Category: Comedy

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Treat it like a job

After Sunday’s show, a few of us grabbed some drinks and started discussing how each of us goes about writing.

One comment which I can sympathize with was that writing is a “little guy talking to me”. This is what Steven Pressfield would call your “inner muse”. Basically, when you’re sitting (or standing) and writing (or coming up with material aloud), you feel as if it’s someone other than “you” that’s giving you the ideas.

Another interesting thing I learned about writing techniques was most comics there do the standard suggested technique of writing premises down, then coming up with punchlines, then cutting down on words and finding the funniest part. While one comic comes up with punchlines first, then writes the premises. I think I’ll try this method soon to see if it works for me.

The last thing that struck me about the conversation was how a few of the comics put in 2-3 hours a day writing. One said, “If you want to make it, you gotta treat this like a second job.”

Wanna try stand-up comedy yourself? Consider taking my NYC Comedy Class or booking a private one-on-one comedy coaching session (in person or via Zoom)

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Using New Material

I decided to do a set of all new material I wrote yesterday. Two things I learned about doing new jokes:

1) Try to embed new material in the middle of an older set which you know gets laughs, you can never be sure how new material will do, and if it’s all new, flat out bombing isn’t out of the question

2) Make sure to say your new material out loud a couple of times, even if it’s to yourself to ensure you have a flow, you don’t want the stage to be the first time anyone has heard it aloud

*The comments after my set are from other comics, this is a “writer’s room / feedback” type of mic

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The Decision Point

“I reached the point where I had to decide, do I want to persue comedy full time, or do I want to keep my corporate job?  I decided to stay with the corporate job.

As I was getting better, the guys higher up than me kept telling me that I was going to reach a point where I couldn’t hold down a full time job and keep progessing in comedy. I didn’t understand what they meant until after I’d been passed to a few clubs and was doing regular paid spots all over the city every night. 

This was actually my first time on stage in two years. I only came back for a little practice before I do a friend’s benefit show. This is a one time thing though, I’m not making a comeback.”

This guy showed up yesterday at the Sunday Mic and killed at a room full of comics. He seemed at peace with his decision, but I think talking to other comics afterwards hit him with some nostalgia and he may have even reconsidered his path for a second.

When I reach the decision point that he had, I hope for two things: 1) That a job in academia will allow me to do comedy, teaching and research without having to give any of those up and 2) If I can’t do both, I’ll man up and go for the chance at comedy

Here’s an interesting decision tree I came across that I want to share:

Do I want to do stand up professionally? Yes. Will it likely end in diasaster? Only if being poor for a while is considered disaster. And if I’m at the level where I can do it professionally, it sure as hell will make for a good story.

What would you do in a similiar situation if your passion/serious hobby and day job came to a crossroads and you had to pick one? Is there a wrong decision to make? What questions do you ask yourself to make a major decision?

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Traveling

I hate traveling for my current day job and I’m wondering if I’ll like traveling for comedy any better.

My current job’s traveling:

I leave every Monday morning and return Thursday night, usually going to the same city for weeks on end. Most of the people I interact with are also traveling in every week, so there’s no social circle to plug into. I work 830am until 6 or 7pm, and by the time I go to the gym and grab some food, it’s dark and I can’t see anything in the city, except the bars, which are almost always dead on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights. 

Comedy traveling, as I imagine it:

You usually perform 2-3 weekend nights in a row in the same location. You either do some local radio/tv during the day to promote the show, or you get the day to sleep in, take in the city and prepare for the show. The bars are packed, you can bring a friend with you for the trip, go out with the other comedians, or since the bars are packed, at least have more people to strike up a conversation with in town. This sounds slightly better, but I can see it being tiresome. Especially if you go on a one or two month tour. Then again, you can treat these two months as an adventure, since you could rest for a few weeks before going on tour again. In my current business travel, you don’t get a month to take a break from traveling, ever.

 

This post will be interesting to look back on once I’ve been traveling for comedy gigs to see if my expectations match up with reality.

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Are there any topics that are off limits?

A friend of mine: “Basically I’m an admin in sexual health for men with prostate cancer. They have erection issues and all of that fun stuff after the chemo.”

Me: “So your work has a barrel sized viagra dispenser?”

Friend: “Nah, their issues are more serious, they either need injections straight to the penis, have curvature that requires surgery or worse. I also get to ask people about the intensity of their erections on a scale of 1 to 10. 5 is where they’re barely able to penetrate.”

Me: “Wow, you must really like boners… This could be comedy gold. If you could take such an uncomfortable topic, and make an appropriate joke that releases the tension, it’ll kill.”

Friend: “Nah, nah. I don’t like to talk about work during stand up. It’s not good to make fun of people with cancer… Almost everyone knows someone who’s had it… AIDS jokes are okay though.”

Me: “I don’t think any topic is off limits. Just some topics are much harder to make funny. But those topics have the most payoff potential. And this is so uncomfortable, if you could make it inoffensive, it’ll be great.”

DISCUSSION FOCUS: What topics, if any, do you consider off limits for comedy? Death? Diseases that you can’t avoid? 9/11? God? Why? If nothing is off limits, why?

Wanna try stand-up comedy yourself? I teach a Comedy Class in NYC. I also do private one-on-one comedy coaching (in-person or via Zoom).

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