#15 - These Are The Good Times 06/07/18

There's a great video on YouTube, that just consists of almost 4 hours of Ari Shaffir talking to young comics at The Comedy Store. (Check it out below, if you have 1/2 a workday to kill).....

   

The video has a bunch of great advice in it, but one part in particular really hits home with me. Ari talks about how it might seem like being an opening comic sucks; the pay is shit, sometimes headliners can be peckerheads, you get bumped from shows all the time, stuff like that. But these are some of the best times you'll ever have as a comic. I get what he's saying now.

It's like when you were in school, and you hated it and you couldn't wait to graduate and get a job and have money. And then you get into the real world, and realize that you still don't have any money, and now you can't just spend all day fucking around with your friends like you could in High School. Lots of headlining comics still don't have any money, and now there's a lot of extra pressure that didn't exist when you were an opener. When you're an opening comic, it's just fun. The only real pressure is making your new joke work, and you get to spend your nights at open mics with your buddies. 

Some of my favourite memories as a comedian so far have been the nights at mics, and road trips with my friends. It doesn't feel like a job yet, it's just fun. I just got back from a show in Grande Prairie with my buddy Brent, where we co-headlined. It was a really good time. But on our way up to GP, we ran into a little car trouble, and ended up having to kill an afternoon in Whitecourt waiting for some repairs to be finished. We went for lunch and just chatted comedy for a couple hours, and that's where I had the inspiration for this post. It was fun just hanging out with my friend, talking jokes and about what we might achieve down the road. There's no pressure yet. It doesn't feel like a job.

Don't get me wrong, I have every intention of becoming a headliner in the future. I want to have a successful career in comedy, and frankly, I want to make some more money. I'm just not in a huge hurry to get there. I feel like I'm still in High School, and now I know what life after school is like. And it can wait a little bit longer.

I have to go host a show at Chicago Joe's here in Edmonton. Game 5 of the Caps/Knights just started. Hopefully by this time tomorrow, I can blog about how much fun Joe's was, and how good Ovechkin looked with the Cup over his head.

Thanks for reading.

Adam