Creating a Comic

Getting serious about comedy means having your own car.

This probably seems blindingly obvious, and it’s probably true that it falls into the category of “things that don’t need to be said.” Kind of like: if you’re walking down the street and see a syringe on the ground, don’t pick it up and jam it into your tongue. Does anybody not know this? Does it really need to be spelled out?

Apparently yes, it does, if you’re kind of dumb—as I am, because thus far I’ve ignored the obvious fact that a comedian needs a car.

“Putting in the time” means hitting the road

I got rid of my own car a couple years ago, deciding that I’d rely instead on my bike and public transit. This plan worked out just fine, at first, when I was going up on stage a couple nights a week at one or two clubs in the city… but it recently began to break down. Until I can either afford to get a car or move next to a club, each trip takes me a minimum of 5-6 hours, total, for a 50% chance at five minutes on stage¹.

For the six months that recently ended, I was able to swing this, but my present need to get a part-time job has made the bus-and-bike club commute a lot more challenging.

I also know that the next step in stand-up, after developing a solid 10-15 minutes at open mics, is to begin soliciting other comedy nights at bars, casinos, and the like outside the city—and that doing so absolutely requires a comic to have their own transportation.   If you live in a larger city, with more extensive public transit—New York, for example—you can probably get away with going carless for longer than I have. Eventually, though, you’re going to want to start getting paid for comedy, and that involves driving to gigs in the greater regional area.

Stand-up comedy, in the end, is a lot like every other business: you’ve got to spend a bit of money in order to make any money. Investing in a car is one of the first requirements. I’ll cover some of the other basic economic factors involved in stand-up in the coming weeks.

1. About two of those hours are actually spent at the comedy club. With a car, the same trip would take about half the time. [↩]

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