Encouragement vs. Discouragement, part 1

I’ve lost count exactly, but I got 90-100 sets in in January, and 70-80 in February. Which puts me on track to do about 1000 sets this year.

You don’t realize it night to night, but that experience adds up. Each night can be so similar to the last, and each week can feel so similar, that you don’t realize that you’re getting better the whole time. You don’t realize that it makes a difference that you’re hustling.

I did an 8-minute set at a club two weekends ago, and it was the most comfortable I’ve ever felt in a club setting. I started a conversation with one couple, and riffed with them. But unlike in the past, I was able to transition that into bits that I’ve come up with and been working on the past few months. When I got the 7-minute light, I still hadn’t stopped the original conversation, but it had expanded to a conversation with the crowd as a whole, and I’d been able to go into 3 or 4 of the bits I’ve written over the past few months. All without having to give up the conversation. I was able to crush my set, without ever stopping my conversation with the crowd. It might have been the easiest set I’ve ever done.

I don’t know if I could have done that for an hour. But I know I wasn’t slowing down yet. It felt really good. And it was something I know for a fact I couldn’t have done six months ago.

It was 8-minutes that will hopefully fuel me. It can be hard to keep your morale up here, night to night. The first time you do 5 sets in a night, it’s exhausting, but exhilarating. When you’re doing 4 or 5 sets a night for the 3rd time that week...it loses its novelty. It’s just exhausting.

Let’s talk about that in part 2.

Encouragement vs. Discouragement, part 2

This is a continuation from Part 1.

It’s March 7. I’ve been in New York since I got back from home on January 3. I took one night off in January, and one in February. I’ve lost track of the numbers, but I did between 70-100 sets each month, which puts me on track for about 1000 sets this year.

In a way, that should be really encouraging. I’m working hard.

Objectively, I can see that. When I look at myself from an outsider’s perspective, I can see that I’m growing. And that I’m evolving as a comic. I’m getting better. Being in New York is a good thing for my career. It’s going to provide me with a ton of opportunities, as I continue to work hard here.

But night to night, as yourself, it’s hard to see that. Because one night doesn’t seem much different than the previous night. When you’re in the flip-book, you can only see one page at a time. You don’t get to feel secure by seeing that you’re moving. You just don’t.

So that’s what I’m starting to experience now. I’ve had a wonderful four or five months.

I’ll probably write a longer entry about this sometime, but let me briefly explain something: You know that “New York Comedy Scene” you’ve heard so much about? Well, it doesn’t actually exist. In reality, there are probably 8 or 10 different scenes here, if not more. They just all happen to exist within the same city. But they aren’t the same scene. You could become the king or queen of one of those scenes, and 80 percent of the comics in New York will still have no idea you exist.

This past October, I decided to embrace the scene that revolves around The Creek and The Cave, a restaurant/bar/comedy haven in Queens. In four months, I’ve hustled, and tried to be vulnerable onstage, and tried to stay true to my gut. And from what I can tell, I’ve become one of the more respected comics of that open-mic scene.

That’s very encouraging, and I’m trying to make sure I appreciate the respect of my peers, and embrace my role as one of the leaders of our particular open-mic scene.

But it can be tough. Tough, because even during the past 4 or 5 months - when I’ve been making so much progress - it mostly felt like nothing was happening. No one day was noticeably different than the day before.

The word I’d use is numb. You start to feel numb to what you’re doing. What you used to give a shit about, that’s just “Tuesday” now. So what do you do while you wait for a definable change? Is that numbness a good thing, because it means you’re so bulletproof, you can do 20 sets a week without going crazy? Or is feeling numb, and not even noticing doing 20 sets a week...is that what crazy is?

Does that make any sense? When you stop feeling pain, is that being tough? Or are you in denial that you’re going paralyzed?

I don’t know. Logically, I can look back at the past 5 months and see that I’m more respected. I’ve grown. But what is there on paper? What proof is there that I’m in any different a spot than I was? What proof is there that I’m stronger now, not just feeling less?

A huge part of this comedy game is not being crazy. But another huge part is not going crazy while you’re playing. Sometimes I feel like New York is the best place to go to find out whether or not you are crazy. But it’s also the easiest place to go crazy.

That’s New York. That’s stand-up. That’s life. It’s encouragement and discouragement, both at once. It's tough to figure stuff out sometimes. I don’t know what my own flip-book looks like.

Tuesdays with Hustle

Tuesdays have become my day to hustle. I’m not sure why. I guess it just worked out that way, because there are so many mics, and some of them happen to be clustered together, both time-wise and location-in-the-city-wise. So it allows me to run around a little easier.

Last week I got six sets in. And as I was getting ready to go out a few minutes ago, I ran through the timeline for tonight. And I thought this thought:

“You know, if I play it perfectly next Tuesday, I think I might be able to get 10 sets in.”

I doubt I will - I’d be lucky to get 8 in, really. But just the fact that I could even have that thought - that’s why I moved here. I moved here because I might be able to get 10 sets in next Tuesday. That’s insane. There might be literally one city in the world where you can have that thought. 10 sets on a Tuesday.

It’s also, literally, insane - at least a little bit. I wonder how many comics alive have done 10 sets in 1 night. 100? 200? 300? 500? Maybe? I don’t know. 50? It’s doable. But how many have ever actually done it? How many bother?

That’s the thing. You can’t control what people think of you. But you can control how hard you work. I need to write more offstage. And I need to do a lot of things better, if I want to evolve and really put my stamp on comedy. But I think I can be a hard worker. I think I can do that. There’s more to it than that. But I think I can be the guy that got up 10 times on a Tuesday. Just because I could.

Please Remain Calm...

So it’s 2 p.m. on Thursday, February 16, and I’m seriously considering taking tonight off.

I guess it’s a pretty good sign that I’m writing a blog about possibly taking a night off. That means that going out has become the norm.

In fact, it’s become more than the norm. I’ve done at least one set - and more often, 3 or 4 - for the past 26 nights in a row. The last day I didn’t get onstage was January 20, when I took advantage of Free-Fridays at the Museum of Modern Art. I had told the girl I went with that I was going to leave early for a mic, but I was so inspired by everything, I decided to just shut up and enjoy an evening. I got over my I-guess-you-don’t-really-love-comedy neuroses, I had a good time, with some good conversation, and then we went to a bar and made out some. It was a really nice night off.

Since then, I’ve had 26 straight work nights. And the thing is, I didn’t plan it this way. There have been at least 3 or 4 nights during the past month where I’ve said “Tonight, I’m taking the night off. I’m going to be a human being today, not a comic.”

But then, as the clock pushes forward, I get antsy. And the fact is, even when I try not to go out, I just end up wanting to go do a set somewhere. I told myself I’d take Super Bowl Sunday off. But as I was watching the game, I was just bored. I didn’t know those guys...why should I care which color wins? So I just skipped the second half, and went to a mic.

Actually, in that case, I’m pretty happy I did. I would have been miserable just sitting there, watching other people follow their dreams. But I wouldn’t mind having more of those Museum-of-Modern-Art days, too. And I think there’s a happy medium in there, somewhere.

I think that’s the terrifying thing, as a comic. You don’t know where the medium is. I know people that go months at a time without taking a night off. Without being reminded of what it feels like to not perform. And I think there’s something healthy about being reminded of that. It’s like when you have a crush, and the person doesn’t like you back. It reminds you that on the rare occasions when that feeling is mutual, you should really enjoy it.

So I’m at least considering taking tonight off, if only to remember what unrequited love feels like. What if I love stand-up, but it doesn’t love me? What if I don’t get what I want in life? How much does my heart claw upward, scratching at my throat? How wrong does it feel for me to not do stand-up?

It’s funny to me that so much is made of comedians having vices. The greats of the past often struggled with addiction, whether it was alcohol, hard drugs, or in Mort Sahl’s case, The Warren Report (that’s the best joke that maybe literally no one will ever get).

What rarely gets brought up, though, is the idea that you can be addicted to stand-up comedy itself.

And honestly, I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Or if it’s just a thing.

Would you say that Joe Paterno was “addicted” to being the head coach at Penn State? I didn’t know the guy, but as far as I can tell, Joe Paterno tried to be a good person. He wanted to do good. But I’d say Paterno was addicted to being Penn State’s coach, and that’s what caused him to make such horrible, misguided decisions when he was confronted with the allegations of child abuse. He had gotten to a point where he couldn’t imagine living without that job, and so it made him live his life poorly. That’s what an addiction does - you do whatever you have to do, just to avoid having to live without something.

There are some stand-up addicts at the open-mics I go to every night. People who go to open-mics literally every night. People who wouldn’t know what to do with themselves if they had to go one day without them. People who you can literally imagine getting jittery, if they had to try to do something else with their time. Even for one night.

Like I said - there’s a happy medium. And I think it’s healthy to experiment with the limits on both sides. It’s healthy to go through stretches where you just hustle and hustle and hustle, until you’re just totally burnt out on comedy. But it’s also good to take a few nights off, and really feel yourself start to miss stand-up. It’s good to go without it sometimes, so that you remember why you loved doing it to begin with.

Here’s an analogy for you:

Life is a flight, and we’re all riding on a plane together. Now, as part of that life, we do stand-up comedy. So imagine that your “life” is sitting in the plane, and your stand-up is its kid, sitting next to it.

Now, what’s the one thing they hype up to passengers, when they’re going through that safety video at the beginning of the flight? If there’s any turbulence, and the oxygen masks come down, put yours on first. Put yours on first.

Put your mask on first.

There’s a reason they have to hammer that home. Because it goes against our instincts. We love our children more than we love ourselves. So we want to make sure they’re okay first. But that’s actually the worst thing we can do for them. The best thing we can do is make sure we’re still alive and breathing, first, to keep them alive and breathing.

To me, that’s how I see my stand-up, and my life. I love stand-up like a son or a daughter (which is part of the reason I’m trying to avoid having an actual son or daughter). I’d do anything for my stand-up. I want to do stand-up the rest of my life. I want to make my living from it. And I want to be great at it. Desperately.

But my stand-up can’t thrive, unless I’m around to support it. And I think that’s why I’m afraid of never taking a night off. Because sometimes, I have to make sure that my life’s mask is on, before I make sure my stand-up’s mask is on. Even if I’m only making sure my life is together so that my stand-up can be better.

Now, maybe I’m crazy. Or maybe this is just a forced analogy. I don’t know.

But that’s when I get most depressed I think, looking at other comics. Not when I see the people who don’t care that much about comedy. It’s when I see comics who care so much, and want to succeed so badly, that you can see their life suffocating, as they’re frantically trying to make sure their stand-up is going to be okay. When you watch a child die because their parent loves them too much...it’s pretty fucking intense, honestly. But I think that’s what happens to our stand-up, sometimes.

That’s a weakness of ours, as comics. An admirable weakness, honestly. But a weakness. I think our stand-up would be better - more informed, more relevant, more insightful, and more important than any of that, funnier - if we took a night off every now and then, and made sure our oxygen masks were securely on. If we made a genuine effort to be human beings, too, instead of just comics. Maybe putting our mask on takes a night. Or a week. Or a month. I don’t know. This past summer, I went three months without doing a set. Maybe I needed that long. Maybe I was lying to myself. I honestly don’t know.

I’m no all-time great, so you can feel free to think I’m an idiot who’s going to be a bitter software engineer or something in 3 years from now. But I want to be both a human being and a comic. I stubbornly insist I can be both.

Time will tell. The flight continues...

Tuesday

For any comics considering moving to New York, here’s a timeline from last night, as I ran around the city doing open-mics.

3:45 p.m. - Left my Brooklyn apartment, took subway to a 4 p.m. open-mic at Bar 82 in lower Manhattan.

4:15 p.m. - Arrived at Bar 82.

4:45 p.m. - Did a 5-minute set at the 4 o’clock mic.

5:15 p.m. - Left the Bar 82 mic early, got a slice of pizza, then took subway to get to “The Dean’s List,” a 6 p.m. mic at The Creek and the Cave, which is a restaurant/bar/comic’s clubhouse in Long Island City.

5:50 p.m. - Arrived at Creek and the Cave

6:30 p.m. - Did a 3-minute set at The Creek and the Cave.

7:15 p.m. - Left the mic at The Creek to take subway to the “Tipsy Hustle,” a 9 p.m. open-mic at “Five Spot Supper Club” in Clinton Hill, a neighborhood in Brooklyn.

7:45 p.m. - Arrived at Five Spot Supper Club. Early. Texted a friend to sign me up on an 8 p.m. mic at 1-Republik, which is a bar around midtown Manhattan.

7:50 p.m. - Walked down the street and got a slice of pizza with a fellow comic.

8:10 p.m. - Back to Five Spot. Had a fellow comic that was staying sign me up around 10th, so that I’d go up around 10:00.

8:15 p.m. - Left Five Spot, ran to the subway to go back into Manhattan.

8:45 p.m. - Arrived in Manhattan, jogged to 1-Republik.

9:00 p.m. - Got to 1-Republik, luckily about 15 minutes before my name was called.

9:15 p.m. - Did a 4-minute set at 1-Republik.

9:20 p.m. - Grabbed my coat and bag, and headed back toward the subway, to head back to the “Tipsy Hustle” mic that my friend had signed me up for.

9:55 p.m. - Got off the subway in Clinton Hill.

10:00 p.m. - Arrived back at Five Spot Supper Club.

10:05 p.m. - Did an 8-minute set at Five Spot.

10:20 p.m. - Left Five Spot, headed to the subway to go back to Manhattan for an 11 p.m. mic at The Pit.

11:00 p.m. - Got off the subway in Manhattan.

11:05 p.m. - Arrived at The Pit.

11:45 p.m. - Did a 2-minute set at The Pit. Stuck around for the rest of the mic.

12:30 a.m. - The mic ended. Walked to the subway with another comic. Talked comedy and life for an extra half-hour.

1:00 a.m. - Got on the 7-train. Then transferred and waited for the G-train. Then transferred and waited for the A-train. Then got on the A-train, and headed home.

2:20 a.m. - Got off the subway, stopped at the corner pizza place, got 2 slices of pizza.

2:25 a.m. - Got home. Ate pizza.

____________________________

So that’s a Tuesday right now. They’re not all like that, and I’m lucky in that I don’t have a job I have to go to during the day. But that’s what nights can be like here. It’s really not as lazy a pursuit as some people presume that it is.

Let’s count up the numbers:

1 - Night Out

4 - slices of pizza

5 - open-mic sets

6 - hours spent in transit

10 - hours away from home

22 - minutes on stage

5 - non-comic audience members (at best)

Welcome to New York!

I’m tired. And happy.

The Perfect Birthday

My birthday was yesterday. Thursday, January 19, 2012. I turned 28. I’m 28 now.

It wasn’t a perfect birthday. There was nothing epic about it. I woke up. I had breakfast. I wrote. I cleaned. I went to the bank. I went shopping. I treated myself to some long-johns, some new dress socks. I even got some protein mix, just in case 28 is the year I start giving a shit about my body.

Then I went out for the night. I went to a 6 p.m. open-mic at The Creek and the Cave. I got a 3-minute set in, talking out my recent realization that I’m a serial monogamist. Talking out how to combat it.

Then I headed over to another mic, this one at a bar called Production Lounge, in a different part of Brooklyn. I had wanted to get to another mic or two after that, but it worked out that my name was the last one picked out of the bucket, so I was there for the whole show. I ended up getting buzzed before my set, so it was an interesting set. I tried to explain why I’m learning to love alcohol, and Adderall, and why on your birthday, you just kind of want a girl to make out with. I tried to acknowledge that I wanted to make out with the two women there, without making them uncomfortable. It was a fun challenge, though I don’t know if I passed.

After that, I had a choice: I could head into Manhattan, and potentially find said birthday make-out session. Or, I could head over to a bar down the street, where I was being told there might be another mic.

I guess some decisions we make in life are more than they are. Last night was only one night. It’s not going to determine my career or anything. But sometimes, you just get a sense that a decision you’re making is also making that same decision a hundred other times, somehow. That’s what that moment outside Production Lounge felt like.

I went down the street. It was a bar, and it was almost empty. There was a mic stand and a microphone at one end of the bar, and there were maybe four or five people there. Drinking. Ending their day. They didn’t expect comedy to show up, and they didn’t need it.

So I just started talking to them. Not even really trying to be funny. If I’d tried to be funny, it would shown a lack of self-awareness. At some shows, you’d have to be delusional to try to be funny. It’s almost insulting to the lives of the people in the bar. As if they should be loving their life, they’re just not smart enough like I am, to see what’s so funny about it.

It wasn’t a funny bar. There was no show. Just a microphone. There was no killing there. There wasn’t any fame coming from that set. It was what it was.

I didn’t get to make out with anyone on my birthday. That’s okay. I did what I needed to do. I worked.

(note: thanks to Brad Austin and Niles Turner for buying me beers and keeping me company)

“Be Too Exhausted to Think"

I had a great talk with Eli Sairs last night. Eli and I have known each other for 7 or 8 years now, which is weird to say. We both went to Ohio University, where we were both jealous of the much more talented Eric Janeczek. But we kept doing our thing anyway.

I moved to DC after I graduated, Eli followed a year later, and then he established himself there while I was frollicking around in Austin, Texas. Three years later, we find ourselves united again, as struggling comics here in New York.

I mentioned to Eli that I’ve been depressed lately, and that I’ve been dealing with a lot of self-resentment. I desperately want to work hard here and try to get as good as I can at stand-up, but I find myself staying in a lot of nights. And that’s been an ongoing struggle since I moved here in January - this sort of self-sabotage bullshit. I want to do one thing, but I don’t do what I want, even though there’s no logical reason why I’m not doing it.

I guess I just feel guilty, for some reason? Maybe because I have been lazy in the past. And so I feel like a piece of shit. I feel like deep down, I don’t deserve to succeed. And so I try to make sure I get the result I deserve - failure - by not doing what I know I should do now, either. As punishment for some previous night when I didn’t go out, or some previous day when I could have been writing or working, but was just wasting time on the internet.

That’s probably part of it.

I think a big part of it, though, is a fear of failure. And a fear of judgment.

I worry that because I didn’t go out that much during the past year, I’m not going to be as good as I could be when I go out tonight. So I’m not going to be my best self. And I shouldn’t have to deal with people judging me for how I am now - because I could be better than this. I’m just not, because I didn’t work as hard as I could have. But if I could be better than this, then it’d be bullshit if I have to exist as the less-than-my-best version of myself that I am right now.

It’s easy for me to realize that if I keep having that same attitude, I’m just going to get older, and get more and more bitter at myself. I’m going to resent that my refusal to just shut up and live my life as my current self - instead of acting like a child, and throwing a 20-year-long tantrum because things aren’t perfect - is what kept me from being happy while I’m alive.

It’s a vicious cycle. And it’s one we should all make sure we’re not holding ourselves in. Because it’s our choice.

That’s the whole point. We wouldn’t feel nearly as shitty if someone else was keeping us from being happy. But it’s us. We’re doing it to ourselves, the whole time.

That’s why I feel so shitty sometimes. But if I look at it from another perspective, it’s also proof that I can fix the problem. Because no one is stopping me from being at peace, except me. I know I can get better, or else I wouldn’t feel like a such a piece of shit in the first place.

Okay...so how do I break the cycle?

Enter Eli Sairs. I was telling him all the insane, self-obsessed, knotted-up-Christmas-lights-shaped ideas that have been running through my head for most of the year that I’ve lived here.

And he said the best way to overcome those thoughts? Be too exhausted to think.

Be too exhausted to think.

I loved that. He said if I just hustle my ass off, and get to as many mics as I can, and completely fill my days with anything...at the end of a week, I’ll be too tired to worry about any psycho-analysis bullshit. At some point, you have a moment where you say to yourself, “Man...am I doing everything I can?”

And then you just kind of shrug and say, “Yeah. I am.”

Once you’re there, you can start worrying about how efficient the “anything” is that you’re doing. But at first, just get exhausted.

What simple advice. But what great advice. Be too exhausted to think.

Good call, Eli. Thanks for the chat.

The Cult of Done Manifesto

1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.

2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.

3. There is no editing stage.

4. Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.

5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.

6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.

7. Once you’re done you can throw it away.

8. Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.

9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.

10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.

11. Destruction is a variant of done.

12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.

13. Done is the engine of more.

Source: Bre Pettis and Kio Stark.

Get Used to Late Nights...

Hello again, friend. Or at least, interested observer. Glad you’re giving this a read.

It’s 2:45 in the morning, and I’m writing this as a lie in bed. Next to me is my partner, who is fast asleep. She woke up briefly when I got home around 2:15, mumbled a few incoherent thoughts, and then went back to dreamland.

I left about 5:30 p.m. yesterday (technically), and I headed to a 6 o’clock open-mic at The Creek and the Cave, a nice coffee-and-more shop that has open-mics just about every night of the week. I did a 3-minute set at that show, then a 4-minute set at an open-mic in Manhattan at 8, and then walked the half-mile or so to The Pit, where I did a 2-and-a-half minute set on an open-mic at 11. I lucked out and went up fourth, but stayed to watch the other 30 comics or so - half to build up good karma, and half because there was a terrible comic going up later that I hadn’t seen in ages.

I left my third open-mic around 1 a.m., walked the mile or so to get to the A-train (which my Brooklyn apartment is off of), waited about 15 minutes for it, and then rode it home.

If you’re a comic that wants an excuse to not move to New York, here’s a stat for you:

Total time spent open-micing tonight: roughly 9 hours

Total time spent onstage: roughly 9 minutes

So...yes. Yes, this is a slow and frustrating process, this process of climbing the New York ladder.

But that having been said...I’ll take it. In the three days since I moved back here from my parents’ home in Pittsburgh, I already have an affection for this city that I didn’t have in the six months I was here from January through June. And I think in some way, me and the city have made our peace.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to put this into words, but I think in some weird way, my past three months in Pittsburgh were kind of like the scene in Forrest Gump when Lieutenant Dan gets caught in that horrible storm on the boat.

Hmm. I don’t know if that’s true. But the part of the analogy that feels true to me is when he’s swimming in the water. Remember that? When he just jumps down into the water, and he starts swimming away? That’s what New York feels like this second time around. I don’t know. Maybe it’s premature. But it feels like I’ve made my peace, and I’m ready to just see what happens. He wasn’t angry, he wasn’t bitter, he wasn’t trying to prove a point or anything. He just went swimming.

New York is New York. Whatever I do here, that’s what I’m going to accomplish here. I’m not going to fight anymore. I’m just gonna go swimming.

With love,

Lieutenant Bryson

2 Posts in 3 Weeks

We’ve kind of fallen off the wagon a little bit here at The Hajj. I’m trying to decide how I feel about that.

Apparently pretty happy, judging by the photo I just took of myself, as I write this. Let’s try to figure out why.

Most of my posts on here have been a commentary on the challenges of moving to New York, both personally and professionally, and attempting to break into the comedy scene here.

Well, the inactivity of the past few weeks is probably as good a lesson as any blog I could have posted. It’s hard to keep up with anything in life. It’s hard to not have other stuff happen that distracts you from a project, or a goal, or a career pursuit, or whatever.

For me, I spent 4 days last week back home in Pittsburgh, which was my first visit home since I moved here in January. When I got back last Tuesday, I immediately threw all my energy and focus into the fundraiser comedy show that happened this past Friday. It was a stand-up show that I put on in order to raise money for Resolve, the non-profit that my partner (romantic, not comedic - so Vijaya, not Lucas) runs here in New York, and that I am closely involved with.

That, coupled with trying to start a makeshift fantasy football blog, and getting sucked into that world, has taken up a lot of time the past few weeks. And I have no way of guaranteeing that I’ll jump back into this blog full-bore (pun intended).

I hope I get back to updating it more frequently. But life happens so damn fast. Sometimes before you even realize it, you’ve made your list of priorities in life. I’ve wanted to see my family for months. The only chance I had to squeeze it in was last week, and so I didn’t get onstage for 5 nights in a row. Then I went crazy putting together a fundraiser, and that cost me a few days of writing and a few nights of shows.

And though I haven’t made much mention of it in this blog, a huge part of the New York experience is financial. Maybe I’ll write a long, wordy blog about that someday. Just not today. But I don’t want to make it seem like that’s not something that hangs over your head constantly while you’re here. As it does everywhere else, of course. There’s no getting away from money, unless you go off the grid. And it’s tough to make a name for yourself in the comedy game when you’re living in a shack in the foothills of South Dakota.

So money is a priority, too. And for me, so is family. And so is Resolve. And so is writing out my thoughts, and trying to stay sane, and trying to make sense of life.

That’s not to say that I can’t pursue comedy just because I have other priorities on my list. They can each be my top priority, at different times and in different contexts. But they are all there. They are all things I think about, and that I am not willing to give up altogether.

Part of doing stand-up comedy is deciding how much of your life you’re going to give to it. It’s something worth thinking about, both before you make a move to New York, and once you’re up here. The answer is ever-changing. If I had to guess, I bet there will be months at a time, maybe a year or two at a time, in the future, when I fully devote myself to comedy, and I commit to making it my top priority. I’ve done so before, for 6 months to a year at a time.

But time goes by quick in life. So maybe I’m just lying to myself. Maybe the choices I’m making now are limiting the ceiling of how great a comic I can be. Or maybe being more well-rounded will make me a better artist than I could ever be if I only focus on the craft of stand-up, and not the substance of the message that it could potentially provide.

Or maybe I should just shut up and tell some dick jokes.

Hmm. Maybe. I doubt it, though. Maybe for other comics, that’s honestly what they should do. They should just be funny. And it’s not my job to judge whether or not that’s universally right. I’m not a comedy God, after all.

What I need to do is worry about what’s best for me. And for me, I think I need to keep trying to be honest with myself. And keep trying to be a well-rounded person, and to live my life as well as I can. And sometimes that will mean doing 20 sets a week. And sometimes it will mean writing 10 blogs a week.

And sometimes it will mean having to write one that tries to explain why I’ve blown this blog off for most of the past month.

That’s life, sometimes. I think I’m okay with that. Which is why I’m smiling as I write this. I’ll try to get three sets in tonight. Maybe three more tomorrow. Then Wednesday I’m on ‘Rubber Bullets’ - a great weekly show in Brooklyn, and by far the biggest show I’ve been invited on since I moved here. So I just need to keep working, and keep trying to make sense of myself.

Back to work.

Since You Love Updates...

This one really won’t be a classic. I just figured that if I’m going to document the struggles that I have up here in New York, I should go ahead and document the triumphs, too.

Last night wasn’t a great triumph, but it was a nice night of comedy here. It was Memorial Day, so I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to get up once. But I headed over to 'The Creek and the Cave,’ which has daily open-mics at 6 pm, and ended up getting up and doing 5 minutes, even though it was just in front of seven other comics. Then I hopped on the train and headed to Manhattan, where I did an 8 pm open-mic at Eastville Comedy Club. There were 5 audience members and 5 other comics, but the show was actually a lot of fun, and I was really happy with the set I had.

After that show ended, another comic and I hopped back on the subway and headed back to Brooklyn, where we arrived just before a 9 pm open-mic was starting (at 9:35) at a bar called Stone Tavern. The “crowd” was once again just fellow comics, this time about ten, but I had a really good time talking out my thoughts on this clip I saw, and had a really good time with the set.

Then I walked around with my buddy Eli for a little while, killed time for 15 minutes or so, and then called it a night, getting home around 12:30.

So there was really nothing spectacular about last night. But it felt good to get three sets in on a Monday night and to feel like I’m hustling again. I’ve also made the decision that I’ll go ahead and focus on being funny sometimes, which I think may help accelerate any respect that I manage to gain from other comics up here. But that’s a blog for another day. This one was just to say that last night was a good night, and that I hope I have a few more like it.