Don't Shit Where You Eat! ™

When Eva and I got married, we had a roast at the party. People wondered why we would do such a thing,
although roasts originated from Jewish weddings. People weren’t confused that we’d have a roast
despite not being Jewish, they wondered why we’d risk having awful things said
at our expense on a day that, traditionally, is a happy one. But we have thick skins and didn’t worry too
much about it.

For the most part, there really wasn’t anything to worry
about. It felt like the participants
pulled their punches, nervous about going too far. All of them except Elinor Svensson who went
out for blood and, as a result, was unanimously decided the best of the
evening. One joke in particular hit home
with the crowd, but it wasn’t the one that hit me the hardest. It was this one:

“The thing about Ryan is that there isn’t anything unique
about him, not even in his DNA.”

She had no way of knowing, at least consciously, that this
was my bane, the feeling that I’m not special, have little to
no value. To not stand out in stand up,
there’s nothing worse. Maybe people are
right, I’m just yet another English-speaking comic in Sweden talking about the
politics of laundry rooms in apartment buildings and the Swedish obsession with
coffee breaks.

It’s not something that gnaws at me constantly, but when it
does it really sinks its teeth into me.
I’ve known a lot of people who deal with manic depression and I would
never compare myself to them, but I do think I have a touch of it. For example, I’ve never been able to sit down cold and
write material, but when I get new ideas they come as a flood. Last week, within a few days I
had two all-new ten minute sets that I repeated over and over during long car
trips since I didn’t have any gigs booked.

At the other end of the spectrum, I can suddenly drop into a
funk so deep I just want to lie in bed with the cover over my head for days,
apparently without cause. Fortunately,
Eva is sensitive enough- and patient enough- to know when I just need time to
myself and hate everyone and everything.
It’s not something anyone can help end, yet I do tend to send out “woe
is me!” messages to friends. It’s a Pity
Party and everyone and no one is invited.
At some point it ends the same way it began, for no real reason at all.

I’m not seeking fame and fortune, not even aspiring to a
career in standup, even if I think it would be fantastic to make a living doing
something that I love. Certainly I’m
passionate about it. Mostly I just have a drive to perform as often as I can,
as long as I can, in as many different places as possible. I don’t get every opportunity and don’t
expect to, but I am happy, and proud, over my accomplishments.

That being said, I am competitive, and when I see others
succeeding where I have not, I can’t help but feel a twinge of jealously. When I’m feeling good, that is. When I’m feeling low, that twinge magnifies
into all-consuming angst. I’m happy to
say that, even at my lowest, I never feel, “Why does so-and-so get to do that,
I’m way better!” What I do feel, though,
is, “Of course they get to do that, they’re special and funny and I’m not.” Naturally, when I’m feeling low, it seems
like everyone is succeeding on a massive scale.
I sign onto Facebook and see someone I helped get started in comedy
performing at a prestigious club I’ve never been to, see comics being invited
onto podcasts, YouTube clips with thousands more views than I ever got, new
clubs with crowds larger than mine draws, etc etc etc. Why not me??

All of which leads to the inevitable feeling that I should
just take a break, or quit, and no one would miss me anyway. Which I say to a few friends who tell me I’m
being stupid because, let’s face it, it doesn’t take a genius to spot an empty
threat. At this point I wouldn’t even
know how to quit if I honestly wanted to, and I’m smart enough to have recognized,
long ago, that there’s a flow to this, ups and downs, peaks and valleys. Comedy is manic.

Albert Camus said that life is meaningless and the only
choice one can make that actually matters is whether or not to commit
suicide. The Rebel is one who recognizes
this but decides to live anyway. Replace
“life” with “standup” and you get me, the Rebel. There’s no meaning to what I do other than
what I decide, it’s just something I have to do. Maybe I’ll have some success or maybe I won’t. It’s all just dick jokes anyway.

Here’s the punchline- I met Elinor recently and told her the
impact that joke had made on me and she didn’t remember saying it.

I went to a small high school and wasn’t very popular with
the ladies- surprise surprise- although they would talk to me, usually about
their boyfriends. One girl, though,
would never say a word to me, and she was a mystery to me. It wasn’t until years after graduation that
someone finally told me the reason- back in 7th grade, I wrote the
following in her yearbook:

Roses are red,

Violets get plucked,

Over the summer I hope you get…

You can figure out the rest

Mind you, we were both thirteen at the time and also not
friends. I was told that she scratched
it out so violently that it tore the book.
A year or two after graduation, she came out of the closet, but that
probably has nothing to do with me being a creep.

The name of my blog- Don’t Shit Where You Eat- is a dig on
myself. First, because my intent was to
write openly and honestly about my experiences in the standup world. Second, because my mouth has always got me
into trouble. I don’t make an effort to
be rude, I just don’t hesitate to say something that might be offensive or
self-destructive. Call it chronic
foot-in-mouth disease.

You might think that all comics have a wonderful sense of
humor and thick skins. I know I think
this, despite the fact that you and I should both know better. Comics are people too, dealing with all the
same insecurities as everyone else, and are even, arguably, more sensitive than
the average person. It’s very easy to
offend a comic and I’ve managed several times.
Recently, I put my foot in my mouth twice with two different people
within a few days of each other.

I was at the Lund Comedy Festival for the very first time
last month and had a great time. It was
packed with comics, from rookies to Big Names.
(I fall somewhere in the middle, leaning toward rookie, of course.) I’ve met quite a few of those Big Names over
the years, even gigging with them, but generally they were all too busy doing
Big Name things to bother saying hello to me, unless I said hello to them
first.

The festival had a mingle each night and the first one I
went to, a Big Name sought me out to say hello.
This is someone I’ve met only once, long before when we had a gig
together, and he gigged with my wife just once, yet still remembered us
both. He always struck me as a nice,
friendly guy, so I was a bit surprised when, just before the festival, a joke
of his had caused a bit of controversy and bad feelings, even from other
comics.

He came over to my table, big smile on his face, hand out,
said hello and didn’t call me Brian, all of which made me happy. I shook his hand, glad to see him, smiled and
said hello back. Then I immediately made
a joke at his expense about his current situation. Someone else might have hesitated, thought,
“Hmm, we aren’t good friends, it might not be appropriate to give him shit,” or
at least, “Maybe I shouldn’t say this, he might not know it’s just a joke.” Not this guy, I just go all-in and reflect
after.

Not that I had long to wait for reflection. The second the joke was out of my mouth I saw
his smile fade, saw how he pulled back, saw him go get some food and not come
back. I knew right away I’d probably
made a mistake, wondered if I should seek him out and apologize, but I wasn’t
sure if I was just reading too much into it.
Also, I was fairly drunk and comfortable in my seat.

It stuck with me though and I didn’t see him again at the
festival, but on the train home I decided to send him a message, said he might
not have given it a second thought, but I thought it was a shitty move on my
part. I’m glad I did, because he
responded right away, said the joke had made him very uncomfortable. Not the joke itself- I’m not that clever- but
since there are some in the community that are bashing him, I made him wonder
if my whole table was among them. I
hadn’t even considered that, but at least that was easily resolved.

A few days later, I thought I’d give insulting a comedy club
a try. What could possibly go wrong? Again, it was only meant in jest. There’s a club in town that has been showing
a ton of initiative lately, with theme nights and special shows, amongst other
things, to bring business and grow their brand.
I have a lot of respect for that, it’s nice to see people with ambition,
trying to do more than just, “Come to our basement for a few hours and hear
dick jokes.”

On the other hand, a result of this drive is that they’ve
become a bit, well, spammy on social media.
And that’s fine, except they’re posting in a certain comics’ community
forum almost daily as well. The guy who runs that forum is usually pretty
strict with club owners, holding us to one post per club per season, but for
some reason he hasn’t cracked down on this particular club. (Actually, I have a pretty solid guess what
that reason is.)

Anyway, figuring I wasn’t the only comic to notice this, I
made a goofy little joke on that forum at their expense. I wondered as I typed it, “Am I blacklisting
myself from this club?” which wasn’t at all my plan. Nah, they’ll know it was just a joke and
won’t be offended at all!

Of course they were offended. They don’t know me very well and couldn’t be
sure of my intentions, so I received a polite yet pointed message asking me to
explain myself. I responded that, yes,
it was just a joke, no insult intended, and while I had been concerned that it
might be misunderstood, I hoped everyone in the comedy business has a good
sense of humor. Crisis averted.

It was fun to see which comics would hit the Like button and
potentially blacklist themselves along with me.
One comic hit the Like button and then hit it again to take his name off
that list; a week later he promoted his show at that club. Don’t Shit Where You Eat, indeed.

“In this world nothing can
be said to be certain,” said Benjamin Franklin, “except death and taxes.” That statement alone shows a third certainty:
comedy. As long as problems exist in the
world, comedy will be around as a defense mechanism to deal with them.

Stockholm is generous as far as standup is
concerned, with several open mics operating once or more each week. Once I got my foot in the door it was a great
feeling, to enter a community of comics hustling for stage time wherever and as
often as possible. Also, the levels of
talent and experience were, as they are now, diverse, so you have the
opportunity to talk to people just starting out and people who have done it way
too long (to crib a pretty standard emcee joke).

Over the years, I’ve seen more people come and go than I can
count. Sometimes comics go away for
a while and then come back, sometimes they get actual jobs and don’t have the
time for it anymore. Some move away,
some get tired of the grind and frustrated they didn’t “make it,” however they
would describe that. Sometimes they do
make it, land gigs on radio or TV, or gig far less often but in paying clubs,
or go on tour.

The fact that I can mark such
changes speaks volumes about a) how much time I spent in open mics and b) the
status of my own “career,” such as it is, but that’s ok. Slacker that I am, I am very ambitious but
not very specific with my goals; at 41, I still have no clue what I want to be
when I grow up. I do know that I love
performing, want to improve, want to try every stage and be up there as often
as I can. Making money would be nice.

It seems like there are phases when there is a flood of new
faces at the open mic, testing standup for the first time or tenth. Here I am guilty of doing something that,
while certainly not unique behavior, I still find pretty shitty. When I see someone for the first time,
waiting for their spot on the evening’s show, I rarely talk to them, despite
the fact that I want to be welcoming and encouraging to all. I might blame my lack of social skills, but
if they go on and do well (or, more importantly, I like them), then I will go
say hello, and they don’t do well, I don’t.

I’ve admitted this to other comics and they always react
with, “I’m the same way, don’t worry about it.”
It does seem shallow, but it’s not so hard to understand. If you see someone eat shit for three
minutes, chances are, you’ll never see them again, but if you do, they’re worth
your energy. (Someone recently told me
it reminds him of the “Replacements” episode of Band of Brothers, dealing with
the complete indifference veterans showed to new faces on the frontlines- the
newbies would very likely die right away, so why get close to them?)

Also, while I do want to
encourage everyone, I have a hard time lying to comics when they want my
feedback. I would hate to tell someone I
thought they had a shit gig, but I would equally hate trying to find a nice way
of telling them they had a shit gig. But
the absolute worst experience is when you see someone have a shit gig but they
bounce off the stage with glee feeling like they were the best comic in the
room, then look to you to validate that feeling.

There are all sorts of reasons for comics not being around
anymore, but here’s the simplest: sometimes, they die. It’s sad when it happens, and shocking, and
although I try to avoid making it all about me, I can’t help but wonder what
impact I’ve made in my time so far and how things would be after I was gone.

It’s a solid community, and supportive, but we’re also
competitive. Shit-talking is as common
and normal as it would be around any office, sometimes good-natured, often not. It’s rare that I hear a comic speaking
grandly about a fellow comic not present- alive, that is- but the amount of
reverence those comics receive after they die is uncanny. Not a bad word is shared, only fitting to
show respect for the dead, but it’s such a drastic change from how we spoke of
them in life I can’t help but notice it.

One comic in particular could be a bit of a dick sometimes. The operative word being sometimes, yet
that’s all we (yes, me included) talked about when he wasn’t around. The closest thing to praise I ever heard another comic
give him came at the end of a rant about him, “….and the worst part is
that he is very funny. Asshole.”
Now that he’s gone, it’s not just that only positive things are said
about him, the sheer weight of the praise is intense. I heard someone compare him to Bill Hicks,
which, had the comic been alive at the time, would’ve led to that person being
laughed out of the room. Instead, it was
met with solemn nods of approval.

All of this is not to say that the praise is unwarranted or
undeserved, it’s just a shame that we aren’t so generous with our goodwill
towards each other in life. I suppose
this is the point I’m trying to make: if you want to say that I’m very nice,
funny, talented, handsome and the Second Coming of Bill Hicks (despite the fact
that I was 17 when he died), I’d rather you didn’t wait to say it.

A memorable gig is either really, really good, or really,
really terrible. The others just blend
into one another. I’ve had my share of
both but there have been a few that I look back on as trail markers, points
where I could mark significant change. I
had my first real turning point five years ago.

When I first started in standup, Big Ben was the only open
mic in Stockholm that I knew about. Now
the club runs three nights a week- with an English night as well- but at the
time there was no English night and, if I remember correctly, just two nights a
week. In any case, I went to every show,
asking the owner for stage time. The
answer, much more often than not, was no.
Or, “Hmm, it looks pretty full… ask me again after the break,” and then
I didn’t get on in the second half either.
But I kept going, kept asking, because sometimes he said yes and I got a
three-minute spot, or even a five-minute spot!
Meanwhile, I emailed him again and again to be put on the schedule, as
he advised me to do again and again, despite the fact that the emails went
unanswered.

Rejection, however, does wear on a person, and after months
of no after no with the occasional yes, I started to wonder why I was putting myself
through all of that. One particular
Thursday evening in June, I received the “check again later” line and I just
didn’t have the heart to stick around for the inevitable no. I left early, took a long walk along the
water, it was a beautiful evening. A
block away from Big Ben there is a fantastic vantage point and I took a picture
of Stockholm on a perfect summer night, posted it on Facebook with the comment,
“A night like this makes it hard to have a Pity Party, but I’m managing anyway.” I slunk back home with my tail between my
legs.

A few weeks later, however, I recovered. I reminded myself that it’s not supposed to
be easy, that I believed in chasing and nagging for stage time, that it was
worth it. I walked in on a Sunday night,
proudly walked up to the owner and got, “Hmm… looks pretty full, ask again
after the break.” I said sure, smiled,
and for some reason sat alone near the stage rather than hang somewhere in the
back, something I’d not done before nor since.
I was very early and the crowd hadn’t shown up yet, although there was a
large party of men sitting at the table next to me.

I noticed one of those men talk to the owner for a bit,
after which the owner walked directly to me.
“Are you ready to go on?” Turned
out, the large group was a bachelor party, and the groom-to-be didn’t speak
Swedish. The guy who’d spoken to the
owner was in charge of planning the party, thought standup would be fun, and-
oddly enough- assumed “Big Ben” would have English-speaking comics. On this particular evening, I was the only
comic in the room willing to perform in English.

I went first, it went well, I felt good. The owner suggested once again that I email
him to be on the schedule and from that day on, he actually responded to
me. When I left Big Ben that night,
another gorgeous night, I took another photo from the same point and posted, “What
a difference a few weeks makes!”

I still believe in chasing and nagging and it makes me happy
whenever I encounter a rookie doing just that, showing up, getting rejected,
and coming back anyway. Big Ben has an
online booking system these days and other open mics come and go, so I don’t see
this happen as often as I think I should.
I know, after a few years I’ve already become an old man in
standup. “Back in my day, we had to nag
and nag and nag!” So when I see these
comics I try to be as encouraging as I can, and I very, very rarely say no to
someone who asks me for time at a club I’ve run. I’m quite proud of all the comics I’ve helped
get their debut on stage, either at one of my clubs or somewhere else. I remember them all! Even the ones that have forgotten about me,
ungrateful assholes.

Kidding! Mostly.

“’Rape jokes aren’t funny!’ Bullshit. It’s all about context. If you think rape can’t be funny, imagine
Elmer Fudd raping Porky Pig.”

–
George Carlin

Don’t believe in forced entry, don’t believe in rape/

But every time she passes by, wild thoughts escape

–
U2

Are rape jokes funny?
The debate comes and goes, usually on absolute terms, most often the
answer being no, they’re never funny, it’s never okay to joke about the
subject. My own answer would be,
sometimes. If we all agreed to never
make jokes about such a serious and painful subject, then the following sketch
from Inside Amy Schumer would’ve never been released. Watch it now, it’s worth three minutes of
your time. I’ll wait. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXGJGuH59qw

It’s funny, it’s smart, above all it’s important. Comedy has always been an effective way to
deal with things people would rather not think about. A spoonful of sugar and all that.

At the moment there’s a scandal in Sweden: sexual assaults were
reported at a concert festival and the police and mainstream media chose not to
release the alleged race of the alleged attackers, causing many people- many of
them far-right and racist- to lose their minds.
I noticed a post on Facebook yesterday with a link to a far-right media
outlet condemning this decision, with the ensuing comment thread including, “Political
correctness has gone too far, we deserve to know where those people come
from! I worry about my 9-year-old
daughter, she’s now a target!”

I have an 11-year-old daughter and I also worry about
her. I worry about the political climate
becoming increasingly polarized, I worry about Sweden and the rest of Europe
slipping further and further to the right, I worry about it being hip to be
openly racist. Most of all, I worry
about men. Not dark men, all men. If we threw out everyone but ethnic Swedes
(oh, that would include me, not that most people would think about tossing out
a white American) sexual assaults would still happen. I wonder if the guy mentioned earlier posted
anything with as much fervor a few years ago when a dozen rapes were reported,
ironically enough, at Sweden’s Peace and Love Festival. Those rapists were good ol’ real Swedish
boys, so probably not. Rapes were also
reported at the revamped Woodstock concerts years ago as well. Peace and love, indeed.

I remember a concert where a woman was crowdsurfing, a guy
reached up and squeezed her tit, she punched him square in the face. I laughed then, but if I could go there again
I’d also punch him in the face. Violence
may not solve anything but he had it coming.

We’re so deep in rape culture we don’t always recognize just
how bad it is. About twenty years ago, I
was hanging out with some guys in a bar after work, one of them was in a
casual, sexual relationship with one of our female co-workers. He told us about a party the weekend before,
she got so drunk she passed out, so he had anal sex with her. “Basically, I raped her,” he said with a
laugh, and we all laughed with him. I
don’t know anything else about that story, it might have been bullshit, she may
have woken up during and gone along with it, she might’ve woken up the next day
wondering why she was sore.

The worst part isn’t that I laughed along with everyone
else. The worst part isn’t that I didn’t
have the moral strength and courage to angrily reply, “Yes, you actually raped
her.” The worst part is that I didn’t even think of it as rape, not
for a long, long time. After all, they
were in a sexual relationship, maybe they’d had anal before. In any case, there didn’t seem to be any
consequences to his actions.

Have I grown in the two decades since? Yes and no.
Certainly I am much more aware of the ugliness in the world around
me. But I’m not a saint. I sometimes laugh at rape jokes that aren’t
smart, aren’t important, are just vicious and cruel. I’ve told rape jokes that are just as bad,
even one on stage that was just hideous.
I’m part of a chat thread on FB with two other guys that I hope never
goes public (my wife got a glimpse of it once and was rightfully furious about
it), a thread full of bile and hate, but in a funny way, where we try to outdo
each other at making jokes uglier and uglier and often succeeding. It’s been argued that even those private
conversations help perpetuate rape culture and I see the truth in that, yet at
forty years of age I’m not mature enough to not laugh at awful jokes. I hope that the good I do counteracts the bad and I end up on the plus side with karma.

Freud said that three things define us: Id, which is what
makes you an animal and not a plant; Ego, which is what makes you human and not
a cat; and Superego, which is what makes you you and not anyone else. We get a lot of impulses from the Id, base
animal desires, our fight-or-flight response, our natural instincts, many of
which we as humans have decided are evil and need to be suppressed. Rape certainly comes from there. That impulse to just take what you want, to
have power over someone else, it’s part of everyone, but you don’t have to
watch many shows on Animal Planet to understand that it’s an overwhelmingly
male phenomenon. Yeah, yeah, men get
raped, too. But we don’t live in fear.

It doesn’t mean that everything from the Id is inherently evil. Some of my strongest material has sprung from
the darkest corners of my mind. I just
run it through a dozen filters before it’s acceptable to say in society.

I visited Sweden at least once a year from 1995 – 2006, met
my (now ex-) in-laws many times. Nice
people, overall, but very upper class.
Frequently I was told, “Immigrants, they come to Sweden, they get free
apartments, free TV…” So when I became an
immigrant in 2006, I was psyched to get lots of free stuff! Didn’t get anything other than free Swedish
lessons. SFI: Svenska för Invandrare, or
Swedish for Immigrants.

A few months later I met one of my ex’s cousins at a garden
party and he asked me what I was up to. “Looking
for work, studying at SFI.”

“Oh, that’s good,” he said, “but.. oohh, don’t call yourself
invandrare, you are not invandrare.” I knew immediately what he meant. “You’re not an immigrant, you’re white and
speak English.” It was the last, best
piece of evidence I needed- when many Swedes say invandrare, they mean n—-r.

As much as I love living here, two things bother me more
than any other, and I often focus on them in standup (the story above has
appeared a dozen different ways). The
first is Sweden’s lack of self-esteem and patriotism- either they have no pride
in themselves, or too much (the “former” Nazi party the Swedish Democrats, for
example). The second is the massive gulf
between Swedes and invandrare, the lack of integration and us vs. them
mentality.

For my last two gigs of 2015, I thought of a way to address
this on stage. A portion of it went as
follows:

We
have to talk about immigration, but we can’t because the conversation is often
so negative and ugly. But I have a
suggestion… From now on, it is illegal for white people to say invandrare. Instead, they have to say n—-r, in a really
ugly way. I know, that might not make
much sense. The problem is, white people
are too comfortable saying ugly things about immigrants and we have to take
that comfort away from them- imagine the law is in place, you’re at a bar, you
hear some drunk white guy going off, “This country is going to Hell and I’ll
tell you what the problem is, the problem is all those goddamn… uh….”

“Yes,
go on.”

“Uh…
I don’t mean it in a bad way, it’s just too easy for, uh, them to get in here.”

“Who?”

“You
know, uh…. Okay, never mind.”

This was not an easy set for me to perform, it made me
extremely uncomfortable and I’m glad it did.
The reaction from the crowd was interesting- the 2nd night I
had a black guy to my left in the crowd staring daggers into my face- and it
wasn’t a laff riot, not that I expected it to be. There certainly were shocked giggles and
nervous laughter the moment I dropped the bomb.
What meant the most to me was getting it out on stage, because it’s one
of the most important bits (to me) I’ve ever written.

However, I won’t be doing it again, not in its current
state. That word has so much power, it
deserves a stronger bit written around it.
Taboos don’t mean much to me, I think everything should be said, there’s
no such thing as too soon, etc. But I
also know how hollow it would be for me to say it’s just a word and we should
take all its power away by removing the taboo it has. That’s all well and good, but the reality is
that it does have a lot of power, it is taboo.
And I don’t want to be the type of comic who throws it out there just to
shock the audience.

I’m also very influenced by Pryor. Pryor used the n-word throughout his career
until a trip to Africa inspired him to never say it again. One critic claims, “When Pryor stopped saying
‘n—-r’ he stopped being funny,” which is one of the most absurd things I’ve
ever heard. Listen to his studio albums
in order of release, you hear him developing away from characters and becoming
more and more personal and honest.

Paul Mooney was a writer for Pryor and one of his closest
friends and completely disagreed with him on this issue, kept using the word
himself for decades. Mooney gained fame
with a new generation through his appearances on Chappelle’s Show. Then Michael Richards had his infamous
meltdown on stage, screaming the n-word at hecklers, and Mooney saw the light,
announced that he realized just how much hate is in the word, and vowed to never use it again. “Instead I say, ‘What’s
up, my Michael Richards?’”

I hate a lot of things and one of them is when people use
the word “journey” to describe anything that isn’t an actual movement from
Point A to Point B in space and time.
Idol is notorious for this: “What a journey you’ve been on,” “Sadly,
your journey is over. Let’s take a look
back at your journey,” et al. So,
looking back on my 2015 year of comedy, I won’t be using that word in any shape
nor form.

… but what a ride it’s been!

Well, I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate, either, but
there have been some big changes for me over the year. For one, I made a point to host shows a lot
less, other than at Crossfire, of course.
I hosted a great deal of shows at other clubs in 2014, primarily at
Maffia, and I enjoyed it, but hosting (in my opinion) limits one to a certain
style. It shouldn’t be a time to test a
lot of new material or even spend much time on stage for that matter,
especially when the lineup is packed. I
wanted instead to do more regular sets, try new stuff and just be however I
wanted up there.

At some point already in 2014, I stopped keeping an absurdly
accurate account of all the gigs I’d done because the total number meant less
and less to me, and if that’s changed at all this year, it’s only to become
even more meaningless. By this point it’s
well over 600, might as well be 200 or 6000 for all I care, really. I found something more fun to count: all the
money I’m making! I say that with a bit
of twinkle in my eye, because I know the amount (which I don’t intend to reveal
here) would be pocket change to an established comic, and it isn’t enough for
me to quit my day job (again), but it was a significant increase over the
amount I made in 2014, which was a significant increase from 2013. This is a trend I’d like to see continue.

It is a wonderful feeling to get paid to perform since I
love doing it and otherwise for my own enjoyment and development and not much
more. I haven’t yet found a way to find
these gigs proactively- I don’t intend to sit down with the phone book and cold
call people, “Hi, I’m Ryan, I’m funny and sorry to interrupt your dinner, but
would you like to pay me several thousand crowns to tell you dick jokes for 15,
30 minutes? Hello?”- but they come to me at a growing pace. Sometimes it’s a booking agent for a website
at which I am a featured performer, sometimes it’s a club owner or a fellow
comic. One lovely development was
getting a gig from someone who just thought about booking an English comic in
Sweden, went to Google and found me. I
hope that continues as well.

The biggest change, of course, is that, since last Spring, I’m
not performing nearly as often as I used to.
Partly that’s due to being steadily employed again, finally, but mostly
due to moving away from Stockholm and having my daughter live with me every
other week instead of every other weekend.
For years, I’ve spent two days out of every fourteen with her, and that
was awful. It’s a much better
arrangement for everyone involved now and I make a real effort to avoid gigs
while she’s with me. Which limits my
chances for stage time. Luckily, and I
don’t know if it’s because of this or if it’s just been a coincidence, since
last summer I have been much more productive with new material, so much so that
I haven’t had enough time on stage to test it all, much less keep working on
it, refining it. This is a good problem
to have.

Socially, 2015 was a bit of a downer, at least for me. I haven’t been hanging out as much with other
comics, before, during nor after shows.
In part because I live so far away and don’t have many options for
getting home after staying late, in part because there is a growing amount of
people I don’t enjoy being around. Not
to say that’s a big number, because it isn’t, but there are a lot of nights I
just want to do my set and run out the door.
I don’t like being That Guy, however, and intend to turn that around in
2016.

Overall, 2015 was a very positive year. I released my first special, Simply
Resistible, and over two people paid to download it! No, the response was far from overwhelming,
but that’s what I expected. I did it for
me and I’m really proud of it, learned a lot, and I’m focusing on putting together
a new show for next year that will probably be called Love Refugee. I helped found a sketch group called OOi and
we released a great deal over 2015 for Season One, with Season Two debuting
early 2016 (including more sketches that I wrote). Crossfire’s Season 3 was very up and down but
the finale was an enormous success, and we’ll be back for a fourth season,
which makes it the most successful club (of the two) I’ve ever run. Not only that, Crossfire will open in a
second city in February as well. There
aren’t many who can say they have clubs running in different cities at the same
time, so I’m proud over what I’ve been able to build, primarily on my own.

Maybe 2016 will be when I get a rookie spot at Norra Brunn,
or even win an award! Either would be
nice, but neither is a focus for me.
Instead I’ll keep on keeping on, chase long sets, money, testing new
material, money, filming sketches, running clubs, and money. Did I mention money?

Oh, and I got married in 2015, but that’s not funny. However, I did use dick joke money to buy her wedding ring, so there’s that.

When I tell
someone I have a hard time in social situations, they’re surprised. Usually because it’s a person with whom I’ve
learned to have a conversation; once I reach that point, I don’t have any
problems being open with them. Or, I
could say a problem is that I’m sometimes too open. I say I view social situations like taking a kayak
out onto the ocean- it’s easy once I’m out on the open water, but getting from
the beach past those waves is a real bitch.

No one
would ever describe me as a mingler. If
there’s a way to manage it sober I’d love to learn it. “Alcohol is crutch!” some might say. Yeah, well, a guy with a broken leg needs
crutches. In my case, the crutch is
several strong cocktails and then I’m everybody’s friend.

I did a
corporate gig in Oslo recently thanks to my friend Roberto, who arranged and
hosted the event. It was at the house of
a guy who was part of a Men’s Club that met a few times a year and he wanted us
to be there all day. Food and drinks
were free, they were competing in lawn games all afternoon and thought it was
fun to have comics mingling with the guests before performing in the evening.

Roberto is
a very social guy and had no problem bouncing about and starting
conversations. For me, understanding
Norwegian is tough enough as it is, so I spent most of the afternoon standing
quietly alone, watching everything, wondering what the hell I was going to joke about
with twenty blue-collar men doing men things, and working on getting enough
beer into me that I could be social without being a slurry mess when it came
time to perform.

When the
time came, most of the guys were surprised to find out that I didn’t even speak
Norwegian, since they hadn’t heard me say a word all day. It ended up being one of the most fun gigs I’ve
ever done and my ego feasted on the feedback the guys gave me afterwards. I was referred to as “the king” several
times. Hey, their words, not mine.

Naturally,
the comments that really stick with me came from Roberto, “You were way funnier
than when I saw you last!” – thanks,
dick – and from one of the partygoers: “You
were so quiet all day, I thought you were Roberto’s retard Rain Man brother,
but now I see you were just observing everything so you’d give us a great
show!” Well, that was honestly part of
what I did that day, but mostly I just didn’t know how to talk to them.

I once
admitted to a comic that I was afraid to talk directly with anyone in the
audience at a show, which I hadn’t done at all by the point, since “I don’t
know how to talk to people in real life, let alone from stage.” He pointed out that when you have a
microphone in your hand, you’re never talking with anyone, you’re talking at
them. You have the mic, you have
control. It was a great point and now
when I see a comic that seems so natural doing crowd work, I can also see the
strings- it’s sometimes irrelevant what the person in the crowd has to say
because the comic is steering everything into a prepared joke.

That’s how
the bit I call Personal Question was born.
I ask a woman in the audience a few yes/no questions, which limits her
answers, and I have responses planned for any outcome. I steer the conversation into asking her how
she likes to receive oral sex, which embarrasses her and the crowd on her
behalf. When she and everyone else is
very quiet at the end, I say, “Can I ask you a personal question?” Punchline.
See, because I already asked her a bunch of personal questions. Yes, it’s a bit mean to put someone on the
spot, and it has caused a problem a few times, but much more often than not,
once she and everyone else sees what I was doing, the tension is gone along
with any bad feelings.

The best
part is that I’ve made great friends with a few of these women as a result of
me embarrassing them in front of total strangers. One of them has brought dozens of people-
literally dozens- to my shows the past few years. Another- who flirted back during questioning
so fast and so well she embarrassed me- has a boyfriend in video
production. His company produced my
first special and she and her sister appeared in a sketch in it.

Of course,
when I first came up with the bit and enjoyed it very much, I did it way, way
too often, so now I try to save it for special occasions. Once, after I got about halfway into it, she
said, “You asked me these questions last time I was here.” I’m so bad with faces and names and life in
general.