I am still getting many requests to help comics learn how to start and what to do. Here is my real advice I posted a couple months ago. I hope it helps.

SEPTEMBER 4 2006

I wrote this quickly on a plane today. So if there are a couple of typos, I am sorry.

Every day I get about 20 -50 emails a day specifically asking me questions about my advice for people on how to get into the industry or acting or stand up, how to get started, where to go, how to write and how to perform. I am writing this blog to answer those questions, right now, That way, I have an answer for all of you. I will also try every once in a while to keep my blog funny, to attract the other readers, who arent interested in performing, but really want to read something, other then my bio. (I understand, I am very entertaining, you are right)

I will label each person I am talking to specifically through out this blizog (rap for blog). For instance, if I am writing to the young aspiring comedian, I will start by giving you a nick name, how about Poopinstein. (That would be a pooping monster) if a monster could poop. If you are not an aspiring comic, we will call you Not an aspiring comic for short.

Poopistein: Yo buddy, alright. I am very proud of you for being interested. Its too bad NAAC (Hey, that’s even shorter! Maybe I will call them that! Although they don’t know it yet, cause they aren’t reading this, because it is not for them. Its for you! I am proud of you. Look at you! All grown up..earning prizes, like this paragraph. You earned it.) doesn’t want to be a comic.

First off, you need to have something to say. Really think about who you are. A lot of new comics go on stage and act like someone they are not. It is really weird. I can think of specific new comedians who I will meet in a comedy club. They will be with their friends, just hanging, just chilling, maybe ranting about someone or something, and they will be so funny! They will be absolutely hilarious. Everyone around them are laughing, it is awesome. And then, when they go up on stage, and they have these long question old school comedy set ups. They suddenly start out with shit like, Have you ever noticed. or I mean come on? What is up with that? although that was a fairly popular style in the 80s, and earlier, that is precisely why you for sure cant do that anymore. The Simpsons always makes fun of that type of comedian. and let me tell you, other good comics are ruthless against that kind of stuff. If a headlining comedian is acting like that, he or she is either an old school road comic, or he or she is making fun of comedians that do that stuff.

The best comics are comics who make the crowd feel like they are their friend, not a crowd. The long time legends like George Carlin, Richard Prior, Bill Cosby, and the new ones, like David Cross, Patton Oswalt, Sarah Silverman, Dane Cook, Louis CK all are who they really are as people. You might say that Mitch Hedberg does not do that, but he kind of is a character who pulled it off, because he was still himself. Dane Cook and David Cross are two very different style comedians, but they both are true to who they are as people very much. That does not mean copy the style of comics who do that, if Dane Cook and David Cross, tried to do each others style, that would not work. It means, look at exactly how you are when you are at your funniest with your friends. Think about some of the times you made someone laugh, so hard, even if it is your best friends with your weird inside joke.

EVERYTHING CAN be funny if you make it. Unless you are trying to be a character, like Andrew dice clay, BE YOURSELF. It is way way way more respected to be yourself and have a bad audience reaction then to be a wacky hack and kill (by the way, killing means doing really well, which is funny, because if you do bad, that’s called bombing.)

The better comics bombed more frequently in the beginning, to find their voices, and then the audience started forming to who they were later. When you talk to a crowd, talk to them like they are a friend of yours in a bar. When you are making your rant, don’t start out with, Hey! So I am watching these crazy commercials for blah blah blah. Is that how you would talk to your friends? Hey buddy, what is with this???? I mean come on? No one does that. So if you do it on stage, you are actually annoying the crowd.

So what do you talk about? Its Ironic, most people think that it is hard to find things to talk about, when the real truth is, you have so so so many things to talk about, that it is hard to find any. YOU have UNLIMITED THINGS to talk about, it doesn’t just stop at your family, or your job, or how bad airplane food is, it goes way beyond that. It is your opinions of your world, or what your own world is, or what you feel about a certain thing, or what bizarre thoughts you have about a person, or what you did today, or what you want to do, how about what you want to do, that is totally not normal, what have you thought about that you wish you could do? Dane says that he wishes that he could be a snake, Thats crazy! Pick a topic, name one thing, and write about it. GO way out of the box here, remember the sky is the limit, this is your mike, you can say anything. THINK about all of the things that you could say. I will sit at a piano (cause I play it) and I will tell a friend of mine to name a song. 90 percent of the time, they cant think of one for quite a while. Usually, they will then even say, I cant think of one. CRAZY! THERE are hundreds of millions of songs out there! Why cant they think of one? Because so many thoughts are hitting them at once, that they cant just stop them at one, well, thats what is happening to you. You are literally just sitting there with unlimited material that its overwhelming for you. If I asked my friends to name a beatles song, I am narrowing things down so they can focus, even though I am limiting their options. If I ask my friend to name a band or singer with even fewer hits, they will name one even quicker. That’s what you have to do. Ask yourself many specific questions. How do I feel about __________. What would I do if I were a _________ why? What bothered me yesterday?

I am at such an open point right now, that I am learning that I can write about anything that I want, because I am deciding that I am the shit and will try. Here, I will do something. This is real. I am on a plane writing this, I will look around the plane for something and write about it.

OK, there is a lady sitting over and in front of me who is reading a magazine with a pirate from Pirates Of The Caribbean on it. I will try to take from that. How about pirates? I will write about pirates.

Well, what is my opinion about pirates??? I don’t know! They are so bizarre. (Honestly, I think saying that I don’t have an opinion about pirates is funny.) They are so surreal. I wish we still had them. It would be so cool if you were in your regular boat and this giant pirate ship showed up. And they tried to rob you, and you just gunned it. Then they follow you if its windy, other wise, they are stuck there, with their one eye. Why do they all have one eye? Is that the main target for the other pirates? If I were a pirate I would aim for the heart. But apparently they only aimed for each others eyes. The only time I would aim for a pirates eye is if the other one was already out. Which usually was the case, but apparently, when a pirate took another pirates eye out, he then went for the leg. Most pirates had one eye and one leg. So apparently, the other pirates fighting them were retarded when it came for what to aim for. Why were they fighting on the same ship anyway? What the hell were they fighting about? , the answer is treasure my good man. treasure. I don’t mean I think they were fighting over treasure, they were fighting over how gay that specific word is. I think treasure is strictly a word for that time. If I were with my friends and we went to a store and I pulled my treasure out of my wallet to pay for a bottled water, my friends would leave me there, and then come back to poke out my eye. Which is probably what happened to the pirates. The other people around them thought the word treasure was too gay, and when I say gay, I don’t mean it in the slander way, I mean homosexual. But it is a dumb word, so they needed to poke something just to get the sound out of their head. Since they didn’t have music back then, other then that yo ho song, which I bet was in their head all of the time, because they had NO OTHER SONGS. I don’t really know this for sure, but there is no pirate Could you imagine if we just had one song? And its just a song about what I am? That what the pirates sang about, what they are. They just sang, yo ho, yo ho, a pirates life for me. Man that would suck to just have a song called, hi he hi he, I’m very Caucasian. , We have limited rhythm, not great at sports, and an awkward history, there are people who weigh 500 pounds in Memphis Tennessee? over and over again? I would take out all of my own eyes. I bet pirates came up with other gay words too. Like Ice Box instead of fridge. Or trot instead of jog. If you say the old timey person word for something, I guarantee I will poke your eye out. If you say to me, hey, look at my new trousers, I will have a needle part way to your eye. And then if you ask me to go to the picture show with you to see Pirates of the Caribbean I will cut your leg off and then the the people in the Cinema will think that this movie is about you

The key to writing is to just keep doing it. If you cant think of anything, open up a magazine, and pick a word. If you still cant write anything, write that, I have started so many writing sessions with I cant think of anything to write How annoying. just keep the keys moving, eventually the thoughts will start to form. I recommend if you really want to make it. Write 3 -5 hours a day. DO not stop. Get ready to write and write and write and then toss out 90 percent of it. BY default, you will have some great stuff. Really think about if you were willing to write that much. You would be opening your mind muscles and flexing them. You dont just go to the gym once, so why write every once in a while. It takes practice to do everything. Even writing. After a while, constant thoughts will just come to you.

Here is another suggestion; have a notepad or tape recorder on you at all times. Every single time you say anything that makes people laugh, write or record what it was, right at that moment. If you don’t do this, you will learn very quickly in the future, why you wish that you would have. There are thousands of times that I said Now what was that joke? and then lost it forever. don’t do this. Make sure you always write or record every funny random thing. You will do really well. I promise.

Where to perform? Most Comedy Clubs have an open mike. Call the Comedy Club closest to you and find out when their open mike is. If that club doesn’t do open mike, find a club that does. Do not start any higher then an open mike. At the open mike, you will be in line with many other brand new comedians, and the audience knows this. The benefit to this is the fact that the audience isn’t expecting you to rock. They didn’t pay to see pros. They will be sympathetic and they are how you should start. The worst thing you could do is to talk some headlining comic into letting you open immediately, and then not doing well. If this is the case, the club will not be interested in having you back. You want to practice first. Remember, you only get one first impression. So start out small and learn the art.

MY RECOMMENDATION FOR YOU FIRST TIME. This is only for people who really want to do stand up and who are really willing to spend their time working on it. The headlining comics make this look easy, but there is a lot of work put in on this. Here is one of many methods you can use to prepare yourself to perform . Do whatever you want, but if you really followed these 11 steps, you could get really good really quick.

1. Call the Comedy Club that has open mike and find out when they are.

2. Plan on doing an open mike that is scheduled for about a month from right now.

3. Write 3 to 5 hours a day about anything.

4. At the end of each week, pick out your favorite things and the funniest things you have written.

5. Try telling these things to your best friend, BUT THE EXACTLY WAY THAT YOU WOULD SAY IT TO THEM as a friend talking, not with wacky set ups.

6. As you keep writing new stuff in the next few weeks, keep re saying the funniest stuff from previous weeks to other people.

7. Start to learn where it is funny to your friends

8. Cut out all unnecessary crap. You need less set up then you think.

9. Put your best 30 minutes down on paper.

10. Cut that down to your best 5.

11. Hit the stage at the scheduled open mike and tell the 5 minutes.

12. The next week, do it again. Add 1 or 2 new jokes.

WHEN YOU GO ON STAGE. What really sets apart a good comic from an ameteur is confidence. When I started, I was really really young and never was able to really develop fear. I think other then from things like scary movies, we develop our fears as we get older. We go through traumatic experiences, or we continually say things like, Oh I could never do that. or I am scared to death of being in front of a crowd, or skydiving, or flying or whatever. This is only from time and learned experiences. When you were a little little kid, you were probably not even aware of the concept of a crowd was, and loved all of the attention. Same with flying. If you keep saying that you are scared of something, eventually you will tie your nervous system to it. Even after about 12 years of performing, a combination of exhaustion and boredom on stage made me create an anxiety. I would go up on stage and sabotage myself. I would literally go up there and think things like Don’t say this, or don’t do this while telling my jokes on autopilot. its the same concept of being at a funeral and thinking don’t laugh. Everyone gave me the same advice. They said Well, don’t think about those things. I said, I cant. You have to think about something you are not supposed to think about. But I also learned this other thing too. You also cant think of 2 things at the same time. So I drove out all negative thoughts by continually thinking that I am the shit. I am the best comic on the planet. I will get a standing o from now on. I will only have fun on stage. Every time I had any fear or worry, I would think to myself that I would kill every show. Well, this happened with my half hour special on comedy central. I spent about 30 minutes a day, just envisioning that I would be the best comedian. I decided that this show was no different then any other crappy bar. You might say, oh it is though, its a way bigger deal. Well, I want to envision that its the same, because then I would perform the way that I did in a no pressure situation way better. So eventually I was so confident and just reversed the concept of fear and anxiety. You can do this too. When you think about your first time. Picture that you only have fun. Don’t let words like worry, or scared even pop into your head. Just decide that you are the best comic ever, and keep deciding it.

Have a good set.