Category Archives: Uncategorized

Days 2-4: Psychic overload, London town and a ghostly cemetery

Posted on June 1, 2019 | 2 comments

What a whirlwind these past few days have been! I haven’t had time to blog so I’ll try to fit a lot into a little space. First, I’ll tell more about seeing places I’ve been dreaming about for years, without knowing at the time where they were.

After finally making it to our campground in Edmonton, north of London, after a monstrous first day, we spent the next day wandering around the local town of Enfield — we didn’t have it in us to go to London for sight-seeing, as we originally planned. We waited until Friday to do that, after we recovered a little.

There’s nothing fancy about Enfield, it just happens to be a mile or so from the campground so we drove to the nearest grocery store for extra supplies and then walked around. In the process, I was bowled over by an overwhelmingly constant feeling of deja vu from all of the precognitive dreams I’ve had about this place.

There was nothing remarkable about any of these places, and the dreams I had about them weren’t at all exciting. I just vividly remember dreaming about them. I must have driven Jeff crazy all day, saying over and over, “Oh my God, there’s another place I’ve seen in my dreams!” Here are just a few of them:

Every one of these places brought back such powerful memories that I felt almost sickened. I was really weirded out by the end of the day. No idea what any of this means, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever find out.

The next day, we hopped on a double-decker bus into London. I took far more pictures than I could possibly share, but here are the highlights:

It’s bigger on the inside.

I’m not sure what he’s doing to that poor goose, but he’s been doing it for many years.

St. Paul’s Cathedral, where the old women sold bird food for tuppence a bag.

Big Ben, under construction.

This morning we headed west, bright and early. It was a much different experience driving today, leaving London, because the highways are as wide as American ones, unlike the painfully narrow city streets of London, which were built hundreds of years ago for horse-drawn carriages.

Today we’re at a campground near Stonehenge. We wandered down a lane nearby and found a gorgeous olde church that was built in the 1300s and its adjacent cemetery. I took a few pictures, cuz who can resist a charming English lane, an olde church and a grave with a rainbow ghost?

Tomorrow, we’re off to Stonehenge and then Glastonbury, before we head north. Blackpool, we’ll see you next weekend!

Lisa Bonnice is an award-winning, best-selling author. Her current passion-project is a series of metaphysical comedy novels. The first is entitled The Poppet Master (previously published as Be Careful What You Witch For!, now revamped and with a new ending). The Poppet Master is a modern-day fairy tale about Lola Garnett, a bored housewife and office drone who wakes up with unexpected psychic abilities, and no instruction manual, and Twink, the reluctant, sarcastic faery assigned to assist and educate her. The Poppet Master will be available in summer 2019. Its sequel is in the works.

Lisa is also writing The Maxwell Curse, a fictionalized version of a story she found in her own ancestral lineage about a witch trial, a generational curse, and massive mine explosion, all of which left ripples of destruction in their wake, devastating one family’s tree.

Best seller—Fear of Our Father—#1 True Crime
Two Excellence Awards—MSNBC.com
eLit Silver Award—The Menhattan Project—Humor
Includes foreword by Neale Donald Walsch—Shape Shifting
Featured on Investigation Discovery’s TV program Catch My Killer

http://www.lisabonnice.com

2 Comments

Posted in Travel, Uncategorized

Tagged Dreams, London, Psychic dreams, Psychic phenomenon, Travel

Day 1: Driving on the WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD!!!

Posted on May 30, 2019 | 3 comments

If you’re in the north London area and you see this camper coming your way, run! The occupants have no idea what they’re doing!

What do you get when you combine two jet-lagged Americans, a manual-transmission camper with the steering wheel on the wrong side, a broken sideview mirror, a SatNav (GPS) that doesn’t work properly and a long drive through London’s narrow roads and roundabouts in the rain, during rush hour?

A recipe for disaster, that’s what you get! Grounds for divorce, is what you get! Two people wishing they’d just stayed the hell home, is what you get!

Nope, that’s just wrong.

I hope and pray that this disaster of a day was merely a crash course (no pun intended, but now I know where that phrase comes from) in how to drive on the wrong side of the road and that it gets better, because otherwise this month-long trip is going to be a horror show.

Oh yeah, did I mention that the SIM card I purchased and inserted into my phone immediately after landing at Heathrow didn’t connect to the data that I bought it for, and I didn’t realize it until we were well on our way and didn’t have time or resources to deal with it? I had to wait until we finally settled into our campsite, with their weak WiFi signal, to get ahold of tech support.

My phone now has data, thank God, so perhaps I can use my own GPS to compensate for the camper’s insane SatNav, which took us around in circles back to Heathrow over and over and over and over for more than 90 minutes.

This is NOT something you want to see in London traffic, in the rain, while learning to drive on the wrong side of the road.

About halfway through this drive is when we discovered that the sideview mirror was only taped on, because it fell out of its casing and dangled by wires during the most strenuous part of the trip. I had to keep reaching my arm out the window and putting it back into place so Jeff could see to change lanes.

What should have been a one hour drive took over four hours. It is truly a testament to the strength of our marriage that we didn’t kill one another.

To make it even more horrific, as I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, I’ve had dreams about going to England for as long as I can remember. Many of those were about driving endlessly through a dreamscape that looked exactly like parts of the city we drove through, with strange, pale lighting and feeling exactly like I felt during this interminable drive. I literally relived a recurring nightmare that I’ve been having for years.

On the plus side, we did make it one piece, without saying anything unforgivable in anger. We did manage to find a grocery store, even though the desk clerk at the campground told us that the nearest store was 20 minutes away (he was wrong). This was due to my diligent planning before we left home. I searched for and mapped out (and even printed) directions to a nearby Asda store, so we’re stocked with enough food to get us by for a couple days.

We were planning to go sightseeing in London today, but instead we’re going to regroup and depressurize. Jeff has been asleep for over 12 hours, he’s so exhausted. It’s been a hairy couple of days so today we’re going to get unpacked and settled into the camper, and maybe just pop over to the nearby Poundland store (the Brits’ version of the dollar store … isn’t that awesome?) for a few household items that didn’t come with the supplies the camper rental place is lending us.

A room with a view. Jeff is sleeping in the bunk over the driving cab. I’m in the lower bunk, at the back of the camper.

Speaking of which, the description of the camper I rented, while still in the States, said that we would have a double bed. What they neglected to mention was that the double bed is up a ladder, above the driver. Otherwise, we have single bunk beds. Fortunately, Jeff is okay with using a ladder in the middle of the night and kindly offered the lower, single bunk bed to me.

Oh yeah … they only gave us bedding for the double bed. One sheet, one duvet, and a duvet cover with two pillow cases. Jeff took the sheet and used the duvet cover as his blanket, and I took the uncovered duvet and made it into sort of a sleeping bag for my single bunk.

Our first camper cuppa

Today though, it’s a gorgeous morning, sunny and breezy and the birds are chirping in English accents, “Cheerio!” It sounds like the opening to the Beatles song, Good Morning.

Mmmmm … chocolate Weetabix

We’re about to have our first cuppa in the camper, and I’m using my first souvenir, a gorgeous teacup I found at Asda, and we’re having chocolate Weetabix for brekkie. Fingers crossed for us that things improve, okay? That was just day one of a month-long epic journey so it has to get better, right?

Right???

Also, here’s you a therapy dog that I met at the Phoenix airport while we waited for our flight to board. I could sure use a therapy dog right about now!

Best seller—Fear of Our Father—#1 True Crime
Two Excellence Awards—MSNBC.com
eLit Silver Award—The Menhattan Project—Humor
Includes foreword by Neale Donald Walsch—Shape Shifting
Featured on Investigation Discovery’s TV program Catch My Killer

http://www.lisabonnice.com

3 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Money … tickets … passport … holy water

Posted on May 27, 2019 | 1 comment

Image Source

We’re leaving tomorrow for our trip to the UK so it’s crunch time! Do I have everything? Money? Tickets? Passports? My sanity?

I’ve been planning this trip since 2013 and it feels like a lifetime. But now that we’re less than 24 hours from departure out of Phoenix, we’re zooming through time at the speed of light and if that isn’t enough to bend the time/space continuum, I don’t know what is.

It’s not just the physicality of what we’re doing … money, tickets, passport … that’s looming large. It’s the psychicality (is that a word? it is now!) that’s blowing my mind.

See, there’s a lot going on here. I’m not just going to fly across the Pond for the first time, I’m going to achieve a Bucket List event — visiting the glass-floored “Eye” of the Blackpool Tower. But even more importantly, I’m also doing research for two books, including genealogy research into a witch trial in my family’s past AND doing what I can to break the resulting curse.

Although I’m ecstatic that we’re going, I’m also on the verge of empathic overload. Those of you who have at least one foot consciously in the psychic realm will know exactly what I’m talking about. For those who don’t, I probably already lost you when I wrote about breaking curses.

But, for those of you who are still with me, I’m what some would call “overly sensitive” to the thoughts and feelings of others. It’s easy to sometimes lose track of where I end and the “external” world begins. So, therefore, all of what I’ll be doing over the next few weeks is a little overwhelming.

But I’ve learned, from many years of experience, to just put one foot in front of the other. And for today, that means … money, tickets, passports.

Before I go, here’s you a traveling dog:

Best seller—Fear of Our Father—#1 True Crime
Two Excellence Awards—MSNBC.com
eLit Silver Award—The Menhattan Project—Humor
Includes foreword by Neale Donald Walsch—Shape Shifting
Featured on Investigation Discovery’s TV program Catch My Killer

http://www.lisabonnice.com

1 Comment

Posted in Ancestry, Blackpool, Blackpool, Epiphany Quest, Genealogy, Life is Fun!, Lisa and Jeff, Travel, Uncategorized

Tagged Ancestral healing, Bucket List, Empath, England, Genealogy, Scotland, Travel

Bucket Lists are scary as hell

Posted on May 5, 2019 | 3 comments

Anyone who’s been reading my blog for any length of time knows that my biggest Bucket List item is to visit the Blackpool Tower in Blackpool, England. Well, it’s FINALLY about to happen and I’m freaking out!

I’ve been yearning for this since 2013 (and having psychic dreams about it for far longer). It’s taken years to materialize, no matter how much “Law of Attraction” work I’ve done. I realize now that there were some very good reasons for it to take so long.

Image Source

In “New Age” speak, it’s because I didn’t vibe with it yet. I get that—I understand that “like attracts like” and I wasn’t “like” this yet. But understanding that didn’t make the waiting any easier.

Turns out there were things I didn’t know yet—important information that I needed before heading off on the second leg of the journey, to Scotland.

For example, I didn’t yet know about the Scottish curse on my family, or what to do about it (I’ll talk about that in another blog). I also didn’t know a lot of the things I’ve recently discovered in my genealogy research which I can only follow up on when I’m there, where the original records lie. If I had been able to make the Bucket List trip back when I first conceived of it, I would have completely missed out on my chance to easily visit these places.

The Blackpool Tower, on the coast of the Irish Sea.

It’s also clear now, when I look back at my original reasons for wanting to do this, that my motives have changed entirely. I didn’t realize then that the Blackpool Tower was merely acting as an antenna, drawing my undivided attention to the UK, but for much different purposes than I ever could have known back then.

However, the most important thing at this stage is my “Duh!” realization that Bucket List items are hard to attain—unlike everyday life—because they scare the crap out of you. I’m not big on facing fears head-on, hence the long delay.

The view, straight down, from the “Eye” of the Blackpool Tower. The Comedy Carpet is to the right, and the Irish Sea is just beyond that.

For some unknown reason, I’m drawn to the Blackpool Tower (which is similar to the Eiffel Tower) to ride to the top, step out onto the glass floor and look down at the Comedy Carpet. Then, while I’m up there, I’ll watch the sun set over the Irish Sea.

Have I mentioned that I’m terrified of heights?

I’m also afraid of flying across the ocean. I’m afraid of driving on the “wrong side” of the road. I’m afraid of being in another country, on the other side of the planet, and not having everything I need. The list of things that cause me crippling anxiety goes on and on.

And yet … I persisted.

I think the reason I’m finally able to go is because I’ve finally matured enough to do this. I have all of my research ducks in a row and I’m go for takeoff. I may still be terrified, but I’m now actually looking forward to facing these challenges.

I better be, because we’re leaving in a little over three weeks.

FINALLY!

Here’s you a scared dog:

Image Source

Best seller—Fear of Our Father—#1 True Crime
Two Excellence Awards—MSNBC.com
eLit Silver Award—The Menhattan Project—Humor
Includes foreword by Neale Donald Walsch—Shape Shifting
Featured on Investigation Discovery’s TV program Catch My Killer

http://www.lisabonnice.com

3 Comments

Posted in Blackpool, Travel, Uncategorized

Tagged Ancestral healing, Blackpool, Bucket List, England, Genealogy, generational curse, law of attraction, Scotland, Travel

Me & The Shift Network

Posted on April 8, 2019 | 3 comments

lisabonnice

I’ve hosted many programs and webinars over the years for The Shift Network, primarily the Ancestral Healing Summit, the Beyond the Veil Summit, the Intuitive Medicine Summit and Shift’s Q&A conversations, to introduce their faculty to the TSN audience and allow them to ask questions live, via Facebook and webcast.

I’ve had lots of fascinating conversations with some of the world’s most interesting thinkers like Gregg Braden, Stan Grof, Sandra Ingerman, Suzanne Giesemann, Thomas Huebl, Anita Moorjani, Dr. Raymond Moody, Dr. Norm Shealy, Andrew Harvey, Anodea Judith, Donna Eden, Raja Choudhury, Jean Haner, Robert Thurman and numerous others.

I’ve hosted hundreds of interviews with some of the most knowledgeable experts in the field about everything from the hard science of epigenetics, the psychology of inherited trauma, shamanic methods of healing and other methods, like psychopomp work, past lives and psychic mediumship.

Here are a few videos from previous summits (hint — search YouTube for the “Ancestral Healing Summit“, “Beyond the Veil Summit” and “Intuitive Medicine Summit” if you’d like to find more!):

These interviews are part of the Ancestral Healing Summit and the Beyond the Veil Summit, free online events. For more information, please visit ancestralhealingsummit.com and beyondtheveilsummit.com.

Lisa Bonnice is an award-winning, best-selling author whose “day job” is as a Program Host at The Shift Network, where she hosts summits on ancestral healing, life after death, and intuition and medicine.

Best seller—Fear of Our Father—#1 True Crime
Two Excellence Awards—MSNBC.com
eLit Silver Award—The Menhattan Project—Humor
Includes foreword by Neale Donald Walsch—Shape Shifting
Featured on Investigation Discovery’s TV program Catch My Killer

http://www.lisabonnice.com

3 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Lisa Bonnice — Metaphysical Comedian

Posted on April 8, 2019 | 2 comments

I don’t talk much about my past as a standup comic, but people have been asking lately so I thought I’d give a little background.

In January 1986, I took a job waitressing at Snickerz Comedy Bar in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Before too much time had passed, I was on stage and keeping up with the pros.

Snickerz was owned by a man named Kevin Ferguson and he hosted a weekly comedy talk show out of the club called Night Shift. I eventually became a comedy writer and opening act for the show.

On the Night Shift stage, warming up the crowd.

While working at Snickerz with Kevin was a blast, Fort Wayne only had one comedy club and, if I wanted to be a professional comic, I would have to spend a lot of time on the road because that’s where the paying work was.

The problem was that I was a single mom with two kids. So, I moved to Chicago where I was able to work in town most of the time and take the kids with me during school breaks. At the time, they hated it, but now they admit that it was the best childhood ever.

While I was on the road, I was able to indulge my obsession with indie/used bookstores (and books about metaphysics). This is around the time that all of the bizarre psychic events I’d experienced up until then began to make sense (reading is a good thing, innit?).

In 1989, I met Jeff Sweeney, a Cleveland comic and we’re still together, 30 years later. Here’s a great story of how we met (talk about manifesting and Law of Attraction! this story was even featured in Amy Spencer’s book Meeting Your Half Orange: An Utterly Upbeat Guide to Using Dating Optimism to Find Your Perfect Match).

Over the years, I traveled the country working with comics like Tim Allen, Steve Harvey, Jeff Foxworthy and many, many others. I was a guest on numerous radio shows and was making great headway. I was headlining smaller rooms and featuring at A-clubs.

Eventually, Jeff and I moved the family to Los Angeles because we wanted to give Hollywood a try. Boy howdy, was that an adventure! Because I’m not a household name, you can probably guess that we were not successful there. Hollywood and my personality do not mix, so I quit doing standup after giving LA a couple years of my life. I finally said “Enough!” and moved on to other things, like becoming a news writer and affiliate producer for MSNBC.com and started writing books.

Fast forward a bunch of years, our family moved to the Phoenix area and my elder daughter ended up working at the Tempe Improv. This whetted my appetite to get back on stage again, so I gave it one more try, just for fun. You can read about that (and watch a video) here.

I don’t perform anymore … at least not at this point in my life … maybe someday. Now, I spend my time, comedywise, writing my metaphysical comedy novels about Lola Garnett and Twink, her fairy companion.

Best seller—Fear of Our Father—#1 True Crime
Two Excellence Awards—MSNBC.com
eLit Silver Award—The Menhattan Project—Humor
Includes foreword by Neale Donald Walsch—Shape Shifting
Featured on Investigation Discovery’s TV program Catch My Killer

http://www.lisabonnice.com

2 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Yes, #MeToo

Posted on October 4, 2018 | 1 comment

Photo Credit: Melanie Westfall | Daily Texan Staff

I don’t know if I’m going to publish this blog, but I have to write it. Everyone else’s stories are popping up all over the place and, every time I see one, I’m reminded of my own — well, one of them, anyway. So I might as well write it out and see where it takes me.

Like many of us, there isn’t just one incident. However, one that happened about 30 years ago plays over and over in my head, even without constant memory triggers from the headlines and Facebook posts.

I was in my twenties and a single mother of two. I was going to college and working three waitress jobs. I was frazzled and needed to find a job that paid enough so I’d only need one.

There was a well-known man in town who owned (or managed — I can’t remember) a few bars and restaurants. He was friends with the owner of the bar where I worked, and I knew he was a skeezebag, shagging waitresses in the back room. I was one of the few who had not done so, and I pointedly avoided being alone with him.

But when I heard that he was hiring for his corporate office, I asked him for an interview. I thought it would be safe to work for him in a sober environment, during the day. I thought I could handle him. And, I really needed a good job.

We met at one of his restaurants for lunch, in public. I dressed professionally — in fact, I was dressed rather primly, because I knew what he was like — I didn’t want him to misconstrue my purpose for our meeting.

The interview went well and it was beginning to look like I had the job. He said that we should go to the corporate office so I could take a tour and fill out the necessary paperwork. He said he’d drive. No point in taking two cars, when he was coming back to our current location anyway.

Stupid me believed him.

This happened in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where (at that time) the edges of the city ended rather abruptly and were replaced by miles and miles of Amish farmland, with lots of unmarked dirt roads.

Before I knew it, he had taken an unfamiliar turn and I was lost. I had no idea where we were and he just kept driving. When I asked where we were going, he told me he was taking the scenic route, to avoid traffic. But then he pulled over to the side of the road, next to a cornfield, and suggested that we “have a little fun”.

I was young and afraid of making him mad, so I didn’t belligerently say “No!” I hoped we could get back into job interview mode. Today, I can see that this was foolish of me — even if I had been hired to work at his corporate office, it would have been a nightmare, filled with sexual harassment, but that’s the way it was back then. Women had to put up and shut up.

Instead, I made excuses why I couldn’t “have a little fun” with him. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but given my maturity level at the time, I probably made a joke and said I hadn’t shaved, or I was wearing granny panties (all true — remember, I had not dressed for sex). At that age, I would have tried self-deprecating humor to “turn him off”.

It didn’t work. When he replied that it sure would be a long walk back to my car, I realized that I had very little choice regarding what was about to happen.

I don’t think I need to go into detail here. You can fill in the blanks.

Was this sexual assault? I believe it was, but there are some who might argue that it was not:

I did get into his car. (I still kick myself for naively believing that we were going to his office: stupid! stupid! stupid!)
I did know he was a dirtbag. (I thought I had made myself clear to him previously that I wasn’t going to be another notch on his belt.)
I didn’t put up a fight. (I had no idea where I was, miles from any signs of life — I’ll remind my young readers that this was ‘in the old days’, before cell phones and GPS. There were no houses anywhere and, even if there were, they would be Amish and wouldn’t have a phone or a car — and I was wearing high heels on dirt roads. The only thing I had to lose by doing what he wanted was my dignity. At least, if I didn’t fight him off, there would be no violent force.)

Here’s why it was non-consensual:

I had no choice, except to do what he wanted or get out of the car and be stranded and lost in the middle of nowhere, miles from another human being, with no idea which direction to even begin to find my way home.
When he was done, he dropped me off at my car. He didn’t even pretend to finish the interview at his office, with the supposed tour and paperwork. I was tricked into believing this was a job interview, which I dressed for. I did not dress for a sexual interlude, especially one in a car on a dirt road (my control-top underwear and pantyhose were not “easy access”, if you get my drift).
Most importantly, I didn’t want to have sex with him.

Anyone who knew me at that time certainly knows exactly who I’m talking about — this guy was well known in our social circle for being a creep — and they might, understandably, think “Seriously? You didn’t know this is how it would end up???”

Color me stupid. Color me naive. Call me too trusting.

I grew up with three brothers, the only girl in the family. I was surrounded by boys growing up, including all of their friends, who were mostly trustworthy people. I was a tomboy. I was comfortable around men. Sexual power struggles did happen occasionally, but they were the exception to the rule. Even then, they would have been brushed off as “That’s just how some guys are, and there’s nothing to be done about it,” AKA “Boys will be boys.”

I know, from experience, that most of the men in my life are good people who wouldn’t do this kind of thing. It’s the exceptions — the middle-aged friend of my parents who groped me when I was thirteen; the icky friend of my brother who cornered me in my bedroom and tried to force himself on me; the employer who left porn on my desk and pressed his erection into my back as I tried to type — who give the good men a bad name.

So, now it’s time to decide if I should hit the “Publish” button on this blog. What good would it possibly do to post this? No one cares about my story.

Maybe I need to post this to say that we women know all men aren’t like this. Thank goddess for that. And I also want to say, “Don’t worry, guys, we’re not going to blindside you with false accusations, as you’ve been told you should fear.”

I know that a lot of men are really worried right now that some clumsy, youthful sexual fumblings are going to come back to haunt them. But most of us know the difference between a hostile creep trying to get his rocks off at our expense and a boy or man who hasn’t yet figured out this complicated subject, who might have behaved stupidly. Clumsy and stupid don’t always equal rapey.

If the man who drove me to that dirt road was still alive today, would I name him and call for a reckoning, during this time of #MeToo? Probably not. But if he was offered a powerful position, where he would be making decisions about the lives of others, I’d consider it, even with the questionable details about whether or not I consented.

I did not consent. I had no choice. And he knows it.

1 Comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged #MeToo, #WhyIDidntReport

Thoughts on returning to standup comedy, 25 years after quitting – Part 2

Posted on July 23, 2018 | 3 comments

Finally, at the Tempe Improv, June 20, 2018

I’m assuming you’ve read Part 1, so I’m going to plow forward with the story…

The final open mic the Monday before the Improv date was brutal. It was at one of our favorite venues, one that Jeff and I will reminisce about in our old age – a grungy tavern close to home, with great beer prices – but my energy was off.

I was very aware that my ‘audience’ had heard what I was about to say far too many times, even though I had updated it frequently and, in fact, had a couple of new lines I wanted to test before Wednesday at the Improv.

I felt like I had to apologize, in advance, and say, “I know you’re as tired of hearing this as I am of saying it, but after the Improv show, I’ll come back with new material.”

But I didn’t apologize. They knew what I was doing, and it wasn’t worth using up any of my five minutes to explain myself. So I did the material exactly as I planned to deliver it in two days, at the Improv.

They were tired of me, and I was tired of me. I didn’t get any laughs, but I knew that, if nothing else, I had my delivery down – both the words and the gestures – and that it was a solid five minutes of material.

Jeff – who had a pretty good set that night – suggested that, before we leave, we should do a shot of Jameson Irish Whiskey. We drank to the Improv … may we both kick some ass.

Wednesday finally arrived and we were both insanely ready. (I’ll let Jeff tell his own story of what happened that night, in his own way.) It had been so many years since I had been on a real stage, in front of a real crowd.

In fact, the last time I performed standup comedy was at a showcase at the Improv on Santa Monica Boulevard, in Santa Monica, California. Jeff and I had moved to LA about a year before then, to give Hollywood a try. I had a great set that night and, if my personal life wasn’t getting really intense, I would have tracked down the club’s manager to ask about getting a booking. But it was not to be. Life was getting complicated, and I needed to focus on that, so I dropped out of showbiz and rarely looked back.

What an interesting set of bookends: my last time doing standup was at an Improv and now my first time back was also at an Improv.

I love that jacket.

So, now here I was at the Tempe Improv wearing a to-die-for jacket that I had bought months before, when I began to get the first inklings that the Big U was serious about pushing me on stage again. I saw it at Free People and knew I had to own it, and that it would be “stage clothes”. Honestly, I have nowhere else to wear something like that, but it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I either had to commit to getting on stage, or let it stay in the store, unpurchased.

I was second on the bill. The show-runner corralled all the comics and showed us where to go and what to do, i.e.: watch for “the light” at five minutes, and if you don’t start wrapping it up within 15 seconds of receiving the light we’ll cut the mic and turn on the music.

He showed us to the green room, and said to be sure to be there waiting within three comics of our turn. Since I was second, I was in the first batch of comics to wait there as the show began.

The first guy on stage had a pretty good set. I could hear the crowd’s warm laughter, but not what he was saying. I was too busy concentrating on not forgetting my opening line. Once I was on stage, though, it all came flowing back – the material I had practiced over the past weeks, the memories of what a big-time spotlight and mic feel like and how great it feels to receive the laughter of a huge crowd – I was in heaven.

My five minutes went fast … too fast … I had not allowed enough extra time for laughter when I was timing my set in the no-laugh-zone open mic shows. Before I knew it, I saw the light, so I wrapped it up without finishing my final bit. Better to cut off the closer, which had the biggest punchline, than to be chased off stage by a dead mic and loud music.

Here are a couple of videos of my set. I have to give a bit of a disclaimer, though, before you choose which recording to watch.

I have two recordings:

This video has the audience slightly over-miked (you can hear a little too much table chatter … i.e. people ordering drinks, etc.) and sometimes it drowns out my voice, but the laughs/applause are good and loud;
This one has me perfectly miked, so my sound is clear and crisp, but you can’t hear the audience as well.

The dilemma is that, with comedy, you really need the laughs as a part of the show, otherwise it’s agonizing to watch, sort of like that video of Mick Jagger and David Bowie singing “Dancing in the Streets” with the music removed. (Here’s a link to that painfully hysterical video, in case you’ve never seen it: https://youtu.be/BHkhIjG0DKc)

So, with that said, here is the link to the video with the laughs good and loud, with my voice occasionally too quiet:

And here is the link to a tweaked video, where the sound has been balanced so my voice is loud and clear, and the table chatter has been reduced, but the audience is a little too quiet for my comfort (they really were laughing harder than you’ll hear, here):

Choose whichever you’d prefer. I’m torn between the two. That’s why I’m posting both of them.

I’ll tell you what’s next in my upcoming blog, Part 3 of Thoughts on returning to standup comedy, 25 years after quitting.

And before we go, here’s you a dog who’s not sure how he feels about being in front of a microphone:

Image Source

Lisa Bonnice is an award-winning, best-selling author. Her current passion-project is a series of metaphysical comedy novels. The first is entitled The Poppet Master (previously published as Be Careful What You Witch For!, now revamped and with a new ending). The Poppet Master is a modern-day fairy tale about Lola Garnett, a bored housewife and office drone who wakes up with unexpected psychic abilities, and no instruction manual, and Twink, the reluctant, sarcastic faery assigned to assist and educate her. The Poppet Master is available wherever books are sold. Its sequel is in the works.

Best seller—Fear of Our Father—#1 True Crime
Two Excellence Awards—MSNBC.com
eLit Silver Award—The Menhattan Project—Humor
Includes foreword by Neale Donald Walsch—Shape Shifting
Featured on Investigation Discovery’s TV program Catch My Killer

http://www.lisabonnice.com

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Posted in Humor, Life is Fun!, Uncategorized

Tagged comedian, Comedy, comic, Improv, standup, standup comedy

Thoughts on returning to standup comedy, 25 years after quitting – Part 1

Posted on June 30, 2018 | 3 comments

My headshot from the old days in comedy in Chicago, circa 1990. This photo may still be hanging in a comedy club near you.

If you read my previous blog, Apparently I’m performing standup comedy again…, you already know that I used to be a professional comedian. If you haven’t read it, go ahead and do that now. I’ll wait, and here is some hold music …

***

Since I wrote that blog, my husband Jeff (who has a similar story) and I have performed/rehearsed to develop five minutes of polished material at numerous “open mic” nights, which culminated in a taped showcase at the Tempe Improv (an A room). It’s been … interesting.

Back in the old days (yes, I said that in a ‘granny’ voice), in the 80s and 90s, when I was learning comedy in Fort Wayne, Indiana and then in Chicago, it was a different world with a totally different vibe. There was a camaraderie and friendship with the other comics. I’m not finding that to be the case, for the most part, this time around.

By the way, I’m not complaining about any of this, just making note of what I’m experiencing. It’s just … not what I expected it to be like.

Maybe it’s because I’m married now and decades older than the people I’m meeting. Or, perhaps it’s because I have years of experience under my belt already (I’m obviously not a newbie) and seemingly appeared from out of the blue. Either way, I’m finding it hard to assimilate.

I’ll admit that I haven’t enjoyed the open mic process very much, because of this. It’s difficult to keep going night after night, to practice an evolving set of basically the same five minutes of material, in front of the same group of very young (mostly) dudes.

Performing at an open mic in Mesa, AZ.

Have I mentioned that part yet? Most open mics are a gathering of the same group of people who go from place to place, wherever there’s an available microphone, practicing their material on one another, with perhaps a couple of civilians thrown in. It’s easy enough to get a few laughs when no one has heard your material before, but after the umpteenth time, even sympathy laughs are rather thin on the ground.

This, by the way, is the true driving force behind writing new material and sharpening up the stuff that’s worth keeping: the humiliation of standing in front of the same people who are no longer laughing at what they’ve heard you say a thousand times before is a big motivator.

Aside from a couple of nice rooms that are actually set up for comedy, many open mics take place in random taverns, not places that are designed for shows. One that I know of (which I haven’t done and most likely won’t) takes place on the outdoor patio of a bar, overlooking a busy street.

Performing in a mostly empty room at one of the nicer open mics, improvMANIA in Chandler, AZ.

They always have a microphone, but sometimes they don’t have a stage or even a spotlight. They often have large screen TVs scattered around the bar, which they may or may not turn off during the open mic.

There is either no crowd other than comics, or a handful of people who are just there to drink at the bar and yack with their friends while a “show” goes on behind them. Or, by the time you get to the stage (the lists of comics who sign up to perform are usually very long) the crowd has gotten tired and gone home.

Dig if you will the verbal picture I’m painting. This is what you call a tough gig.

So, that’s what we did for about a month. The showcase at the Improv couldn’t come soon enough, IMHO. For one thing, I could finally blow out those five honed minutes and move on to new material. But mostly, the Improv gets huge crowds and it’s a real comedy club. The excitement and anxiety about getting back on stage in front of a genuine comedy audience was building to peak levels.

I’ll tell you that story in my next blog, Part 2 of Thoughts on returning to standup comedy, 25 years after quitting.

And, of course, here’s you a dog … Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog.

Image source

Lisa Bonnice is an award-winning, best-selling author. Her current passion-project is a series of metaphysical comedy novels. The first is entitled The Poppet Master (previously published as Be Careful What You Witch For!, now revamped and with a new ending). The Poppet Master is a modern-day fairy tale about Lola Garnett, a bored housewife and office drone who wakes up with unexpected psychic abilities, and no instruction manual, and Twink, the reluctant, sarcastic faery assigned to assist and educate her. The Poppet Master is available wherever books are sold. Its sequel is in the works.