What Comedy Means to Me

I was obsessed with Johnny Carson as a kid.  My parents tried to fight me staying up late to watch him, but quickly gave in.  I’d memorize as best I could his bits then perform them for friends and family.  If Bette Midler came on TV, I’d reenact one of her bits.  Ellen DeGeneres was another favorite, somebody I’d “steal” jokes from.  I still think the “Phone Call to God” is geniuous.

Clearly I was destined to become a comedian.  And gay.

These were my early inspirations.  I’m not sure how much of an impact they have had on my style, nor have I been doing this long enough to have a solid style of comedy.  As I grew up I came to respect Steve Martin, Whoopi Goldberg, Mike Nichols & Elaine May, Lily Tomlin, Woody Allen, and even Jay Leno.

I’m not too familiar with the newer popular comedians, I respect where they’ve gotten to professionally, but I’m just so focused on my own work that I don’t take the time to see what many others are up to (this is something I’m trying to change!).

Influences are good, they give me direction, and hope after a bad set (I often will YouTube great comedians after I bomb, just to get back on the comedy highway).  What’s telling is that even after I fail miserably, totally bomb, I’ll still get up the very next night and do it again.

A great up-an-coming comedian, John F. O’Donnell, said at Fifty First Jokes in 2008, “Comedians are the bathroom attendants of the artistic community.”  This is true, to a degree.  But I kind of like it, if we were totally respected as peers in the arts community, would we still be able to make fun of them with a straight face?  We say what other’s often don’t, and that’s amazing!  We allow an audience to relate to us on a level that they rarely are ever able to relate to anybody else, even if it makes them think or a little uncomfortable.

I don’t think anybody who is seriously pursuing comedy is in it to get famous.  Everyone I know is in it to make it their life, their living, what they do every day.  If fame is apart of that, great (really great!), but to just get paid to do what you love - wow!  That’s what I’m aiming for.  It’s going to take time, and be hard, but it wouldn’t be real if it weren’t.