Don't Shit Where You Eat! ™

On a Friday a few weeks back, while hosting Maffia Comedy Club, I mentioned to the headliner during the break that the crowd felt pretty tight, wasn’t giving us much energy. The headliner suggested that I do crowd work, maybe that would help. Long-time readers of this blog know my feelings towards crowd work; while not militarily anti-, I’m not a big fan.

Abstaining from giving her my full rant against crowd work, I simply told her that it’s not something I do. She then pointed out what I believe is the biggest motivation for a host to do crowd work, that it would provide information to the comics that they could use during their sets. I agreed with her that it’s a lovely thought, in theory, but ultimately pointless as comics don’t pay attention. As I would be hosting the night after as well, I mentioned a comic on Saturday’s lineup that I knew would arrive late and end up asking someone in the crowd the same questions they’d been asked once or twice before. “Well, I pay attention,” she replied, only to later ask someone in the crowd the same question they’d been asked before. Hey, we all have lots on our minds during a show.

All that being said, I have given crowd work a lot of thought lately. Specifically, that I should do it more (read: at all), not because a host should, but to knock myself out of my comfort zone. I’ve gone from hosting very often to nearly exclusively hosting. I’m very good at it, thank you very much, even without crowd work, but even I can get tired of my own voice. I always host the same way, same style, same material, to the point that I could go on stage half-asleep and run on autopilot. Because of that, I find doing sets at other clubs more exciting, as I try out new material (and actually feel nervous).

Working as a game show host at On Air has forced me out of my comfort zone since shows include segments where I interview participants. I’m glad to say I’ve come a long way but there’s still room for improvement. After all, I’m nearly 48 and talking to people has never been a strength of mine. However, one thing I’ve noticed there – and also at Maffia this past weekend, when I added crowd work to my intro – is that, while I ask questions and try to react naturally to whatever they say, I tend to quickly steer the conversation into material I’ve said a million times before. It’s the vocal equivalent of grabbing the mic stand. Security in comfort.

This past weekend, I saw a comic make his return to the stage after a bit of a break. He started out with several minutes of untested material, which is not recommended, but to his credit it was good, albeit talky. The crowd liked it, but he wasn’t doing as well as in the past, and I could tell he knew it. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen him so nervous, leaning forward so far he reminded me of a sprinter in the starting blocks. He gradually returned to old material and the change was profound, leaning back on his heels, much more relaxed, the volume dial on the crowd increasing.

It’s the irony of standup that we develop a set that’s a guaranteed winner only to quickly tire of it. Not all of us, of course; I could name several comics who were already veterans when I started who have barely written anything new in the twelve years since. They don’t have to. They’re reliable killers and aren’t tired of their own voices, God bless them. It’s our job to entertain the crowd and they do their job well.

And yet… Although I’m aware of my job to entertain and it’s on my priority list, it’s low on the list. I want them to enjoy my set but I think it’s fair to say I want to enjoy it more. Still, my enjoyment is tied to theirs. I recently did a set at another club, ten minutes of mostly new material, and while the crowd enjoyed it, I couldn’t help but throw in towards the end, “I hope you enjoyed this TedTalk as much as me.” I’m happy I did it, happy they liked it, but would be happier if they laughed as much as I’d expected. That’s the process, though, to work out new material, and I’m not doing nearly enough of that. Standup isn’t always about laughs but you don’t need to read a blog about standup to know that laughs are a pretty important part of it.

Some comics might find the comfort zone a great place in which to live. It’s nice and safe and secure to me, too, but that makes it feel like a trap. It’s a constant temptation to settle for what already works rather than try anything new. A place to be good but never great.

I’ve been approached by a friend of a friend who wants to make his standup debut and wants to pay me to prepare him beforehand. My exact words to him were, “I’ll gladly take your money, but the only way you’ll actually get better at standup is by doing it, and you’re going to suck for a long time.” He was undeterred and the offer stands. Probably for the best as, during our initial meeting, he presented several pages on “olla” and I think I’ve already earned my fee by advising him to throw that away.

The only other time I’ve been paid for this sort of service was at Power Comedy Club. As part of a bachelor party, the groom’s friends arranged for him to do standup for the first time. Fortunately, they give him a few days to prepare, and we sat down together an hour before showtime. He showed me his notes, I suggested ways to structure them, and the result was remarkably positive. Obviously, it helped that he had so many friends in the room and the crowd knew it was his debut.

It’s pretty common for comics to supplement their meager incomes by teaching classes and while it makes sense, it’s always felt a little weird to me. One comic in particular has taught many would-be comics and everyone I’ve spoken to afterwards has the same story- “I told a joke, she told me I should never do it on stage, I did it on stage anyway, it worked great.” Maybe she does this on purpose but I doubt it.

Getting feedback from other comics is extremely important, but the downside is that, more often than not, a comic is telling you how they would do it. Being on stage is your chance to be yourself (if you want) and telling a joke that someone else gave you or, worse, stealing someone else’s material is just karaoke. While some comics write for the crowd, the vast majority of us just say what we think is funny. Sometimes no one else agrees with us, which sucks, but at least we still like it.

I’ve learned over the years to ask comics before offering feedback. People appreciate it less when unwanted suggestions are thrown at them, especially female comics who are given unasked for feedback from men so often it’s a cliché. When I ask comics if they want some feedback, it’s extremely rare that they say no, but I’ve found myself offering less and less often. I think it’s a symptom of the “why bother?” mentality I’ve mentioned in an earlier post.

I think a comedy course can be very helpful, particularly for people who have never been on a stage before. There’s so much to think about beyond your material- how you hold the microphone, stand on stage, where you look, and on and on. You might have a joke that takes ninety seconds to tell that should be cut to thirty and having a pro explain what to cut and why can be beneficial in the beginning.

The problem is that humor is subjective. You can’t be expected to find every joke funny. When I first started, my wife was a great test audience for jokes and has since become a comic herself, which has been very fortunate for me. At the same time, some of my best material began with me testing it in the apartment to a resounding “meh” from her. Believing in it anyway, I either made it better or, sometimes, told it word for word on stage and found a better audience there.

As I help this guy going forward, I’m going to establish some ground rules. In particular, he doesn’t have to accept all my feedback, and if I’m not impressed by something he feels passionate about, he should do it anyway. So, if sometime in the coming months you hear a rookie do five minutes on olla, hey, I did my best.

Last week, for the first time since 2019, I got naked on stage. You might wonder why on Earth I would do such a thing and you wouldn’t be alone. Got me thinking of how it all came to pass and that’s what I’ll be digging into this week.

Late in 2010, I decided to try standup for the first time by signing up for the next season of Bungy Comedy. I hadn’t been to any comedy clubs in Sweden by that point but had heard of a club called Big Ben. Since my debut at Bungy was set for March 2011, I thought I’d go check out the scene at Big Ben beforehand.

I could be remembering this wrong, but I’m fairly certain it was this night that I saw a comic named Pontus Ströbaek. His set began with a story about waking up to discover his daughter had dressed his morning wood in Barbie clothes. Later in the set and without remarking on it at all, he began taking his clothes off while continuing to talk about other things, until he was stark naked except for strategically placed Barbie clothes. Perhaps this planted a seed in my mind; it certainly made quite an impression on me.

Speaking of impressions, I’ve always been jealous of comics who can do them well. Not impressions of celebrities, mind you, as I find them almost exclusively cringeworthy. I never think, “That sounds just like the person!” but, “That sounds just like the comic trying to sound like someone else,” with varying levels of success. Even the greats, in my opinion, don’t sound like their targets, but as parodies of them. Dana Carvey and Will Farrell as George Bush and George W Bush, respectively, are fantastic examples. When people off stage do impressions of the Bushes, they’re almost always doing impressions of the impressions.

I’m envious of comics who can do characters in voices different than their own, like Richard Pryor. Different backgrounds, dialects, even gender. Most of Pryor’s career was dominated by characters- it took decades for him to just be himself on stage. Even towards the end, though, he’d do his beloved Mudbone character (which actually started as a character talking about someone named Mudbone).

On an early album, he had a routine about a theater troupe putting on a play inside a prison for the inmates. The routine includes several different characters, including a guard, the warden, the theater director, lead actor, and lead actress. Pryor seamlessly flows from one character to the next and it’s mind-boggling.

After my start with Bungy, I began frequenting Big Ben on a regular basis, and in June or July I began performing at Maffia Comedy as well. It was there that I told a comic named Thanos I was jealous of his ability to inhabit so many different characters in his sets. After living in Boston for over a decade, I can do a passable Masshole accent- just take r’s off words that have them and add r’s to words that don’t, so car becomes cahh and idea becomes idear. Another consequence of living there and trying to erase my native New Jersey accent is that I can barely do one now, only that water and coffee become wudder and kawfee. The only other dialect I can do is, “Mamma Mia, that’s a spicy a-meatball!”

I’ll never forget Thanos’s reaction. “The reason you can’t do voices is because you say you can’t do voices.” Maybe he’s right. It was certainly a very Zen, be-the-ball thing to say. In any case, an idea sparked in my head and within a few hours I’d fleshed it out and committed to doing it on stage.

Maybe I have to credit Dane Cook as another seed. In his first special, he said he’d done a Jame Gumb impersonation for his girlfriend. But the ripping off, er, inspiration doesn’t stop there- I have Andy Kaufman to thank as well.

I did the act at the next show. My wife was also on that night and only she and the club owner knew what I was going to do. When I was booked for it, I thought it was a regular Tuesday night at Maffia, and this was months before I began hosting for the first time, but it just so happened to be Valentine’s Day. Once I realized that, I wondered if it was really the right time for the act, but I was committed by that point.

I told the crowd the whole story about being jealous of comics who can do impressions, including what Thanos had said to me. I asked the crowd if it was okay that I test a few impressions of classic bad guys from movies, and that, if they could recognize what movies I was referencing, that would mean I was good at impressions after all.

The first two were Travis Bickle (Taxi Driver, “You talkin’ to me?”) and Darth Vader (do I have to explain?). This was the Kaufmanesque portion of the bit- I wanted to build up the crowd about testing impressions, only to let them down by doing two extremely basic characters (and not especially well). Okay, they’d think, that’s the joke.

For the third, I said I’d need a little help from the DJ (also the club owner) who started playing “Goodbye Horses.” I took off my shirt, to the delight of the (surprisingly many, at least to me) women in the room, then took off my pants. I grabbed a bag I’d hidden onstage earlier and removed a robe and lipstick, both of which I put on. Signally the DJ to turn the music down, I said, “Would you fuck me? I’d fuck me. I’d fuck me hard. I’d fuck me so hard.” The music back on, I removed my boxers from under my robe, tucked in, and opened the robe wide.

Okay, so I never get naked naked on stage. While I don’t have enough self-confidence to flash my bait and tackle, I think it’s still pretty impressive (if that’s the right word) to reveal as much as I do, especially as an American. I could go into a long tangent here about the American psyche vis-à-vis public nudity and men’s insecurity in general, but the length of a blog post isn’t important, it’s how you use it.

Anyway, the bit went better than I’d imagined, as I hadn’t counted on it being Valentine’s Day and there being so many women in the crowd. The comics were appropriately shocked, especially the host who I flashed one last time for good measure. I’d asked another comic to film my set and while I don’t remember who he was, I do remember that he chose to zoom in on my mangina for some reason.

Looking back, neither I nor the club owner remember who had the idea, but from that point on, there would always be a special show on Valentine’s Day that I’d host, act included. It’s been a fun tradition, although I don’t understand why so many couples think it’s romantic to spend the evening listening to comics they’ve never heard of telling dick jokes. I’m glad they do, of course. In subsequent versions I dumped Travis Bickle and I’ve done it many times now, although I skipped the 2020 show and, due to the pandemic, there was no show in 2021. 2022 was meant to be my triumphant return, but at the last minute the manager of the venue told me I wasn’t allowed. A new manager was coming in and he wasn’t sure how she’d take it. How dare they censor me as an artist?! She turned out to be cool, which is why I got to do it this year.

I should also mention that I did the act at Big Ben twice over the years. The second time was also the second and so far last time I ever hosted there; the club owner’s first thirty choices for host weren’t available, so I got the gig. During the act I had a tuck malfunction, so the front row briefly got the Full Monty after all. I later heard that the owner of the bar took the club owner aside and said, “No one gets naked here ever again!” I choose to believe that the owner realized perfection had been reached, so why try to top it?

I once saw a documentary about activism in the music industry and, at one point, Bono was interviewed about the time he met with the Pope to discuss feeding the poor in Africa. He was criticized heavily at the time by other artists and the documentary actually featured the band Chumbawamba mocking him. Because if you want to interview a band on the same level as U2, you book Chumbawamba.

Bono addressed the criticism by saying something like, “Look, I get it. In my younger days I would’ve been standing on the wall alongside them, tossing molotovs. Now that I’m older, I know there are more productive uses of my time.”

Far be it for me to compare myself to international superstar Bono and the circumstances don’t nearly align, but in some small ways I can relate. Passion, at least passion for destruction, feels like a young man’s game. While I’ve always been cynical, I’d say there was a fair balance with optimism, but as I get older, I think the balance is tipping towards cynicism. When faced with a decision in the past, I often thought, “I have nothing to lose, so why not?” whereas now I more often think, “I have nothing to gain, so why bother?”

All this preamble illustrates the then vs now issues of this blog entry. There’s a group on Facebook called Standupforumet- moderated by a comic, it’s a place for comics, club owners, and fans to post and discuss all things standup. There’s a fairly long list of rules to follow and, quite often over the years, the admin has needed to step in to shut down nonsense, because comics are assholes.

One of the rules is that clubs can make only one post per season to promote themselves. If they want to continue promoting shows for that season, they can add comments to those threads. Makes sense as no one likes spam. Years ago, while the admin enforced that rule several times, one club seemed to avoid his ire: Stockholm Comedy Club. There was a period when they would post several times a week and no one said anything.

My suspicion at the time, right or wrong, was that the admin turned a blind eye as he didn’t want to jeopardize his own spots at that club. Don’t shit where you eat, indeed. It drove me nuts, though, and as I’ve always been a Social Justice Warrior, I wrote a joke on the forum at the club’s expense. Before clicking Post, I wondered, will this get me blacklisted from the club? Will anyone click Like, thereby getting them blacklisted as well? Got nothing to lose, so why not? I clicked the post button.

It was a simple joke. Coming just after SCC’s umpteenth post that week, it said, “Can anyone tell me where to find info on Stockholm Comedy Club?” The likes began to roll in and Babben Larsson, one of the Greats of Swedish standup, wrote, “Hahahaha.” I remember that because it was the first and so far only interaction I’ve had with her.

Then my worst fears were realized when SCC’s CEO contacted me on Messenger. I refer to her as the CEO because she referred to herself as the CEO in post after post, and she was prolific to say the least. The message I received was three pages long and I’d intended to copy/paste it here, because I thought Messenger was forever, but it’s gone so I guess not. I don’t remember the whole thing, naturally, but the gist was, “I just wanted to ask you what motivated that post, because I would have a hard time working with someone who doesn’t respect my hard work.” My reply was something like, “It was just a joke because you post so often,” and I remember wanting to but not adding, “and I hope everyone in the comedy community has a sense of humor.”

I might as well have added that, because I was no longer welcome at SCC. She had a chip on her shoulder because she feared everyone thought the only reason she was CEO was because she was married to the comic who founded the club. We did think that because that was the truth. Sure, she’d performed a few times herself, but she wasn’t exactly setting stages on fire. It didn’t even matter anyway; hell, she could’ve been the Swedish Mitzi Shore. She did say one funny thing to me before the ban, though: “The best thing about me taking control of the day-to-day operations of the club is that it gives my husband more time to write new material.” Ah, that still makes me giggle to this day.

Unfortunately, her insecurity manifested itself in her ruling the club with an iron fist. I was either the first or second comic to be banned after she became CEO, but the first banning predates her official involvement in the club. She overheard a certain female comic make a remark about another comic and was so pissed, she made sure her husband would never book her again. This comic was furious when she learned of the ban but, to be fair, “The only reason she gets gigs is because she has a brain tumor,” is a pretty shitty thing to say. RIP Candrah.

I guess they both forgot or otherwise made peace, because that comic would later become a regular at SCC. No, not Candrah. As a matter of fact, my ban was nearly lifted, twice. The CEO had a great idea to partner with Match.com and do singles’ nights hosted by a married comic couple. You might question the wisdom of a show for single people hosted by a successful couple, but are you a CEO? I didn’t think so. Anyway, four shows were put on the schedule, but the couple the CEO had booked were not available for the third date, so my wife and I were booked for that one. As the date approached I hadn’t heard anything, but after speaking to the couple who’d hosted the first show, I learned that the rest had been cancelled. The audience for the first show was sixty angry single women and one happy single dude. Whoops!

My second opportunity arose when SCC had the idea of doing all-English nights and booked two comics as regular MCs. One of them got banned, though, and when the other questioned the ban, she was banned as well. The CEO then asked me if I was interested and I politely declined.

By the end of her tenure as CEO and also wife, the list of banned comics was quite massive. I could tell a dozen stories, but this entry is too long as it is. It’s also off-topic.

As for Standupforumet, SCC stopped posting over and over again and peace returned. Recently, though, another club began posting all too often- West Side Comedy. Like Bono, I get it! They’re proud of the club, want to promote it, want to build their presence. I don’t harbor any ill will and it looks like it’s going well for them. Every time I’d get notification of yet another post, though, it made me think of the rule going unenforced and how I’d once called out SCC for doing the same thing. More than once I went to repeat my old joke and didn’t. Not because I was afraid of being banned by yet another club, but because I asked myself, “What do I have to gain by this?” I just let it go.

Until, that is, they posted twice last week within a 24-hour period. I figured I’d be a hypocrite myself if I was willing to mock SCC but say nothing now, so I posted, “Where can I find info on West Side Comedy?” The reaction this time was… interesting. One comic DM’d me and asked me what I’d like to know, one of the club owners posted links to the club, another owner asked me what I wanted to know and then liked the post a day later. That was it. I’d had a bit of anxiety over the SCC post but, this time, I was completely apathetic, and I don’t blame others for being just as apathetic. Could be that people care less about what I post now than they used to…. nah, can’t be that. I don’t even know how many people even noticed the post at all as I think the forum has lost a bit of its luster over the years. Which is not throwing shade at the forum- it’s clear that Facebook itself has lost its luster. I don’t even suspect that the admin turned a blind eye to West Side out of fear of being banned himself; it could just be that he’s sick of moderating a forum for comics. You know- assholes.

Now, several days later, I see that every West Side post made after their first of the season is gone. I don’t know if West Side took them down or if it was the admin and now I feel a little bad. I’m not sure if the comics behind West Side understood my post or even care and I’m betting they didn’t even know they were going against the rules. Again, no harm meant, it was just a joke, and what optimism remains in me hopes that everyone in the comedy community does, in fact, have a sense of humor. Guessing this won’t put me on their short list for headliners, though.

Several times in recent weeks, I’ve mentioned my pet peeve of comics telling true stories of funny things that happened to them without adding anything, especially punchlines. Snob that I am, I have no shortage of pet peeves, but since this one has been top of mind so much lately, I thought I’d get into it this week. Funny things happen randomly to everyone all the time and while relatively few would be willing to get on a stage and tell the story to drunk strangers, it doesn’t take much ability to just say what happened.

I think a reason it’s on my mind so often is that the opportunity to be completely and brutally honest on stage, to say things others wish they could but would never dare, is probably what I love most about standup. At the same time, when I hear a comic tell a true story and tell it well, I can’t help but remember that it’s likely not absolutely true. It could be a complete fabrication or, let’s say, truish.

Here are a few examples of true things that happened to me versus how I tell them on stage. Asking you to read as I break down the mechanics of my joke writing makes me feel peak pretension but hey, it’s my blog. No one’s making you read this stupid thing.

True story: I was once hired on a three-month contract to manage one project. It was a test for the company and a test of myself; if the project was successful and I was successful managing it, there was a chance it would lead to full-time employment. It was and I was and it did. Six months later, I passed my probation period, but while my business language was English-only, my boss told me to only speak Swedish in the office or she’d fire me, because she was a sociopath and I loved her for it.

One year into the job, having spoken English in the office for nine months and Swedish for only three, a co-worker I’d barely spoken to bumped into me and said, “Oj! I mean, whoops!” I’ve had a lot of absurd interactions with Swedes, but someone translating oj to whoops takes the cake. It wasn’t ironic, it was her honest, heartful reaction.

Here’s how I tell the story onstage: “I once worked in an office in Stockholm for four years and never spoke a word of English… for FOUR years. One day, during year FOUR, a woman I’d worked with, for FOUR years, bumped into me by accident and she said, and I quote, ‘Oj! I mean, whoops!’ How bad do you think I am at life, that I would not have understood ‘oj’?”

It’s a true story and it’s bullshit. If the setup was, “I once worked in an office for a year and spoke English for the first nine months and then only Swedish except I barely spoke to anyone and then a co-worker bumped into me…” the joke wouldn’t land. People would likely recognize it was a silly thing for her to say and smile in response, but I don’t do standup to get smiles.

True story: I live in Sweden, I’m married to a Swede, and yet I rarely speak Swedish at home. Mostly it’s laziness, but it’s also frustrating to struggle at times to find the right words and I really don’t feel like myself when I speak Swedish. It’s a luxury and a curse to live in a country where I don’t have to speak the language if I don’t want to. On the bright side, I’ve met expats who have lived here far longer than me with far less command of Swedish.

There’s an American comic named Yemi who had a Swedish girlfriend and visited Sweden several times before taking the plunge and moving here. One night, maybe a year later, my wife and I were at a club he was hosting and she went off to talk to him, came back and said, “I just spoke with him for five minutes and we only spoke Swedish the entire time! He’s so good! At home, he and his girlfriend only speak Swedish! What’s your problem?” She was joking, or maybe half-joking, but I probably just grumbled something about him not being as lazy as I am.

I ran into him and his girlfriend at another club a week later and told them what my wife had said to me, including her query as to what problem I have. “I guess you have a better girlfriend than me,” I joked to him, eliciting a giggle from his girlfriend. I knew then that I had material.

Here’s the first version I told onstage: “I’m married to a Swede. At home, she speaks Swedish, I speak English, I’ve gotten away with it for a long time. But maybe not anymore. There’s a comic named Yemi, he’s also from the US, he also moved here for love, he’s lived here for less than a year and already speaks Swedish better than I do and makes me look bad. My wife met him in a club a few weeks ago, came up to me and said, ‘I just spoke with him for five minutes and he spoke Swedish the entire time! He’s so goooood, he’s really practicing hard, at home with his girlfriend they only speak Swedish! What’s your problem?’”

“‘I don’t know… maybe he has a better girlfriend than I do.’ And she got so mad! I told her, ‘I’m not saying you’re a bad girlfriend, I just mean that his is better! It’s like, his girlfriend is a ten, and you… are a six or a seven! You’re still above average!’ And she was still mad! Women, huh?”

I knew going into it that, while it was a good story, I needed to spice it up a bit, especially to make it seem that I’d had a brilliant, immediate response rather than only after weeks of thought. But after telling it onstage, I realized that the intro was too convoluted. In future versions I just said it was a new guy in her office rather than naming a comic the crowd had never heard of (which is no slight on Yemi).

I do love that joke, especially “Women, huh?” at the end, but I haven’t performed it in quite some time. It was part of my set during the Team Amerika tour, when myself and my colleagues did standup for tens of Swedes throughout the country, and it quickly developed that my alleged friends were mimicking “He’s so goooood!” while I was on stage. Last week, a club owner said, “Women, huh?” to me. I suppose it’s good to be remembered.

I went to see John Mulaney perform at Stockholm Waterfront last week. I must admit to being just a casual fan and not overly familiar with his work. I’ve seen one, maybe two of his Netflix specials and enjoyed them, I know he was a writer for SNL but couldn’t tell you what he’d actually contributed, I very much liked his appearances on the series Crashing.

I’d heard that he’d been in and out of rehab a few times, most recently just before the pandemic. I’d also heard that he split from his wife and immediately begun a relationship with Olivia Munn (if you’re curious what she looks like, I would not recommend an image search of “Olivia Munn Superbowl” with Safe Search turned off), resulting in a child, leading to speculation that he’d been cheating with her while still married. Heading to the venue, I wondered if he’d address these things. Upon arriving, I noticed the merch table selling T-shirts that said something like, “I saw John Mulaney fresh out of rehab,” so I guessed the answer was yes.

Mulaney had two opening acts that were each slightly above mediocre. Being slightly above mediocre myself, I couldn’t help but think that I could’ve been equally as successful as his opening act. In fact, I was only half-tuned into them as I was busy thinking about what material I would’ve used. I spotted a few other comics I know in the crowd and I’d bet they were doing the same.

Then it was Mulaney’s turn. For context, I’ve seen the specials that Louis CK released since his implosion a few years ago, a handful of podcasts he’s guested on, even saw him live in Stockholm last year, and I’ve been consistently disappointed by his reluctance to publicly delve deep into it all. Sure, he named a special “Sorry” with that spelled out in huge letters behind him onstage, but other than a few quick jokes and vague references, he doesn’t really get into the meat of it. It’s his choice and I get that he doesn’t want to talk about it, which is fine, but it’s still disappointing when comics avoid being brutally honest and open, especially when Louis CK is lauded for being that way. He obviously has the skills and ability to address it, but won’t.

I wondered if Mulaney would go the same route, make a few passing references to the elephant in the room and then spend the rest of the show with funny but otherwise meaningless material. Which isn’t to say that doing funny, meaningless material is a bad thing, of course. Not every standup set needs to be deep. People can still find funny things to say about airline food. Audiences buy tickets to laugh, after all.

At the start he mentioned that his first child had been born, to a round of applause, and that was the end of that. I thought he’d have more to say on the subject, but just shrugged. I guessed he would be going the Louis CK route after all. But I was pleasantly surprised, and impressed, that the rest of show was devoted entirely to his latest stint in rehab and what led up to it. Not only that, despite the seriousness of the subject and his admission of dark experiences, the crowd was laughing from start to finish.

The next day, one of the comics I know who was in the audience posted a review on FB, saying that was good but didn’t live up to his Netflix specials. Another comic commented that it definitely could’ve been better. I chuckled as it’s pretty standard for comics to give less than raving reviews of bigger comics.

To be fair, I agree that his Netflix specials were funnier, but I think this was far and away the best I’ve seen him. I’ve always said that, when it comes to comedy, and standup in particular, funniest is not always best. The funniest movie Monty Python released is Holy Grail, the best movie they did is Life of Brian, but the best Monty Python movie is Meaning of Life. The funniest Pryor special is Sunset Strip, but the best Pryor special is Here and Now. The best Andrew “Dice” Clay album is The Day the Laughter Died, where he bombs for nearly two hours straight.

I think it’s reductive to sum up his performance as not as funny as previous specials as it doesn’t say much about his actual performance. The crowd certainly enjoyed themselves throughout, although they were a bit slow to give him a standing ovation at the end; he’d mentioned that he was flying out the same evening but I can’t help but wonder if he’d have done an encore if we’d all sprang to our feet. While I give him credit for being brutally honest, I have no idea how honest he really was. After all, I know a lot of my own true stories on stage are embellished in some ways and simplified in others. Obviously he really did go to rehab and I doubt it was just a publicity stunt.

The bottom line is that, as comics, we want to make the crowd laugh and be likeable ourselves. Mulaney acknowledged that the last thing most of the stories he told that night would make him likeable, and that’s a route few comics are willing to take. Again, it’s not something I expect from all comics and, being a casual fan of his, if he’d made a few quick jokes about rehab and then spent the rest of the show talking nonsense, I wouldn’t have been disappointed. Instead, I walked away with respect that he would dare and Louis CK will not.

One of the many lovely side effects of the rise of social media is how depressed people get when they see how well their “friends” are living life compared to them. I honestly can’t relate to this at all, mostly because I know it’s a gag; people may be living their best lives on social media, but not at all in the real world. People choose what they post and unless it’s something maudlin to purposely gather sympathy from their contacts (which is also fake), they post happy things, or show off. In fact, there’s a recent case from California where a wife stabbed her husband to death and it came out of nowhere, as far as their friends were concerned. Based on their social media, one would think they were the ideal couple.

I suppose the closest I’ve come to experiencing it was when a FB friend posted pics of his scuba diving session with whale sharks. I’ve always wanted to go scuba diving and nearly got to when my wife gave me a practice session as a gift, but as I headed out the door I remembered I have a hole in my head that shouldn’t be there and had to cancel. Long story. On top of that, swimming with whale sharks is at the top of my bucket list, along with visiting the pyramids of Giza and getting a laugh onstage. I was and continue to be jealous of his experience, but it never made me want to crawl under a blanket and die.

Can’t relate in the slightest. As a civilian, that is. As a comic, though? Oh man, can I relate.

Not to the point that I get super depressed about it, but yeah, I often get stung when I see another comic getting a gig at a club that has zero interest in booking me, or a sold-out show a comic self-produced, or being on a podcast or what have you. Knowing the tricks helps me avoid FOMO as a civilian but as comic it doesn’t seem to help. I know that when a club posts pictures from a show that doesn’t include the audience, it means there wasn’t much of one, despite the post claiming it was the absolute bestest night ever. I know that when a comic heavily promotes an exciting gig but doesn’t mention it later, it didn’t go particularly well. But there’s still that gut reaction of, “Why not me?!”

There’s plenty of reasons for why not me, not least of which is that not everyone thinks I’m funny. Not everyone even likes me and Lord knows there’s plenty of reasons for that, too. But I think the biggest reason is likely that not everyone thinks of me at all. Growing up in America, we think everyone in the world either loves us or hates us. In reality, most people don’t think of us at all as they have plenty of other things to think about instead. I’m barely out and about on the scene anymore. Many of my peers have, at least for the most part, outgrown the clubs that will have me and we barely interact with each other. Meanwhile, a lot of new faces have popped up in recent years and rarely see me, if at all.

Meanwhile, my social media presence has dropped to match my physical presence in the clubs. I’ve been fascinated by how my practice has evolved over the past few years. Pre-pandemic I spent a lot of time on FB, despite the fact that I found little of interest there. I’d scroll through page after page after page of my news feed with very few items catching my attention. It was the visual representation of white noise. I went into self-imposed exile at the start of 2020 and didn’t look at social media at all, only to encounter covid-imposed exile shortly thereafter. It felt really good to go away from it all.

As I’ve slowly come back to the world, my social media presence has increased as it’s an important resource for standup. I’ve also had more reasons to post things, like this blog, for example. Still, I’m barely online for long and can’t remember the last time I swiped more than a few screens of my news feed, and I miss a lot.

A guy I know came up to me a few weeks ago and said, “I’m not entirely happy with my life after I was on that TV show,” and my reply was, “You were on a TV show?” He was shocked I didn’t know, which just goes to show that we assume every one of our social media contacts is aware of everything we post. Which makes it sting all the more when you’ve got 1000+ friends but only get a handful of likes.

It’s easier knowing I’m not alone. There are a few veterans who could perform at whatever club they choose, but even then there are clubs who wouldn’t say no if asked for a spot but make no effort to invite them. Other than those happy few, I can’t think of a single comic who gets to perform at any and every club. At the same time, I could write a long list of comics who perform at 99% of clubs and yet piss and moan about the one or two that won’t book them. Also, as I pointed out a few entries ago, comics who are very successful yet upset they didn’t win an award that’s irrelevant. It’s a perfect storm when drive and ambition meet low self-esteem and insecurity.

Currently, I’m trying as much as possible to “post and ghost”- put a link to this blog or make a joke or whatever and not look at how many or few reactions it gets. Not the easiest thing in the world, obviously, and probably a little self-defeating if I don’t engage back with people who engage with me. If people take the time to leave a comment and I don’t acknowledge it, that could look like I don’t care, and won’t exactly motivate them to engage with me in the future.

I guess I’m still figuring out what comes next for me. The club scene is continuing to bounce back in Stockholm, though it’s hard for me to imagine that I’ll suddenly start grinding or that I’ll even want to. The thought of opening a club of my own again is ever-present but consistently averages as a maybe; it seems that every time I get excited by the thought, something happens that makes me think, not in a million years. Mostly it’s the thought of having to deal with other comics and as I’ve stated time and again in this blog, comics are assholes.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to take advantage of whatever opportunities come my way and keep making posts for the one person who doesn’t like me very much and yet is my biggest fan: me.

Here are several tips on how to succeed in Swedish standup. Traditional methods be damned, the Swedish way is far superior! Follow this guide and you’ll be a Standupgala-nominated comic in no time.

What’s the best way to get a gig?

The single best way to get gigs is to make an open post on social media saying that you would like to get booked by anyone and everyone. All club owners in Sweden see all of your posts, even, bizarrely, the ones who don’t follow you, so you can just sit back and wait for the offers to roll in. Be sure to include statements like, “Ideally I perform for twenty minutes,” so no club owner wastes your time offering anything less.

How do I know how long an ideal set should be?

Using the above example, a traditional comic would say that a twenty minute set would include a minimum of forty punchlines, but this is old-fashioned as we now know that punchlines are overrated. If something funny happened to you and it takes six minutes to tell the story, why bother adding any jokes? It’s already six quality minutes!

Ideal set length doesn’t depend on how many jokes you have or how long you can keep the interest of the crowd, it’s simply a question of how long you can physically stand on a stage. Since some comics sit on stage, the sky is truly the limit!

How often do I need to perform to improve?

Old-school comics say that the only way to improve is to perform as often as possible, in as many different clubs as possible, but this is false. As an outspoken female Swedish comic once said during an interview, that is a myth created by white male comics, because only white male comics can perform often. Improving your skills has nothing to do with how much time you spend on stage. Just like learning piano, someone who practices five minutes a month will improve at the same rate as someone who practices an hour every day. That’s basic science!

Is it okay to steal material?

It is absolutely, positively never okay to steal material.

Is it stealing if I hear someone do a joke in English and I translate it into Swedish for my own act?

Absolutely not! If Håkan Hellström has taught us anything, translating material from other artists into Swedish without giving credit isn’t stealing, it’s paying homage. Developing quality material can be difficult, so if you hear an English comic succeed with a joke, they’ve done most of the work for you! Simply run that joke or entire bit through Google Translate and you’re golden.

And why stop with jokes? If you hear a successful English podcast, go ahead and lift their concept wholesale and do it yourself in Swedish. Since the original pod will continue to create content to, uh, inspire you, it’s truly the gift that keeps on giving!

If I want a gig at a club I’ve never been to before, should I visit before contacting the club owner?

Why bother? All clubs are the same. There’s probably a stage and a microphone and anywhere from one person to four hundred people in the crowd. Any comic who says that different clubs have different vibes, or that some material will work great in certain clubs but not others, is simply mistaken.

What attitude should I have when I ask for a gig?

You want to portray extreme confidence, which is easily achieved by being aggressive and exaggerating your abilities. Fake it ’til you make it! Club owners are incapable of detecting false confidence.

Is it important to have a high-quality clip to offer to the owner?

Not at all! Club owners should be prepared to take your word for it that you are funny. But, if for some reason, a club owner requests a clip, just send them a complete recording no matter the quality, maybe from one of the times you got six minutes but did twelve. Club owners have nothing but time on their hands and they’re smart enough to judge you on the one good minute and ignore the eleven of dead air.

What if the club owner says no?

Accept their decision politely and say you hope to be considered for an opportunity in the future. This will show the club owner that you are respectful and cooperative.

And then keep asking, even several times a day! Far from finding this annoying, club owners will be impressed by your drive and determination and will be sure to book you as soon as possible.

What if, despite my best efforts, the club owner still doesn’t book me?

The only reason a club owner won’t book you is that they are jealous of your talent, and this is their petty way of exerting power over you. When this happens, it is imperative that you take the power back. If the bridge is closed, blow that bridge to smithereens! Send a harshly-worded DM to the club owner full of insults (and typos, to illustrate your rage). And why not blast the club on social media? They hurt your pride, the least you can do is hurt their reputation.

What about that inner voice that says, “If the club owner thought I was funny, they would’ve booked me”?

That is the voice of self-awareness, the single largest obstacle to your success, and there are only three ways to deal with it: suppress, suppress, suppress.

Good luck out there and happy hunting! Don’t be discouraged that the vast majority of the population has never heard of you, nor ever will. They haven’t heard of any new comics since Johan Glans.