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Keep Tightening Material

Last Saturday was the first time I got consistent laughs throughout my set. The laughs weren’t as hard as when I Killed (I think it was due to a smaller audience), but they kept on coming.

In comedy, “to tighten material” means “to shorten it”. And that’s what I’ve been doing. The constant laughter in the video is a direct reflection of that. Editing myself down to fewer and fewer words about a topic is one of the most painful things for me (and many writers) to do.

I have an irrational emotional attachment to my words, especially to punch lines that I find funny but the audience doesn’t react to. Although it takes me longer to dump extra words than it should, I have been doing it, and I’m going to continue to do it, even if it feels like I’m murdering one of my children every time I hit the delete key.

Here’s the set:

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