There are a lot of reasons that I'm a writer and not a performer. My nose has more turns than Google Maps. I have a comically oversized head that would only really work in a Munsters reboot. And I'm blessed with a real "Jew's who" of medical ailments: worry, doubt, tsuris, shpilkes, acid reflux, severe panic disorder, non-severe panic disorder, free-floating anxiety, iffy sinuses and a shyness so severe I sometimes need to take a Xanax just to give myself the courage to take another Xanax...
So, nobody was more surprised than me, when I woke up one morning in the spring of my 49th year and decided I had to push past all my fears and try stand-up comedy for the first time since 1988. If I was just having a mid-life crisis, I'd have picked something less personally embarrassing -- like growing a four-foot ponytail or buying a solid gold Segway. But stand-up is something that I had to do. And while I have spent the last twenty seasons in sitcom writers' rooms, that involves sitting on a couch, pitching jokes for someone else's characters to your friends, while eating between one and three short rib sandwiches. There's nothing that prepares you for performing original material, in your own voice, alone, to a roomful of strangers. Except perhaps tightrope walking between skyscrapers.
In full disclosure, there was a brief moment between the overwhelming anxiety of childhood and the overwhelming anxiety of adulthood that I felt comfortable enough in my own skin to perform. On my second day at Brown University, fueled by the unearned confidence of youth and a third of a wine cooler, I spontaneously jumped on stage at an orientation talent show and ad-libbed a tribute to The Brady Bunch, acting out famous scenes and leading sing-alongs. It went so well that they asked me back to perform the same "show" for the next three years. This emboldened me to twice try my hand at traditional stand-up. That went so not well that I never once even considered doing it again for the next 27 years.
But then, one day this past March, I literally woke up one day and started furiously scribbling material as if from a fever dream. I was like Coleridge but with slightly less opium and slightly more iambic pentameter. For the next two weeks, I sat at the mall food court with a table full of 3x5 cards and a little metal box. I either looked like a comic, a crazy person, or a man unusually proud of his recipe collection.
A few weeks later, I decided it was do-or-die time. I found an open mic night in North Hollywood. My expectations were exceedingly low. Anything short of actually dying on stage I would consider a shimmering triumph. It's not like I was expecting an HBO special to come out of this. This was strictly an exercise in pinpointing my fears and pushing through them. Perhaps. Maybe. Either that or locking myself in the club bathroom.
It's true that about 95 percent of me expected abject Hindenburg-level disaster. Yet deep down, there was a small part of me that believed I'd get three jokes in before someone interrupted me with "Sir, why are you at open mic? This is just for beginners." And then, Louis CK would step out from behind a curtain carrying an oversized check and declare "I have seen the future of comedy. And he's this 300-year-old Turkish guy with a name I can't begin to pronounce."
On the big day, I vowed to battle every fight-or-flight instinct and plant my feet on a professional stage. I girded myself and confidently strutted into... the wrong club. The one I was looking for had moved six blocks away. So in the Valley heat (it was at least a million degrees), I broke out into a full sprint down Lankershim with my hands filled with props (don't ask.) When I arrived, I was hyperventilating and had sweat through three shirts -- all the things I had planned on doing during my set.
At an open mic, you don't know it's your turn until the second it's your turn. And here's something I wished I'd known: nobody laughs. Everyone is silently thinking about their own set. Mind you, this didn't stop me from laughing at everyone's stuff, which came off less good-natured and more Max Cady cackling in Cape Fear.
Finally, it was my turn. I can say with complete moral certainty I got somewhere between zero and zero laughs. I stammered. I mumbled. I forgot large swaths of my material. I held for applause that wasn't forthcoming. If scientists needed to record absolute silence for an experiment, my set would've been an effective backdrop. One thing I didn't expect: this was one of those old school clubs where a massive spotlight shines in your face. It gave the affair all the warmth of an East German spy interrogation. I can't tell you how many times I was tempted to walk directly into the light and take my chances with St. Peter. It's not like I could've gotten fewer laughs from him. To top off the evening, the emcee grabbed the mic and dressed me down in front of everyone for exceeding my time. "If you pay for five minutes, you only get five minutes!" Me: "But I paid for 10." "Oh, do you wanna come back up and finish?' Me: "No, that's quite alright. Based on the no laughs, I think I'm good."
In the parlance of comedians, I bombed. Big time. I had imagined the worst case scenario. And this was so much worse. And I couldn't wait to go back and do it again.
See, to me, trying it once and giving up would've been like college all over again. If nothing else, my basic worldview has always been heavily guided by Chumbawumba. "I get knocked down, but I get up again." It may also explain my love of whisky drinks and lager drinks. A kind comedian who knew me from Twitter contacted me and told of a much more hospitable venue, a coffeehouse in Santa Monica, where the sets were shorter, the people were nicer and most importantly, no spotlights.
I went there a week later, now painfully aware at how humbling standing alone on that stage can be. That said, I got up and did a limited set of my "A" material. I didn't kill. But on the other hand, it didn't make me want to walk into the ocean with stones in my pockets. So it was definitely better than the previous week. I even got an occasional, muted laugh. I had experienced the worst and gone back for more. The following week, I felt confident enough that I went back and devoted my entire set to the crazy things that happened in the aftermath of my father's suicide. I'm not claiming it was some Tig Notaro moment of bravery, but it was the first time I'd spoken about it publicly, that I had tried to find light and laughter in the pain. And it was then I realized that this moment of catharsis was why I'd woken up jotting down those ideas earlier in the month.
Let's be frank, my performances weren't quite Richard Pryor on the Sunset Strip. I don't think it was even Gallagher 2 on a reggae booze cruise. But this was never about becoming a pro comic. It was about confronting my worst fears (exposure, rejection) and not letting them defeat me.
But even more so, it was about finding my own voice. Even as a professional writer, it's incredibly easy to hide -- in a partnership, in a writers' room, writing someone else's jokes for someone else's characters on someone else's shows. And for a long time, that felt safe and comfortable. Until it no longer did. And the need to talk openly and honestly about my experiences began to overwhelm my fear of doing so. You could say that my entire adult life has been a journey to recapture the voice that I once had in college. To feel that I deserved to be heard no matter how much the self-flagellating voice in my head would argue the opposite. And it's not really about how other people respond. I almost don't care. Okay, I still care way more than I should. But significantly less than I used to.
All in all, the experience has been like therapy but with a lower co-pay. The truth is, without those three sets I never would have attempted this blog. In fact, virtually every personal topic I did on stage from grief, depression and being the fat guy nobody wants to sit next to on airplane has made its way into one of my pieces. Personally, I think this blog is a better place for me to express deeper thoughts. Twitter is better for writing one-liners. TV, ideally, is a better place for me to make a living. And Facebook will always be a better venue for me to reach my core constituency of 5'3" to 5'4" Jewish women. But now, whenever I find a new situation too anxiety-provoking, I know that I can always climb back on a stage and try some jokes and know that if I'm not afraid to do that which scares me most, then there really is nothing that I can't do. And who knows, someday I may even invite someone to watch me.