A point of view

Around 2006, I stopped liking to perform traditional stand up comedy. I had done it daily since 2003, and credit the hobby/side career as the biggest reason I lost weight so fast, but after leaving Northern California for LA, I realized something. I hate telling jokes. I find jokes predictable, and though the object of the game is to shatter assumptions, to me, there are very few ways to innovate new ways of scripting a funny line.

I also find most stand-ups to be exhausting. They typically think they're funnier than they are. They steal from each other, or they don't but get accused of it. They hate you if you get laughs, the loathe you if you bomb. They eat like pigs. They think it's safe to weep in front of you. And try being gay and being a comedian. Everyone sounds like Margaret or Kathy, and then you catch yourself doing it. Oy.

I started to go up less frequently, maybe once a week or so. Every once in a while I got paid for it. That was fun. But I wanted to create new ways to perform. I produced nights of personal essays. I hosted shows in record stores, clothing stores, and restaurants. I did sober grad nights at high schools. i just wanted to see if there was a different way to do it. And there was. It was rewarding to work with my friends and do things differently and creatively, and sometimes famous people helped us, and we were on our way...to somewhere but none of us knew where.

And then I stopped. I got scared. I came up with all sorts of excuses. I have to work. The guy I'm dating will think I suck. The guy I'm dating will be jealous. The dogs will pee the house. What if my mom hears I've made fun of her again after she told me to stop? I look fat. I don't have anything worth saying.

That last thing was the part that killed me. I really stopped believing I had anything worth expressing a point of view over. I started going up only when people asked me to go up, because I felt I could blame bombing on them. They knew what they were getting in to.

I was supposed to go up this past March for the first time in almost a year, but it was the night of Madonna Glee, and no one showed up so the show was canceled. I was pleasantly relieved. I was empty, and I had nothing to say.

My friend asked me to go up tonight, and I'd been dreading it all week. What will I talk about? My life is boring. I work, I sleep, I watch Design Star, repeat. Maybe it would be canceled.

It wasn't. It was a packed house. I walked up not knowing what I would say, and then I said something, and it got a laugh, and it was real. And not doing it for so long made me more conscious of how grateful I was to be back up, and that made me more thoughtful about talking about things I care about, and that made me funnier. And someone who I respect immensely said so. And that made me happy, but not too happy like it did in the old days, when compliments or hecklers gave me sleepless nights.

And that makes me like doing stand up. And the truth is, I never bomb. Some nights I don't kill, but I'm not afraid to bomb and so I never do. my biggest fear in dong comedy is just that I won't have a strong enough opinion about something and won't be able to support a point of view, and I know that's very toastmasters, but it's true. And so the next time I get nervous, instead of telling me I'll be fine, just make me watch fox news for an hour in an enclosed space.