What’s the difference between a JAP (Jewish American Princess) and a WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Princess)?

A WASP’s boobs are real and the jewelry fake.
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It’s said that, if you could travel from and back to Earth at the speed of light for a matter of minutes, you’d find that days, weeks, months, possibly years had passed since you left. I thought of this after gigging at Maffia Comedy for the first time since November. Hardly an eternity, yet the regulars spoke to me as if I was returning after a long retirement.

Things move fast and not at all in standup. Faces change, material doesn’t. I’ve often said that going to an open mic for the first time in months reminds me of going to my gym in January. Suddenly, I see lots of new faces, most of whom I’ll see a few more times before never again.

I’ve never really taken a break. Well, I suppose I did during the early days of covid. Well well, not even in the early days. I still performed until it felt wrong to be in a club completely shirking the rules while restrictions (well, again, recommendations) got tougher and the crowds dwindled. There have been summer trips to the US when I didn’t perform for a month or more, but that was more due to lack of opportunity and/or lack of ambition to seek opportunities.

There hasn’t been a time that I made a conscious decision to take an extended break. I know others who have, and the anecdotal evidence seems to point to this being only positive, but it’s not me. While the Grind may be firmly behind me, I still have ambition enough to want to get out there as often as I can.

I thought I’d be rusty after so much time away from the stage, but I didn’t feel particularly out of practice. I’m not sure why that is; I can only guess it’s due to performing regularly in the meantime. Not on stage, but in my head, alone in my apartment, in the shower, in a car. I still get ideas and there’s lots I want to work out, but not many opportunities to do so.

On the bright side, performing for an imaginary audience means the material always kills. It can’t compare, though, to the feeling of it working in real life. I’m not sure what I enjoy more, when a new joke works right out of the gate, or when it works after testing multiple versions. I don’t even mind having to accept that a new joke will never be as funny to an audience as it is for me. Sometimes, you have to kill your darlings.

Maybe it isn’t something new and I’m just more aware of it now, but I feel like my set has become more me-centered. I’ve always been very, likely too, concerned about focusing on Sweden, partly out of a desire to be more universal, mostly because I don’t want my Swedish peers to dismiss me as just another boring expat comic (which they’ll do anyway, so I really shouldn’t bother worrying about them). My latest sets have been: I’ve lived in Sweden for 19 years, I perform in English, I’m a dad, I’m 50, I hurt my back recently, I work at the airport, Trump. Me me me me me politics.

I feel like I’m discovering a new path through the woods, a new shortcut along a route I’ve traveled for years. Joking about my dad, about getting older, I feel the crowd laughing more because they relate, instead of laughing at me making fun of them for being Swedes. I’m being more universal by focusing on me.

The punchline being, the crowd laughing because they know exactly how I feel, this means I’m not special.