Friendship

So this weekend was the first meeting for the volunteers of Calgary Funny Festival. I decided to volunteer because I have to start handshaking again in the industry if I ever want to be part of it. I asked a few of my friends to come along and the response was so supportive.

I haven't mentioned my two friends Mike and Erin. I met Erin with I was working retail and knew She and I would become great friends. She is witty and sweet and let me tell you, if you don't have a friend that is a schoolteacher, GET ONE. They are organized and thoughtful and very very clever with a glue gun and scissors. When there is a task to be done, I can always count on Erin to come through. Mike is her amazing and wonderful husband. He has shown me over and over again that love is patient, love is kind and love knows no limits. The love Mike and Erin have is like a fairytale that's believable. I love them both.
Well on Saturday they decided to volunteer with me for the Funny festival. We got up in the morning, I met them at their house and we drove to the location to meet. It was quite shocking. The place was kind of run down, it was stinky and really...crappy. I looked over to my friends to see the reactions and I could see confusion on Erin's face and Mike was going down memory lane from his College days. LOL. I decided to stay positive. I was hoping that Funny Festival would be a great experience that would give me some time with some great talent and help me "brave up" for comedy. I think it did the opposite. I felt that I would be taking a step backwards into a bunch of starving talents that drink and party to compensate for just sucking. It was very unorganized for a 10th year of a festival. I could almost hear Erin concocting a list of things to improve the chaos of everything. The director of the festival was a total ass. He treated the volunteers like crap, he was arrogant, he was not funny and he was NOT what a director should be which is talented. I know. Harsh right?

Erin, Mike and I continued on the tour of the venues. Some of the venues were beautiful and I could see a very good show coming from them. Some of the venues I wouldn't send a dog to. ICK. We signed up for a couple jobs got our free t-shirt and peaced that place as soon as we could. Mike will be the Talent Liaison, Erin will be Front of House, which is cash handling, and ticket sales and I will be a runner or a 50/50 sales girl. We are working the same venues and the same times, other wise we would have just left the venue tour and never seen these people again. I know our venues will run as smoothly as possible because we are all leaders and will just pony up. I also have a bunch of other friends that will be helping as well.

The thing I learned in this whole experience is this; my friends believe in me so much they are willing to step into a hellhole for me. They are willing to do something that kinda sucks, will take their time and energy and love and invest it in me. I am truly humbled by that. I wish friends like these for everyone, someone that will take a risk with you and not really care if there is an outcome. Maybe I might not get on a stage, maybe I won't use my talent, maybe I will just be me, and to these friends...that is good enough.

Funny Festival here we come.