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“Your number of years in comedy is about your maturity level.” - Jerry Seinfeld
I’ve done the math on this quote. Jerry started comedy in 1976 so that means that in 1993 when he dated a 17 year old at age 38, his comedy maturity age was only 17, so it checks out.
I’ve been doing comedy for 21 years. My comedy career is finally old enough to drink, but I’ve had a pretty good head start on that. The length of time I’ve been a comedian is even more unbelievable to me than my 24 years of marriage. Maybe because comedy never loved me back. I mean most nights I perform comedy the audience loves me, I am very talented and humble after all, but those are one night stands. If I look at the 21 years since I performed at my first open mic night as one relationship? It’s been a bit problematic. Stand up comedy is an obsession that’s given me plenty of rewards, it just feels like it’s been at the expense of…well everything else. I was 26 when I started and I had no idea how much of a commitment a life in comedy would be or how much sacrifice from myself and the people I love would be required. Does that sound old, burnt out and bitter enough for 21 years? When I was a younger man I would look at some of the jaded comedians the age I am now who acted like comedy owed them something and seemed to loathe the audiences they were performing in front of for not giving it to them, and I would promise myself “I’m never going to be like that.” Well, guess what past me? I’m not. Most of the time anyway. I am getting close to 48 years old so I can’t help the getting older part, and sure I’m occasionally burnt out from travel and being close to 48 years old, but bitter? Fuck no. I love comedy. The obsession continues. Sorry everything else. When I look back on the places I’ve been, the experiences I’ve had, the experiences I’ve been able to give other people, it’s honestly been a pretty amazing journey. There were moments of gold and there were flashes of light, there were things I’d never do again but they’d always seemed right…wait that’s a Meatloaf song. It’s all coming back to me now, sorry about that.
If I saw a video of the first time I was ever on stage I’d be horrified, and you probably would be too. Even if you weren’t I’d be mortified you saw it. Also I would have had to record the video on this.
I couldn’t have put it up on YouTube and emailed you a link either. I would have had to plug the camera into my TV and invite you over to watch it, or if you were a good enough friend I could transfer it to a VHS tape and give it to you. I’m glad there’s no video. I was the last generation that got to suck at something in secret. No digital record. As long as the people who witnessed it kept their mouth shut it never happened. I do have some analog evidence. I have a box of cassette tapes somewhere in my house of me performing from those early days. If you were a serious comedian who cared about your craft at the turn of the century you had to have one of these bad boys.
I don’t have my Sony tape recorder anymore and since I sold my ‘87 Mazda truck in 2003 I haven’t had a way to play cassette tapes. That’s probably for the best. I don’t remember all of my 3 minutes of attempted material my first time on stage, but I know I had a joke about how I felt bad for the local news meteorologist because they always had to segue into the weather after whatever awful news story had just been shown.
“Well speaking of pedophiles we’ve got some warming temperatures out there that’ll make you roll down the windows in your van…I’m fired aren’t I?”
It occurs to me 21 years later that “We’ve got some warming temperatures out there that’ll make you wish you had windows in your van” would have been a better line. Always editing. A stand up comedian’s life is an unfinished one. It was a pretty dark joke for a first time and a bit edgier than the comedian I ended up becoming, but it went well enough that on the hour drive home from Seattle to Olympia the thought that kept rattling around my dopamine filled brain was “I can’t believe that some ideas I had made a room full of people laugh.” I was still hopped up on adrenaline so I was considering 18 people at a Monday night open mic “a room full of people.” It’s a childlike way to look at performing comedy but truthfully in 21 years I’ve never gotten over how cool it is to have some ideas I had make a room full of people laugh. The headline of this article that was recently written about me really drove home the delightful absurdity of it all to me.
That’s right Colorado Springs Gazette; I’ve won awards for my observations. That’s as ridiculous as it is true. It’s true because I’ve won a couple of comedy competitions which of course conversely means my observations have lost more times than they’ve won. I’m glad they didn’t go with “Award-Losing Observational Comedian to perform in Colorado Springs.”
Being a comedian is such a preposterous thing to do for a living that it’s even more ludicrous to think it owes me something. Any momentary bitterness I may have gets immediately beaten down by the sense of shame I feel for complaining about a life of telling jokes for money. I mean honestly what the fuck do I have to be upset about? A lot actually. So, so much, but that’s for a different time.
Passion sometimes feels like a curse but it’s also an undeniable gift. Ignore the ponytail my hair is in while I’m writing this, but I’ve never had a midlife crisis. Sometimes I wish I would have wanted different things in my life, but I’ve never questioned what I’ve actually wanted. I’ve had a singularity of purpose for 21 years. I want to do what I do right now until I am no longer physically able. That’s a gift. I don’t mean in a “Do something you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” way either. It’s been an insane amount of work and that’s a bullshit expression that’s always bothered me. I suppose what’s true about it is that I love napping but if I always did it I would never work. If you’re fortunate enough to turn what you love into your job I can assure you it mostly certainly feels like it is. Maybe not the performing part, but the avalanche of “No’s” my ego and psyche have to bear before getting there honestly hurts more than if I was doing something I didn’t love. It didn’t really bother me that my manager hated me when I worked at Pizza Time as a much younger man. Most of the time anyway. Fuck you Rob, just in case you’re reading this. I still don’t tuck my shirt in.
There’s a lot to not like about any job, comedian included. It bothers me when I hear my fellow comedians say things like “I can’t believe we get paid to do this.” I understand the sentiment. I feel extremely fortunate that being a comedian is my job, but I very much can believe I get paid to do it. People buy tickets and order Bud Lights and Chicken Strips while they watch me so yeah I should probably take some money home. I’ll take my 2 drink tickets and 50% off of those chicken strips too. If nothing else I should at least get paid for my commute. It’s not like when my alarm goes off at 2:30am so I can drive to the airport I wake up smiling.
“I can’t wait to bring joy and laughter to the people of Wichita Kansas tonight!”
Even if you worked at an orgasm factory you’d still bitch about the traffic getting there.
I’m not sure of the exact early October 2000 date that I started, but over the years I’ve just decided it’s October 8th. It’s somewhere around then. It’s the same way my family decided our cat Don’s birthday was May 20th.
On October 8th this year I didn’t even remember it was my comedy anniversary until I was on stage performing, and when I did I had a good internal “of course it is” chuckle because the show I was doing was not a good one. It was in a rowdy sports bar where the stage lights did a great job of illuminated my body but not my face. Not that it mattered to the people playing pool and darts in the back of the room, or the several patrons having full conversations with their backs turned to me. It was probably the kind of show that a comedy anniversary should be. An anniversary is a celebration and acknowledgement of the entirety of the experience after all, not just the good parts of it. Same goes for wedding anniversaries. Sometimes my wife and I get to do something special, but more often we go out to eat with a gift certificate someone gave us and then come home to our dirty house and have 7 minutes of missionary sex before we watch Billions. It all counts.
A week earlier I had one of my better shows of the year in Bozeman, Montana, but of course that wasn’t my anniversary show. The comedy gods don’t care much for celebration and all gloating is immediately punished. On a two show night at a comedy club if the first one is amazing the second one is eyed with suspicion by comedians. “They’re not going to let me have two of these are they?” I’ve done about 200 shows a year for much of my adult life and it’s hard to get too up or too down when you do that many. The show I did after my Comedy Central taping was in a yurt in Albion, Idaho. The show I did after the HBO Comedy Festival was in front of 7 people at Sharxs Bar and Bites in Wenatchee, Washington. The show I did after I won the Seattle International Comedy Competition I was the middle act at an Everett, Washington casino and I was not well received. I remember thinking one of my Bob and Tom Radio Show appearances had gone really well and allowed myself the optimistic fantasy that perhaps my show in Rockford, Illinois that night would be packed since it had been promoted so much that day on the radio. Nope. Three people showed up and they canceled it. The gig I had after I taped something for Nickelodeon was a private show for a dentist’s office where I had to use a karaoke machine for the sound system. It doesn’t matter, it all counts. It’s all a part of the same experience.
I’m not done by the way. The experience continues, this isn’t a retirement speech. I still want to write new jokes, put out new projects, have more people see me do comedy on purpose; all the same mostly vague motivations that have for better or worse gotten me this far. In a bizarre way though the pandemic has made me more positive in my comedy life. I used to see the Intensive Care Unit as half-empty but now it feels half-full.
“Well make sure you grab your umbrella on your way to the hospital because Covid-19 infections might be going up, but that rain is really going to be coming down for the next day or two.”
Right now feels like a presumptuous time for expectations, let alone goals. If I was going to put something on my vision board right now it would just be a picture of a vision board.
I think most of us look back at the hopes, dreams, and aspirations we had in February 2020 a bit sheepishly. What was I asking for? Oh, sorry about that. Can we just go back to how it was before? That was pretty good actually.
Pre-pandemic I probably wouldn’t have been doing a show at a sports bar an hour from my house on a Friday night. Wednesday night for sure, but probably not a weekend. Considering I was still delivering groceries until February of this year because most of my industry was still shut down, I’ll take it. Also my ego has asked me to remind you that I’m doing a lot of great shows and remain a very in demand international touring headliner. Sorry, he made me say that. What's that? Okay sorry again, but now he’s saying I should tell you my penis got bigger during quarantine. Hmm. Huge if true.
Maybe it’s my age, maybe it’s my 21 years of comedy, maybe it’s because of the pandemic, but right now I’m less concerned with where my comedy path is taking me and a little more focused on just getting back on the path and enjoying it. “The journey was the destination man.” (Passes you a joint.)
I am getting back on the path. And I’m grateful. People ignoring me while they play pool in the back of a bar is still better than people ignoring me while they accidentally unmute themselves to yell at their barking dogs in their living room while I perform on Zoom in my bedroom next to a pile of dirty clothes while my cats scratch on the door behind me to be let in. So, I’m thankful. Most of the time anyway.
I plan on being bitter as fuck in 2022 though.