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I mean, I guess I started during the comedy boom, so it was literally like, on Sunday you could decide you wanted to be a comic, and on Monday, you could be on stage
I mean, I guess I started during the comedy boom, so it was literally like, on Sunday you could decide you wanted to be a comic, and on Monday, you could be on stage.
I had some friends that tried it down there, and I went to a couple of open mics, and I just kind of got this... this sick urge to try it instead of just watching it.
Some venues are better run than others. Sometimes it's just maddening to deal with full dinners being served in front of your face. You can have a good or bad show anywhere.
I was probably just trying to be Dennis Miller, but without the vocabulary to actually be Dennis Miller. I guess I was just less interesting than I am now, if I am interesting at all
I was probably just trying to be Dennis Miller, but without the vocabulary to actually be Dennis Miller. I guess I was just less interesting than I am now, if I am interesting at all.
Only lately, like within the last few years, have I had people actually do an impression of me to me, which weirds me out to think of what they have picked up on, without ever realizing it myself
Only lately, like within the last few years, have I had people actually do an impression of me to me, which weirds me out to think of what they have picked up on, without ever realizing it myself.
There's people that are just in awe of what you do, and then there are people who just think it's garbage. And I think there are people who are just uncomfortable seeing someone have fun with their job
There's people that are just in awe of what you do, and then there are people who just think it's garbage. And I think there are people who are just uncomfortable seeing someone have fun with their job.
I mean, I've had bartenders and waiters and waitresses make a comment about a joke of mine, like pointing out some sort of logic error or something that I've never even thought about, and they're right.
I thought they may have presumed too much knowledge of certain things for people who are not comedians. Like Montreal. A comic understands what it is and its importance, but someone else may not know about it.
People don't understand that that's really what it is. They're looking for a magic phone number or something. And to a certain extent, I understand that, because comedy is treated so much as a stepping stone by a lot of people.
I mean, I guess I realized subconsciously that this is what I should be doing before I realized it, consciously. Verbally, I don't think I had committed to it, even though I was driving everywhere, every night, just trying to get on stage.
I would call it a comedy variety show. We have some people just doing straight standup. We usually try to have one musical act of sort. So its just people being funny in different ways, not just sketch, not just standup, not just characters, all of those things.
Comedy clubs are a bit more expensive. That's the problem with some of these places. But the flipside of that is, if you do too many shows for free or $5, then people don't understand why you can't fly to Milwaukee and do a show for a $3 cover. That won't even pay for my flight.
Sometimes they're all collectively thinking, "Wow, we're kinda a shitty audience," and then if you point it out, it's kinda like, "Hey, I know what's going on. We know what's going on up here. Or what's not going on. And I'm letting you know that I know. And now we can fix this."
I want a room that I can definitely pack out. I don't want to sweat that part, "Am I gonna have enough people?" So I usually pick like a hundred, a relatively small room. Also, I'm looser in a small room. I don't want to record an album in front of a thousand people, not that I could draw a thousand, but I just want a room that I can really work back to front. That's just a very comfortable place for me to be loose.
I've had shows where you think, "Is this going well? I can't tell," and then you say goodnight and you get this ovation. They're sorta like a theater audience. I've learned that much; that they're not always going to be doing backflips - but I'll never figure it out. Because sometimes you walk up there, and they're so excited, and then other times, it's just... But sometimes an audience is bad, and you can tell them they're bad, and that sort of breaks the ice a bit.
I think people have this "It can't hurt to ask" mentality, which is true on some level. I get comics like, "Hey, will you look at these videos of me on MySpace?" I was like, "Well, who's gonna benefit from that? What if I don't like you?" No, I'm gonna write to a stranger and say, "Hi. You like me, and I don't like you. And now I feel bad when I didn't need to feel bad, because you put me on the spot." Or like, "Can I open for you?" Well, I've never seen you work, so no. I certainly made awkward mistakes when I was starting out, and they're just trying to have a career.
There are certain things that are probably too mean. I don't particularly like fat jokes. Those kind of bother me. But I guess what I was trying to say is, if I said I would never laugh at this, you could probably dig around and find a situation where I did laugh. I try not to be a hypocrite with that one. I find when there's a controversy about someone saying something offensive, I usually take the angle of, "Well, I don't know if that was offensive; it just wasn't funny." I generally don't gasp, "Oh my God!" I think people have been getting raked over the coals lately.
The problem with a lot of comedy clubs is not that they are a comedy club; it's just the cheesy way they're presenting themselves. That's why a lot of people have a problem with them. If you're a relatively unknown comedian, you can play at a comedy club, you might play to hundreds of people every night. But if you try to make a concert event out of it, and try to play a rock club or something, where you might play to 10 people or no people. And the flipside of that is, that's also a great thing, to play to people who are your fans. Some people are too hard on the comedy clubs.