I was listening to the Monday Morning podcast with Bill Burr, and he gave the best piece of advice regarding stand-up that I’ve ever heard:
I’m going up again tonight, and the only requirement that I have of myself is that I have fun while I’m up there.
Michael
On Friday, I went to Quinn C. Martin‘s Quinnder Surprise, which was held at Maple Leaf Gardens. As I watched his supporting cast kill it on stage, part of me felt happy that they were putting on a great show.
But that was the problem: only part of me was enjoying it… Continue reading
As I prepared to embark on the second chapter of my comedy career, I had to answer the following question: where should I start? I had two seemingly conflicting interests:
When I sat down to start, I quickly realized that my material was all over the place. I had jokes that I thought were good but never fleshed out. I also had a ton of material that only worked some of the time. I sat there, paralyzed by the sheer amount of data I needed to analyze and organize, let alone figure out how to leverage.
I needed a management system that would allow me to organize and leverage my material while inherently providing a fertile soil for the development of old and new ideas.
Luckily, I had two models of creative management to work from. Continue reading
I’ve been avoiding you.
It’s not because I haven’t had anything to say, but because I didn’t know what to say, what not to say, never mind how to say it.
I haven’t been on stage since December 17.
After feverishly preparing for the December 17th show at Hard Rock Cafe, I was burnt out. Actually, it was much worse than that: I was proactively burning myself out. When I thought about the future, all I could see was a lifetime of painstakingly bombing over and over again in the pursuit of golden material.
I wasn’t looking forward to it. Eventually, I started to ask myself if comedy was I wanted to do. Continue reading
Dear Diary,
Becoming successful is confusing…
In the past year, I’ve done four shows at the Hard Rock Cafe, each one containing between 7-10 minutes of new material. On the last performance, I had my best set ever. But fuck me, now that I look back on it, even getting laughs and applause breaks isn’t good enough anymore. That’s right, homie: I’ve figured out how to feel depressed about doing well on stage.
Maybe depressed isn’t the right word. It’s more…dissatisfied. The artistic part of me recognizes that there’s so much more that I want to do on stage. I want to be spontaneous, work the crowd, let my mind wander, and most importantly, I want to have the confidence to do all of those things on the big stage.
My next step is clear:
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