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.
Of course (at least I feel) doing what you love is most important, but hey now making 6 figures is nothing to brush off. I think you can certainly do both and with weekly practice and connections who knows standup could blow up. But! the best thing about this standup thing is it will always be there. I guess what I'm saying is follow the law game, and some lawyers can do great things for people (minus casey anthonys defense lol). I would love to be a financially secure comic but if I end up doing PR and thats my money maker I'd be happy cause I know I'd have standup chillin in my back pocket. But I'll see ya in a month or so at open mic nite!!
ReplyDelete