We were at the Barrel Proof Lounge in Santa Rosa, waiting for its open mic to start. This would be my first outing in 2025, and I hoped to redeem myself.
“So why do you do this?” my friend asked. I had no answer.
“Because he wants to be the next great standup comedian in Sonoma County,” my other friend replied on my behalf.
That sounded appealing but felt a bit off the mark. Yes, in my wildest dreams, I’m playing the Fringe Fest next to Emo Philips. I go viral and maybe even get paid. But if I’m honest, that wasn’t it.
Perhaps it started as exposure therapy, facing my fear, becoming stronger through what didn’t kill me. But I think it’s become more like a gambling addiction.
I was addicted to getting laughs. Any would do: a chuckle, a wild titter. I once got a single guffaw from a fellow comedian and felt I’d won a major award (the joke: “Black people have been through so much in this country….slavery, Jim Crow, Iggy Azalea”). But when things go badly, when I’d penciled in “wait for laughter” and waited in awkward silence, that was like losing with a great poker hand. And I found losing to be its own motivator.
Many nights, I’ve walked home from a bad open mic thinking, “I’m done. That was terrible.” But my next thought would be, “Why was it so bad?” And by the time I’d gotten home, I’d jiggered my act and was planning my next set.
My last open mic in 2024 had been sparsely attended, with a few friendly-looking faces far in the back but a long stretch of uninhabited tundra between them and the stage. The closest patrons to the stage were two slack-jawed guys already a few beers in who looked more ready to fight than laugh.
A few weeks before, I’d had one of my best outings there. The room was packed and energetic. Every joke landed, and I finished with an original song that got big laughs and worked even though I struggled with the chords. It didn’t matter; the crowd was with me. It was magical.
Two weeks later, I was dying on the very same stage. I began with the gag that since they had separate mics for comedy and music, the comedy mic must have unique humor-boosting powers. My bit got smiles—deathly quiet smiles. I’d bombed.
There are few things worse than watching bad standup comedy. With a bad musical performance, there’s some structure to indicate when it will end. But watching a comic flail around for five minutes is uncomfortable. The only thing more painful is to be that person on the stage.
I pressed on, trying out some new material, trying to lean into the experience of being Jewish in America in 2024, but this crowd was not having it. At one point, I suggested that being circumcised made you Jewish, and someone with a mustache yelled out indignantly, “I’m not!”
I threw in a little political humor, which finally got a laugh out of one of the hosts. But the next guy who came up yelled, “Fuck politics!” and the crowd applauded as if to say, “Fuck that last guy, specifically.”
Message received. I sat down and took some schadenfreude in the laughless sets that followed.
But that was 2024. This was a new year. I was ready for a redo.
But why?
Origin Story
Every superhero and supervillain has an origin story—the moment they realized they had a special destiny and wouldn’t have an everyday life. I can’t say if the same applies to all stand-up comedians, but I knew exactly when it all started for me.
For me, it began in that staple of standup comedy: an airport. My traveling companion was on edge. Perhaps preflight jitters, the excitement of going on vacation, the exhaustion of an early travel day? I didn’t know. But I knew what to do with tension: Defuse it with humor!
While we waited to go through security, a man covered in weapons and walkie-talkies led a dog on a leash up and down the line. I watched the dog. It seemed even more high-strung than my friend. It gave each bag a quick sniff and moved on to the next one, mechanical in its precision. This dog made me feel like a slacker. It had a better work ethic than I did.
“Do you think that dog just ever gets to be a dog?” I asked my friend.
She was a million miles away. “I don’t know,” she said.
“Like, does that dog ever get to go to dog parks?” I wondered.
“Maybe they have special parks,” she offered after a pause.
“Yeah, I can imagine that. ‘The things I had to sniff today, you wouldn’t have believed it,’” I said. She gave a tiny, tight smile. Encouraged, I went on like this for some time.
Usually, she laughed easily, but I couldn’t even get a smile out of her. I took it as a challenge and pulled out all the stops. Nothing, nada. After we’d exited the security line, I asked, “You didn’t like the bit I was doing about the drug-sniffing dog? I felt like I was doing standup comedy for you.”
“I had pot in my purse,” she said between gritted teeth.
It got me thinking. Could I actually do standup? Yes. Could I get laughs? Well, that was a different question.
Barrel Full of Mirthmakers
Back to the Barrel Proof Lounge. I asked the host, “How many people here tonight aspire to make it in comedy?”
He looked at the list. “Maybe three,” he said. “And then six more are delusional.” I was somewhere in between.
My nerves were kicking in hard before I went up. Jon had confirmed that I’d have four minutes and then would flash a light to let me know I had one minute left, typical in my experience. I told him I’d recorded my set on my phone, which came to precisely five minutes.
“Did you leave in pauses for laughter?” he asked.
I replied, “Oh, I’m not expecting laughs.”
The spotlight hit hard. The crowd looked like silhouettes. After a rocky start, I found my rhythm. When my time was up, I sat down, unsure how it had gone. It felt quiet up there, two jokes in particular falling flat. But the video told a different story. It was a good outing— I’d gotten laughs.
The acts that followed mine were mixed. One guy yelled about how his liberal friends didn’t understand the joy of “outdoor couches” and how we almost lost the country on January 6 to “the waiting room at an Applebee’s.”
Later that evening, a comedian riffed on my act, ending with a joke about a three-bean salad that was too much.
I approached him after his set and asked, “Do you know why an Irish bean stew only contains 239 beans?” He didn’t know. I told him: “Because if it had one more, it would be two forty” (pronounced “too farty”). He laughed, and we fist-bumped—two strangers sharing a laugh, perhaps the purest expression of standup comedy.
