My go-to journal notes
A few years back, I started jotting down ‘things that make sense’ in my notepad. These were nuggets I heard in a podcast or read in a book, and some original thoughts - all related to standup comedy and the work I do.
I realized that all of this can apply to any profession or life in general, so I thought I’d share this ‘wealth’ with you (I’m a nice guy, right?)
So here it is - Unedited - straight from my journals. Enjoy!
Pro Tip: if you find yourself pausing at a note - that means something connected - take a moment to internalize it - associate it with your work.
WHAT IS MAKING SENSE
Move your body (physically) towards your goals - to where they are happening. Location is everything.
The perfect day will not happen. Do not wait. The perfect environment will not exist. Do not wait. Accept all the distractions. And find your moments.
Instead of judging, create what you would want to see.
Let small irritating things happen. Happiness is a choice.
Fear is a sign that you are onto something. Fear is inevitable.
Perfection is the enemy. Nobody cares.
Be open to ideas. Ideas are magical life forms. Observe with an open mind.
Believe in sudden positive shifts.
BEING A COMEDIAN IS A WHOLE MINDSET
We are in the business of folding chairs
We went pro with our wounds
There is no off-stage anymore. There’s just “less-microphoned.”
In comedy you make money during the day. You collect it at night - Chris rock
No resting on the seventh day. Comedy is a 24 / 7 job
MINDSET
Are you living the ‘The Hero’s Journey’ or living ‘The Incidental Character’s Journey’?
Ability to sit still in this deeply uneventful business. It comes down to who can handle the boredom of training every day.
PROCESS OF WRITING
Get really nerdy on the causality of the story (So-Then structure)
When you write a joke with one word too many, it’s not a joke. It’s a sentence that almost worked
Only way - just show up and get to work. There will be good days and bad days - Write irrespective.
You write 1000’s of shitty drafts to reach one good line. Trust the process. The only way to get to a good line is through a lot of shitty lines. Write a lot of shitty lines knowing what you are doing. Write crap. Let it out of the system. You know where they are leading. You know it. You have seen it.
When I get down to writing, I always create something wonderful. When I dont work, I blame the world for that deep disappointment I feel inside.
Daily writing is not high art, but a path to a clearer mind, better ideas.
First heart (you on page) and then brain (edit)
All you have to do is transition from looking at your phone to putting the phone down and opening up the pad where there’s nothing going on.
When you’re in a flow, don’t stop. Cancel appointments, stay up late, be late to lunch.
DEVELOPING STANDUP MATERIAL
The audience needs to agree or disagree strongly. People should either love or hate your idea - that means it matters.
If it’s not clear where you are coming from, emotionally, then it will be very difficult for the audience to see where you are going with an idea.
It is weak to have points with no premise. It is cowardly to have premises but never have a point. “My point being….”
A good joke/comedian can occupy space in your mind. It makes for a great aim for your work
Realizing that the little moments that I thought were boring or just not interesting to other people are actually the things that people would be most interested in.
Savers: Don’t keep a weak joke because you came up with a great saver for it. It’s tacky.
ORIGINALITY
I’m not for everyone is a valuable position to acknowledge and embrace.
PERFORMING & DELIVERY
Right before I got onstage, I thought, Don’t forget to enjoy this because you’re going to fucking kill yourself if you don’t enjoy this.
In the setup, you talk to the audience, but in the act-out the audience isn’t there, and you become a character or characters.
When performing act-outs, face front or angle yourself 45 degrees to the audience.
BOMBING & RISKS
Don’t Be Afraid to Fail - Open mic/ testing material is an endorsed permission to fail.
It’s okay to “bomb.” Taking risks is essential to becoming an original voice. If you never bomb, there’s something off.
We have to be continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.
ABOUT COMEDIANS
Comedians are constantly listening for anything that doesn’t make sense - the logic flaws, the nonsense, anything that makes them think ‘hang on a second’
All failure is just feedback. You look at something and think, ‘Okay, that doesn’t work, I’ll change it.’ If something doesn’t work, you recalibrate and make it better. You don’t just fail the same way a thousand times; you fail differently each time until you run out of ways to fail. And at that point, it’s called ‘success’.
Comics have a pathological need to tell people the truth because, God love us, we’re trying to understand life. Sometimes when we’re with regular people, we forget that the rest of the world lives on a relentless diet of positivity and half-truths. Comics are blunt. Speaking truth to power, puncturing hubris and bringing balance is what comics have always done.
As soon as we comedians step on a stage, we have a crowd of people getting the measure of us. As a result, we become very good at acknowledging our flaws.
You can see by which comics succeed that comedy is as close to a meritocracy as the performing arts get.
Comedians need the crowd. We desperately and pathetically need the validation of a round of applause and a laugh. We need you to accept us, but not at any cost. We want to be loved for who we are. We have warring needs, an interesting mix of ‘needy’ and ‘zero fucks given’.
Risk, anxiety and humiliation come with the job of being a comic. You can’t avoid it. There’s no styling it out. Humiliation is always involved and it’s very clear, very, very clear what is going on.
When you become a comedian, you go from being a one-page CV to ‘everything you’ve ever experienced in your life’ - being valid.
The only place I found where grief couldn’t find me was on stage.
In a room full of people, the comic is the one person facing the wrong way.
Everything is funny later.
The end of laughter is followed by the height of listening.
Humour doesn’t make light of serious situations, it enables us to move forward in spite of how serious things are.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
You can’t laugh and be afraid at the same time – of anything. If you’re laughing, I defy you to be afraid.
Hope you liked them.
Love & hugs
A
Love these precious nuggets 👏
Loved these notes immensely, Sir. It has been a beautiful read for me. :)