I’d Rather Jump the Snake River

“He drives his motorcycle at a high speed off a ramp, over assorted objects, mostly lines of cars, but also buses or trucks or fountains at Caesar’s Palace, and he attempts to land on a ramp on the other side. The foundation of his success is failure. The more times he lands in an ambulance instead of on the specific ramp, the more times he is carted away for more reconstructive surgery, the more captivating his show becomes. There are no Harry Houdini tricks, no false bottoms or optical illusions. He makes the jump. Or doesn’t…”

The passage above is from Leigh Montville’s Evel: The High Flying Life of Evel Knievel: American Showman, Daredevil and Legend. Now, being a stand-up comic is not nearly as badass as being a motorcycle daredevil, but the two have an analogous relationship. Like so many other things in life, in order to be a successful comedian, your foundation of success is based entirely on your failures. Instead of ramping over a line of trucks or doing mid-air wheelies through circles of fire, you’re putting your ego on the line, launching yourself over crowds of judgmental and temperamental drunks haphazardly brought together in small town bars, failing delis and local theaters forced to listen to some jerk trying to make them laugh. When I look back on all my experiences trying to perform comedy, I’d rather jump the Snake River on a rocket bike.

I’ve performed comedy in front of elevators, on decks, at the corners of bars, in front of bathrooms, in tiny clubs, cellars, attics, churches, in delis by the pie display case, in front of haunted pianos, in the back of a bowling alley, at an African American Biker Bar, at the House of Blues, in the middle of a Hooters, in an abandoned building in New Orleans, at the Pittsburgh Improv during their open mic and at an open mic night at a random comedy club in New York City where I was mistaken for a Sam Kinnison wannabe. Oh, and I did a series of pie sketches in the orchestra pit in front of the Capitol Music Hall’s stage that ended in me doing a pratfall through a giant pie where I missed my mark and busted my teeth through my bottom lip. If you look really closely, you might still be able to make out the faint bloodstain on the floor in middle of the pit. Nevertheless, I can always say I made my mark at the Capitol Music Hall, all in the name of getting someone to crack a smile. What a way to waste a perfectly good Saturday.

Looking back, I was most definitely a hack: “Generally someone who is disliked and in some circles detested for taking comedy to its basest level.”

Constantly failing in a setting fueled by unnatural competition to be the person in the room who gets laughed at the most, made me grow to hate trying to be a comedian. I was just barely starting to pay my dues as a comic, just barely starting to get my act together when I looked around and saw the lot of miserable jerks I was surrounding myself with. Comedians are a bitter, neurotic and insecure lot. Most of the time that’s what makes them funny, but it still doesn’t make them very pleasant to be around. In all my little stand-up misadventures, I’ve only really made friends with about five people, and almost all of them stopped doing stand-up for two reasons: making someone laugh is hard and it doesn’t pay very well.

It took me about six years of practicing and performing stand-up comedy (on and off any chance I really could) to realize that I’m not funny at all. All the stories, jokes, skits and stunts were much more entertaining to me than to my audience. In fact, I don’t think I can remember hearing anyone laugh any time I’ve been behind the mic. In all my time as a “stand-up comedian,” I think I maybe wrote one funny joke that you could only really understand if you watched The Magic School Bus on PBS from 1994-1997. I made maybe a grand total of $160. I produced a one-hour comedy show DVD that bombed big time. Luckily, with the money from the door and the sales from two or three DVDs, I just barely broke even on the production of the actual disc. But since the actual show cost me about $250 to put together, and if you subtract that from the $160 I’ve made…I’m actually -$90 in the hole from doing stand-up comedy—a small price to pay compared to most aspiring comics still hunting for fame and fortune in the biz.

The fact that I’m not very funny and the very fact that I’m complaining about all of this is enough to show anyone, seasoned comic or not, that stand-up comedy is not the life for me. I’ve heard stories of both professional comics and acquaintances who have paid a lot more in both time, money and personal dignity to make their dreams of becoming a comedian come true, and as much as I hate stand-up comedy and despite how much I’m annoyed by a lot of the people that do it, I commend anyone who has the cojones to want to get up on stage and try to make people laugh. I commend anyone who can put aside all the BS that comes with trying to become a stand-up comedian, anyone who can take these little blows to the wallet, the ego and the psyche and keep on rolling.

I think Evel Kinevel’s wise words about being a daredevil sum up my whole experience with comedy quite nicely: “I know I’ve been called a lot of things by a lot of people. A crazy man. A con man. But when you head down that long white line, you’d better have made your peace with God or know what you’re doing, because a con man ain’t going to get there.”

Whatever your intentions, whether you’re Louis C.K. or a wannabe like me, when you get behind the mic, you either “make the jump or you don’t,” and the reconstructive surgery required when your jokes don’t land is for your battered and shattered ego.

But maybe I’m taking all this too seriously. Maybe I was too naïve in thinking doing stand-up comedy would be fun. I had no idea how much hate, pettiness and jealousy fueled so many stand-up comics in their quests to be the king of the fools, but, hey, I guess that’s just showbiz for ya!

That’s my time. Thank you. You’ve been great!

Cue-Tears of a Clown