Don't Shit Where You Eat! ™

Standup and booze- among other substances, legal or otherwise- go together like chocolate and peanut butter, yet I haven’t seen that many stage mishaps. I know two comics who threw up in the middle of their sets, but fortunately I wasn’t present during those nights. I’ve heard a stage groan under the weight of a Swedish comic you’d be forgiven for thinking is American, but the stage didn’t collapse.

I was once asked to help a wheelchair-bound Swedish comic up three steps to a stage and I was glad to help. Except I misjudged my foot placement on the way up and his chair crushed my leg, fixing us both in place until other people ran over to help us both. He never asked me for help again. Or offered me any gigs. I suspect there’s an ironic joke to be made about my leg being crushed by a wheelchair but I can’t find it.

The stage at Maffia Comedy is a platform about a foot or 200 or 2000 or 2 cm (I don’t understand the Metric system) off the ground. I’m usually there two nights a week and I’m usually hosting, which means I step on and off that stage much more often than anyone. I figured it was only a matter of time before I tripped.

A few weeks ago, a comic had concluded his set and, since I was hosting, I retook the stage to introduce the next act. We shook hands, badly, as he stepped off and I stepped on. Even before covid, I was terrible at judging how to shake hands with someone. I’d go in with a regular handshake, they’d offer a cool one, or the other way around. Nowadays there are even more variables. It’s common I offer a fist bump, they have their hand extended for a regular handshake, so they close into a fist, except now I’ve opened my hand and end up grabbing their fist.

This time, at least, we’d both gone in for a regular handshake, but didn’t connect very well. I was thinking that it felt like shaking a wet noodle and not about my foot being kinda but not really on the stage. As I put all my weight on the leg to step up, my foot slipped off and I went, shin-first, into the edge of the metal stage. As my momentum kept me moving forward, time slowed to a crawl and I heard the crowd gasp as I found nothing to break my fall.

I’m not sure how exactly it happened, but I ended up flat on my back behind the stage. I paused for a heartbeat and chuckled to myself. I knew I’d fall one day. I climbed up on stage- I want to say the comic helped me up, but I honestly don’t remember- and the whole crowd was leaning forward with genuine concern on their faces. It was actually pretty sweet of them. Feeling like George Bailey’s drunk uncle in It’s a Wonderful Life, I announced, “It’s okay, I’m all-right.” (By the way, I should mention I’d had one beer. I can’t blame booze, just my own clumsiness.)

I limped to the back of the room after introducing the next act. My leg would be sore for a few days more and, since there’s a spot on my shin that’s still tender to the touch, I’m pretty sure I cracked the damn thing. The concern for a fellow human being I got from the crowd gave me a warm feeling. I was also reminded of a difference between crowds and comics when, as I reached the other comics at the back of the room, one of them called me Joe Biden.

Lisa Kudrow, on Black Mirror as a parody of a right-wing pundit, said something along the lines of, “Conservative voices are being silenced! It’s like I said on Joe Rogan, on Jordan Peterson, twice on Tucker Carlsson, and in my best-selling book ‘Conservatives are Being Silenced!’ And I’ll keep saying it, because conservative voices are being silenced!”

Here is a common rookie move, one I’ve made myself- comic tells a joke, someone in the crowd has an unusually strong reaction, typically negative. In future sets, comic tells that joke, then the story of what happened that one time they told it. I once saw a comic get a strong reaction to a joke, then, at another club while telling the story of what happened that other time they told it, someone reacted strongly to his story. I then saw him, a month later, tell the joke, then the story of what happened when he told the joke, then the story of what happened the time he told the story of what happened when he told the joke.

Anyway, I was reminded of this while watching Dave Chappelle’s latest special.

Good Lord, I am so tired of hearing comics complain they’re not allowed to say anything while saying anything they want. Don’t get me wrong, I do not believe in limits to speech, but I also believe in consequences. Gilbert Gottfried lost his job as a duck because he made insensitive jokes about the tsunami in Japan. Let me repeat that- he lost his job as a fucking duck. Bummer. I’m sure it took a short-term financial toll. In the long-term, he got to die a titan of the comedy industry.

I love John Cleese but I don’t love hearing him in interview after interview, oh waahh everyone is so sensitive these days and you can’t say anything anymore. Except he is. I’m reminded of a phrase I heard shouted on Monty Python many, many times: “Get on with it!”

I’d have more patience if these iconoclasts, these rebels, would have something profound to say in the face of relentless censorship. They don’t. I’ve seen Chappelle and Jimmy Carr and several others do, instead, the following- “Oooh, I’ll get canceled for this, but here it comes! [insert joke a rookie with two weeks’ experience could write] Uh oh, I was kicking down, now I’m canceled, wink wink!”

It’s just so fucking boring. I don’t think Chappelle returns to this well, over and over, because he’s lazy or following the path of least resistance. I don’t even think he’s pandering to his base. I think he’s obsessing over a not unsubstantial amount of people reacting poorly to his jokes. Like a rookie recounting the story, he can’t let it go. I expect better. I don’t know why I keep watching his specials; maybe it’s me being self-destructive, purposely watching something I know will annoy me, or maybe it’s out of hope he’ll pull himself out of this creative nosedive.

We live during a time that it seems everyone and their mother has a podcast. For years, that motivated me to start one of my own. After all, if many of my peers were doing it, why shouldn’t I? At the same time, it equally discouraged me from doing the same. After all, if everyone else is doing it, why should I?

The urge persisted, but it wasn’t until the pandemic that I finally did something about it. I was surprised by how little I missed performing and thought about all the comics I’d seen quit over the years and not understanding why. I could interview them and maybe that would help me understand my own relationship with standup.

To make it happen, though, I had a few hurdles to overcome. One was as I mentioned above, why bother putting out a podcast that no one will listen to? Well, some people will, but that’s not the important part. I’d be doing it for me. In that sense, maintaining this blog helped motivate the pod, because I write this for me and whomever else cares to read it.

The biggest obstacle, however, was getting off the couch. Well, that’s not entirely fair, as I was at the gym five to seven days a week. The gym is a five-minute walk from my apartment, though, and the thought of going further than that was exhausting. Literally and figuratively. Getting ahead of myself here, but I once recorded two episodes in Stockholm in one day and I could barely function afterward. Whatever the opposite of cabin fever is, I got it from the pandemic, and doing a podcast and, later, working part-time as game show host, helped get me out of it.

Throughout my life, there were instances when I had a great idea to do something and then never acted on it. “It’s better to regret something you have done, than something you haven’t done,” as they say. I don’t like looking back and thinking what if and I didn’t want to add this podcast idea to that list, so I was finally motivated to shit or get off the pot, to use that lovely saying.

Naturally, it helped that I would be interviewing friends, or at least people I’d known for over a decade. I also intentionally planned it as a limited series so I wouldn’t have to do a new one every week or feel bad about it running out of juice. It was fun to learn how to do it, from recording to posting, and I had great support in making all the graphics come out the way I liked (shout-out to David T. Weaver). I never cared that it’s incredibly amateur. No need for studios or top-notch equipment, I can record and film wherever with a laptop and one microphone! When you do something mostly for yourself, quality doesn’t need to be a priority. Again, see this blog.

I enjoyed doing it and figured I could eventually do a second season with a new theme, I’d just need to wait until I had a good idea for one. Only took two years but I finally had the idea to talk to rookies who made their debuts during the pandemic. Well, the real motivation was realizing I was paying a host every month to keep my podcast online, and figuring I’d better put out something new or just get rid of the damned thing. Shit or get off the pot, again.

There was only one obstacle this time, but it was a doozy. As I’ve mentioned ad nauseum, I’m not the most social guy around, and during the first season I’d had the luxury of talking to people I’d known for a long time. This time, I’d be interviewing people I barely knew at all, if at all. I knew from personal experience, though, that everyone likes to be invited to a podcast and that all comics love to talk about themselves. I wouldn’t need to talk so much myself and holy shit is that a good thing; rewatching them now, it’s shocking, even to me, how badly I mumble, how quickly I speak when I’m nervous or not paying attention.

I thought I’d record a few episodes before I started releasing them, but I got a little too complacent with that. Now, in January 2024, I edited the first few episodes I recorded and listened as we discussed our Summer 2023 plans. Okay, can’t blame covid for making me lazy, but in my defense, my PS5 won’t play itself. At least the second season is finally underway.

After the finale, I’ll keep the podcast up until I get an idea for a third season. Hopefully the muse will take less time to inspire. Until then, may spite and selfishness motivate you as much as they motive me.

I looked forward to this year’s Winter party at my job. We have two company parties a year, they’re always fun, and I always leave earlier than everyone else as I have a long commute home with few travel options. This time, I got a hotel room in the city so that I wouldn’t have to bail out early. Usually, the party is in December, but for some reason was in January this time. In the middle of my annual Dry January. I figured I’d earned an exception and enjoyed a few beers during the day.

I had a great time… until I didn’t. After one taco at dinner, I began feeling nauseous. I didn’t want to leave, but it was hard to concentrate on anything. Despite being in a public venue, I seriously considered pulling the trigger – puking on purpose – except the few bathroom stalls were barely large enough to fit a toilet. I did my best to push on anyway, managing a game of Dutch Curling, but when ping-pong was next on the agenda I knew it was time to leave. Fortunately, my hotel room was a ten-minute walk away, where I promptly and violently threw up and then fell asleep.

Naturally, when I left the party, I didn’t say goodbye to anyone. This, apparently, is my way of leaving every event these days. An Irish Exit.

This method of bailing on a party has many names. I’d always known it as a French Exit, but my kid says it’s Irish Exit, and who am I to argue with young people. Besides, she says it’s more appropriate as I’m Irish. Okay, not biologically but I identify as Irish and how dare you question my truth.

(Sigh. The whole “I identify as…” bit is hack and I hereby vow to not use it again.)

I wouldn’t say I was particularly social prior to covid, but I was quite the butterfly compared to my current status. At parties, there’s usually two guys in a corner, locked in conversation, too busy trying to save the world than have fun with everyone else. I was always one of those guys. At mingles – shudder – I never worked the room, I’d stand in one place and talk to whomever came near. Instead of social butterfly, a social Venus Fly Trap. I was rarely last man standing, but never in a hurry to leave.

These days, I’m below the radar and prefer to stay there. You know how Norm would walk into Cheers, say, “Hello, everybody,” and the whole bar would go, “Norm!”? I’m about as far from that as one could be. This isn’t a pity party or me beating myself up, it just is how it is. I like me. But I’m not Mr. Charisma, I don’t take up space, I’m not larger than life. Which is odd to Swedes as they expect that of me as an American.

Instead of lighting up a room, I’m much more likely to scare the shit out of someone when they turn around and find me standing there, as if I’d appeared from nowhere. If social ninjitsu was a thing, I’d be a third-degree black belt. At parties and even standup clubs, I have fun until I don’t, which is usually a sudden vibe, and then I just want to leave as quickly and as quietly as possible. I feel invisible to others so I make myself more so, making it self-fulfilling. Not standing out has led to many missed opportunities, social and otherwise.

All that said, I do feel like I’m in a better place than I was even a year ago, and that things will continue to improve. I told another comic recently that I still feel like I’m coming back into the world. Going into exile and then the pandemic hitting, there was a long period of time when just going anywhere other than the gym was physically and mentally exhausting. My motivation may be low but at least it exists, which is saying something.

There’s a pivotal scene in the movie Big where Tom Hanks’s character Josh – a 12-year-old boy magically changed into an adult man – completely derails a toy pitch meeting. A seasoned executive shows off his idea for a toy, nearly everyone accepts it, until this manchild raises his hand and says, “I don’t get it.” This results in the idea getting shot down and a promotion for Josh.

I think of this often, not just because I relate to being a manchild. I often have this same reaction to other comics. Call it jealousy if you like, but I’m just as likely, if not more so, to react this way to someone’s attempt at success than their actual success.

To be clear, I am very aware that humor is subjective. That said, I don’t need to find someone funny to understand why they’re successful. In fact, I’ve had direct conversations with two separate comics when I said, “Your comedy isn’t for me and that’s okay, because it’s not meant for me.” To one of them, I said this after watching three minutes of one episode before deciding his entire TV series wasn’t for me. And I wonder why I don’t have friends.

I think, “I don’t get it,” most often as a gut reaction to clips comics post on social media. I love seeing the devolution of the comedy hour into the “half-hour comedy hour” into the 30-second TikTok clip. We’ll be seeing five-second clips soon. Anyway, since no one wants to “burn” “quality” material by exposing it online, it’s more popular for comics to post crowd work. The problem, however, is that when we talk to someone in the crowd, we don’t have to be especially funny or clever. We just need to be fast. Done right, we show the crowd how confident we are, how skilled, and they know this is an organic moment crafted for them and them alone.

In a video clip, days later? Not nearly as meaningful. We add subtitles to clips since it’s very common for people to watch them with the sound off, so the crowd may have laughed hysterically at your unfunny but quick, I hesitate to call it a joke, but no one will hear that reaction, they’ll just see the transcript. Which leads me to wonder why it was posted at all. Which also discourages me from posting clips myself, because I don’t want people to react to me the same way.

There are times when I’m in a club, not laughing at the comic onstage, but the crowd is pissing themselves. That comic’s success is not a mystery to me. There are times when I’m not laughing, the crowd isn’t laughing, and it makes sense that the comic never gets past the open mic level. There are times, though, when I’m not laughing, the crowd isn’t laughing, and the comic is in high demand throughout the country. That I don’t get, because it must involve a level of social skills and likeability – at least off stage – that I’ll never attain.

I don’t get that comics can be successful while also openly and shamelessly stealing from other comics. Well, that’s not completely true, I do get that audiences neither know nor particularly care where the jokes come from. You know what, I take it back, I do get why they get away with it. It’s because comics, rather than openly confronting and shunning them, just talk shit in the clubs and make vague, passive-aggressive comments in blogs. Ahem. (To be fair, I stumble into more than enough beefs without actively seeking drama.)

I guess it’s okay that I don’t always get it, because what is life without a little mystery? Now I feel like rewatching Big, haven’t seen it in years. There’s a tendency for Hollywood to make female remakes of old movies, but I think Big is pretty safe from that. Unless you think people will think it’s just as romantic to see a woman with the mind of a 12-old-year girl have sex with a grown man. As Carlin said, “Let’s not have a double standard. One standard will do just fine.”

Before I begin this week’s post (first of the year!) I should mention something I forgot to put into my 2023 year in review: I quit snus. Sure, doesn’t have anything to do with comedy, but it was a big change for me. For the first time in a decade, I don’t have nicotine coursing through my veins every waking minute. Other than a week of serious depression – which I could’ve had just as easily while still a user – quitting was easy. It’s been several months now, but I still feel a craving now and then. I’m also a lot more tired, but I suppose that’s natural for a man my age.

When I quit, a comic asked me what new vice I had picked up instead. He’s convinced that we always have a stable level of vices. Honestly, nothing new here, just a stable level of sloth and gluttony.

While 2023 threatened to end on a down note, it picked up by the end. Christmas was lovely, had a lot of fun on New Year’s Eve. My first gig of 2024 was last Friday, hosting Maffia Comedy, and it was amazing. I could tell by the reaction to my first joke that the crowd was ready, able, and most importantly, willing to laugh. One of those nights that don’t feel like work at all.

Saturday, I hosted my first two game shows at On Air since before Christmas. Didn’t feel rusty, had a lot of fun, both groups gave me a rating of “Very Good” online afterward. Hosted Maffia that night, too, had to work a little harder to get laughs but it still went just as well for me. During the break, as I stood talking to a comic who had been on earlier, a woman walked up to us, gave me a fist bump, said I was great. Didn’t acknowledge the other comic at all. Normally, this would’ve been the other way around.

Back on Friday, I’d posted a short video on Instagram and Facebook as a reel that my kid helped me film. It was a joke, the punchline being, “It’s called Winter, happens every year, stop complaining.” I’m trying to post more content, more often, and since this one quickly got over 500 views and a ton of positive reactions, it’s very encouraging! Although I learned today that a Swedish comic in my network, also on Friday, tweeted (not going to say X’d) a joke, the punchline being, “It’s called Winter, happens every year, stop complaining.” It was in Swedish and the setup was different, at least, but I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Now, it does look like he posted that just before I did, so it could be (probably is) parallel thinking.

The fact that his post has currently over 20K views, though, that gives me mixed feelings. I was, and am, happy with my result, especially since I didn’t include any hashtags (I’m almost 50 and have no idea how they work), my Facebook is private and I only recently reopened my Insta to public. I’d love to get the numbers he gets, even though I should also be happy to be happy with a number he’d think was so low he’d want to jump in front of train.

There’s an old saying, “In like a lion, out like a lamb.” It has a dozen different meanings, but when I first learned it, it was a reference to late-Winter weather in March. If March started with rough weather, it would end with a mild start to Spring. If the weather was mild at the start, though, it would end with a rough start to Spring. Basically meaning that we have to pay for the good, sooner or later.

Now, with 2024 off to such a good start (other than my continuing unemployment), I’d love to believe that things will only get better from here! But while, at the end of the day, I do think I’m an optimist, I can’t help but worry about the other shoe dropping. (I’ve never been afraid to mix metaphors.) Is 2024 in like a lamb, out like a lion? Nothing to do but wait and see and appreciate the good times while they last.

Earlier this month, someone posted on an expat Facebook forum, “What’s an American thing but Americans think everyone outside of America does it?”  While I rarely interact with anyone on social media these days, especially total strangers, I felt an urge to do so in this case.  I wrote, “Caring about America.”

Americans believe that everyone around the world loves us and that everyone around the world hates us.  We hold these beliefs simultaneously, unaware that they cancel each other out, since irony has never been our strong suit. I’m sure I felt the same way until I left the US and met people from all over.  Now, I did meet a Kurd from Iraq who had a passionate opinion about America, quite the opposite of positive, but the truth is, most people neither love nor hate the US.  They have their own lives, their own cultures, and America isn’t as top of mind as we think is.  The opinion of most is ambivalence, when we come to mind at all.

It’s time for my 2023 year in review!  (The reason I opened the way I did will become clear.)  I meant to write this a few weeks ago, but I was feeling a bit melancholy after canceling Thanksgiving.  The reason to do so is too long and boring to write here but suffice it to say I was bummed.  It’s one of the few times of the year I get truly homesick, and I didn’t want to write this while in a blue frame of mind.

I said in my review of 2022 that it was an interesting year.  Well, I certainly understand why, “May you live in interesting times,” is a curse, as I’d describe 2023 the same way.  I’ve seen some positive changes, some negative, and feel that I’ve made progress and also none at all.  A strange feeling, to say the least.

Let’s start with the negative.  I’ve said, over and over again, that comics reach a point, early on, where they begrudge other comics their success.  That we either let it go and enjoy our own success, or remain bitter and angry forever, and that I was happy to be amongst the former.  That’s still true, but I find myself increasingly angry at other comics, not for their success, but for their bullshit.  My Lord, there is so much bullshit.  Much more than I care to detail here, but it’s everything from hypocrisy to inane clips.

Two things at play here.  First, I’m aware of the bullshit because of social media.  For a brief, shining moment, I stayed away from it and felt much better about my life.  But as I’ve increased my standup activity, I’ve increased the amount of time I spend on Facebook and Instagram.  Even if the amount of my interactions are still miniscule compared to years ago, I’m seeing more, and not liking what I see.  The second thing is that big bullshit and minor bullshit seem to affect me the same, which is to say too much.

If anything positive can be said for jealousy, it would be that it can be a motivator.  Jealous a comic got booked at a club but you didn’t?  Maybe that will fire you up and you’ll try harder to get that gig!  So if I have to waste energy caring about other comics, I’d prefer jealousy.  Unfortunately, there’s nothing motivational about being too aware of the bullshit and nonsense out there.  The opposite, in fact.  I still love standup, of course, but any minute spent thinking of nonsense – for no good reason – is a minute not spent on new material, grinding for gigs, planning a new club of my own.  I said last year that I had an urge to open a club and I still do, except it’s even less likely now.

On a positive note, I think I’ve reached a Zen level when it comes to ego.  I didn’t mention it in my 2022 review, but I struggled quite a bit with how others think of me.  Since then, I’ve gone from worrying how others think of me, to not caring what they think of me, to accepting that they don’t think of me as much as I thought.  I’m like America that way.  (See?  Told you the opening would pay off.)  Some people have passionate feelings about me, one way or the other, but most people have too much on their minds to make room for little old me.  And I’m no more visible this year than I was last year.

That being said, 2023 gave me my first corporate gig in many years, and while I think I can count the clubs I performed at on one hand, I performed in Norway, again for the first time in years.  I believe that gig turned a profit of $10, but I didn’t do it for the money!  I did make a fair amount of that, though, throughout the year, not enough to live on but enough to make life easier, so I appreciate that.

I even got off my ass long enough to record new episodes for my podcast!  Well, kind of.  I wanted to bank a bunch before I started releasing them and ended up banking and not releasing.  With January looming, however, I’ll have lots of sober time on my hands to finally get those out.  Hopefully it will motivate me to think of a topic for a third season, so it isn’t another two years before that comes out, but one thing at a time.

2023 was also a year that saw my daughter begin working with me at Maffia Comedy Club.  Not that I think comedy clubs ever held any mystique with her, but I do love that she’s seeing the business side of entertainment.  Getting to know that better means getting to know me better.  Plus it makes it even less likely she’ll ever get on stage herself, so just wins all around.

Speaking of Maffia, while I’ve been a steady fixture there damn near every night, I’ve been hosting less often, giving someone else the job while I do a regular spot.  Even if my material is almost completely the same, it’s nice to feel I’ve more freedom, to feel like an actual comic.  I’ll continue to do so this year.

What will 2024 bring?  No idea.  Ambition remains low, but I did apply for the Lund Comedy Festival, because why not?  I doubt I’ll get in but I like the idea I pitched.  I’ll tell you about it after I get my rejection letter.  Speaking of which, I definitely need a job.