Monday, March 4th – Ireland's 32 Irish Pub, Van Nuys, CA
This is what it's all about sometimes: a good bar show with a hot crowd. A motley crew of audience members ranging in age from their 20s to their 70s, all laughing all at once at my little dumbass jokes, allowing me to unspool my new thoughts and ideas.
What laypeople may not realize is that comedy happens mostly in places like this. Sometimes it’s in clubs, sometimes it’s in theaters, sometimes its on your TV or phone screen. But mostly, it’s happening in a bar, where a small collection of people are waiting to be entertained. These are not places where "the industry" cares. These are the shows dotting the world’s comedy scenes, where comics toil away at our craft largely in secret, save for the handful of lucky folks who were in the right place at the right time.
This morning, I find out that Just For Laughs, the organizers of a revered comedy festival long fabled for helping comics break through to the next level of their careers, has gone bankrupt. This year’s festival has been canceled. Some of my peers lament this loss. Some of them crack jokes. This is the dichotomy of stand-ups: we are at once sentimental and snarky, unable to decouple these two parts of our brain.
Midday, Yourgo texts me and says he thinks this is bad for comedy. I simply reply: “paradigm shift.” Because, more than anything, that’s what this signals to me. An industry in flux is no longer able to rely on old ways and means of operating. As artists, we are forced to adapt. (Yes, a thousand times yes, comedy is art.)
And, thankfully, all signs are pointing to rooms like this as always being more important than wherever I thought they were going to be when I started out.
Wednesday, March 6th – TOI Rockin' Thai Food, West Hollywood, CA
Austin and I are going over new material before we hit our spots for the night.
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