I was just cleaning out old drafts of posts I never put up and I came across this piece below. I started writing this when The Drink at Work Show moved from Saturday nights to Tuesday nights in Ochi’s Lounge (before we moved to a bi-monthly show upstairs at Comix, which was before we moved to our current monthly show, Shark at Work, at The Bowery Electric).

I’m posting this as-is for two reasons:

1) My struggle with writer’s block has as more to do with hating everything I write the moment I write it than it does with not being able to think of anything to write. The whole idea of blogging is that you write something and put it out there without editing yourself too much, the rawness of that action imbuing the imperfect prose with a uniquely flawed dignity. Nevertheless, I still can’t get the hang of it. I read this now and I think it’s fine…unfinished, but fine. But at the time I held it back, for fear that I hadn’t said everything or hadn’t said something truly interesting. So in an effort to counteract my own aversion to being perceived as imperfect, I’m posting this now. Screw you, Carol from April 2008.

2) The ECNY Awards, which honor the humble, mixed-up world of not-quite-famous New York comedy, are happening this Monday. This post was all about what it’s like to run a show in this city, and more importantly what it’s like to be both a fan and a purveyor of comedy and how those two things aren’t quite in lock-step. In a tangential way, I think this gives some insight into why the other producers and I think that having a big, stupid, self-important awards show for our comedy scene is important.

April 2008

In the last two years, my weekly comedy show has been in four different venues, on three different nights and at two different times. It’s had three different regular hosts, and two to three recurring guest hosts as well as two different bookers. Our locations have had varying degrees of AV capabilities, the most modest of which was a beer-stained mixing board run by the bartender, two clip-on lights and a white sheet. As far as the talent that is booked on our show, the general goal has always been to feature acts we really like at various stages of success, from newer comics who have real potential (I booked Hannibal Buress on the first Drink at Work Show after seeing him once at Poppi Kramer’s open mic at the Duplex and once at the Village Lantern at 2:00 am) to professional comics at varying levels of fame (Lizz Winstead, Tom Shillue, John Oliver, Christian Finnegan). The hope has always been that the show will become a home for working comics who want to hone new material and a showcase for up-and-coming comics of note. Going further, my personal wish is that people start coming to this show because they appreciate comedy as an art form and they trust us to deliver a one-of-a-kind experience because they know we take it seriously, we work incredibly hard and we, like them, love comics and comedy.

After two years, I don’t know that we’ve gotten very far when it comes to building that audience, and more and more lately I’m having to ask myself why we’re not “cooler” and what it is that I want to get out of this show.

As someone who came to this scene as audience-member, I have to look at the way I found the comedy shows that became my favorites. Every fan finds this scene in pretty much the same way. We hear that someone we’ve seen on television is performing at this small show in a cool bar or club and we get some friends together and we go down. If we have a good time, maybe we go back to the show in a few weeks or a few months. If we have a really good time, maybe we search the Internet for info on one or more of the comics and find out where else they might be performing. Some of us dig even deeper and start seeking out shows for every night of the week, looking for the right mix of names we know and names that are new and hopefully interesting.

Most people aren’t that obsessive. Seeing a show once a month where you’re absolutely sure you will know and like 2-3 of the performers is enough for most. And that’s fine. It’s absolutely 100% fine and appropriate. But it begs the question: how is a small show that isn’t run by famous, semi-famous or alt-famous people supposed to find an audience?

I think a lot of us who have started shows in the last two years have gotten the idea that if we start booking those “famous-ish” acts, audiences will start coming to us. That may still be the case. For my part, I haven’t been consistent about booking “names.” With this latest night change I’m determined to do it — having one or two acts with strong credits per show and another one or two acts I want people to “discover” — but I’m only cautiously optimistic. I want people to come to the show for the show WE put on as well as the acts we book. The videos, the sketches, the banter, the silliness.

Three weeks ago at Drink at Work, Eddie Pepitone flattened the room in one of the most hysterical 10 minutes of anger, profanity and crowd-management I’ve ever seen. Two weeks ago, at the end of a show that saw six great comics performing for two real audience members and about 10 other comedians, Will Franken took the stage and spoke for 15 minutes about comedy, politics, New York and irreverence. He didn’t do his usual characters or act-outs, he just talked. It was moving and strange, provocative and insightful and you probably won’t see him do that anywhere else. And it wouldn’t have happened if we had had a big audience.

So seriously, I have to ask, what am I hoping to get out of this? The comedy fan in me loves those awkward moments. I used to seek out shows where I was one of a small crowd of people and the comedians let their guard down and told jokes to the back of the room and commented on the smell or the sound of the toilet flushing a few feet away. It was like getting a peak behind the curtain, seeing these people not as court jesters who you tried to avoid eye-contact with, but as living, breathing artists, citizens, provocateurs.

But now that I spend all of my time on comedy, things have changed. Those awkward shows that were once such a treat for me as an audience member are now a reason to apologize to my performers, tell them it will be better next time and ask them to come back, please. If, god forbid, there’s industry in the room for one of those shows you have no idea what to say. Of course, if industry never shows up or worse, they show up and and hang out at the bar and leave with the most famous person in the room right before the act you wanted them to see, you feel even worse.

I think something is beginning to change though. The last three shows I’ve done have been to varying degrees difficult, BUT they were all really solid. And more importantly, I’ve been tempted to cancel them before we got started, but I didn’t and I’m glad. It’s not as hard for me as it is for whoever is hosting. I don’t have to go on stage and take the bullet. However, when you bring a mixing board, computer, board mic and myriad cords every week, you feel like a prize jackass if only two people show up. But I think the upside of never knowing what kind of crowd you’re going to get is feeling less fearful about trying things out.

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That’s where I left off…like I said, it was unfinished. But ultimately, it was about fearlessness. I am reminded of a girl I went to elementary school with named Connie Sinnemon, who was great at every sport and never backed down from any fight, whether it was with a girl or a boy. She used to stand on the edge of the bleachers in the gym and do back flips off, landing confidently on the floor. She scared the shit out of me. If I had an ounce of her bravado somewhere in me, I would already be a writer and a filmmaker. From now on, I vow to either find it or fake i
t.