Don't Shit Where You Eat! ™

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.

Ah, January. It’s a welcome calm after a very busy holiday season. Scientists say the days are getting longer but how we feel is more important than fact and the days still feel damned short. Still, the lousy weather and handful of gray daylight hours ease the guilt of marathon sessions on the couch. Since I bought myself a PS5 for Christmas, the hours fly by.

Several years ago, I designated January as a month of sobriety and I’m glad to say it’s a tradition I’ve stuck with. The only time I’ve made an exception was when, two weeks into the month, I lost a job and several other things went to shit. I decided to call an end to Dry January… and everything got better. I don’t mean that I felt better, I mean they actually got better- within two days I had an interview for a new job and started a week later. I don’t want to say it was thanks to alcohol but you couldn’t fault me if I did.

Another semi-annual tradition in January is depression. Maybe it’s the lack of sunlight, or the after-effects of two solid months of eating too much food, or (but hopefully not) the sudden lack of alcohol in my bloodstream, but all too often I’ll encounter at least a full week in January feeling like absolute garbage. Fortunately it didn’t happen last year and, so far, 2023 is looking good, so fingers crossed!

I also decided a few years ago to designate January as month when I only speak Swedish at home. I figure that, if I do that for a month, I can spend the rest of the year speaking as much English as I want, guilt-free. It’s the same reason I’m sober for a month, in fact.

What I’m trying to say is that January is the most boring month of the year.

Not to glorify booze, and not that I’m usually hammered on a daily basis, or even ever, but I certainly enjoy a glass of wine or two or a few cocktails now and then. Unfortunately, “now and then” became “every day” too long ago. Before standup, I rarely drank at home, but when I was grinding and out five nights a week, drinking more often became the norm. I’m not much of a beer guy and it’s rare that I drink it at home, but it’s even more rare that I drink anything other than beer when I’m out in the clubs, primarily due to the high price of booze in Sweden. I honestly don’t know how anyone can afford to be an alcoholic in this country and I’m perplexed by how many succeed anyway.

Besides cutting out the expense of alcohol this month – a welcome savings after holiday spending – it’s also reassuring to me how easy it is to not drink every day. It’s just a bit dull, especially when I’m doing standup. I don’t like to perform with even a buzz on as I’ve had a few disastrous sets after drinking too many beers beforehand, but I have noticed that, the times I’ve made a point to not drink even one beer before a set, I didn’t do well. It’s not sobriety to blame, it’s taking it too seriously. I simply do better when I’m more relaxed. Unfortunately, I’m also a superstitious person, so now I have to drink a beer before I go on stage. On the bright side, alcohol-free beer seems to work just fine.

It used to be the norm for most clubs, if not all, to be closed in January, because everyone was burned out from the holidays and attendance was too light to make the shows worth it. That, of course, made it even easier to take a month’s vacation from the bottle. While some clubs still take the month off, more are open now and attendance is surprisingly high. It’s nice as a comic to not have to take an enforced break from the stage, but this past weekend I spent two nights on stage, sober, in front of a few hundred people all enjoying too many drinks. That’s less fun for me. Not that I’m a big fan of being around drunks, I’m even less so when I’m sober.

I wish I could tell you that I feel sharper on stage without beer or that I feel better every day because I’m not drinking, but I don’t enjoy any benefits beyond my wallet and state of mind. Scientists have even proven that a dry month has zero health benefits, although I have to believe that the far fewer calories I’m imbibing is good for my waistline. Still, I’m glad to keep this annual tradition and it will make the gin and tonic I’ll drink on the first of February all the sweeter. And no, I won’t be drinking it at midnight.

“But Ryan,” I hear you ask, “why not make February sober? It’s a shorter month!” That is a rookie mistake. If there’s just one month in Sweden we need booze the most, it’s February. Besides, Valentine’s Day is also when I get naked on stage each year and I’ll be sure to need a little liquid confidence.

Well, it certainly has been an interesting year.

Looking back at 2022, I have mixed feelings. It was a return to form and not at all, a year of improvement and yet not at all. Rejoining the comedy community and standing on the sidelines.

Maybe I’m starting this year in review with a negative connotation but it’s not my intention. I mean it when I say it’s been an interesting year. To paraphrase Bill Hicks, I’m looking back at the year’s events like a dog being shown a card trick.

For context, let’s look back at 2020. I started the year in self-imposed exile and, just when I was ready to dare step foot in the clubs again, covid came around and shut almost everything down. My few appearances on stage were plagued by anxiety, mostly for personal reasons, but also by me wondering why I was bothering to tell dick jokes in the middle of a pandemic. On top of that, I was unemployed and surprisingly all too happy to be stuck at home doing absolutely nothing.

2021 was off to a slow start as the covid and personal pandemic continued, but things began to improve slowly. I got a full-time job that sadly didn’t last long, but it paid my bills and reset my unemployment benefits, so that was great. Just as important, though, was that it shook me out of my routine of doing nothing. As the restrictions eased I was back doing standup, albeit with a frequency that paled in comparison to its former self. What was most important to me, though, was that the knot in my stomach I’d get by the thought of appearing in a club had loosened.

Another event at the end of 2021 was the beginning of my part-time employment as a game show host at On Air. I’d host private parties in English, mostly for companies but the occasional birthday or bachelor/bachelorette party, giving the illusion of being on a TV game show. Critically, it would mean actually talking to people. Crowd work, my old nemesis. Never one of my strong suits, I’d also just spent nearly two years in my apartment talking to no one but my wife and little at that.

2022 began with some covid restrictions still in place – again, “restrictions” is a strong word in Sweden when compared to other countries – but all at once they went away and covid became a distant memory, despite the fact that people still get it. Hell, I got the damn thing twice so far myself. Standup clubs began to reopen and many new ones were created, although a massive change had occurred. Pre-pandemic, most of the entirely too many clubs (see an earlier blog post) were free to audiences with large lineups. Now, nearly all charge at the door with small, select lineups. Some comics find many opportunities while most – including Yours Truly – find many closed doors.

I’ve noted many times in previous entries that I’ve really had only one ambition when it comes to standup- to perform as often as possible in as many rooms as possible. In 2022, I performed in eight rooms. That’s seven more rooms than many other comics, especially the rookies who had the misfortune of starting in the middle of the pandemic. Naturally, though, I can’t help but compare myself to my peers who easily tripled or quadrupled that figure, not to mention my number of gigs.

Which is not to come across as, “Woe is me, no one will book me.” The simple fact is that I don’t have the same drive as before, I don’t enjoy being in the clubs as I once did, and that’s mostly on me. As an example- the one club that really is open to just about anyone is Big Ben. When I started it was open two nights a week and I went to every show, trying to get on, and the more I tried the more I succeeded. It helped that, not only was I just as unemployed as I am now, I lived much closer to Stockholm. I also had that rookie drive then, though.

Now Big Ben is open every day of the week. Ten years ago, I would’ve been there at least five if not every damned night and thrilled about it. Not to say that I could get on every night these days, but certainly I could be there a lot, and yet I believe I went four times. Four gigs there in all of 2022. I’m willing to bet there are comics who chalked up fifty appearances and wouldn’t be surprised at all if someone claimed a hundred. That’s entirely on me.

I believe that’s contributed to me becoming almost militant against other comics complaining (see earlier post re: whinging) that one, two, or even three clubs won’t book them while appearing in thirty other rooms. Complaining is a common trait amongst comics and all too natural for Swedes, but goddamn, people could use a dose of perspective. Not that I was ever a shining star in the community, but I became totally invisible a few years ago and I’m barely visible today.

Which, again, is on me. I’ve been very active as a host for a club that most comics don’t get booked for, that nearly as many ever even go to check out. I can’t complain that many of the comics who even know who I am anymore only know me as a host, even though I did. Hey, I’m not perfect.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Dunning-Kruger effect, where people of low ability overestimate their own worth while people of high ability tend to underestimate their own worth. My Ego says I’m towards the end of the scale while my insecurity says I’m still at the beginning but, to be fair, that insecurity kind of proves I’m at the end, right? I damn well should be, anyway. I’m coming up on twelve years as a comic, I’ve performed in every major Swedish city (all three!) and too many towns to count. Although I can worry I’ve become stagnant, a comic recently told me, “I’ve always thought you were underrated and should get booked more often!” and that’s been a soothing balm. I thanked him and said I’ll be appreciated when I’m dead.

I’ve also been thinking more and more about opening a new club, as I’ve written about. I think that would do more for my visibility than grinding at Big Ben. On the other hand, I’d run it alone and I know how I am as a club owner, too focused on the show to enjoy myself and appear cold as a result to the booked comics, the last people I want to think I’m unfriendly. That, of course, is just yet another reason for not doing it, but we’ll see what happens in 2023.

I’m happy with 2022 and see some definite wins, even if it wasn’t year of massive growth and success. I’m happy with my hosting gigs and while I wonder if I’ve improved as a host, I was already pretty good at it, thank you very much. I’m happy that, while my anxiety over just being out in a club hasn’t gone away entirely, it’s eased considerably. I’m happy with this blog, that I finally got into a rhythm and write on a regular basis. You faithful readers are few but proud and I appreciate you taking the time to look into my head now and then.

I should also mention my continued employment at On Air as game show host. While it hasn’t made me more open to doing crowd work as a comic, I have noticed definite improvement in my conversations with guests at On Air. A few months ago I began to host shows in Swedish and while it certainly feels more like work to me – and probably for the guests as well – it’s been a fun challenge.

This week I’ll be sharing a story about Bill Hicks. As he is my favorite comic of all time, I could write volumes about him and what he means to me. However, I just bought myself a PS5 as an early Xmas present and that Demon Souls remake isn’t going to play itself, so I’ll keep it short.

Even before making his debut in a comedy club as a teenager, Hicks dreamed of being on The Tonight Show. When he became friends with Jay Leno – who was a frequent guest host on The Tonight Show at the time – that dream seemed a few short steps away from reality. Leno didn’t think Hicks was a good fit for the show, though, and recommended him to Letterman. Letterman had The Late Show on the same network and it was true that Hicks was much better suited to that program. The two hit it off and Hicks would appear on The Late Show eleven times.

In preparation for his twelfth appearance, Hicks submitted his set to the network in advance for approval. This was standard practice as the network was terrified of offending the FTC and incurring fines. By this point, Leno had taken over The Tonight Show, Letterman had moved to a different network, and the Late Night War was in full swing. The set was approved, Hicks taped a very successful appearance, only to receive a phone call several hours later that the show was cutting his entire segment.

The exact reason this happened is a bit unclear. The show’s producer would claim that the network said it was unsuitable for broadcast, despite the fact that the network that had pre-approved the material in advance. The producer also claimed he had fought tooth and nail to keep the segment included, but would later say it was actually his decision to cut it. For his part, Letterman would blame the network at the time, but later say it was his call and he’d made it out of jealousy.

The prevailing theory – the one Hicks believed – was that, as his set included a lengthy attack on the Pro-Life Movement, the show and the network were both afraid of losing advertisers. Hicks was furious. He vented to everyone and anyone about what he felt was censorship and an absolute betrayal. This caught the eye of several newspapers, who began to run articles about the whole thing.

A sad bit of irony here is that this gave Hicks more heat in the US than he’d ever experienced before. He’d managed to make a great name for himself in the UK, where he’d found a much more willing audience, but didn’t have a tenth of Denis Leary’s popularity in the US, despite Leary having stolen from Hicks left and right. Finally, people were starting to pay attention.

People like Jay Leno, in fact. Leno had recently scored a massive win in the Late Night War, having Hugh Grant on just after Grant had been busted with a prostitute. That appearance led to Leno beating Letterman in the ratings for the first time and, from that point onwards, Leno’s Tonight Show would always be Number One. When Leno heard about the Hicks debacle, he smelled blood in the water, and he invited Hicks to perform his cut set on The Tonight Show.

Hicks was thrilled by the offer, of course. He’d finally be able to realize a childhood dream. There was a catch however: Hicks would need to submit the set to Leno’s network for pre-approval. Standards and practice, you know.

Hicks politely told them to go fuck themselves. He’d successfully completed the pre-approval process for Letterman, only for the set to be cut anyway, and he wasn’t going to go through that again. He would appear on The Tonight Show with set unseen or not at all. The network chose not at all. Hicks would be dead from pancreatic cancer a few months later, a condition he’d managed to keep secret from all but a select few.

That level of integrity astounds me and I must admit I’m quite torn about his position. As an artist, naturally it was the best possible decision. Never compromise, never surrender. As a career comic, what a miss. Leno was so competitive, it’s hard to imagine he would allow the network to say no or even censor the material in any way, but Hicks was unwilling to play along. That stubbornness kept him from not only a massive mainstream audience but also from standing on a stage he’d dreamed about most of his life. In any case, it’s hard to imagine anyone else ever making the same take it or leave it ultimatum. Certainly not Leary.

To his credit, albeit far too late, Letterman would invite Hicks’s parents to the show and interview them about the whole thing. While they were on, he aired Hicks’s final set in its entirety, and apologized for his part in the debacle. This was fifteen years later, but it wasn’t something Letterman had to do. The whole thing was long forgotten by the general public, if they’d ever heard about it.

I’m writing this during a turkey hangover. My wife and I hosted an over-apartment-full number of guests last night for our annual Thanksgiving dinner. Thanksgiving is not a Swedish holiday, of course, but it should be. Getting together with family and friends, eating the same food dishes year after year and too much of it, drinking… it’s pretty much the definition of every Swedish holiday.

Thanksgiving means a lot to me for a number of reasons, primarily since it’s the one time of year I’m guaranteed to feel homesick. Sweden is my home, of course, but so is the US. When I hear from family about their plans and see pictures of all of them together, I get the lovely mix of wishing I was there and guilt that I’m not.

Growing up, Mom did all the cooking, and I don’t mean only for Thanksgiving. We never had mashed potatoes because she made so many other things, she didn’t feel like putting in all the extra work for them. Sometimes we’d host family at our place, sometimes we’d go to someone else’s dinner, but after a year hosted by my stepfather’s mom – where chicken was served instead of turkey – Mom insisted on hosting every year. She had three sisters and four brothers, so as the years went on and the families grew, it was a very full house.

I brought the woman who would become my first wife to Thanksgiving dinner and it was the first time she met my extended family. After dinner, she told me she didn’t think they liked her very much. “Your uncle reached past me to get food and nearly elbowed me in the face!” I laughed and told her that she just happened to be in the way of food. Wasn’t personal, just business. Many years later, I brought the woman who would become my second wife to Thanksgiving dinner, the first time she met everyone. I guess this is my thing.

Having never learned to cook growing up, I got married at 21 to a woman who did all the cooking. (Paging Dr. Freud…) As a result, when I got divorced at 32, it was the first time I lived alone and my cooking ability was limited to boiling water and baking chicken. I ate so much baked chicken that I can barely eat it today; in fact, my stomach is doing a roll as I write this.

I’ve since learned to make quite a few dishes, although I tend to make things that involve me being in the kitchen for eight hours. That may sound like I’m making super complex meals, but someone with even slightly better skills would only need an hour. I haven’t quite grasped multitasking yet.

Which all leads to another reason Thanksgiving means so much to me. My wife and I are a great team, getting an apartment ready to host more people than the Fire Marshall would approve, and she makes some popular dishes herself. I make the bulk of the food, including two whole birds, and the last thing I want is help. I’m my mother’s son – if we’ve invited 30, I cook for 60. Means a lot to me, not only that I’ve learned to cook, but that I can make so many different things. Yeah, it takes me all week, but it’s worth it.

Speaking of worth, turkey isn’t common here. At least one large supermarket chain realized they can sell turkeys at this time of year, but they aren’t cheap. Nor are the completely foreign ingredients I have to buy at The American Store in Stockholm. As a result, we spend a tremendous amount of money just before Christmas.

All that time and effort and money and I usually get to sit down maybe five minutes at the table during dinner. I spend 95% of the evening in the kitchen and I can hear our guests in the other room having a great time and I love it all. When Mom would host Thanksgiving or some other party she’d often say afterwards, “Sounded like everyone had a good time, wish I was there.” I can relate, although I do make a shitload of mashed potatoes.

I have much to be thankful for but, as this is a blog about standup, I suppose I should mention it sometime. The only real ambition I’ve had in standup is to be able to perform as many times as possible in as many venues as possible, and while I may be long from that today, I’m thankful that I practically have a residency in one of Stockholm’s largest clubs. Maybe 2023 will be the year I step it up, maybe not. In the meantime, I’m thankful that a few hundred people just about every week get to hear jokes about my penis.

One of the sweet little lies we like to tell ourselves in the comedy community is that standup is a meritocracy. If you work hard, develop your talent, grind away for years in club after club, more doors will open up to you. The best opportunities are only made available to the funniest, most experienced comics. When you start you might be 100th in line, but if you’re very patient, at some point it’ll be your turn.

In reality, however, there are many ways to skip the line, or at least move up the line faster. A simple example of this is people trying standup for the first time, but have a background in performing, such as theater or music. Your material might be mediocre, but you’ve got an advantage over fellow rookies who are just as mediocre but are also learning how to stand on a stage and hold a microphone.

Another way to skip the line is to have social skills and be likeable off stage. I’ve mentioned before that most comics, including myself, are (and I say this with love) socially retarded. If you’re personable and see mingling as an opportunity and not something to be avoided at all costs, you’ll stand out.

I’m opening myself up to hate here but I don’t mean to be controversial, just pointing out reality- women often get to skip the line. Club owners looking to make their lineups more diverse will offer opportunities to female rookies that they would never offer to male rookies of the same calibur. And it’s fine! Lineups should be more diverse, there should be more women in standup, the few that are around should get more stage time. If it means that a club owner should deny the hundred men who email requests daily for stage time and instead offer spots to women who had never asked themselves, so be it. I hope the scene develops to the point that all feel comfortable and welcome in standup and women hunt and grind and nag club owners as much as men do. In the meantime, we just have to make the best of it.

The best way to skip the line is to start doing standup after you’ve already built up a fanbase doing something else. The way the standup process is “supposed” to work is that you start as a total unknown, but after years of grinding in any and every club and posting content online, you build up a fanbase. At the start of your career, you have to win the crowd over, but with time and dedication, the crowd will be on the edge of their seats before you even say a word. You won them over before you stepped on stage. You still have to be funny, but you don’t need to put in half the effort of a rookie doing five minutes three hours and twenty comics into a night.

However, if you’ve built up a fanbase because of a podcast or TikTok or YouTube, if you’ve got a million Instagram followers and then decide to give standup a go, that’s a shortcut to success! I say shortcut but that’s not true. It just means you did the same amount of work in a different field. Not everyone can be a YouTube sensation. You may not have built up a fanbase thanks to standup, but you still built up a fanbase. You’ve been rewarded for hard work and no one should look down their noses at you for that.

The problem is that it must be difficult to judge your own ability when everyone in the room is excited to see you and applauds every word out of your mouth. If the crowd is pissing themselves laughing while you’re on stage, doesn’t that mean you’re a great comic? Certainly not, at least not to the so-called true comics at the back of the room judging every aspect of your set mercilessly.

Self-awareness, being self-critical, these are very important to our development. How can it not go to your head, though, if doors are being opened to you left and right? Do you say, “I got this spot at this great club because it checked a diversity box,” or do you say, “I got this spot at this great club because I’m a great comic”? Do you say, “Eveyone loved me tonight because they know me from YouTube,” or do you say, “Everyone loved me tonight because I’m super talented at standup”?

Over the years I’ve met comics from all over the spectrum (and I don’t only mean autism). Everyone from comics who are too humble and self-critical to comics who are completely ignorant of their talent or lack thereof. It takes all kinds, I guess. I’ll leave it up to the reader to determine my place on that scale.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Standup Gala. A Swedish comic who recently sold out a massive arena in Stockholm has been complaining on podcasts that she wasn’t nominated for any awards at the Gala. Complaining that her peers don’t see her as a real comic because she built up a following through YouTube before making her standup debut and got to do big spots at big clubs without grinding five minutes at a time in shitty basements first.

Selling out an arena but whinging that you didn’t get nominated for an award that means nothing from a Gala no one’s ever heard of? If that doesn’t prove that you’re a comic, I don’t know what would.