The first time I did stand up comedy in Washington D.C.

So this blog is going to cover my journey through stand up comedy. The journey could end up being short. Having a place to document my ideas and share my experience might turn out to be helpful for someone else in the future. Sometimes you gotta say fuck it and try something new.

I suppose I should start with how I got to this point. I absolutely love stand up comedy. Like, a lot. I spent a lot of time in my youth waiting for any new stand up specials to show up on Comedy Central. That was basically my only source of discovering new stand up comedy until the internet exploded. Then I was able to find anything I wanted from every era. And I consumed it. All of it. Henny Youngman? Yes, please. Richard Pryor? Fuck yes. Andy Kaufman? Genius. I had access to everything beyond whatever TV wanted to show me. I felt inspired.

When I was around 21 years old I decided to give it a go. I emailed some places in Washington D.C. with interest in their open mic nights. I was able to get 5 minutes from literally the only person that replied to me. Some guy named Curt Shackelford who ran http://www.standupcomedytogo.com, which as their name implies sets up stand up comedy shows. That sounds really great, right? I finally had my chance. Here’s the catch: I’m incredibly shy, socially awkward, and rife with anxiety.

Standing in front of a group of people is the most terrifying god damn experience on the planet. I would fake being sick if I needed to do a presentation in front of a class all the way up through high school. I would simply not do assignments so I had nothing to present if possible. It didn’t always work, but my first inclination was to avoid being the center of any attention at all cost. It got a little better once I entered the workforce. I found things I was good at and picked up some confidence along the way. I thought at this point I would be able to handle being on stage and telling some jokes. Once the day finally came it was time to see if I could sink or swim. I sank - hard.

The show was on December 3rd, 2009 at the Topaz Hotel in Washington D.C. Almost a decade ago. Curt apparently couldn’t manage the show that day and a woman named Dawn MacLear stepped in to run it. She was awesome and made me feel really comfortable. The first thirty seconds on stage was one of the biggest learning experiences I’ve ever had in my life. There I am standing in front of a room full of people trying to make them laugh, and it’s not going well. That was all the time I needed to understand everything that was wrong with what I had prepared. And I still had four and a half fucking minutes to go. I stuttered. My hand was visibly shaking as I tried to read some of my notes. I realized that my jokes were far too complicated. I had no sense of timing and every time I spoke it sounded like I had a bunch of marbles in my mouth. I didn’t totally bomb. There was a moment or two where people collectively chuckled to themselves, but it really felt like pity laughs more than anything. I did it though. I suffered through the entire thing.

After my performance, I slunk to the back of the room and watched a bunch of other people have their go. An interesting thing happened there. This guy came over and asked me some questions. Was this my first time? Did I enjoy it? We chatted for a bit before he moved off. He seemed really interested and I found it to be really strange at the time. Turns out he was headlining the evening and was a professional comedian. I looked him up after the show and he was a writer for some late night comedy shows for a bit. I think it was David Letterman or that dude with the chin situation. His name is escaping me at the moment. How fucking cool is that though?

After the show finished I went back up to the bar to grab a drink and sat down for a bit. I was sitting in a section by myself when the security guard of the venue came over to sit and talk with me. At least I think he was a security guard? He actually liked my performance and we talked a bit about my experience and how it all felt for me. Super cool dude and it made me feel a lot better. Other patrons from the shows walked up to the bar as well and some stopped to offer me some kinds words of encouragement. Maybe it didn’t really go as bad as I thought it did? Spoiler alert: It did. It was fucking terrible. It was cool to receive some positive vibes though.

There was one final event that I still remember. After my drink and chat with that dude upstairs I went back down to the stage area where I found it was mostly empty except for Dawn packing things up to put in the van. I had fuck all to do so I offered some help and moved boxes and equipment up into her van. We had a real quick chat after everything was packed. I don’t remember what the context was that brought her to say this but at one point she told me “the crowd wanted to laugh, which is good”. That seems encouraging, right? Well, how the fuck was I supposed to get them to actually laugh? It was a long metro ride home back into the suburbs where I kicked myself over and over again. I felt like I could have done so much better if I had another chance.

Unfortunately, my stand up career didn’t take off after that. I didn’t get another chance. Life ended up getting really hard for a long time because of various reasons not long after that. I went back to watching other peoples comedy careers rise and fall for almost the next decade.

Fast forward a decade and now I’m living in Lisbon, Portugal. Life isn’t too bad at this point. Some acquaintances invited me to travel with them on a getaway trip to Iceland with the goal of seeing the northern lights from a hot tub. Well, that trip sparked quite a wild series of events that lead me from seeing the northern lights to stage lights once again. You can about how that all happened on the blog post here https://www.lisbondigitalnomads.org/the-birth-of-lisbons-first-english-comedy-night/

Next blog post will cover my second performance ever.