Don't Shit Where You Eat! ™

One aspect of standup everyone seems to have an opinion on
is, when can one refer to oneself as a comic?
I’ve heard all sorts of answers:

–
After 100 gigs

–
After 500 gigs

–
After 5 years

–
After the first paying gig

–
Only when comedy pays the bills

And so on and so on.
Not surprisingly, it’s those with the most experience that usually have
the toughest criteria to fill.

Jerry Seinfeld wrote that one is a comic after the first
performance, since the audience doesn’t care if it’s one’s first gig or 1000th
gig. I like the spirit of that belief,
but a) to do your first gig and then go backstage and say to everyone “Now I’m
a comic!” is not a good way to make friends; and b) since all of my heroes are
comics, I have a hard time applying that title on just anyone. Especially myself.

I’ve got three years and over 400 gigs in several countries
under my belt, but I am a rookie comic.
I’ll be a rookie comic until I’m not.
I don’t have a clearer answer to this question either.

To my
knowledge, there’s just one word in Swedish for someone that stands on stage
and tells jokes: komiker. I had a
conversation with a Swede several months ago and he asked in English if I
preferred to be called a comic or a comedian.
I hadn’t really thought about that before, so I Googled it later and
wasn’t surprised to see there is a difference.
There’s an old saying about it, in fact:

“Comics say
funny things, comedians say things funny.”

Although
that makes it appear that being a comic is better, I don’t think one is better
than the other. For me, it comes down to
this: what’s more important to you, the material or the performance? A comic can go on stage and do material he
(in this case, it’s almost always a man) knows the audience will hate, and they
do, and he bounces off the stage with glee.
For comedians it’s laugh or die.

The saying
continues:

“A comic can
be a comedian but a comedian can never be a comic.”

In other
words, an angry comic can make silly faces in between rants, but a silly
comedian is not going to suddenly go on a rant about Israel.

9 out of 10
rookies I meet are comics, but I don’t think that’s necessarily their
choice. In the beginning we’re scared
and nervous and focused on getting the words out right and just plain surviving
the experience; the only thought of “performance” that might cross our minds is
holding the mic correctly and keeping our eyes off the floor. I think being a comedian takes time and
evolution.

Comedians
get a lot more attention than comics.
More likely to headline, more likely to receive glowing reviews. People go to a standup club to laugh and have
fun and drink, and comedians seem to care more about what the crowd wants than
comics. On that note, I add my own
saying:

“Comedians
think they are there for the crowd; comics think the crowd is there for them.”

I laugh at
comedians but my heroes are all comics, and being a comic is something I aspire
to. I always assumed that I would evolve
into an angry, ranting guy on stage and I’m surprised to see that this hasn’t
been the case, so far. I have rants and
my favorite thing to do on stage is to call everyone in the crowd assholes (and
have them applaud me for it), but I learned early on that I get much bigger
reactions when I’m high-energy and smile now and then.

When I
started my material was much darker because I really enjoyed making the crowd
groan and be uncomfortable. I had a joke
about Down’s syndrome that evolved into a bit and finally an entire routine and
it pissed one guy off so bad he wrote a well-received blog entry denouncing it. After a short while, I decided that, as much
as I like making the crowd groan, I like making them laugh more.

I also
believed once that I didn’t care at all what the crowd thought of me. But after I bombed, really bombed for the
first time, I learned I absolutely do care about it. And I know that if I don’t think about
entertaining the crowd at all I won’t get many opportunities to perform. So
they want to have fun and that’s on my to-do list, but it’s at the bottom of my
list.

As an American living in Sweden and performing standup, I’m
part of a small and diverse community of funny, smart, and creative ex-pat
comics. But we have a problem: we’re
stuck doing the same three types of jokes.
Being stuck like this defines us as a group.

The first type is commentary on the Swedish language,
specifically words that sound dirty in English:

“’Masterkock’ means something normal in Swedish but in
English it’s COMPLETELY different and naughty!!”

The second type is shallow, mundane observations of Swedish
culture:

“Boy, you people sure love coffee! What do you take, like 40 coffee breaks a
day? And it’s so STRONG!”

The third type isn’t even a joke; we just say Swedish words
repeatedly:

“My kid’s favorite show on TV is Bolibompa! Bolibompa!
BOLI BOLI BOLIBOMPA!!”

We’re stuck like this for one reason and one reason only:
Swedes love it. Swedish audiences eat
this shit up with a spoon. That’s why-
believe it or not- I do not judge any of my peers that performs this kind of
material. I might sigh and roll my eyes,
but I know these jokes are not meant for me, they’re meant for the room full of
Swedes that are pissing themselves with laughter. Also, I do not believe that my brilliant bit
about pills that make semen taste like chocolate makes me more the next
Bill Hicks than someone who has a slutstation routine.

This problem became very apparent to me when Big Ben Comedy
Club began having all-English nights. (Yes, I know… it is odd to have a club called
“Big Ben” making an effort to have all-English nights.) Swedish comics translate their acts into English,
meaning the crowd hears all types of comedy and topics from them. We ex-pat comics go up with exactly the same
sets we perform at any other Swedish club, with one topic: Sweden. Often, THE ONLY COMICS SPEAKING SWEDISH ON
ALL-ENGLISH NIGHTS ARE ENGLISH COMICS.
Granted, the crowd is usually 98-100% Swedish, but still. If there’s one night we should try to cater
to tourists, that’s the one.

My personal ambition is to perform material in Sweden that I
can perform in any country. To perform,
in other words, material with the same scope and variety of my Swedish peers. But I am not a saint; it can be half, if not
most, of my act on any given night that would not work anywhere other than
Sweden. That isn’t so surprising though,
because I live in Sweden. This is my
life. I am an American living in Sweden
and I can’t not address that on stage, just like someone with crazy hair or
being a Serb or having one leg or whatever characteristic is obvious to the
crowd. In fact, I say specifically at
the start of my act that I’m from the US because I have heard people in the
audience wondering aloud where I’m from when I don’t say anything.

To my ex-pat peers, a request: please bring more to the
table. Your life is in Sweden but that
isn’t the only interesting thing about you.
There must be other things worth talking about, so why not talk about
them? As an English-speaking comic you
already have the crowd’s attention; we don’t even have to work as hard as our
Swedish peers for that. Or don’t. One of the reasons I love standup is that we
can do whatever we want up there, be whatever we want. If you want to giggle about “fart” for seven
minutes, have a ball! Personally I think
you’re worth more than that, but I’m not your Guidance Counselor.

To my Swedish peers- I know a lot of you roll your eyes at the
ex-pat style of jokes and I can’t say I blame you. You think it’s an easy way to get laughs and
you’re right. But we like making them
laugh, so give us a break. We may even
make a living off making them laugh.
It’s not going to change until Swedes say, “You know what? When a non-Swede says a Swedish word that
really doesn’t qualify as a joke.”

Until then, slutspurt!