So with the first month of 2017 almost over, I thought it’d be prudent to finally talk about what I hope to get done this year (not that any of you probably care anyways).

As I “covered” earlier, 2016 was a year full of change and random things and getting fired from your job waiting tables because you had to leave town a couple of woks for a job out in the boonies.  The first month of 2017 has continued this trend.  Not the getting fired part, mind you.  You need to have a job first before you can get fired.  Thus far, the new year has brought me a half dozen stage appearances, a couple of token television appearances, and a steady
succession of bad colds and flu-like symptoms.

Which brings me to my resolutions and goals for the new year.  Everyone has them.  Almost everyone makes theirs public.  I’m just doing mine a whole month later than everyone else.

The main thing I want to achieve career wise is a paycheck big enough to not vanish in a single night.

“But Stephen,” you say, eyeing the screen with pangs of bemusement, “aren’t you getting money for your television work?”

Well, yes.  But not nearly as much as you’re probably expecting.  As a young comedian in the Japanese entertainment system, you can probably expect to make more money (at a more set rate) with stage appearances than you could making bit appearances (or a Netflix show or two) on a TV show.  That’s just the reality of the situation.  TV is great when a gig comes but they never tell you how much you’ll be getting paid whereas with live appearances you can pretty much figure out how much you’re getting after a few shows (not a lot but enough to get by if you’re lucky enough to have a gig booked every day).  So really, the goal is to get more gigs (and by gigs I mean shows where you don’t have to pay to appear) that pay and to do that you have to be good at what you do.

So when it really comes down to it, the main goal is to just get better as an owarai geinin.  Woohoo, exciting, right?

Looking ahead, there’s a big project headed out to the states that I had a lot of involvement in (maybe even a starring role) but its expected December release date has been pushed back due to a rather famous scandal involving one of the people involved so hopefully you’ll be able to see it some time this year.

We’re also looking to due a “foreigner-safe” live that anyone can understand regardless of language sometime this Spring.  The location is still not set in stone but expect it to be somewhere in Tokyo and expect tickets to be around 1000 yen.  Please feel free to come when I finally announce it.  I’ll be waiting to meet you in person.

PS, also if you haven’t, please feel free to follow me on twitter, where I usually keep my live schedule up to date.