The day before

Tomorrow I embark on my quest to become a shitty comedian.

For the past year or so, I have worked on a TV show, Elected, with my friend Matt. It was a fantastic, exhausting, debilitating, phenomenal year, and I am gladder than glad that I did it. At some point in March, however, I decided that I wanted to take a break from collaborating on my comedy and try something by myself. I also wanted to try a style of comedy with which I was inexperienced and uncomfortable. Naturally, that led me to stand-up comedy. I can’t think of a form of comedy more individualistic and demanding, which is almost the entire reason I chose it.

So at about that time, I started watching and listening to as much good stand up as possible. I bought albums by David Cross, Patton Oswalt, and Jim Gaffigan, among others, and I went to a comedy night in Boston. I also got to see Michael Showalter and Eugene Mirman perform at Lupo’s in Providence, with Leo Allen opening (Funny story: I drunkenly embarrassed myself to Michael, but Eugene was very nice and we had a good-natured conversation.). I wrote my first joke some time in April, and have written about 20 since then. About 4 of them are good. I am performing about 8 or 9 of them tomorrow (Setlist provided in list form beneath).

Basically, I am nervous, and I don’t know anyone who does stand-up, so I wanted to talk about it with the Internet. It’s not my intention to make this blog funny or clever, but rather to chronicle, right from the start, my stint as a stand-up comedian. Maybe once I get good at stand-up I will have the time to try to make other things funny. At that time this blog will be high on that list.

Here is what I think my setlist will be:

1. Not funny
2. College majors
3. Vitruvian man
4. Ice/water
5. Vodka gun
6. Burnout
7. Not racist/my bad
8. Moist
9. Fart in bed
10. In public
    

As you may be able to tell, I am going to eat it tomorrow.