(Originally published for North By Northwestern, Oct. 13th, 2014. Some edits have been made).
Stand-up Comedy is, for most people, a very scary thing to try and do. But, if you do end up getting on stage, it also has the potential to be the most immediately gratifying, ego-boosting experience. It's like the Tindr of performance: seems very strange and uncomfortable at first, you're pretty sure you might offend someone, and when there's a match you're 100% sure you're the hottest shit in town. And when there isn't a match...you start to question your entire existence. (That last part might be more relevant to tanking on stage than it is to playing on an iPhone app).
Chances are you’ve probably seen some kind of stand-up routine during your life, whether during your violently pubescent middle school days, or recently, as you take a breather in between shotgunning cans of PBR. Maybe you were alive and conscious in 2007 and owned a Dane Cook album that still haunts you every time you go to the B.K. Lounge. Or, at the very least, you once overheard someone say the name “Louis C.K.” and just assumed it was another quirky Internet cat that makes more money than you.
I wish I had realized before my first comedic endeavor that consumption and production are two very different things. Don’t worry – this isn’t a horror story about how I embarrassed myself, peed my pants and then accidentally said something racist. In fact, if this doesn’t completely sedate you, I hope that it encourages you to try stand-up yourself.
This is the story of how I lost my virginity.
Only kidding – I’m saving myself for Harry Styles.
Kidding again – but it felt less exciting to say this is the story about how I overcame my anxiety and
found something I really enjoy doing, because that’s what happened.
At my first show, I was slotted after a 40-something-mid-life-crisis-divorcé who seemed really concerned about not being able to find a decent glory hole on the Upper East Side. Open mics and amateur nights tend to be an eclectic mix of older white guys who suffer from an uncomfortably obvious level of sexual frustration. Needless to say, my jokes were not about my ex-wife who stopped giving me blowjobs the day we got married. Instead, I talked about what I knew. I talked about what it means to be a woman who’s short enough to wear crop tops as regular t-shirts. Here’s rule number one: If you can tell a decent story, you can do stand-up comedy.
What audiences react to is sincerity. Which is not to say you can’t embellish what you say – because you can – just as long as your intent is genuine. I’m not a professional, nor do I have decades of experience on stage, but I think it’s safe to say that everyone knows the feeling of wanting to be funny and trying to make people laugh. This might be the most obvious statement of the century, but that’s all stand-up is: looking for the best way to make people laugh. And there’s no reason to be afraid of that or to think it’s unattainable. I guarantee you that at one point or another, somebody other than your mom has laughed at something you said.
I was so nervous for that first show that I still get nervous thinking about how nervous I was. It was like PTSD, if that weren’t a serious medical disorder that I just likened to a time I spoke into a microphone. The point is: I was a mess. I had practiced all week. I had spent the whole day pacing around my room memorizing and rehearsing. I had written my set list on the palm of my hand and on a bar napkin I kept in my back pocket. The lights were hot and blinding, and I made the rookie mistake of wearing a shirt you could see my pit stains through. But despite all this, it went really well.
Actually, because of all the nerves and the sweat and the shaking-so-much-I-almost-lost-control-of-my-bowels thing it went really well. My nerves allowed me to be present and excited. The audience is always smarter than you think they are, and they’ll inevitably reflect how you feel. If you’re happy and excited to be there, they will be, too. That’s rule number two: Nerves are good and grounding.
Rule number three: Don’t assume the audience is automatically on your side, so get them to be. Convince them you’re worth listening to. That first show actually went so well that the next time I went up the butterflies had subsided and I was overconfident in my set. There was an immediately noticeable difference in the reaction of the crowd. If you alienate them or offend anyone, they’ll stop listening to you completely. I’ll admit the line between great crowd work and blatantly disrespecting your audience is a fine one, but as Abraham Lincoln once said: If it ain’t a learning experience, it ain’t worth your time.
So here’s rule number four: Everybody – and I mean everybody – tanks. And it’s a good thing because that’s how you develop and refine your work. People like Louis C.K. are so good at what they do only because they spent enough time being bad at it. You’ll leave that dingy, brick-lined basement that’s a functional laundromat by day and a semi-functional comedy club at night knowing what works and what doesn’t – and wanting to get it right the next time. And even if you don’t intend to work in comedy, trying your hand at stand-up is a great way to teach yourself how to be a better writer and communicator – which is vital for any profession you might go into.
It's an oddly comforting phenomenon - knowing that the best of the best have been where you are at one point or another. When you're surrounded by 12 year old fashion prodigies (Tavi Gevinson) and 20 year old SNL rookies (Pete Davidson), it's very easy to become frustrated and consumed with thoughts of "well if I haven't made it by now, then it's never gonna work." But that's the kind of anxiety that stand-up has taught me to sucker-punch to the face, either just when I'm watching other people do it, or when I'm performing in those dingy laundromats. Because when they laugh, it's not just that they think you're funny, it's that they feel the same way you do or they've had the same experience. You haven't just made a joke, you've made someone understand that their weird, fucked up little brain isn't the only weird, fucked up little brain on this hunk of rock and lava. Or, you're just really good at making fart noises in your armpit. Either way, you're doing something right.
Plus, if you have a few great jokes up your sleeve, drunk people will think you’re the hottest thing since Dane Cook and buy you lots of gin and tonics.
(If you want to know more about comedians, watch Mike Birbiglia’s Sleepwalk With Me and Jenny Slate’s balls-out, boss-ass performance in Obvious Child. Interview collection And Here’s The Kicker: Conversations with 21 Top Humor Writers on their Craft and Sarah Silverman’s The Bedwetter are excellent reads.)
