Are Stand Up Comedians the Toughest People in the Creative World?

Rejection in front of an audience makes you feel naked.  It breaks you down and embarrasses you beyond belief.  You want to sink away into the shadows and live there until everybody forgets about you and even then you feel like too many people know about your failure.  This is what bombing feels like if you don't learn from it.  You will bomb in stand up comedy.  You won't get better if you DON'T bomb in stand up comedy.  It's difficult to say why.  Maybe it's because you don't mind playing into what the audience wants because they give you the satisfaction of laughter.  Maybe it's because you just like making people laugh.  But bombing will make you better.  It's like the comedy coals you must walk on before you relieve your body and soul and relax a little bit more on stage.  If you listen to the audience, accept their critiques, and ask other comedians for advice, you will learn how to read a crowd better than ever before.

The best crowd to bomb in front of is a various group of other comedians.  IF they are cool and nice and have good senses of humor, they will tell you what to do to improve your craft.  They have been in the same spot, they know how you feel.  Ask for help.  There is nobody to hold your hand in the comedy world for a very long time, so you need to at least put yourself out there twice as much just to see who will help you out.  And when you do get help, it will make you better.  It's hard to put this across in writing, but learn by doing it on your own.  You will see.

But the reason why I titled this article, "Are Comedians the Toughest People in the Creative World?" is because I never hear comedians complain about rejection as much as I do musicians or painters or what have you.  Musicians need total attention on them.  They want it handed to them (a lot of them, not all).  Painters want you to know how much they bled for their art and refuse to compromise for anybody.  Comedians maybe aren't the toughest, but maybe they know how to compromise to a certain point more than some others artists.  If there is TVs on in a bar, they will comment on it and make fun of it during their set.  Depending on how good they are.  If a TV is on during a guitar player, they hate it and more likely than not they demand it be turned off.  The comedian has to make jokes on the spot about the world around them.  It's a little harder for musicians to do so.  Especially if they are really strict on their setlist.  Same with an artist: Paintings about the distractions in the room are hard to do.

The other group I see is actors.  They like to blame the audience a lot for not responding to them, especially comedically.  As soon as you start blaming the audience before you ask yourself what can you do to make this show better, you miss out on what it means to be an entertainer.  But, I am also aware of shitty audiences.  I'm not letting them off that easily, but your first response should not be abrasive action.  But if you come into a stand up situation and expect to be funny by just cursing at them, you will be sadly mistaken.

The only exception to this rule would be if you are part of a show and the whole show has been going bad.  Like Bill Burr at the Opie and Anthony festival in Philadelphia from a few years ago.  This is one example of talented, funny comedians being met with an awful crowd.  And then Bill Burr said, "Fuck It", and ripped the city the asshole that they were missing to get all the shit out of their system.  He starts off with a thick layer of 'boo's' and in a span of about 15 minutes, they are eating out of his palms.  But comedy is also lucky in that way.  It can mock the crowd and get them to see how stupid and hilariously ridiculous the whole situation is.  It's pretty great.

So that's another reason why I think stand ups are tough.  They have to be able to think on their feet.  I'm sure Bill Burr did not prepare for the amount of heckling or crappy audience members there would be that day.  But he got through it.  I'm sure he thought, "Fuck 'em, I'll go find an audience that I can actually make laugh."  Dave Chappelle does a good job of going into the mind of a Stand-Up.  And I do not think he's wrong.  Brush yourself off and move on, no matter how hard that may be.

But this thought process is not only beneficial to Stand-Ups.  If more creative people picked up this habit, there would less failure stories out there.  But what do I know?  Honestly, I've only been doing this for about 5 months.  I could change my mind in a week or two.  So fuck it.  Take what you want and then never read my blog again.  Did you like it?  Comment to tell me why and make me feel good about myself and tell me what to improve and maybe I'll listen.  We'll see.