Why I quit stand up comedy
Happy Thanksgiving
Hey good morning!
This week I’m writing from my home in Maryland, where I’m also filling my stummy with my mom’s delicious cooking and watching The Soprano’s on my family’s humongous living room TV.
I’ve been drawlin’ as I be doin. Here are some eyeball snacks I cooked up:
I always got Tony on my mind. And Paulie. And Uncle Jun. And Chrissy. BUT NOT JANICE.
Sometime last week I live-streamed on Insta for the first time. Just watching the Soprano’s and drawing on my iPad, split screen style. This is what I drew from that:
When I’m not working on my “memories” series or my freelance, I’m slowly contributing my time to a personal story comic. Here’s a four panel from that I just inked:
I’ll be sharing more of these little bits here when I can. hee hee tee hee :)
WHY I QUIT STAND UP COMEDY
I was thinking about what to write about for this post and thought it might be convenient to talk about my experiences with stand-up comedy. I say convenient because it gives me something to write about, but also because people be asking me “Do you still do comedy? Why did you stop?” and instead of saying the same ol’ thing, maybe I can just send them this post. Someone recently reached out to me via instagram DM to ask me about this very topic:
I did stand up comedy for two years — from 2021 to 2023 — in Boston, San Francisco, and New York.
Performing stand-up has been a dream of mine since I was a kid. I thought that I was a decent conversationalist, I could make my friends laugh, and I craved attention and vanity —pursuing comedy felt like the perfect career. I also idolized the laid back, schedule-less lifestyles of my favorite comedians Bobby Lee (Tigerbelly), Pete Holmes (as depicted in Crashing), and others.
I was scared to give it a real try until the pandemic. Stuck in my room all day, I wondered if I would ever get the opportunity to do a mic ever again, kicking myself for never having tried it before. I said fuckit and signed up for a Zoom open mic and kept up with it since.
I went decently hard for a while, hitting at least 3-4 mics a week. After a year I produced my own show in hopes of getting booked more and it worked. Everything was working out: I was booked on local gigs, getting spots at comedy clubs, and growing my network of comedians. And then I stopped.
To be honest, I was burning out. It had happened before, with my start-up clothing brand I did in college too. I ended up chained to the idea of commitment and consistency for consistency’s sake and as a result, I slowly fell out of love for the craft.
I didn’t like doing it anymore. It really comes down to that. The feeling of getting up and making people laugh was amazing and never didn’t feel amazing — it was all the other junk that got annoying. I saw how the sausage was made, I guess.
To make this an easier read (and easier for me to write), here were my gripes, in list form:
Open mics. This is the usual structure: You go to a dive bar, write your name down on a list, and wait anxiously for your turn to try your new 5 minute bit. 98% of the time, the audience is made of other comedians who don’t give a single fuck about your jokes or what you have to say — they’re in it for themselves, just like you. But you gotta thug it out and get your practice in. When you’re not performing, you’re watching. Sitting through hours of the worst comedy you’ve ever heard in your fucking life. To make things worse, it’s a weeknight and you just worked 9 hours at your grueling day job. When you’re not performing or watching, you’re hanging out (“networking”), trying to get to know other comedians who might book you on their shows (but never do).
The network. A lot of the people I met in the scene were actually really interesting, hilarious, and nice all in all. That being said, a lot of the people were also disgusting, crude, annoying, low-EQ, selfish weirdos. And everyone is forcibly trying to get to know everyone else, mostly to get on each other’s shows. The people that aren’t doing all that were part of the “in” group (the ones running the mics, the shows, etc.). They were all friends with each other and the open mic scene was like their social club meetings where they could hang out and be popular. A lot of these folks weren’t very funny either, just had lots of gumption. Felt cliquey, like high school. Felt weird.
The lifestyle. Again, open mics are on weeknights. If you get booked, you’re performing on weekends. As I was getting deeper into comedy, I was losing touch with aspects of my personal life. I was missing out on plans with friends, casual movie nights with my partner, dedicated time to draw, and opportunities that would enrich my professional life — these are all things I value so much. But I slowly started to push them to the side, all in the service of telling jokes to boost my ego. At first it felt right. I was making the sacrifices I needed to pursue my dream. Then after a while it didn’t feel so right. The sacrifices weren’t worth it.
To other comedians, this isn’t anything new. All this is part of the grind and that’s what makes the pursuit of comedy so beautiful. Ideally, it’s meritocratic. If you work hard, attend mics, write good jokes, and network right, then you’ll get opportunities. It’s also democratic. Poor people, rich people, dumb people, smart people, mean people, kind people, stinky smelly people, ANYBODY and EVERYBODY gets the same amount of time at an open mic. In theory, it’s really cool.
But it stopped being cool to me. It started to become hard, annoying work. So that’s why I stopped. I also like drawing more. With drawing I can be funny, creative, weird, whatever. And I don’t need to impress anyone or wait on anyone to do it.
I did a lot of pooping and shitting in this lil article but in truth, I learned a lot from comedy. It’s a part of my life that I’m really proud of and I think about revisiting it from time to time. I may have quit, but the positives outweigh the negatives. Maybe that’s for another newsletter.
JOHN’S REX
Aidan Robinson, also known as hahawiener420.
The algorithm gods got me right with this. One of my favorite niche artists on TikTok, hahawiener420 is a folk song writer that sings really soulful and human songs that make me laugh and feel deeply.
Commenters are always urging this man to post his songs on Spotify, but for some reason he doesn’t. With only two songs on Spotify, most of his performances are posted to Instagram and TikTok in content form.
The two songs he does have are great. Here’s a lyric I love from “the mermaid.”
Cause her hair is green as seaweed
and her skin is blue and pale
and I can tell you now before you start,
you can love that girl with all your heart,
but you’re just gonna love the upper part.
You’re not gonna like the tail.
Thanks for reading!!!!! Happy Thanksgiving!!!!! May all your dreams come true!!!!