Don't Shit Where You Eat! ™

Several years ago and just before the club’s CEO banned me for life, I headlined Stockholm Comedy Club. I told the crowd that my daughter had discovered my snus addiction and demanded I quit. “Ok,” I told her, “but do you really want Daddy to start smoking crack again?”

It got the desired laugh, although two girls in the back row howled louder and longer than everyone else. So much so that they were still laughing over the setup to my next joke and now that the crowd was more aware of them than what I was saying, I had no choice but to pause and address them. As distractions go, people laughing too hard is a good problem to have.

Once one of them had calmed down enough to answer me, I told her I appreciated them laughing so hard but wondered why. “When you said ‘snus’,” she stammered, wiping tears from her eyes, “we thought you said ‘snooze’!”

I sighed. “Why do I bother?” I said, not trying to hide the bitterness in my voice. “I should just be up here saying ‘utfart!’ and ‘Masterkock!’” I just moved on from there.

Some might say that the whole point of standup is make people laugh. If that were true, at least for me, I would just include lots of Swedish words in my act, especially the ones that sound like naughty English words. My “career” would certainly benefit from it; there’s no shortage of expat comics here who don’t let snobbery get in the way of a laugh.

In fact, during my first year when I’d reached the point I thought it was more fun to make the crowd uncomfortable and groan than to laugh, after a particularly nasty bit I said, “Oh right, you don’t want to hear this from me! I’m an English comic, you want to hear…” and then did purposefully awful jokes about utfart and slutstation. I wanted the crowd to laugh at how terrible they were, only to one day realize they were actually laughing at the jokes. They were laughing the wrong way and that made me want to strangle them, so I stopped doing those jokes.

Only to resurrect them years later, when hosting shows. They were meant to warm up the crowd and I still wanted them to laugh ironically, even though I knew that most people were legitimately laughing. I know it hurt my reputation with a few comics who didn’t even realize the whole thing was tongue-in-cheek – I was just yet another, typical expat comic. Nowadays, if you ever hear me do that routine at the start of the show, it tells you that I think the audience is shit and needs a kick in the ass. It’s a rare event, fortunately.

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In the years after Dave Chappelle infamously walked away from filming the third season of his show on Comedy Central, he gave several different explanations. One of them was that he’d had an epiphany in the middle of filming a sketch. It was based on the idea of man having to make a choice, with an angel on one shoulder telling him to do the right thing while a devil on the other tempted him to be selfish. In the sketch, the angel was a “good” Black man, representing the best aspects of Black culture, while the devil was the embodiment of every bad, stereotypical depiction of Black men. He said that, during filming, he heard a white crew member laugh the wrong way, and he began to suspect his intention for the show to challenge people’s beliefs was instead doing the opposite.

Generally, when the crowd reacts in a way not anticipated by the comic, it isn’t a bad thing. You might write a setup-punchline joke, try it on stage, and the crowd laughs during the setup. That laugh might take away from the punchline. Maybe it’s a sign the punchline is too obvious or even unnecessary. It’s just another reason working out material on stage is so important, because writing at home is only going to take you so far.

Maybe for some comics, crowds can never laugh the wrong way, but not for me. I’ve performed in Swedish several times, but that was years ago. Other than not being as comfortable doing it, I don’t want the crowd to laugh at my dialect or when I mispronounce words. I want them to laugh at my jokes. If I didn’t care why they laugh, as long as they laugh, I’d be a Swedish act all the time.

So while I personally can’t say I’ve had an experience that compares to Chappelle’s, I did witness it happen to someone else. I once did a gig during a special event at a Business college in Stockholm. The students where all quite posh and quite white. After my set, I went to the back of the room to watch the others. A Black comic took the stage and his routine included act-outs of some of his Black friends back in the ‘hood. I noticed a group of white kids howling and looking at each other in a way that said, “Everything we think about those people is true!” They were laughing the wrong way.

I’m not going to moan (or even whinge) about it not being socially acceptable for white comics to do exaggerated, stereotypical characters of people of color anymore. But whenever I see a Black comic do a stereotypical Black character, or an Indian do an Indian, or Hispanic do a Hispanic, etc etc, I can’t help but wonder if the crowd is laughing the wrong way. After all, whites aren’t allowed to do it anymore because it keeps those stereotypes alive and we should let them die. You get a pass for mocking people in a protected group if you yourself belong to that group, but, again, I can’t help but wonder if that just keeps the stereotypes alive.

In any case, it’s not for me to decide what comics should or should not say. I can’t even make everyone believe that there is ever a wrong way for people to laugh. It’s just another limit for me to add to my already overburdened self.

I don’t mind telling you that I am an avid listener to The Joe Rogan Podcast. During the pandemic, having it on in the background while I sat stuck on the couch at home was a nearly daily occurrence. As my wife was also home with nowhere to go herself, this was often to her chagrin. I heard his ad for Athletic Greens so many times that, at one point, I thought it was worth looking into! Only to discover the subscription model only works if you’re making Joe Rogan Spotify money.

(As an aside- I often wondered why Rogan episodes after the Spotify deal would be interrupted by him reading ad copy for Athletic Greens or any sponsor for that matter. Surely his finances had grown beyond the days when Fleshlight was a proud sponsor? Considering when the ads started – and when they stopped – I suspect he started doing ads out of fear that Spotify was going to drop him due to his constant covid comments and, now that the risk is over, he doesn’t bother. But I digress.)

The draw for me to the podcast was his conversations with other comics – talking about the early days, the current business of comedy and getting so deep into minutiae about the craft of standup I can’t imagine anyone who doesn’t perform themselves being anything but bored silly. I love that shit, though, and if I’m not talking someone’s ear off myself I’m happy to hear others talk about it.

Lately, though, my interest has waned. Bill Maher has a new podcast as well and I’ve found myself dumping out of his episodes as frequently as I do Rogan’s, for the same reason: I’m tired of hearing comics whinge about woke. (I told you ‘whinge’ is my new favorite word!)

I’m not tired in a “I’m so sick of white men complain they can’t say whatever they want” woke kind of way. For me, they might as well be whinging that the sky is blue. Yes, woke culture is exhausting. Yes, it’s easy to offend people without trying, or even by trying not to offend. Yes, comedy was easier before. But this is how things are now and while it’s possible the pendulum may swing back at some point, it’s hard to imagine that we’ll ever get back to that time when we didn’t care at all about which group was the brunt of what joke. The genie’s out of the bottle.

To be clear – I don’t believe in taboos. There is no subject that can’t be joked about, no protected class that can’t be ridiculed. As controversial as Chappelle’s latest special was, I wouldn’t censor a word of it. That said, the chief accusation was that it was transphobic and, despite Rogan’s repeated claim this was due to Chappelle telling the story of a trans comic who opened for him (when I saw the special, this struck me as, “I can’t be transphobic! I had a trans friend once!”) it has more to do with his joke about punching a trans woman in a bar. It got a laugh from the crowd and from the man himself and the point of making that joke was loud and clear: “I don’t give a fuck what you think, I’m going to say whatever I want!”

He has every right to! But to paraphrase Jeff Goldblum, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Since the majority of people I talk to and hear from are comics, I’ve heard Chappelle defended far more often than attacked. But not once have I heard anyone say, “That was his funniest special ever,” nor, “That was his best special ever.” (Note that “funniest” and “best” aren’t always the same in standup.)

Chappelle is considered one the best comics of his generation – rightly, in my opinion – and yet he settled for a quick, cheap laugh, one he thought was good enough to be filmed for prosperity. To be fair, since the crowd laughed, they were willing to settle for it as well. But I think all comics, especially those at the top of their game, should hold themselves to a higher standard.

Carlin said that the job of every comic is to find the line that should never be crossed and step over it with impunity. I have always been inspired by that. I love when someone in the crowd looks at a comic with awe, that they’d dared to say something, maybe even something the person in the crowd had thought themself, on a stage to a room full of strangers. Carlin certainly wasn’t afraid to hold up a mirror to us, to show us some ugly things about ourselves and society we would’ve preferred to ignore.

The key with him, though, was that he was funny about it. As was Bill Hicks and Richard Pryor. My Holy Trinity of comics (I’ll write about them someday). It’s the reason their material holds up to this day, especially Carlin as he was the most prolific and lived the longest of the three of them.

While I’m happy to see Carlin’s words still inspiring others, I’m less enthused by that inspiration rarely going beyond a shallow level. More often than not, the hero comic who won’t be censored and will shatter all taboos is talking about anally raping retards (their words, not mine). If I say it’s offensive to me I just mean an offense of my taste. Mostly I just find it boring.

In case you think I’m a huge snob about standup – well, I am, but I’m not always a snob – I was a big fan of Dane Cook as well. I’ll never forget seeing him live in Boston, comparing his girlfriend’s vagina to a box of cow tongues. It’s not the joke that made such an impression, it was seeing two young women in the row ahead of me laughing so hard they were crying, and looking at each other as if to say, “I can’t believe we’re laughing at this!”

THAT’S the level comics should be aiming for. No, not the cow tongues part. To be able to make people laugh no matter the subject matter. Yes, the crowd laughed when Chappelle said he punched a trans woman. His critics didn’t. We should want our toughest, most sensitive opponents to say, “Well, I found that joke offensive but I still laughed because goddamn it was funny.” If that’s not a standard I can hold rookies to, I can absolutely hold comics as experienced as Chappelle to it.

I’m reminded of when right-wing pundits reacted with venom to the Dixie Chicks criticizing Bush Jr, telling them to “shut up and sing.” Woke is here. Maybe it will die down, maybe it will even go away! It’s here in the meantime, though, so learn to work with it, around it. Use your fucking heads and stop whinging about it.

I’ve noticed some clubs promoting shows that are guaranteed to not be woke. Not in Sweden yet, but it’s just a matter of time. I would love that to mean that these are shows where audiences will be forced to confront uncomfortable truths, where their values will be challenged. Somehow I doubt the comics have such lofty ambitions.

During the summer, I passed a bit of time listening to old episodes of The Ricky Gervais Podcast and fell in love with a British word I hadn’t heard before: whinging [win-ging]. Defined as a very specific sort of whining, to “complain persistently and in a peevish or irritating way.” I believe it resonated with me now because I have developed a powerful distaste of whinging in the comedy community.

To be fair, I’ve done my own share of whinging over the years. All comics, to some – or a massive – extent, are self-hating narcissists. When opportunities don’t come our way we tend to project our animosity on the comics who get them instead, and come up with explanations that never include, “That comic is better than me.” Instead, it’s because they kiss more ass or have a penis or have a vagina or what have you.

I believe, or at least hope, I’ve relaxed over the years, but naturally it bothers me that I’m not offered spots at every club, invited to every podcast, etc. I also understand that no one gets everything and even if there are comics who get more opportunities than me, I know that many more don’t get as many opportunities as I get. Knowing that helps me complain much less.

I know a lot of rookie comics who have performed for several years without progressing beyond the open-mic level. If one of them complained to me about that lack of development, that wouldn’t bother me. What does bother me – and lately it’s grown to a militant level – is successful comics, especially more successful comics than me, whinging about the few opportunities they don’t get.

It drives me bonkers when I hear a comic who has performed in all but one club whinge about the one that won’t book them. Comics with 20,000 views on TikTok whinging they didn’t get 40,000. Comics who never get less than ten-minute-spots whinging about comics getting five-minute-spots at a club that won’t book the former. And on and on.

It’s just the by-product of the bizarre combination of a passionate will to perform and passionate insecurity. The result of finding an explanation for a closed door being anything other than not being good enough, funny enough, special enough. Throw in an unhealthy dose of competitiveness, it makes tearing down others even easier.

However, I’m not blind to the fact that comics who whinge more than me are also more ambitious than I am, so telling them to whinge less is the same as telling them to care less. Probably not great advice for someone hoping to make a career out of standup. But if I can’t get comics to obsess less about the chances they don’t get, it would be nice if they’d stop obsessing about the comics who do.

It was nice with a summer break. But considering I’ve been back for a week and I’m already whinging about comics who whinge, I guess it’s going to be a long year.

Several years ago, back when I was performing three to five times a week, I went to the US for a month during the summer. A week away from the stage and I started itching to perform again; by the end of the month I was nearly jumping out of my skin with all the new ideas I wanted to try out. When I’m visiting family, NYC isn’t so far away as to be completely out of the question, and Philly is a quick subway ride away, but I didn’t have any contacts in the US and it felt weird to bail on my family to chase a gig.

As the years passed, I gained a few contacts in both cities and I’ve performed in NYC once, Philly several times, but my urge to perform has diminished significantly. When I visit the US I don’t mind the break. Would be more accurate to say that my desire to gig doesn’t beat my desire to not bother with the rigmarole of finding a spot and getting to it.

I’ve written before how that itch became nearly extinguished over time, especially just prior to and during the pandemic, but I’m happy (?) to say it’s coming back. I put a question mark on that because my opportunities are severely limited. Many clubs that closed during the pandemic have yet to reopen, if ever, and although several clubs have sprung up since, the dynamic has changed in Stockholm. Before, most clubs didn’t charge the audience and getting spots was easy. Now, most clubs have a cover charge and the lineups are much more limited. Most of these clubs are run by comics who aren’t falling over themselves to offer me gigs, even when I ask, which is humbling. But that’s alright- a healthy ego never leads to good material.

Also, I do get more and longer gigs a month than many others, so I appreciate that and don’t take it for granted. By far, though, the biggest limit on opportunities comes from me. There’s an open-mic level club in Stockholm that’s open every night of the week and although I wouldn’t get a spot every time I ask- in fact, I asked for a spot tonight and was refused- I’m sure most of my requests would be granted. But I rarely ask, as the thought of taking the train an hour to get there for a seven-minute spot, just to turn around for the hour home, kills my motivation far more often than not.

Last night I found myself wondering what comics here would be like if Stockholm was more like NYC, where comics have to work harder to get spots but, with the right work ethic, it’s possible to perform several times a night. As it stands here, there aren’t many spots available but they take very little effort to get, and I can’t help but think that’s the reason there are so many comics who perform a few times a week, for years, without the slightest amount of growth. I try not to judge, but I’m only human, and despite my curiosity I’m not going to walk up to someone and ask if the odd chuckle here and there really satisfies them.

The most frustrating part of all this is that most of the time I’m hosting and most of my new ideas can’t be done while I’m hosting. Well, “can’t” is a strong word- I could do it if I wanted. But as I’ve stated many times here I’m not one of those hosts that do, let’s just say challenging material, and when the audience has paid a steep ticket price I don’t feel comfortable trying out new bits that are several minutes long. Hell, I get nervous trying a new joke, let alone a new chunk. When I do get a regular spot I take advantage of the chance to test new material, but those spots are so few and far between it’s difficult to really work out new ideas.

Besides the itch to perform, I have to admit the itch to start a new club is increasing as well, and I can’t help wondering why. Traditionally, comics start clubs to get guaranteed stage time for themselves, but I’d be happy to open a club, have someone else host it, and I’d maybe do a spot now and then. I wouldn’t open a club to hang with comics, as I can’t say I have much of a social circle at the moment and I’m not what you would call a mingler, especially when a show is in progress. I certainly wouldn’t open a club to make money.

I think I want to open one so, as in the past, I can offer more opportunities to others who otherwise don’t get many chances to grow. I’d love to see more return on my investment, though, and see them improve over time. I just need to figure out a way to motivate them. Maybe a trap door on stage triggered by thirty seconds of silence…. I’ll keep thinking about it and get back to you.

”It really puts perspective on things, doesn’t it?”
“Too much. There’s too much fucking perspective now.”

Spinal Tap’s Nigel and David nail my mindset during the pandemic. I’d decided to take a break from standup at the end of 2019 and right when I was ready to dip my toes back into the scene, just about every club shut down due to covid. I wasn’t working, either, so for over a year my routine was sleep late, gym, grocery shopping, couch until 2 AM or later, lather, rinse, repeat. I had a lot of time to think. Entirely too much time.

One reason I’d decided to step away was recognizing that I needed a better way to deal with anger. Probably the biggest thing about me that few understand and far fewer have actually witnessed (thank goodness) is that I’m fully capable of Hulking out with rage, minus the green skin and muscles. People sometimes wonder if I’m mad at them but the fact is, no one really has to ever wonder if I’m mad at them. If I’m mad at them, they’ll know.

I decided to finally talk to a therapist for the first time in my life, not that I really had the disposable income for it. And with the pandemic in full swing, the session was digital. I told her my problems, she recommended that I act like a grownup, which was shockingly good advice. I thanked her for her time and never had another session. I don’t think I’m cured, mind you, I just thought I’d said all I was going to say and further sessions would just mean repeating myself. I repeat myself on stage and in conversations with friends already, I don’t need to pay someone for the same opportunity.

I had a lot of time to think about what’s wrong with me and why I do standup, which I believe are related. Unlike more comics than I can count, I don’t have an official diagnosis of mental illness. The only official diagnosis I have, so far, is eczema, and if God existed He wouldn’t make me look good in black and also make my skin flake off, but I digress. Given that I have family members that are mentally ill and I have days or even weeks when I just want to stay in bed with the covers over my head, it’s likely that I’ve got something going on, but having been this way for so long I don’t see much need to take medical action against it. Besides, it doesn’t stop me from being somewhat functional in life.

Not to pooh-pooh mental illness, but I’ve met people who assign every mistake, every shitty thing said or done, to their diagnosis. “I did [x] because of [y],” as if they’d be flawless saints if it wasn’t for that damned chemical imbalance. I can envy that, to be honest, as I have to attribute mistakes to flaws in my character instead, but I certainly don’t envy a daily regimen of medication.

One thing I don’t wonder about is the origin of my antisocial nature. I despise mingling, I have a hard time talking to people I don’t know, I hate small talk because I can’t get invested in asking questions when I don’t care about the answers. I often get uncomfortable in social situations as I’m acutely aware of my own awkwardness; come into the club where I host just about every weekend and you’ll likely find me standing alone, away from everyone. I know I’ve given others a terrible first impression of me and it’s rough considering how much being social can help comics get opportunities.

This aspect became aggravated in recent years by me being away from the scene for so long, but it was always a part of me. My parents split when I was very young and my daily routine after school was, go straight home and let myself in, no friends allowed to visit, wait for my mom to get home from work. Eventually a stepdad was added to the mix and then, at age 10, I wasn’t an only child anymore, but the routine was the same. As a result, I spent a lot of time alone.

Not that I had to disappoint friends who wanted to hang but weren’t allowed. After my mom met the man who would become my stepdad, we moved to his town and I instantly became an object of ridicule in school. That was in Second Grade. I tried the “ignore your bullies until they get bored” method and it worked! By Tenth Grade. Ages 15 to 16 I was absolutely, completely ignored in school and I could not have been happier. It gave me the breathing room I needed to finally make a few friends! In Twelve Grade.

Well, you don’t need a degree to understand why I’m socially retarded to this day. Maybe there’s a pill for it, I don’t know. Fortunately/unfortunately, I’ve found that alcohol helps me get out of my own way in social situations. Give me a few vodka cranberries and I’m everyone’s friend. In any case, I have no plans to sue my parents for raising an introvert. They did the same thing I’m doing now as a father- the best they could. Looking around at others, I’d say their best was pretty damn good.

What does all of this have to do with why I do standup? I’m not exactly sure. I know someone who thinks that every comic ever was driven to the stage by troubled relationships with their fathers, and I’ve said on stage that male and female comics have Daddy Issues in common, but I don’t really believe that. Yeah, my parents split up, I only saw my dad weekends, and my relationship with my stepdad got pretty combative when I was a teenager, but none of that seems abnormal and we all get along fine today. Another theory is that we’re all seeking love and approval we didn’t get growing up but, again, I never felt neglected by family.

There is one thing I can think of that might be key. As I said, by Twelfth Grade I’d made a few friends and finally came out of my shell. I went to a small school and my class was made up of a hundred students who, by that point, had known me for six to ten years without actually knowing me. That year, over and over and over again, I’d be talking to someone and it was a revelation to them- “Holy Shit! You have a personality and something to say!” Maybe I’m still chasing that, to walk out of the shadow when it’s my time on stage, surprise everyone by doing well, then retreat to the dark, waiting for someone to want to talk to me. The 47-year-old wallflower.

Before getting into this week’s topic I just have to tell a story that has nothing to do with anything. This past weekend I hosted a show and during the break, I was talking to a comic that was on during the first half. A woman walked up to him and said, “Sorry to interrupt but I just wanted to tell you I thought you were really funny! I was laughing so hard I had a hard time breathing!”

Then she looked at me and said, “Where is the bathroom?” I love hosting.

This week I wanted to cover joke theft and parallel thinking, though I had a vague memory of writing on the subject before. I dug into the blog and, yup, I wrote an entry back in 2015. Look at me, stealing from myself.

I was surprised I didn’t mention something in that last post. I did write about the fact that expat comics tend to joke about the same aspects of Swedish life we all find especially foreign – there’s no expat comic that hasn’t hit the mines of fika, lagom and olla at some point – but I left out a story on the subject. I once called my eight-year-old daughter’s classmate a very bad word (to an American, that is; the word means next to nothing to the Irish) in my head and it became a story I told on stage where I’d actually said the word to the girl out loud. I liked that joke and told it roughly 600 times.

One day, another expat comic messaged me, said he’d seen me do that joke the night before, and he had a virtually identical joke where he said a different bad word to his neighbor’s kid. I told him I’d never heard him do it and it was clearly just parallel thinking. A few weeks later he told a club owner he’d only gig there if I wasn’t booked, the club owner gleefully ratted on him to me, and the comic and I didn’t speak for a year. Then he apologized and bought me a shot and all was well again.

(Damn it, writing this also sounded familiar so I looked again through the blog and saw a different post where I mentioned someone pissing me off and making good by buying shots. At least I didn’t tell the story then.)

Anyway, what I actually wanted to write about today is what to do if you think someone is stealing your shit. I’ll start with a little story that inspired this, as an example of what not to do. A few months back, a comic told me he’d started to record all of his sets because he was tired of other comics stealing his material. He didn’t name names, but the following week I heard a more experienced comic do one of the other guy’s jokes nearly word for word.

Did either steal from the other or is it just parallel thinking? I have no idea. It certainly appears that the aggrieved comic believes the other stole his shit, hasn’t spoken to them about it, but continues to do the same material. That’s a problem, since one gets more exposure than the other, people will believe the more established comic is the one getting ripped off. Robin Williams made quite a career out of vacuuming up material from club comics and passing it off as his own and the fact that few are aware of this fact speaks volumes.

My advice? If you think someone has stolen your joke outright, or maybe just happened to stumble on virtually the same material you’ve already been doing, have a conversation with that comic. I understand that, in conflict-adverse Sweden, this is easier said than done. But if you’re not passionate enough about that material to fight for it, then why hang onto it in the first place? Better to just let it go and write new jokes instead.

When I wrote before on the subject I mentioned the one time I needed to confront a comic. Other than that, there have been multiple occasions when, let’s just say that I’ve inspired others. I’m not the first comic to step off the stage and get into someone’s face during crowd work, but I’ve known a few comics who added that move to their routines after seeing me do it. Certainly nothing for me to gnash my teeth over, not when it’s a move I didn’t invent. It’s a bummer when a comic does it before me on the lineup, but since I do that bit so rarely these days, it’s not really an issue.

(Full disclosure- I was once on a lineup before a comic I had “inspired”, hadn’t planned to do that bit, but then did it just to take the wind out of their sails. Never said I’m above being petty.)

There’s no point at all in fighting over host material because I think that stuff is up for grabs. For example, I remember the first host I saw get the crowd going at the start by yelling, “GIVE ME SOME ENERGY!” I’ve seen five other hosts do it since, word for word. I’ve suggested to the crowd that the more they drink the funnier the show gets, I’ve heard three other hosts say it since. It’s flattering to be inspirational. I’m not going to get in someone’s face, “I’m the one who says, ‘Let’s give the comics in the first half a round of applause’!”

Then there are comics where confrontation is pointless. One such comic has a reputation for being somewhat of a parrot; for the most part they don’t steal jokes word for word, but instead certain phrases, topics, or even inflections. When I see them on stage I’ll often think, “Oh, that’s so-and-so’s voice.” I’ve heard my own voice coming out of their mouth more times than I can count. I don’t think they do it with malicious intent, or even consciously. I think they hear stuff from others, like it, and it goes into their Cloud to be accessed later. Until the day they take something more concrete, I’ll just shrug my shoulders and let my ego smile over being inspirational once again.

I was talking to my uncle last summer. He suggested I watch Abbott and Costello clips on YouTube and either steal their jokes outright or otherwise rework their material into my own. I wasn’t able to make him understand how alien this thought is to me. I don’t even know how to fit “Who’s On First?” into my routine. Even if I did, I wouldn’t. The time I get on stage is my own, my opportunity to say what I want to say the way I want to say it. That’s the question I’d pose to comics who steal or parrot others- the crowd may be laughing, but don’t you want to be the one who really got them to laugh? Life and stage time are too short for karaoke.

If I ever run low on ideas for this blog, I could spend weeks on my pet peeves alone. For fuck’s sake, never ask a crowd if it’s “okay” to tell a joke you’re planning to tell anyway. Sorry, I’ll stay on topic today- I want to write about comics becoming entitled, a condition that drives me batshit and of which I’m becoming increasingly aware in my peers. I’m not sure if it’s always been around and I’m just seeing it more, or if it’s actually increasing in the Stockholm community, but either way it does no one any good.

I’ve written before about the early days of one’s comedy career, when we’re wide-eyed and optimistic in the clubs, look up with awe at the veterans around us, and generally feel lucky to get a minute of stage time, let alone five. I love to still see that when I meet rookie comics but it’s bittersweet; it reminds me of how I used to be and I know it’s a fleeting emotion. Cynicism usually sets in around six months to a year and sets in hard.

I’ve always felt, when I walk into a comedy club for a gig, that I’m a guest in the club owner’s house. I won’t claim to jump for joy when I’m put first on the lineup or asked to censor my material, but when I’m under someone else’s roof, I play by their rules. Plus, I’m an unknown comic- if one person shows up thanks to me sharing the event on social media, that’s quite a coup for me. Whatever audience fills the room that night, they aren’t there to see me, specifically. And while I certainly appreciate being paid to joke about my penis, it’s not something I take for granted. More often than not I’ll perform for free because I want to perform, although I’m far less likely to travel for hours to do so.

As a people, comics are… special. And by special, I mean broken. Everyone wants to be loved and accepted, but it takes a special kind of broken to get on a stage and expect it from drunk strangers. We all have luggage filled with insecurities and that manifests in many ways, usually by overcompensation- for example, I’ve met many comics over the years, especially rookies, who overcompensate for their lack of confidence by wearing an aura of false confidence like a ten gallon hat.

Insecurity leads to anger and anger leads to the Dark Side. I don’t deserve to be first on the lineup! … do I? Why am I not headlining, I deserve it! … don’t I? Why am I not being offered gigs, why don’t they say yes when I ask, I deserve to be booked! … don’t I? All that anger and insecurity needs a target or the damage will be self-inflicted, so it’s much more satisfying to bash club owners.

Over the last decade I’ve seen comics come and go, I’ve seen many of my peers achieve higher success than I have, at least so far, and might not ever achieve. Many of them are more ambitious than me, more prolific, while others are more social than me, play the game better than me. I don’t mind either way, I just run my own race and try hard to avoid becoming bitter. That, unfortunately, is a trap I’ve seen too many fall into. Comics who feel they haven’t achieved the success they deserve, that compare themselves to others who passed them by, who treat clubs like they’re doing the place a favor by being there.

I’m not going to name names- see the title of this blog- but one such comic changed the way I host shows. I was at a club, hosting a sold-out night, and I said to the crowd, “Tonight your headliner is —–! Who’s here to see them?” There was a moment of absolute silence, followed by a nervous giggle that rippled through the crowd. I’d had the same reaction during previous shows and decided to never ask again.

Thing is, this is someone I like. I went to a show they had produced themselves for an audience half the size of the night in question and felt they deserved a bigger turnout. Unfortunately, this comic would later complain openly about not being paid enough to headline, which just makes me wonder- how much money should we demand when a show is sold out, yet not one person bought a ticket to see us, specifically?

I’ve heard it said that club owners take advantage of comics. After all, without comics there’d be no show. Fair enough, but for the 99.98% of comics who can’t sell tickets on their names alone, we’re performing to crowds who bought tickets based on the name of the club. I’d say our relationship with the clubs is symbiotic. Perhaps symbiotically parasitic, if that was a thing.

I don’t mean to say that there’s a pandemic of entitlement, because that’s far from the truth. I think it’s more that I’m seeing it in comics I’ve known for years, and, as Yoda said, once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. I’ve also written about this before, that at some point you’re either at peace with the success of others, or every new instance drives you deeper into a bitter hole. I saw the best minds of my generation caught in that sinkhole and, to date, I’ve never seen anyone climb out.

All of this affects my enjoyment, or lack thereof, out in the clubs. I try instead to focus on positive energy, both from new faces and veterans who’ve remained easy-going. It absolutely affects my drive to open a new club; I’ve been out of that game for nearly three years now and while I have a bit of an itch to start something new, I’m not in any hurry. I know exactly what I’d do, combining the best elements of the three clubs I’ve run in the past to various levels of non-success, into a new venue that would be open to all. I’m sure it would be a welcome addition to the scene in Stockholm, especially in this allegedly post-covid world, but that would mean dealing with comics like myself. To quote Gene Wilder from Blazing Saddles, “You know… assholes.”

It would just be nice to see comics happy to be in clubs and promoting their gigs on social media and not being dicks. But hey, if we had healthy attitudes and stable emotions, we wouldn’t be comics.