sophomoric, but ironically those are two personality traits necessary to be a bully and a name-caller. Gay was a great teacher, but if a student didn’t like her, they would call her “Gay Faggot,” which is not only hurtful, but even more in present times, once again, redundant.
Both of my sisters were amazing people and I will always miss them. Until I see them again. If that’s how it works. But what my family went through—all the tragedy and all the pain, both before and after I was born—is what created and fostered that crucial comedy/survival gene, which revealed itself most markedly in my father and in me. It was this part of my DNA that allowed me to lose two of the most important people in my life and push even harder to pursue a career in making people laugh.
Chapter 4
SURVIVING STAND-UP
Sometimes I can’t believe what I went through to become a comedian. What I subjected myself to: ten years of open mics, doing anything to get stage time . . . and still, I never slept with anyone to get a gig. Who could sleep while you were being mounted by a club owner from behind? Like a lot of beginners in comedy, I was coming from a young insecure place of wanting people to like me. I lived like most actors and comedians live when they’re just “a kid with a dream”: in a single apartment in a part of L.A. with the occasional sound of late-night gunfire.
The kid-with-a-dream thing is a cliché but it’s true. In order to have a chance of making it in any kind of career in the arts, you have to start with full-blown idealism and a belief that you’ll succeed even though everyone tells you, “It’s impossible, you won’t make it.” The people who say that are, in some cases, just not right.
But on the flip side, if you are incorrect about your super-talent, there may be a field you’re better suited for . . . a cool Internet company, welding, fluffer . . . Show business is hard as fuck, so if you’re perhaps a young person who’s thinking about getting into it but you’re undecided, I’d recommend you jump at any opportunity you have to avoid the pain of it. But if you know this is what you want and you’re driven beyond belief, then go for it. Carpe diem.
Some young people ask me for career advice. I know . . . me. And then I try to answer them with something valuable. It’s complicated because some people just want to be a star to show up everyone in their life who thought they’d never amount to anything. That mind-set makes me throw up in my mouth a little. It’s tough to give advice to a person who has only that as their motivation—rather than any desire to cultivate a talent. I understand it. Sometimes it’s youth. Sometimes it’s delusion. I suffered from both. These days I love the craft of it all—writing, stand-up, acting, directing, producing, and dancing to “Gangnam Style” in a onesie with Velcro eyeholes.
You can’t listen to what other people think about you or your work. You’ve got to just follow your instincts. Most people don’t know shit. That’s not true, most people do know shit. And shit stinks. Although I once knew a woman whose shit really didn’t stink. That’s what she thought, and she was right. Because it just didn’t. I won’t say her name, but here’s a picture of her. No, I wouldn’t. Not in this chapter.
Back online: So you can’t let anyone define you. In my career, if I had let other people define me, I could’ve ended up dustbusting the halls of a YMCA and asking the other tenants if they wanted to buy some bootlegged tapes of people getting hit in the nuts.
The balance for me was to suppress my renegade “id” and stay open and learn from other people whom I was enlightened by being around. I was influenced by many individuals, some famous, some not. My biggest inspirations as a young stand-up were the comedians I would watch every chance I got, sitting in the back of the Comedy Store or the Improv late at night:
Both of my sisters were amazing people and I will always miss them. Until I see them again. If that’s how it works. But what my family went through—all the tragedy and all the pain, both before and after I was born—is what created and fostered that crucial comedy/survival gene, which revealed itself most markedly in my father and in me. It was this part of my DNA that allowed me to lose two of the most important people in my life and push even harder to pursue a career in making people laugh.
Chapter 4
SURVIVING STAND-UP
Sometimes I can’t believe what I went through to become a comedian. What I subjected myself to: ten years of open mics, doing anything to get stage time . . . and still, I never slept with anyone to get a gig. Who could sleep while you were being mounted by a club owner from behind? Like a lot of beginners in comedy, I was coming from a young insecure place of wanting people to like me. I lived like most actors and comedians live when they’re just “a kid with a dream”: in a single apartment in a part of L.A. with the occasional sound of late-night gunfire.
The kid-with-a-dream thing is a cliché but it’s true. In order to have a chance of making it in any kind of career in the arts, you have to start with full-blown idealism and a belief that you’ll succeed even though everyone tells you, “It’s impossible, you won’t make it.” The people who say that are, in some cases, just not right.
But on the flip side, if you are incorrect about your super-talent, there may be a field you’re better suited for . . . a cool Internet company, welding, fluffer . . . Show business is hard as fuck, so if you’re perhaps a young person who’s thinking about getting into it but you’re undecided, I’d recommend you jump at any opportunity you have to avoid the pain of it. But if you know this is what you want and you’re driven beyond belief, then go for it. Carpe diem.
Some young people ask me for career advice. I know . . . me. And then I try to answer them with something valuable. It’s complicated because some people just want to be a star to show up everyone in their life who thought they’d never amount to anything. That mind-set makes me throw up in my mouth a little. It’s tough to give advice to a person who has only that as their motivation—rather than any desire to cultivate a talent. I understand it. Sometimes it’s youth. Sometimes it’s delusion. I suffered from both. These days I love the craft of it all—writing, stand-up, acting, directing, producing, and dancing to “Gangnam Style” in a onesie with Velcro eyeholes.
You can’t listen to what other people think about you or your work. You’ve got to just follow your instincts. Most people don’t know shit. That’s not true, most people do know shit. And shit stinks. Although I once knew a woman whose shit really didn’t stink. That’s what she thought, and she was right. Because it just didn’t. I won’t say her name, but here’s a picture of her. No, I wouldn’t. Not in this chapter.
Back online: So you can’t let anyone define you. In my career, if I had let other people define me, I could’ve ended up dustbusting the halls of a YMCA and asking the other tenants if they wanted to buy some bootlegged tapes of people getting hit in the nuts.
The balance for me was to suppress my renegade “id” and stay open and learn from other people whom I was enlightened by being around. I was influenced by many individuals, some famous, some not. My biggest inspirations as a young stand-up were the comedians I would watch every chance I got, sitting in the back of the Comedy Store or the Improv late at night:
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