My First Year of Comedy

Yesterday was the 1-year anniversary of my first time on stage—A 7-minute set at Highland Perk Coffeehouse in Highland Park, CA. I can't believe how much has changed in the last 365 days. Here's what happened exactly one year ago:

May 10, 2007 – The night before my first show. I stayed up until about 3 a.m. writing my jokes up word-for-word on the computer, complete with "(PAUSE)" written in red at every moment my comedy teacher had told me I need to slow down, because when I get nervous I talk too fast. Then, as if that wasn't anal retentive enough, I got the genius idea of editing my Word documents into separate 3x5s with each joke title so I could glue them onto index cards and shuffle through them all day at work! Oh, and I also had a small sheet printed out (glued to an index card for durability, of course) with my set list on it, that I made sure was smaller than the palm of my hand so people wouldn't notice if I had to look at it. I didn't prepare HALF this well for the SATs.

May 11, 2007 – I got to work at my temp agency, and paid ZERO attention to my work all day—even worse than usual. I clenched my ridiculously overdone note cards in my hands all day, every 10 minutes going through them again to be sure I remembered how each joke went (under the assumption that these jokes were so deep and groundbreaking I guess). I think I went to the restroom about 30 times that day, which was embarrassing because I'd have to pick up the key from the cute receptionist every time—she must have thought I had some serious digestion problems. But I wasn't dropping a record number of deuces, I was going into the bathroom, waiting til no one else was in there, and reciting my jokes out loud in the handicapped stall. I can't believe I'm actually admitting that, but that's exactly what happened. There were a few times where people walked in and I stopped abruptly, now they probably think I was talking to myself on the can.

I got to the show an hour early—again, I was a sad individual. I couldn't believe how nervous I was. It was just stand-up! I'd seen other people do it 50,000 times from working at the Irvine Improv, but I couldn't help it. I stopped at a liquor store and bought a 24oz can of Bud Light, and drank it in my parked car, by myself. That may sound like borderline alcoholism, but it was the only thing I could think of doing to make myself relax.

Fast forward to show time. The place had about 25 people in it when I was next up to take the stage. My palms were sweaty, I was nervous as hell, but as the MC (who was my comedy teacher, in retrospect this was like the safest environment I've ever performed in) was announcing me, I got this kind of attitude I used to get when I took the penalty kicks for my soccer teams. It's like, "ok, its crunch time. The pressure is on, what are you gonna do?" It's one of those situations where you're scared, but you have NO other option than to sack up and do it. So I did. My first joke was about seeing Braille on the drive thru ATM machine, which got a great laugh (I never do the bit anymore, as I later found out this has been done a trillion times) and the laughter made me calm down a bit. I went through my jokes, got pretty good laughs, but was more excited to just be done with it. My right leg was twitching my entire set and I was more concerned about that then my joke-telling, so I was more than happy to see my teacher give me the light—meaning I have one minute left.

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Now, it has been a year and two days since I first took the stage, and I have done 107 shows (I keep a sheet so I can write off the gas mileage, ok?!). I've killed, I've bombed, I've been nearly molested by a 55-year-old woman who wanted to give me oral sex in the parking lot of the Venice Whaler, I've done a 35 minute set, I've performed for 4 people in a side room in a bar with Darren Carter, I've performed at sold out Improvs, I've gone to San Diego and back on a weeknight to do a show, I've done shows in Santa Barbara on weeknights and gotten 3 hours of sleep and then gone right to work in the morning, I've had a guy rush the stage because he was offended at my joke about a homeless person, I've produced big comedy shows, I've won comedy contests, I've gotten drunk on stage (a lot), I'm running a very successful weekly room, I've driven an hour to do a show with 6 people and bombed miserably, I've made feminists laugh at blatantly chauvinistic jokes, I've done a show with a 75 year old lady that raps (shout out to SJR - The Senior Jewish Rapper!), I've begged friends to come to my shows, I've lost some friends who don't understand what I'm trying to do, I've gained a ton of friends through this, I've been able to see which friends really want you to succeed and will be there for you and support you, I've almost thrown up on stage, I've had high highs and low lows of stand-up comedy… all in 365 days. If this is just the tip of the iceberg, I CAN'T WAIT to see what's in store for the next year, and the one after that.