An Insider’s Guide to A Year In Comedy
The Holidays
Well, it’s the holidays, and it’s a hard time of the year to do comedy. It’s the time when all the best-of and who’s-next lists come out, and you might not be on those lists. It’s also when shows go on hiatus or just die off, as the hosts say, well, don’t we have something better to do on a Tuesday? You say to yourself, well, I went to that show ten times last year in hopes of being booked on it and that was time wasted. It’s also the time of year when you have to justify to your parents what you’re still doing in LA.
Springtime
And then it’s Spring, when all the festivals write to say you didn’t qualify to fly yourself to a small city and do unpaid shows, but it’s only because they had SO many comics apply for SO few spots. And who decided you didn’t make the cut? A guy who sleeps on his friend’s couch and lives on burritos.
Some festivals you’ve been applying to for so long that other people have started comedy, done that festival, and quit comedy again, all while you’re still sending in your thirty bucks. You realize that one festival has taken three hundred dollars from you, and you could have just flown yourself to New York to do unpaid sets. You’re on a show with a guy whose whole set is about how he likes smoking pot and how dating is hard, and he’s done every comedy festival you haven’t done. It’s a hard time of year to be a comic then.
Summertime
After that is Summer, when you might hit the road and do some gigs, really remind yourself what it is to do comedy for real people, not those sycophants and ass kissers back home, except for every show you get to, everyone’s at the tractor pull or the air show or they’re just wandering the streets on a clear, warm summer night, holding hands and sharing a bag of kettle corn, like regular people, instead of spending the night trapped inside a sweaty comedy club listening to some LA asshole who can’t even get into festivals. And that’s a hard time of the year to do comedy.
Fall
After that it’s Fall, when your friends who write for television are up for Important Awards, and they look so great in their red carpet outfits. The new shows start and you’re not on any of ’em, I mean sure, you take some comfort in the fact that the pilot you didn’t get cast for didn’t get picked up, but it’s time to get out to the new comedy shows to kiss up to the new bookers, who two years ago were open mikers you wouldn’t deign to speak to but now you’re their Instagram friends, until they stop booking those shows and you quietly unfollow them. It’s a hard time of year to be comic, then.
And then, of course- it’s the holidays.
Yes, comedy fans, Bowie fans, all humanity- start making your plans for Saturday nights roast of David Bowie, where the ghost of David Bowie will be played by me, Virginia Jones!
