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Being an Artist While Having a Regular Life
I’m obviously not super famous, but I’ve been having enough success with comedy that I am somewhat frequently recognized in my own city. I would love if comedy could turn into a full time career for me, but I can already tell I would not enjoy being super famous.
Already it weirds me out when people I don’t know recognize me. Sometimes people come to more than one of my shows on purpose. To that I always want to ask, “WHAT DID YOU SEE?! HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW?!” My memory is not great, so I always worry that I actually should know who this person is.
My stage persona is very close to how I am, which has its pros and cons. I can’t defend myself by simply saying it’s all made up. My act is about 99% true. I stand by all my jokes, though they aren’t everyone’s taste and they don’t work in all contexts.
I found out at my son’s IEP meeting that the school psychologist has been watching my standup. Luckily he thought I was funny! I had been working on a joke about how I worried people could watch my standup and then think, “Oh that’s why your kids are the way they are.” Turns out my fear was even realler than I thought.
I wish there was a way to have success as an artist and still be able to compartmentalize it. I also do family friendly improv and there are several groups of people where I’d rather…
