Creating a Comic

Well, that was fucking brutal.

After four great shows in the last week, I had started to think I was doing pretty well. I even felt like I sorta-kinda killed the five minutes that I got to do last weekend at Giggles—my first ever weekend show, by the way!—but last night the stage brought me low with a strong dose of humility. I absolutely bombed. So now I’m going to try to make some lemonAIDS¹ out of it and treat it as a learning experience.

I had decided to try some risky new material tonight; some really physical comedy, which I had never done before. The fact that I was going out on a limb wasn’t the problem—pushing the envelope is necessary in order to grow—but I let my nervousness about doing it earfuck all the other material in my set. I got up on stage and, freaked out in the back of my mind about the new stuff, I somehow managed to totally fumble my opener—an opener which has been doing really well lately. But this time, I said the words in the wrong order (funny word goes last!), mis-emphasized certain phrases (don’t “ask” the joke!), and even left out one of the best parts (dipshit!). Ugh.

These ladies have nothing to do
with this post, they just bring
me back to a happy place.

The fact that there were only seven people in the audience didn’t help, but it’s not an excuse, either; after the opener I should have focused, rallied, and gotten them on my side. Instead I stayed nervous and even got a little aggro, and by the time I got to the scary new stuff, the whole thing was an utter trainwreck.

Still, I’m glad I went through with it. I’ll have to watch the recording and think it through before I decide to keep the new stuff or not; I honestly think there’s something funny there, but I guess we’ll see.

Most importantly, I’ve got to get back on stage ASAP. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last few months, it’s that I can’t lick my wounds for weeks on end after bombing. I have to re-establish my momentum. But first, I’m going to get drunk with my buddies tonight and try to forget this whole debacle ever happened.

Special thanks to Mike Cummings for inspiring me with his fearlessness, and my deepest apologies to Xung Lam, who had to follow my suitcase nuke of a shitfest last night. I’ll see you guys again on Sunday.

1. From an old Sarah Silverman one-liner: “When life gives you lemons… make lemonAIDS!” [↩]

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