Comedy and Graduate School: the triangle comedy scene

In many ways, the Triangle comedy scene should be better. There are infinitely more places to do comedy here which means more time to polish your act, less people who have heard your jokes etc. 

More venues also means more variety. You have coffee shops, bars, and comedy clubs that all host open mics. With each venue comes a specific and unique clientele. 

The open mic organizers themselves generally tend to be very nice people who respect the art and are accommodating to the comedians performing. 

However, I have to say that I miss the Wilmington comedy scene a whole lot more than I was expecting. To be frank though, a huge reason why I miss Nutt Street is the people and friends I got to meet there. They made a huge difference not only in my enjoyment of the Wilmington scene, but also in my development as a comic. Part of the reason why I was able to become a better comic in Wilmington is because I had a support system that pushed me to achieve more on stage and as a writer. 

But another thing I miss about the Wilmington scene is the professional comedians that I had the chance to see and learn from. Outside of Goodnights in Raleigh and Laugh out Loud in Clayton, both of which are sort of out of my way, none of the bars and clubs in Durham and Chapel hill host touring comedians. Luckily this will change soon as the Carrboro Arts Center will begin hosting touring comics in October. 

That being said, part of why I loved Nutt Street was I had that chance to see, open for and talk to touring comics. One of my best experiences so far as a comic was getting to talk and hang out with Rory Scovel who a friend of mine opened for last year.

However I think what has made me the most  jaded about the scene here have been my performances on stage. Outside of one really good set at DSI and another hosting a showcase at Loco Lu's Coffehouse, I'm just not doing well on stage. Part of that has been because I am still trying to adjust to the crowds here who by and large do not care about what's going on on stage. But to a certain extent I feel I am lacking confidence, which of course is not helped by the fact that the people watching me don't give a shit.

Kyle Kinane and comedy

This Friday I had the chance to see Kyle Kinane, who before that show was definitely one of my favorite comics. In many ways Kyle represents everything I would like to be as a stand up comic. His humor is smart and quirky, a mix of long form, story bits mixed with some punchy one liners for good measure. His CD "Death of a Party", along with Hannibal Buress' My Name is Hannibal, are probably two of the best standup CDs of 2010 imo.

However going into Friday I was slightly nervous. I wasn't entirely sure how and in what way the Kyle I had seen on TV and on my Itunes would translate to a live stage.

Kyle smashed. To the point, I am not even sure if it is possible for a human being to be any funnier than what I saw that day. All credit to Mike Santo and Rojo Perez who had great sets and did an awesome job of warming the crowd up, but my God. With that set, I would have to say Kyle has become my second favorite comic, perhaps even favorite.

Every joke Kyle Kinane told killed. When I wasn't in tears from laughing so much, I was just in awe.

Even if I did stand up for 12 more years, I don't think I could ever become as funny as he was Friday.

Though I am a little disappointed I didn't get to talk to him anymore than I did (and that the times that I did I embarrassed myself/made myself look like an ass), watching his set Friday made me realize that if I want to be the best comic I can be, I have to be myself.

I can't try to become a Kyle Kinane, or CK, or Dave Chappelle imitator. I have to do the jokes that I want in, in my voice.

I was talking to one of my friends Piccolo who, like myself, performs stand up comedy at Nutt Street before the Friday show, and we were talking about finding inspiration from other stand up comics. Part of the reason why, Piccolo explained, he loves watching stand up comedians perform live is that watching them inspires him to write new jokes. Until Friday, I would have been hesitant to agree with that line of reasoning. However, since watching Kinane Friday, I have literally 5 or 6 new premises/joke ideas that I am hoping to try out on stage.

To comedy or not to comedy

I feel like I'm getting to the point where I am finally starting to put everything together on stage. The past month or so I have been really putting in some solid sets, mixing in old jokes with new ones. My stage presence has gotten a lot better. Though I feel a lot of my punchier/funnier jokes are still my race jokes, I feel like I am joking about a wider variety of topics. Last week I did a new joke about Sodom and Gomorrah which (surprisingly) went down really well.

That being said, I feel like I am at a sort of crossroads. This week is my last week in Wilmington and though I have every intention of continuing to do comedy during grad school in Chapel Hill, I have to say I am still not exactly sure what it is I want from comedy.

To make it perfectly clear, I love comedy. I love writing jokes, standing on stage and telling them. I love watching stand up being performed, whether that is live or on T.V.

However, I am not sure if comedy is something I want to do as a career or as hobby. I mean there would definitely be a lot of benefits to doing stand up. I would be doing something I love. I would get to travel and see new places, talk with interesting people. I would in all probability get and receive a lot of free alcohol. I imagine if I were to break up with my girlfriend, I would have no problem finding someone to date.

But, as I touched on in my last blog post, making it big is difficult.

Granted, I don't really know how good I could become. With enough stage time and effort, I could become a really funny stand up performer and entertainer. Who knows?

However, even if I were to get that good, I realistically could only stand to make (tops) maybe 50,000 or so. Which is fine, I could definitely raise a family on that salary, but as a lawyer (depending on how good my grades are, my references, the sorts of internships I am able to get as law school student etc.) I could stand to make 130,000. Straight out of school.

Plus I also wouldn't be disappointing my parents.

How to get Paid & Full

I was listening to the WTF podcast interview with Louis CK (which btw if you havent checked out, you should) and it really made me wonder how much if anything talent has to do with making it big in the comedy world.

I feel like I should qualify that statement a little bit though.

Ultimately, in order to make it big, someone has to find you funny. As much as we (comics) will joke about the Ralphie Mays and Carlos Mencias of the world, the fact of the matter is that they have an audience that finds them very funny (I guess).

Listening to Louis CK talk about his early stand up career, and what it finally took to make him successful, has made me wonder though if talent has much to do with it. During the interview CK talks about an audition he had with SNL in the 90s. Now despite killing his audition and getting several of the cast's endorsement, he still didn't get a job.

Marc Maron the host noted how he often (and still does) feels jealous of CK and his comedy peers who, unlike him, were able to take their stand up success and make careers in film, TV and radio, even though Marc Maron is in my mind and others one of the better comics in the country.

In fact it's only been since starting this podcast that his name has really started entering public consciousness and even saying that is a stretch (next time you're at work, ask your coworkers if they have heard of WTF or Marc Maron).

Its just frustrating knowing that it will mostly take luck for me (if I were to choose doing stand up comedy as career which is a whole other blog post) to get even decently well known. Part of me wants to believe  meritocracy exists in this world. I want to believe that if I just keep doing this stand up thing every Thursday and start getting shows, I will eventually get good enough to be noticed.

But if you look at the pool/amount of good comics in this country, comics who probably more often than not kill every time they go up, who have been in the biz for ages, you start to realize the chances of you or any one comic really blowing up to be the next CK or Seinfeld, or even just the next Daniel Tosh are really, really slim. I was looking at Live at Gotham's website at work today, and one of the comics the site boasts on having hosted is Colin Quinn. Never heard of him. This coming from a guy who literally eats and sleeps comedy. Point made?

Mission Statement

This probably should have been my first blog post but fuck it.

Anyways, my hope with this blog is to share my thoughts on stand up comedy, particularly (and obviously) my journey as a stand up comic, videos of my sets and other comedians, interviews with comedians and also the occasional joke/premise/bit of satire.

Fuck my girlfriend Based God aka my journey as a comic abbreviated

The first time I ever did stand up was in DSI's annual Carolina's Funniest Comic competition April of last year. To put it bluntly, I was horrible. Other than a couple easy/hackish jokes about me being from Zimbabwe and one decent one about me masturbating to random chicks (well not random, they are Facebook friends, which I guess makes it weirder that I used to masturbate to girls I would then run into later in class the next day) on Facebook, I was bad. I was nervous. I forgot a few of my jokes.

 I did well enough though that when I moved to Wilmington 3 months later, I was eager to try and find some spots to do open mic. Luckily enough, I stumbled upon Nutt Street, which is in my highly uninformed and biased opinion, one of the best rooms to do open mic comedy in the country.

My first time at Nutt Street wasn't so great, but I remember the second time I came up (which was the fourth time I ever did stand up) was the first time that I did well. I was nervous still but my bits about trying to get directions from strangers when lost and pretending to understand them went down really well. It was the first time where I would say the majority of my jokes went over well and people laughed at the parts they were supposed to.

For the next 5 or 6 months, I pretty much see sawed between nights like this and nights were I went, maybe told two funny jokes, one eh joke, and one that just didn't hit with a few bombs sprinkled in between to really liven up the stew. And then I just hit this wall.

For what seemed like 2 months, I would literally go up and just bomb every night. And it hurt. I would beat myself up continually. For a while I questioned if I should even be telling jokes on stage. By far my lowest point was the Port City Top Comic Competition which I think I will save everyone the trouble of describing as you can see video of my set right here .

Awful stuff. I think part of why I was doing so poorly was that I was trying to be something that I was not on stage. Ill be honest. My humor is smart because I have had the blessing of going to good schools and being raised in a middle class household. That being said, I'm also a 20 something. I make stupid decisions. I love Adam Sandler movies. If someone gets a pie thrown at their face, I'm going to laugh at that person. I feel like I was almost becoming a caricature of myself on stage. For a while joke writing became less about "this thing that happened to me was funny, I should find a way to make it stand up funny" and more "this thing that happened to me was funny, how can I make this smart funny."

After my set at the Port City Top Comic Competition, I remember having a conversation with a fracquaintance (I stay hip and current with my words let that be known) about my set. Ill never forget what he said. He looked me dead in the eyes and said "you want my opinion?" Me: "Yes" Fracquaintance: "Write better jokes."

There was more to that conversation (Fracquaintance told me my Isaiah joke was cute but not funny, that I came of pretentious on stage etc.) but that piece of advice "write better jokes" really stuck with me. Definitely hurt at the time which is why I think it stuck so well.

For a couple more weeks, I did the same thing, went up, bombed, rinse repeat, and then one week, I was like fuck it, let me pander. Let me write the jokes that this crowd will find funny. So one Thursday, I just wrote the most concise, plain race/observational jokes I could and went on stage and told them. As a result, had one of my first good sets in what seemed like an eternity. For 3 straight Thursdays following, repeated the same process. Did well all three weeks.

Though it felt good to finally be doing well, I felt to a certain extent like I was compromising myself as a comic. Though the jokes I was telling on stage were doing well for themselves, I was not sure if I was being true to myself as a comic and/or as an individual. I feel like I had taken a 180 in the opposite direction, all for the sake of approval.

Maybe in part as a reward for doing well or maybe because I have supported the room for a while, but I, along with 11 comics, got picked to do a showcase. Going into it though I didn't feel nervous. As a comic now, I've come to a point where I definitely still feel jittery before a set, but not enough to the point where I feel it shows (unless I am really unprepared with a joke).

Timmy (the owner of Nutt St Comedy Room) would throw me a curve ball that night however by asking me if I could go first  which was weird to me b/c I always thought (and still think) that you want your best comics/acts/ to go first and last. And I am nowhere near being the funniest comic at Nutt St. Not even close. In fact, there are three comics who have started recently at our room (past 5 months) who are in all honesty a lot funnier than I am on stage. So anyways, all of a sudden I got really nervous, not sure why though.

However when I was called up by the host for the night Jon Coyne, I remember just feeling this sense of calm just kind of waft over me. What followed was easily the best set I have ever done in my life. Every joke except my last one went over really well.

I feel that night really vindicated me as a comic. Since that night I have really made a conscious effort to just write jokes and not worry so much about the audience or how smart the joke is. All in all I have done pretty well since that showcase set but I can't stop comparing my open mic sets to it which is unfair. The showcase set was the perfect storm. For all the comics that went up.

Its just frustrating telling some of the same jokes I told during that set and getting less of a response from the audience even now.

The only video of me performing decentish stand up

Standup Vid Swagstas