?"

I'm like, "I did some videos online. I've done a couple of videos at home."

He's like, "Oh, okay. Well, I couldn't watch them so we're just going to put you up there and see what happens."

This is my first time doing live stand-up comedy.

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Crowd: Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!

Jerry:

I'm as excited about this as you are because I don't know what I'm going to say either. I have no punch lines or jokes or anything. I'm just going to talk and see what happens.

I am pretty funny, I think, but I watched my own comedy and laughed at myself like right after I filmed it so…

I didn't even mean to be here. I actually did a Steemit meet up in Florida, so I'd feel good about not coming to this.

I already went to the one in Florida. We had to meet up in Florida, I'm not going to Steem Fest.

International travel is uncomfortable, I spend $500 each way to be uncomfortable for eight hours and wish for a bed at home, which is free.

I mean, I already paid the rent. I could just sleep in my bed at home. Why would I pay $500?

Well, no, no, no. I don't want that food. No, thank you! No.

Why would I pay so much money to be uncomfortable, and then look like a zombie when I get here?

I don't understand that.

I wasn't planning on coming here at all and my wife said, "Maybe you should have more of an open mind about this. Maybe you should just, you know, not say definitely no, but just think about it."

I'm like, "Okay."

We're driving back from Disney World in Orlando. We went to, I think it was Magic Kingdom. I got a 25% chance of being right. There's four parks. We're driving back and I start talking to myself in my head.

I'm like, "Okay. You know what? I want a sign, Universe. I want a sign. If I'm supposed to go to SteemFest I want a very clear sign, so a guy like me can't miss it, a guy like me can possibly not notice it."

I'm thinking, "What sign would I definitely notice?"

I've learned to ask for help, so I thought, "Okay, I'll make a post and ask people: Do you care if I come to SteemFest? I don't care if I go, but do you care if I go?"

I thought, "Okay. I'll make a post, and then Ned must comment on that post or I will not go."

There you go Universe or God, if you are talking to a voice in my head, I'll make a post and if @ned comments on it, then I will go. That's how I will know. That's my sign I have requested from the Universe.

If you give me that, and I'm thinking there's no way Ned's going to comment on my post because I don't want to go.

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I'm like, “No. I don't want to spend thousands of dollars and go overseas. I don't want to do that."

"I'm going to put out something to the universe, there is no way, Ned had not commented on any of my hundred posts."

I'm like, "Ned will not start with this one, but I'll make you a deal. If that happens I'll go."

I make the post and I wake up the next day, I look and there's a comment by Ned.

I'm like, "You got to be kidding me. There's no way you're going to deliver that."

And he's like, "Message @roelandp."

Okay.

"@roelandp, do you want me to talk? Thank you."

There's nothing funny about that, I'm just saying how I got here.

I'm trying to follow and upvote all of my followers, Steem or Resteem me. I'm not sure why this happened the other night. This is my line I was planning if it got quiet for a minute, but it's like two minutes in so we just throw it out there.

My wife and I… love you, honey.

My wife and I were just finished having sex and you know how you are like completely quiet in… it's completely quiet in my head after we finished having sex, because I'm satisfied, and then one phrase comes into my mind: Bernie Sanders.

God, he'd love to know this right now, wouldn't he?

That I'm thinking about him, right after sex, my God.

I'm like, "I need to message him this on Steem Chat. He's going to love this."

Then, I'm like, "Oh, God. I can't tell anyone about this. This is really bad."

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Why did I just have that thought right now?

Do I like or want him or something?

How did that come up?

There it is. It's out there now.

Love you, @berniesanders.

"Downvote!"

"That stand-up comedy was horrible."

I love my dogs.

I've got a couple of Labs. There's a black flat-coated retriever named Bowie or Bow. He's about 60 pounds or like 30 kilograms, whatever that is here, and I have another dog, and they groom themselves.

They sit there, we're trying to go to bed and while my wife and I are laying in bed, they're licking themselves.

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It's very loud and I'm like, "Stop! Stop! Stop! I can't sleep. I can't go to sleep when you're doing that."

The dogs continue licking themselves.

I'm like, "Stop!"

My wife and I over the years, "Just stop! Stop!"

One of us gets more aggravated and handles the saying of the stop.

"Stop!"

Then it occurred to me one day, I'm like, "What do my dogs listen to? What do they listen to and they don't complain about it?"

I put the blender on every day for like 30 minutes while I make my vegan smoothie, and I mean, they have very sensitive hearing and it's just deafening.

My daughter complains about it.

The dogs, they listen to me play music!

Now, the @steembirds have courage. Some people said I have courage to come up on stage and do comedy."

I'm like, "It doesn't take any courage to just come up here and talk. I do that every day, and I just talk."

I mean, to me it takes courage to get up here and play music. You really got to be vulnerable and show your art in front of people who are drinking and not even paying attention, and thinking about whether they're going to have sex tonight or not.

That's courage, to step up here and make people happy with music.

And I think about my dogs. They listen to me play music. They don't come in and say, "Shut up! Shut up! Stop it! Stop playing music and running the blender!"

Then when they go to bed, they're trying to go to bed, and my wife and I are having sex. They don't say, "Stop that! Quit! Shut up! Stop having sex! I can't hear this again! I can't hear any more sex! I better run out in front of a car if you have sex one more time!"

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They don't say that.

They're so nice.

They just lay there.

"How long has it been? Alright, it's going to be over in a minute. I'm going to start grooming right after it's over, and while he's thinking about Bernie Sanders, I'm going to wait. I'm going to wait just a minute."

Well, this is going better than a lot of the first times in my life. It's lasted a lot longer, that's for sure.

My first YouTube video was only two minutes, and the title of it was, "How to Say the F Word."

I'm trying to put this on YouTube so I can actually have monetization. I'm not going to say the F word, but I put it on YouTube, my first video.

My first video was, "How to Say the F Word," and people were like, "Did you say it in different languages?"

No.

I just said the F word a lot of different ways. I just like accented the beginning and the middle. I just said it a bunch of different ways. It was horrible.

People were like, "How did I get to the point of having made videos that millions of people watch."

It's ridiculous, my videos were horrible. No one I talked to has made that bad of a video for their first video.

I'm very grateful today that anyone wants to listen to me.

I've realized though, I need to do better videos because I don't even watch my own videos.

"My God! This guy goes on way too long. You see, he managed to cram a five-minute presentation into 25 minutes and say the same thing 10 times."

Whoa!

I'm amazed anyone watches my videos. They're so long, but I'm grateful for that.

You might think, it's good to be like famous.

How many of you guys are hoping to like get people following you?

Be a celebrity?

Getting well-known?

Good.

Don't do that.

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You don't want to get well-known because I feel like I'm in a mental hospital or a nursing home. Human beings, we are programmed to know human beings who know us. That's what we're programmed to do.

When someone comes up to me, "Oh, Jerry I love your videos so much. Thank you. I loved it. You did this, this and this."

I don't know who you are at all!

I feel like I have Alzheimer's and I've forgotten who you are.

My brain says, "You should know who this person is. This person is a very close friend who loves you and you don't even know their name. What's wrong with you? What's wrong with you?"

I don't know.

I don't know!

I'd listen, "Oh, thank you."

My voice is running out of saying thank you's: "Thank you. Yes, thank you. You're right. Yes, I love you. Thank you."

And people want me to talk more!

I'm like, "No. You were listening to me talk for ten hours. I want to hear about you for five minutes. Please tell me where you're from, what you do. I want to know about you."

Then sometimes I have second thoughts about that.

I'm about five minutes in, I'm looking around, "Uuh, that's nice."

I'm thinking, my mind is like, "I hate you. Stop talking. I want to slap you right now. I can't take this anymore. I can't handle it. I can't handle it. Where's the exit? Please, I need to go. Please, I need to go."

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I'm like praying.

I'm like, "I love you. I love you. Thank you for talking to me. I love you. I hate you! I love you," and I'm like just going back and forth.

My mind is like, "Move. Get away from this person."

Sometimes I just don't even know how to be polite about it.

I walk away slowly.

You just have to walk off sometimes… and I'm going to walk off the stage in a minute too and this will all be over with.

"Thank God. We can listen to some music now."

"Oh, is he done yet? Is he done yet?"

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This is about as easy as it gets to do your first try at comedy. I mean like, you guys a lot of you actually know me and love me.

"Oh, Jerry, you are awesome."

I can't picture doing this in front of 10 other people who are trying to, like an open Mic night with 10 other comics who hate their lives, no one knows you, and they want to all see you fail when you get up there so they can look better.

"Oh, that last guy was terrible, but I did all right, right? Mine wasn't as bad as that last guy."

I hear that I killed it.

I killed it.

Crowd: Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!

Jerry:

I'd love to stand up here and talk all night. I've got another ten hours of material, but I did ask for another sign.

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I said, "When it's time for me to stop talking, would you please not allow me to have anything to say for at least 5 seconds? Then I'll know my set is over."

Thank you.

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Final words

I'm very grateful for the time you've spent reading this post, which was originally filmed as the video below.

Thank you to @tomasgeorge at tomasgeorge.com for filming and editing the show!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h4TRmJMfsY

If you found this post helpful on Steemit, and DTube would you please upvote it and follow me because you will then be able to see more posts like this in your home feed?

Love,

Jerry Banfield with edits by @gmichelbkk on the transcript from @deniskj

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