Bombproof
Greetings from a plane to Chicago, where I am typing this out on spotty wi-fi. Or, more accurately: greetings from my wife’s grandma’s apartment in Chicago, where I am editing my plane draft on much more reliable wi-fi.
In case you’re wondering where I’ve been: I’m here, I’ve just been a little afraid to say hi. I’m working on that part, though. I’m working on it by taking inventory, and going through that inventory with someone else, and by doing all of the other spiritual stuff my twin 12-step programs recommend, and by giving myself enough time and space to grieve, and by not trying to think my way out of situations. I am trying to just do and trust that the doing is enough.
I do a show the same night Mexico plays Korea in the World Cup. I drive into downtown Long Beach right after Mexico scored their sole goal of the match. The streets are mayhem, flooded with Mexico fans in their jerseys and team colors. The host says he doesn’t know if we’ll have a show tonight but there are enough people sticking around this burlesque bar post-match to have one.
And they are doing their best to pay attention, even though they’re all totally spent, the day-drinking buzz and adrenaline rush of watching a late-stage victory pan out wearing off in tandem. The comics are all grading this audience on a curve. One says they’re a “woo!”-type crowd, where they might not laugh loud, but they will smile and chuckle and cheer when you involve them. Everyone says something during their set that will make them “woo!”, something to remind these sweet people that, yes, we still would very much like their validation, please.
I don’t write a set list down in my notebook before I go on stage, but I do write “have fun, be present.” This is how I handle nights like tonight now, with two small reminders to help me better handle the potential chaos. Reminders that I am bombproof.
The truth, pieces of which I’ve been uncovering every week with my sponsor, is that I have been basing so many of my decisions in my creative life on fear. For instance: this very Substack. After chipping away at why I want to have a newsletter like this, finding myself enjoying writing from the overlap in my life between comedy and recovery, I have avoided mining that very subject on a more regular basis because I am afraid of how it will be perceived. I am afraid of how I am percieved by people like the comic who accuses me of hiding behind therapy speak after I ask to level with them from a recovery perspective about a roast battle gone awry, and the comics who reply to my posts here and elsewhere with criticism both veiled and overt, and the bookers who don’t get back to me, and the people who might see a joke or a clip from WRONG! or a piece of writing, who I hope don’t dislike me because as an artist with no day job, I need an audience to survive.
Then, of course, what if I do achieve my dreams and then some? Now I’ve got success to be afraid of! What if I open myself up to more people who don’t like me, or even worse, people who used to like me but don’t any more?
Over three months, as I talk out these fears and others with my sponsor over mid-afternoon coffees and the occasional sandwich, it occurs to me how exhausting and irrational they are, and how much they are hampering my ability to take action.
And on this Thursday in particular, having just gone through the final part of the list, while waiting on my set, I remember a piece of advice I got during my time as a door guy at the Comedy Store.
One night, backstage in the Main Room, Argus Hamilton, another sober comic who has been doing stand-up for over 50 years, and I are talking about doing tough rooms. Then, through his Oklahoman drawl, he says “you’ve got to bomb until you’re bombproof.”
For years, I think this just means that I am supposed to get up on stage until I literally never bomb any more. But year after year, show after show, I still see comics bomb all the time, even seasoned and famous ones. I wonder: is it even possible to never bomb?
But tonight, this nugget of wisdom meets the dipping sauce of experience and the phrase takes on a meaning I’m not even sure if Argus intended. To little old trying-to-be-fearless me, it seems that being be bombproof is to not be thrown off by the bombs. To embrace the flop, as the clowns might say. To know that I will make work that people don’t like, that I will say things that piss people off even if I mean no harm, that I will alienate and offend and not be for everyone – this is what makes me bombproof. And as long as I can make work that meets my own standards, then why should I let the fear of how I am perceived keep me from putting it out there?
So I do my 15 minutes. I have fun. I am present. I spend the first half digging myself into a hole on purpose, doing a joke I know this crowd doesn’t have the attention span for, loving every second of it. I spend the second half showing them I know to get out of the hole. And even though it’s not a great set, I’m having a blast.
It’s easy to love killing. It’s harder to love bombing: looking into the eyes of an audience knowing they aren’t on board. To post imperfectly into the void. To accept my fate. To not sweat it. To know I’m not running out of chances any time soon.
Six months in to 2026, and it’s feeling like a year of unlearning bad habits, of not being held under the thumb of my fears, of recalibrating the way I write and perform and engage with the community of comics I hold dear.
My sponsor asks me what I think my purpose is. “To bring people joy,” I reply. And I can’t do that if I’m too afraid to take action.
I will feel fear of what you think, the royal you, no matter what. What I choose to do about that fear is up to me. And for now, as long as I can enjoy what I publish here, and what I post there, and what I say and do on stage everywhere – and, most importantly, that I don’t feel like I’m phoning it in – that’s enough for me to not get stuck on what you think and try to bring you some joy instead.
See you next week with some more imperfect work.1
WHAT ELSE?
I’m on the road with WRONG! this week! We’re in Chicago on Wednesday, and Dallas on Sunday. Get some tickets if you’re in either of those places, I’d love to see you there.
I’m also headlining a couple of times next month: at Sports Drink in New Orleans on Thursday the 9th, then at The Comedy Lounge in Boise on Saturday the 11th. If you want to see me having fun and being present for long sets – and also doing some new material that I’m pretty damn proud of – then come to either of those! And of course, check out my full show calendar here if you want to see what else I have coming up.
Also, if for some ungodly reason you don’t already follow me on social media, check me out on the two platforms I care about most: Instagram and YouTube.
Not caught up on the latest from WRONG! yet? Watch our newest episode here, live from Netflix Is A Joke Festival:
Until next time, thanks for reading, I’m glad you’re here!
I’m so committed to publishing this imperfect thing that I’m not even going to do my usual editing pass at this essay. Contrary action, as they say!