Right, so I heard about this comedian, Brendan Jennings. People were saying he was pretty funny, and I was actually trying to put together a little something for a local open mic night. Not full-on stand-up, more like a funny speech I had to give, you know? And I thought, hey, maybe I can get some inspiration, see how these pros do it, especially someone with a bit of buzz.
So, my big plan was to spend an afternoon really digging into his stuff. I actually cleared my schedule, made myself a cup of tea, the whole nine yards. I was pretty serious about this ‘research’ phase because I didn’t want to bomb.
My Search Begins
I started searching online, just typed in ‘Brendan Jennings comedy’. Seemed simple enough, didn’t it? Well, it turned out to be a bit more of a trek than I bargained for. First off, I found a whole bunch of super short clips, like those little teaser things. Okay, I thought, fair enough, gotta find the full shows, the proper performances. Then I stumbled upon some articles, you know, people talking about him, but not much of him actually doing his thing. It was getting a bit frustrating, to be honest, because I wanted to see the performance, not just read about it.
I remember thinking, ‘Am I even looking in the right place here? Is this guy like some super underground secret?’ I clicked on one video that looked promising, had a decent thumbnail, but then the audio was just awful. Sounded like it was recorded inside a washing machine during a spin cycle. Then another one I clicked on was just a still image with some audio playing, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t even him! It really felt like a wild goose chase. I reckon I must have spent a good solid hour, maybe more, just trying to find a decent, full-length set that wasn’t blurry or muffled.
And you know what was really grinding my gears? I had this idea in my head, a certain style of comedy I was expecting to see, and everything I found was either way too short, the quality was pants, or it just wasn’t quite hitting the mark for what I needed for my ‘inspiration’ session. It wasn’t like waltzing into a shop and picking a DVD off the shelf. This felt more like rummaging through a massive, disorganized bargain bin hoping to strike gold.
- I checked all the usual video places online, the big ones.
- I tried searching for interviews, hoping he’d talk about his comedy process or something.
- I even got desperate enough to look for transcripts, thinking I could at least read the jokes if I couldn’t watch them properly.
Eventually, after a whole lot of clicking, a fair bit of sighing, and nearly giving up, I did manage to unearth a couple of longer performances that were actually pretty good. He had this sharp wit, and his timing was spot on, I’ll give him that. I took some notes, not copying his jokes, mind you, but just observing how he structured his stories and how he landed his punchlines. It was useful in the end, definitely.
But the main thing I think I learned from that whole afternoon wasn’t just about comedy techniques. It was more about the effort involved. Sometimes, to get to the good stuff, or to really understand something new, you actually gotta put in the work. You gotta wade through all the noise and the junk. It’s not always just handed to you on a silver platter. That afternoon, I was expecting an easy session of just watching some funny videos. Instead, it turned into a proper little mission. But hey, I guess that’s how you learn stuff sometimes, right? You go looking for one thing, and you end up learning something completely different along the way. And yeah, my little speech thing? It went okay in the end, partly thanks to finally finding some of that Brendan Jennings gold, after all that digging around.
