“New York Moments"

There are a lot of cliche’ terms involving New York City. When you’re here, it’s hard not to forget that there’s a world outside of here, too. I think there have been multiple times this month that I’ve either said or been about to say “Only in New York” to someone. As soon as you say it, you hate yourself. It’s just a dumb, arrogant thing to say. All of a sudden, you’re “that guy,” or “that girl.”

But that’s the funny thing about cliche’s - they wouldn’t be cliche’ if they didn’t get said a lot. Which is why I feel at least somewhat comfortable sharing a story from Sunday night. Even though the story includes something I will call a “New York moment.”

I was headed to a show Sunday, and right before I went underground to catch the subway, I got a text from a friend. It’s a comic in DC, and he was asking about my Montreal set this Tuesday. The interesting part was, I hadn’t told him about my set. And he hadn’t read my blog about it. No - he had heard about my Montreal set because he overheard other comics talking about it at a show in DC over the weekend.

So as I rode the train, I kind of took that fact in.

As humans, we don’t get to feel like a God very often. We’re not all-knowing, and we’re not all-important. But to me at least, one of the ways I feel closest to being “immortal” is when I find out that other people were talking about me, when I wasn’t there. Part of me wishes I didn’t get a rush from that. Though I think part of me just kind of accepts that I’m human, and that as a human, I like the brief moments when I get to feel more important than I actually am.

Let me try to explain. Here’s why hearing that people were talking about you is awesome:

1. You essentially get to see what was happening in a place, even though you weren’t there. This gives you a sense of being all-knowing, like you can see more than any human should get to.

2. More importantly, you receive proof that you exist. You exist in the whole world, not just your own. So in that way, you feel pretty damn important. Because of course, we all exist in our own world - everywhere we go, we’re there...obviously. But if you were getting talked about when you weren’t even there - then you even exist in places that you aren't! You’re like a God!

Those were the sources of the high I was feeling, as I was walking out of the subway. I’m awesome, people care about me, I exist, and I definitely matter. I was actually thinking about how I would write a happy blog in the morning, about New York, and about how I was in a good place.

Then as I bounded up the subway steps - two at a time - and landed onto the 14th street sidewalk, I almost ran into a guy walking backwards. If I were in a bad mood, I probably would have gotten annoyed. But I was in a great mood, so instead, I just good-naturedly thought about how much better I was at walking. Probably a tourist, I thought. Not a savvy New York walker, like me. That was that first initial line of thought - the one that lasts a about a second, before your brain takes in any more of your surroundings.

But then, I noticed that a lot of people were walking with him. I had my headphones in - listening to one of those songs that makes me feel better than the people I walk past - so I wasn’t hearing anything, only seeing it. My thought for about two seconds was that he must be a tour guide, even though it wasn’t a touristy part of town, and even though a lot of the “tourists” were white people. I was still safely awesome.

And then I noticed the first sign that someone was holding: “THIS IS FOR OAKLAND”

And then, as hundreds and hundreds of people poured past me, I understood. This was an “Occupy” effort, walking the streets of New York, protesting the arrests in Oakland this past week.

Riiiiiiight, I remembered. Writing a blog doesn’t make you awesome. Being talked about doesn’t make you awesome. Montreal doesn’t make you awesome. Action makes you awesome. Passion makes you awesome.

And poof. With that, my masturbatory, navel-gazing session was over.

And that’s something that I am growing to love about living in New York City. No matter how great you think you are, you are always 30 seconds away from being reminded that you are only as awesome as your present self. You are only as awesome as your actions, not anyone’s perception of you. None of us are Gods. We’re all going to die. So if you happen to be alive right now, get over yourself, and go do something.

Those “New York moments” are always literally and figuratively right around the corner. You know you’re not shit here - for worse, and for better.

Montreal Advice 2.0, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love That I’ll Never Make It

The weeks leading up to my 2011 and 2012 Montreal showcases have been vastly different. My 2011 showcase was in Austin, even though I had already moved to New York by then. I’d spent the past two years in Austin, and I was going to be down there for South by Southwest anyway, so both myself and the people running the Austin showcase agreed that I should just showcase there.

Unfortunately for me, that showcase was in early March. And after my career-goal-shifting Quarterlife Crisis Comedy Tour ended the previous November, I lost all my momentum. A “brief” trip home for Thanksgiving turned into a month-long stay with my family, and then I was so intimidated when I moved to New York that I barely got up at all. The result was that I went into my Montreal audition pretty damn rusty. A total of 10 or 12 sets in 3 months will do that.

I remember being torn at the time over whether or not I should remove myself from the showcase. I knew I was rusty, and I knew I wasn’t going to represent myself in the way I wanted to. I remember being tortured over which would be more insulting to the people that had helped get me onto the showcase: performing at less than 100 percent, or not bothering to perform at all.

In the end, I decided to go on. And the set itself went fine, in comedic terms. But in Montreal terms, it was an insult. Because it wasn’t a tight set. And a Montreal showcase is all about showing respect to the process by being prepared, and by being efficient. Dress well. Don’t lean on the mic stand. Be a cookie cutter - but be a fun-shaped cookie cutter. But: the industry sells cookies. So don’t disrespect them by deciding you’re going to be a loaf of bread out of the blue.

I think I came off like a comic trying to be a loaf of bread. And I know of at least a couple bridges that I burned because of it. I respect their decision, and it makes sense how they interpreted my actions. But I can also live with how I handled the situation. Sometimes, you put yourself in a crappy situation, and you have to deal with the consequences, one way or the other. I made my bed by losing the artistic momentum I had. And I deserved the results I got.

That was the story of my 2011 Montreal Showcase set, in a nutshell.

This is 2012. My showcase set is here, in New York City, and it’s this Tuesday, January 31.

Things are a lot different this year. For starters, by the time I perform on Tuesday, I’ll have gotten about 80 sets in this month. I’ll have done close to 30 in the week leading up to it. So say what you will - I won’t be rusty.

Though, in a way, I still don’t feel prepared. I haven’t performed in a club in almost a year. This was by design, because I wanted to go back to the drawing board, artistically and motivationally speaking. But now, I’m struggling to prepare a “disciplined” set-list for the showcase. I love connecting in the moment, which is not the goal of a Montreal New Faces set. We’re told specifically not to interact with the audience much, and not to bring up current events that won’t be relevant in 6 months.

That makes perfect sense, because the Festival is in July. And they can’t control the variables of a given room. So they aim to judge on you, as a comic, and not on you, in that room.

And that’s what gives me that nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach, as I try to prepare for Tuesday. I feel like I’ve been working hard to find myself, and to become better at being a comic, in that room, on that day, in this moment. I really have been working hard at that. I swear.

But I don’t know how good a comic I am, as a comic. I’ve never been great at tight sets. Maybe I was when I first started. But that’s always been my weakness. Pretty much since I got started, nine years ago.

Really, probably since about 6 years ago. Since I graduated from college and moved to DC. My years in DC were super-formative. And I just remember being so jealous of the comics that could just be funny. That weren’t tied down to their material.

I worked at the DC Improv as a host, a sound guy, and eventually as a (terrible) waiter. And I remember the first 3 months I worked there, it was great. Some of the best acts in the country would come and perform there. And for me, it was great to see them perform the same set 7 or 8 times. You got a rush of adrenaline when you knew they were about to tell a punchline that was going to crush. It felt like you could see into the future, in a way. It was a great rush. It made me feel powerful, in a way, because I felt like I knew something about everyone in the room that they didn’t know about themselves. One show Wednesday, one Thursday, two Friday...by the time Saturday rolled around, I knew the future, for 90 minutes at a time. It was great.

I started working in July. It was a great summer. I was 22. I spent every night at one of the best clubs in the country. I got to meet great comics. I got a free meal every shift! It was a dream job, for a kid fresh out of college.

Then in October, Bill Burr did a week. Then in November, Patrice did a week. And then everything was different. For a week at a time, I was on my toes. I didn’t know the future. Anything was possible, at every moment. Everything was in bounds.

We don’t have words for it, but what they were doing was a different art form. It was a different thing. What every other comic did, and what they did, were both called “stand-up comedy.” But, when you looked closely, it was something different. In one, you can predict the future. In the other, you can’t. Two things can’t be any more different than that.

In a way, I still haven’t recovered from those two weeks, during the fall of 2006. I haven’t figured out how to balance those two art forms. Bill Burr has figured it out, to a large extent. He does annual spots on Letterman now, and they’re usually quite good. But for someone who has seen him live, it remains frustrating to watch them. Because I know that not everything is possible. There’s a limit to what can happen. He’s willingly clipping his own wings.

What Bill has figured out, probably, is that since he’s putting on those chains, he can take them off, too. He can do a disciplined, limiting Letterman set on a Monday afternoon, and then go into a club that night and pour his absolute heart out, in whatever direction he wants it to go.

That’s what I haven’t figured out yet. I still stubbornly insist on not limiting any performance, ever. And that’s something I really struggle with. At what point is being stubborn “sticking to your guns” and “believing in yourself,” and at what point does it become “I guess he’s just never going to get on television.”

I don’t know. I don’t know. I guess all I know is that I definitely don’t know yet.

The past few days, I’ve been trying to go onstage and be efficient. I’ve been trying to run through the jokes I think I should do on Tuesday. And I just haven’t been able to. I just haven’t been able to mail in a set, and not be present in the room. It feels torturous to me. It feels like I’m being shackled.

haha man. This started as a blog about Montreal. Then it became a blog about my experiences the past year. Then it became about me working at the DC Improv five years ago. Then it became about Bill Burr and Patrice O’Neal, and stand-up philosophy. Then it became about Montreal again. And now it’s becoming a blog about how I probably have some serious emotional issues regarding discipline and freedom.

I gotta end this sometime, right? I can’t just keep pouring out my fears and doubts onto the screen, and expecting you to interpret it as something that’s mutually beneficial. Right?

Once again, I’m glad this helped both of us. You’re welcome.

Montreal Showcase

I have friends in higher places than me in the comedy world, which is why I’ll be performing on a Montreal showcase next week.

I was never invited to be on a Montreal showcase while I was doing comedy in DC, but I remember the pressure that my buddies felt as they were preparing for them. I got to see my peers suffer through that in Austin. And for myself, this will be the third year in a row that I have to figure out how to leave an impression in six minutes.

I’ve never made it to Montreal, and I’ve never even made it to any sort of secondary round of auditions. So if you’re a young comic, I think you’d be smart to take my advice with a grain of salt.

But as I’m preparing (to prepare) for my show next week, I’m trying to figure out what material to use.

I’ve been trying to ask myself this question: What do I have to offer that is unique? As in, when I’m onstage, what makes that a different experience than when any other comic is onstage?

That’s a tough question. And I don’t really know how to answer it. I think I have a pretty unique take on my experiences with Adderall. I have a pretty clever take on World War II.

Haha. Man. Do you ever have those moments where you can feel 10-years-older-you making fun of current-you? I can feel myself over-thinking this.

Here’s what I probably need to do, in reality: be really funny. Be so funny, that’s it’s “unique.” As in, be funnier than other comics.

Ha. I don’t think that’s exactly it, either. All I know is that I don’t know. That’s pretty much all I know. Two years ago, I took it too seriously, over-rehearsed, and had a rough set because I came off rigid. Last year, I was extremely present, but I came off under-rehearsed, and I practically talked my way through my set.

What will my 3rd go-through be like? I don’t know. Hilariously, when I started this blog post, I was thinking it’d be to give newer comics advice on how to prepare for their Montreal showcase set. I’m glad I provided all of you with so much clarity.

Ha. I’ll let you know how next Tuesday goes. We’ll see.