Will Tell Jokes For Food

The toughest part of comedy is not in telling or writing jokes, at least for me.  The toughest part I have is with the marketing/self-promotion/getting actual money for doing comedy.  For example I am in the finals of a competition at Caroline’s where if I win I get a paid weekend opening for someone.  If I finished second, third or fourth I get to go home and take out my unpaid frustration in a game of Wii Tennis.

I have also received my fair share of guest spots, which translated into layman’s terms is, “You are pretty funny, but we have no real incentive to pay you and you cannot afford to refuse an unpaid spot because you secretly believe that you will be discovered, or at least appreciated by management and/or talent scouts, who are unlikely to be watching you.”  And that is true.

So the way to make money for an up and coming comic like myself is to take the show on the road.  Unfortunately this is proving rather difficult.  Here have been some of my favorite responses that I have received personally or through someone acting on my behalf:

“Please stop with the e-mails.  We will contact YOU if we are interested.” – this was sent after an obnoxious series of two e-mails sent a week apart (one with clips and one following up a week later – how rude of me).

“What do you bring to our club and how will you increase business?”- hopefully jokes

“He should just buy a car and travel the country for two years stopping by clubs.  Is he Jewish?  No, then he’s fu-ked.  He will probably have to get used to sucking men’s di-ks.” – yes this is an actual conversation that took place (mostly tongue-in-cheek, as opposed to cock-in-cheek),  apparently Hollywood casting agents have now re-located to help run comedy clubs in the Midwest.

The best part is that two of these quotes came from what are known as “B clubs” meaning not the city’s primary venue for stand up comedy.  That is not a knock on these places, but goes to show that some of these clubs seem to have a Napoleonic complex.  And it introduces a Catch 22.  I would love to tell clubs that cannot act or respond with some decency or respect to go fu-k themselves or threaten some sort of No Country For Old Men-style cross country trip, but they do have the power and they hold the keys to what I want – a chance to tell lots of people my jokes and to get paid for it.

I’d like to think that if I ever attained star status or mega star status that I would vilify the reputations of these clubs or simply buy them and bulldoze them, a la the trailer home of Jenny at the end of Forrest Gump, but that probably won’t happen for two reasons.  I will be too busy counting Benjamins and the clubs will be too busy kissing my ass (hence the Catch 22 – I lash out now I never attain success.  I attain success – reason for lashing out abates).  But as someone who was able to maintain a healthy grudge against their high school basketball coach for over a decade (not to mention how long I will get material out of more recent slights) I think my friends can attest that if anyone can hold on to that morbid fantasy in spite of success it is me.

But in the meantime anyone know where I can get some cheap knee pads?