This goes out to the cheap seats...

The Wheeler Opera House Preps for My Arrival

On June 12th I will be appearing at the Wheeler Opera House as a part of the Aspen Rooftop Comedy Festival.  With a seating capacity of over 500, including some balcony seating, it will be the largest venue I have played so far.

It's a milestone of sorts.

But, one interesting aspect of being a standup comic is that one's career is wildly impermanent.  I can record a given set, or take photos at a show, but the live performance aspect cannot be taken with me.  And the only thing I really have to show to prove my career exists is a bunch of messy, busting-at-the-seams notebooks. 

CJ  Sullivan has a great take on this in the Blerds video, Business Papers:

 Blerds.com: Business Papers


For this reason, a lot of standups talk about how it's almost impossible to evaluate your own strength as a performer by anything besides your last show...we're an entire job sector of amnesiacs. 

I've found that this can also lead me to blow past milestones with my focus straight ahead.  My first review in the press caused me to wonder about the second.  My first show as a cast member at the Lincoln Lodge had me thinking through bits for the next.

The ever congenial Ricky Carmona agrees:

I've been on national cable, been in sold out shows, performed with national headliners, done shows on both coasts, met people who I never ever thought I would meet in my life. But you know what? My dumb ass is still depressed and angry at myself because people didn't laugh at my Predator 2 reference and a Battlestar Galactica joke I did the last time I was onstage.

Left-leaning Chicago funnyman James Fritz adds.  "I only feel as good as my last set," he says, adding, in signature self-deprecating style, "More like career millstones...around my neck." 

I'm hoping that this weekend, as I go through jokes in my head backstage and try not to faint due to reduced oxygen consumption (the air's thin up there, folks!), that I'll take a minute and just think, "Oh, this is cool."

And then I'm sure I'll forget that moment by my next failed joke at a local open mic.