10 Thoughts About 10 Years in Standup
NOTE: This is long. You don’t have to read it.
SECOND NOTE: I wrote this in June/July 2023 but never published it. I’ve done one show since writing this and feel exactly the same, so thought the time was right from an emotional separation standpoint.
I officially started doing stand up comedy in May 2013. Comedy has changed a ton since then. I have probably changed even more. When I started, it was my dream and ambition to become a full-time comedian. Now, it is my dream and ambition to be in bed at 9:30 p.m. most nights.
This isn’t to say I’m completely done doing standup comedy forever. But it isn’t really something one could do halfway–especially in New York–and for the past year and a half or so, I’ve been treading water in an industry that requires a multi-decade head-first dive. With a baby due at the end of the summer, I’ve decided to take a step back; possibly for good. We’ll see how strong the pull still is in a few months.
This decision has probably been in the making since March 2020; ironically, the time my standup career seemed to have the most inertia and promise. The rhythmic change the COVID years provided, combined with the inevitability of getting older, allowed for the time and space to come to the conclusion that the ruthless demands of standup are in direct conflict with many of the things I want out of life in my 30s, 40s, and beyond.
Standup is incredible and there’s obviously a reason many people ruin their lives to perform on stage. It’s a rush like no other. For some, it's a salvation from a life of destruction from drugs, bad family situations, and general human pain and suffering. And when done right, it seems to be one of the few ways to make a living simply being yourself.
But it’s also a life that can pretty quickly become dark and desolate, the human version of that cold, half-eaten mozzarella stick sitting in the plastic basket with the red and white parchment paper long after closing time.
I wanted to write something about my observations in my 10 years in comedy, so here it goes. Disclaimer, I am not trying to represent all people in all of comedy whatsoever. This is more just a therapeutic exercise for me to cap my career/this juncture of my life:
1. Talent is 10%. Hard Work Is 80%. The Last 10% Is Just Sticking Around
You can’t really get far without talent (I obviously tried pretty hard), but in the grand scheme of things talent alone isn’t really going to get you anywhere. I remember listening to Michael Che where he said that out of his 6 siblings, two of his older brothers were funnier than him–but that they knew they were funny, so they never worked at being funny.
I find that to be exactly what standup is. You have to have something in the form of being funny, but relentless work will beat natural talent in the long run.
What really makes a career is single-minded focus. One comedian, who is now successfully touring the country with 200,000+ followers on instagram, told me basically all he did since he started was to figure out “how to keep this going.” Meaning, intentional action dedicated to advancing his career, literally moment-to-moment.
And then what really really makes a career is simply not quitting. The longer you don’t quit, the more likely you’ll get a really great opportunity that will make your career. But that comes with immense sacrifices, as will be discussed later in this treatise (mostly see #s 9/10).
Steve Martin says to be “so good you’re undeniable.” But in reality that only works for 3-5 people per generation.
I think more accurately, it's never stop knocking on the door; eventually you’ll get let in, and all that hard work will mean that your talent will be able to hold its own.
Obviously though don’t actually knock on random people’s doors, because we all know what happens in this country when you do that.
2. An Incredible Network of Loose Ties
For awhile, walking around Lower Manhattan was like walking the halls of a large high school. You’re always running into other comics you know. It feels like one giant party. I’ve noticed people who don’t do standup always seem to be jealous of this; it’s a unique way to experience the city.
If you’re at it long enough you’ll run into people you haven’t seen in years—and you’ll pick back up right where you left off even though one of you is now bald (me) and the other person had to move back to Indiana for awhile because when you do comedy for long enough, family members die and life in general keeps on happening.
It’s a bond not quite on the level of fighting in a war together. But it’s probably similar to going on a hike in extreme heat, having your phones die, and almost not making it back. It transcends many of the walls that society imposes on person-to-person relationships over time. It’s very beautiful.
3. Performing for the Room (2013) vs. Performing for the Algorithm (2023)
One of the reasons I started doing standup is because I was working for internet blogs that were essentially clickbait as the genre was being formalized. My worth was measured mostly on web traffic. As a 22 year old genius who was convinced I was a brilliant writer, it was soul-crushing. I could probably even tell you 7 Soul-Crushing Realities of Working for a Content Factory.
So I gravitated towards standup because it was this creative thing that was, at the time, completely removed from all of that.
Forces were of course trying make standup more “online” by then; but standup seemed to be succeeding as a holdout. It was just you in a room, and there was this intoxicating secrecy to it all. What happened in the room stayed in the room. It was liberating. It was the anti-internet.
A few months ago, I remember overhearing a conversation of comics talking about how they reverse-engineer their stand up to “do well” on TikTok in excruciating detail. It then devolved into how to post random content on TikTok to “do well”, in hopes of getting more followers that would then translate into standup opportunities.
It hit me that stand ups were now just content creators feeding that same insatiable beast. Standup has somehow become more “online” than writing clickbait articles on the internet.
4. The Progression of Comedy
Open Mics
24 year olds who are sweaty + societal outcasts, performing to each other in one of the most depressing environments conceived by mankind.
Bar Shows
People in their 20s performing to people in their 20s
Entry-Level Clubs
Enthusiastic comics on the upswing + jaded comics who think they’re too good to be there, performing to hecklers and people who matched on dating apps
Super-Secret Speakeasy Cool People Shows
Comedians who were popular in high school, and then briefly pretended they weren’t popular upon starting comedy, only to create the same popular-kid ecosystem within comedy, performing to people who should have a house and kids by now + 1-2 Comedy Central reps
** I topped out right about here, so the rest is mostly conjecture
A-List Clubs → Headlining Clubs around the Country
Real comics performing to real people
Theaters, and Beyond
A legitimately great comic performing to diehard fans + reluctant people who were forced to come by their spouse.
5. You vs. The Character of You
Most people on stage are doing characters of themselves. I admire Sebastian Maniscalco. I have never met the guy, but his onstage character seems to be an exaggeration of what he’s probably generally like. Bill Burr is another example.
Then there are people who truly just seem to be themselves (I am thinking of Dave Chappelle and George Carlin), but that seems to be the ultimate level of standup that is reserved for like 2 people every 30 years.
One thing I’ve noticed in the past few years from my peers is that some people are leaning into identities that are rewarded by the algorithm and/or the industry. Comics do this in order to further their career, but possibly to the detriment of their development as a human.
Whether it's the “weed/shrooms/booze comic”, comics fully leaning into hookup culture and dating apps, a certain political bent, etc., it’s a type of positioning that over time makes it harder to grow out of a previous version of yourself; who you are now is not who you will be in 5 years, and no form of artistic expression should pigeonhole you so that you become unable to express who you’ve evovled into.
The nefarious part of all of this is that much of the time, these personas start from a genuine place of self-expression. But then the rewards, dopamine, and “industry positioning” force people to remain on what’s become a runaway train. (I imagine this is how most political commentators end up the way they are.)
I think that the best way to balance developing your persona/vs. maintaining your human authenticity is to go the Sebastian Maniscalco route–just get great at being the exaggerated version of yourself.
But that often takes decades to reap the massive rewards, and the algorithm is a-calling.
6. It’s Hard to Have an Abundance Mindset (and Much Easier to Have a Scarcity Mindset)
This is one of my least favorite things about standup. There are people like Joe Rogan who constantly talk about having an abundance mindset in comedy; comics helping other comics, everyone giving everyone spots, and growing together. The pie is ever-expanding, and everyone should have a piece of it.
This is how it should be. Of course it helps when you can have as many guests as you want on the most popular talk show in the history of the world.
In reality, there can only be a fixed amount of comics on a given show, and a fixed amount of regulars at a given club in a given city. The supply and demand of comics seems to be ever growing. So even if there might be more opportunities to get on stage, there also seems to be more and more comics every week.
Where I probably went wrong is that I didn’t want to depend on other people giving me spots. So for many years I helped run a comedian-managed club in Greenwich Village. This put me in a great position to get significantly more stage time than the average comic at my level, but it also meant that my peers viewed me as much as a producer, or someone to extract from. I was in a position where comics were constantly hitting me up for spots, and while I was able to provide some comics a nice gravy train, it mostly felt like I was letting people down.
The reality is that there can only be 6-7 comics on each lineup for a showcase show, and the supply and demand meant that it was just not possible to give everyone what they wanted out of me.
I’ve noticed that there are many cliques of 3-5 comics who push themselves and form an abundance mindset within themselves (at the Lantern, we tried to replicate this with 20-30 comics), but city-wide this is impossible.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve understood that it’s very important to me to be in an industry where it’s encouraged to develop and grow as other people around you grow. It might just be a me problem, but I couldn’t accomplish this in comedy.
7. Comedy Is Cool and Professionalized, Which is Probably Bad for Comedy
Colin Quinn, one of the best comics around, has said this in many forms on podcasts and the like. Hopefully I don’t mess up his point, but: for many years, comedy was for losers and outcasts. It was for people who couldn’t really do anything else with their life, or were drawn to the margins of society. Then at some point (maybe in the mid-2000s?--I’ve heard a lot of people point to the documentary Comedian at a turning point), it became cool and sexy to be a comedian. Similar to what has happened in the restaurant industry with chefs with Kitchen Confidential, and to what happened in journalism after Watergate.
The fact that I did comedy for so long is probably a good example of this. I was raised in an upper-middle class suburb, went to a good college, and had no huge trauma growing up. Based on my life inertia, I probably should have gone to law school instead of a comedy career. Sure I am proudly Jewish (typically huge for comedy), but I’ve concluded that the Jews of my generation are significantly less funny than the past few, given that we’ve collectively succeeded in America, are mostly removed from immigrant struggle, and only know the terrors of the Holocaust from our (mostly now dead) grandparents. It’s in our DNA, but our DNA is collectively now becoming more about nice sushi restaurants.
Anyway, this isn’t to say people from more comfortable backgrounds can never do comedy. But the fact that it’s increasingly perceived as a legitimate career path for someone who didn’t have a rough upbringing is probably not a good thing for comedy. Comedy exists as a check on the status quo; so when it becomes an arm of the status quo, it’s bad for everyone.
8. People Who Get Ahead Are Sociopaths, but People Who Really Get Ahead Seem to Be Genuine
Some percentage of comedians are incredibly manipulative and have this power to figure out how to extract exactly what they want out of you, and then move on at the exact moment that you’re no longer useful to them.
I’ve seen many brilliantly execute this sort of strategy to climb up the ladder. Many of these types think they are geniuses–and they are in this specific twisted sense–but in reality everyone knows what they’re doing.
I find that this works extremely well, but to a point. Once you get to a certain level, it seems like this type of deranged behavior either maxes out or catches up with you. It’s also, at least in my opinion, an extremely sad existence.
On the other hand, I’ve found that really great comics don’t ever seem to play this game. Perhaps they’ve reached an enlightened state, or the amount of emotional intelligence and awareness they innately possess is what enabled them to reach that very high level in the first place. I’ll never know.
9. You Have to Go “Full Loser”
My friend Jordan came up with this, and I am stealing it from him, because I am a comedy snake. I find it unbelievably spot on.
What he meant (I think) is that in order to really succeed at comedy, you need to have absolutely no shame, and accept that many people in your life are going to look at you in complete pity–until of course, you reach a certain height of success and those same people suddenly change gears, admiring and respecting you beyond measure.
I’ve heard the entrepreneur Alex Hormozi talk about something very similar when starting a business; everybody loves you when you’re already successful, but not before, when you actually need it.
One example: When I was starting out, I connected with another comedian visiting New York. We friended each other on Facebook. He was posting statuses constantly; both jokes, and promoting shows. They were all getting like 1-2 likes each. I felt secondhand embarrassment about the whole thing–he was literally posting into the void. But the guy kept pushing. A few years later, I remember seeing his name headlining a major club. The guy is now hugely successful, booked out headlining pretty much every weekend through the rest of the year. I am the one who should be embarrassed.
You have to be willing to bark for two hours on a random street corner and run into an ex-girlfriend with her much cooler current boyfriend while doing so. You have to be willing to miss important family events, good friends’ weddings, and major life rituals that your family will hate you for skipping. You have to accept that you won’t always be there for the most important people in your life.
Without these great sacrifices, it’s difficult to maintain your career momentum. And as all comedians know, for many, many years you basically need to say yes to virtually every opportunity that comes your way.
10. At Least for Me, Being a Great Comedian Is In Direct Conflict with Being a Great Parent (and to a Lesser Extent, a Great Spouse and Family Member)
The example I keep coming back to is that I can’t justify leaving my wife with the baby on a Tuesday night to do an unpaid show at a bar called Otto’s Shrunken Head; or to “hang out” at a club in hopes of getting up.
(Note: this is from a male comic’s perspective about men in relation to all of this; from my vantage point, this seems to be exponentially more complicated for female comics)
In my view, your career needs to have reached a certain level—one where you’re more in the driver's seat as opposed to striving to get there–in order to have kids without it really hurting your progression too much. This is why you see male comics doing the marriage and kids thing a little bit later. When I see comics do that, it has the sense of making up for lost time, like squeezing in the last stop on a food tour. (Everyone’s life is completely different of course and no one thing does and should work for everyone, but this was not what I wanted.)
I ultimately concluded that the experience of starting a family with my wife was going to be exponentially more fulfilling than building my life around comedy. This is not something I am willing to compromise on, or not engage in to the fullest of my ability.
There also is the question of money. While there is great money to be made in comedy and comics should be intentional and smart about that, in my opinion the primary motivation of a comedy career should never be about money. Given the fact that my path likely wasn’t going to yield large financial returns in the near future, I accepted that this was not the best way to be the best family member I can be and help my wife and I reach our goals for our family, which are in part financial.
There is only one person I personally know (what’s up, rhymes with Bus!), who seems to have pulled off this impossible “3 options, choose 2” dilemma of being a great standup, parent, and spouse all at the same time. Some comics are able to be good parents but terrible spouses. I’ve noticed that divorced comics are able to make raising kids and comedy work, since they can do comedy every night when they don’t have the kids. But that of course, precludes a successful marriage. If you want to be a truly great spouse and parent, the only sensible option seems to let the comedian side suffer.
There’s also the reality that when you do comedy it’s not just your life—it’s everyone’s life around you that gets sucked into the orbit of your comedy. Plans are built around your shows. Quality time is a no-go on nights and weekends, AKA when quality time tends to happen.
In our 20s my wife and I made it work, because there were no children involved, and your 20s is a time where you can just hustle nonstop and never burn yourself out; it’s much harder to pull off in your 30s and beyond, especially as a family unit. Some can definitely do it, but it wasn’t the direction my wife and I were heading.
In New York, I’ve found this balance to be especially difficult. There are some mid-level comedy cities where taking a step back might be workable, but there is no such thing as moderation in NYC. You’re either dedicating your entire life to standup, or you’re wasting other people’s valuable stage time.
When this really hit home for me, was a few months ago when I was telling some comics that I was having a baby. Some comics walking in came over, and heard people congratulating me. They thought I was booked on some important industry thing in comedy, and asked what I had “gotten.”
When I told them I was actually having a baby, I sensed the mood shift; I was no longer a threat, and my accomplishment of continuing the human species with a stable partner was not a big deal relative to getting a callback for the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival held in Montreal, whose mascot is some weird green monster that I’ve never understood.
I had known for awhile before that; but this interaction fully confirmed my priorities were no longer aligned with the space I was spending much of my time in.
***
I’ve had a great time, and wouldn’t trade it for anything. I’m looking forward to what’s next. Stay tuned.