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Starting Standup in Maine with David Walton
This is an audio journal of actor, David Walton (Fired Up, New Girl, About a Boy, Bad Moms, Power:Ghost) as he builds a standup comedy set in public with the help of comedians and friends. New episodes every Thursday.
Starting Standup in Maine with David Walton
Ep 6 - Live from New York!
In this episode, I share my incredible week camping out at the Comedy Cellar in New York City - the absolute mecca of stand-up comedy right now. I got to watch legends like Colin Quinn work on new material and witnessed masterful crowd work from comics like Dave Atell. The biggest lesson? There are no shortcuts in comedy - everyone pays their dues with 3-7 years of nightly performances.
I also open up about getting back on the open mic horse myself, fighting through some serious resistance before finally hitting the stage at the Comedy Shop on Bleecker Street. With help from my friend Jeremy Sisto, I work through my fears and perform a 5 minute set about human misery - everything from the struggles of parenting to the weirdness of procrastination (including a two-year standoff with an unreturned Christmas gift).
I also continue to rant and while ranting isn't stand-up, it connected to something real inside me. Now comes the hard part: turning that authentic material into tight, funny jokes. I'm working on bits about being both a meditation teacher and a degenerate, the challenge of honest parenting, and the universal truth that we're all way more perverted than we let on. Stay tuned as I keep working this material out in real time.
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Hey, what's going on? It's 30's Ten Up, episode 6, let's do it. Oh man, that's rubbish, that's rubbish. Hey, what's up? Everybody? Hope you've had a great week. I'm coming to you from New York City. Holy cow, what a week I've had.
Speaker 1:This is a very different setup. Today I'm recording on a stand-up mic. That's what I traveled with. I have just wrapped up what probably is the most enlightening week of my comedy quest here.
Speaker 1:I have been camping out every single night at the Comedy Cellar literally the mecca of stand-up right now, number one club in America and therefore the world every single night since last. So for a week this is the first night I've taken off, but I've watched six incredible comics do 10 to 15 minutes sets every night. I've gotten to know them backstage and I've talked to people like Dave Attell. I did not talk to Sam Murill, but he was amazing. These new comics I'd never heard of. Matty Wiener, matt Goldidge I went to Brown with. We've had a nice chat. A young man named Ethan Simmons Patterson blew me away. You can look all those ladies and fellas up and they're just so good. I feel like I'm at the base of Mount Everest here, but it was incredibly inspiring. But just a plug. I've got no skin in the game. The Comedy Cellar is by far the best deal in New York. It's a one drink, minimum $15 tickets and you get like huge people.
Speaker 1:I watched Colin Quinn, who is incredibly smart. If you haven't watched his stand-up specials, they're all on YouTube. Colin Quinn from Saturday Night Live used to do the news. He's an older guy, now 60, but he is so smart and he's working on a new hour and just in a lounge with like 40 people I got to hear him just work it out and the way he works it out is still so, so funny but very cool to see, kind of unfinished. But this is what's really blown. My mind is is that every single comic that I've talked to and they're all incredibly approachable is that everyone paid their dues? There's just no shortcuts. Three to seven years of every night, three times a night, seven days a week there's just no shortcuts, which is very, very upsetting to me. I love a shortcut. I'm trying to shortcut my way to some quality product here and it's not looking good. But yeah, this kid I met last night, he started at 19. He worked the Broadway Comedy Club door to get stage time. He got three sets short sets a night, seven days a week, three years straight. This was his college. Now he's 33, a proper pro, so it's like 14 years. He's 33, a proper pro, so it's like 14 years. And another thing that's blown my mind is just the their crowd work.
Speaker 1:Uh, it's, it's, it's a real master class in witnessing human connection. So, like david tell, very famous, and he and an 82 year old woman last night just wrapped about an eight inch dick for 10 minutes and she was next to her grandson. It was just extraordinary and she was just dying and she and, and she was not laughing at his sets, like he's so dirty, he's an incredible joke writer, but she was like not laughing. So he kind of like honed in on her and then he broke her. He broke her with an eight inch penis. No, he, he just got her going. And then I was behind her and I just start. You know, I see the shoulders start to shake and you're like, oh, tell, got her. Uh, super cool to see, uh, but they, they've, they could. I think the key is insulting while keeping the love, and there's something really magical about that, just like a best friend, like someone who can, who can destroy you, but you somehow know it's coming from a place of love. Very mysterious, but a real skill. Yeah, to continue on the comedy seller it's exploding. They've gone from one room on mcdougall to four, three more around the corner, maybe four, and then they just bought a mcdonald's and that's going to be like a proper theater. So again, if you're ever in New York $15, $20 a ticket, one drink, minimum, best entertainment in New York Go do it. Okay, so inside the ropes, here under the hood, let's open up the engine.
Speaker 1:The way I went about these open mics in New York tremendous resistance, first of all, getting back on the open mic horse was a monumental challenge for me. The resistance, the capital R, started to rear its ugly head. I started to feel really weighed down, tired, depressed. I was like I, I energy. It was like some subconscious part of me was just like you're not doing this, you're going to, you're going to stay safe. And I have to give a shout out to my friend, jeremy Sisto. He's a wonderful actor, he's on the show FBI, but he came and he's, he encouraged me and he, he came over and and he, just he came with me. Honestly, I was like he's like you gotta do it, you gotta get back on the horse.
Speaker 1:So I went to this 4 PM open mic at the comedy shop on Bleeker street, which is, ironically, about a block, less than a block down from the first apartment I ever had in New York. So and that was 23 years prior, 24 years ago. Anyway, very strange that I'm back where I started and I went to this 4 pm open mic and I'd had all this material and I was feeling excited, honestly, because I felt like I'd stumbled on something. What I'd stumbled on is connecting the act to real emotion and it's very fun to tap into why you're fucking miserable, why everyone's miserable, and it felt very real.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know you're always searching for a comedic persona and I think it takes years to figure it out, because what you think you're, the reason you think you're funny, is very different than what probably other people think, or charmed, or feel like you're funny. For you know, I know, for my dad, for example like anytime he tried to be funny it was kind of cheesy and like dad joke, jokey, but anytime he was just being himself and like getting frustrated, like god damn it, this thing, you like you just die laughing because there's something, basically when people are in pain, it's funny. And so I made a mind map of my misery, okay, and I drew little bubbles, you know like all the reasons that life is hard for me. And then I just started, I just turned the microphone on and I just started ranting and I'm going to share that rant with you because it, for whatever flaws or whatever it has, it is very much connected to something emotional within me and the key to stand up from both observing, of course there's dry, sardonic stand-ups that are just wordsmiths, that just sort of like, without emotion, just rip jokes. But I think, like a the people I respond to, there's either some outrage or there's frustration that they're really acting and they're embodying this attitude and this experience of frustration and so really being able to articulate what misery I see, but also with an attitude of like it's so funny how we're all so miserable. And so it was really, it was exciting, I sort of ranted and it felt really good, it almost felt like a therapy session. And then the real challenge becomes okay, that's connected to something real inside of me. Now, how do we make that into tight jokes, how do we make that into something that's both authentic to who I am, but also funny, because what you can't do, and what my mistake has been through these first nine, 10 open mics, is essentially thinking that a rant is stand up or that a rant is interesting and it may be interesting in podcast form. It may be interesting to a certain amount of people. Once you're in an audience and once you're ready to laugh, man, most of it, 95% of it is just fluff. You can completely get rid of it and just get to the joke and once again, maybe there's some early stages of jokes in the state you be the judge. Here comes the rant. Enough blathering on, and here comes a misery rant, and then I'll show you what that led to. Okay, bye.
Speaker 1:Being a human being is so fucking hard. It's so hard. What on earth? Just your body? I mean just these meat suits, these malfunctioning meat suits. I mean, right now, the feeling I have in my stomach. There's not even words, it's just if there was an animal in there. That's what it would sound like If my dog was in my stomach, representing it'd be going. It's just pain, you know, and it's, and I'm trying like just on the body part. We I got an hour special here. We could talk about misery, human misery, but just on the body part, for these next few minutes.
Speaker 1:I mean, I've been studying nutrition for 25 years. I have no fucking clue what to eat. I just started a high sugar diet and I feel great. What the? I don't feel great. No, I feel a lot better than I did before. More energy, just ripping sugar all day, no protein, no fat.
Speaker 1:And there's tons of people who are like this is the diet. It's called the Ray Pete diet, pete pilled. It's called Look it up, I'm not kidding All sugar. No one has any fucking clue what's going on. Nobody knows anything. I don't know anything. Look at me. Look at me.
Speaker 1:I think I matter. I think that I'm important that somehow my existence in the trillions of light years and miles and billions of in quantum garbage where we're the past, future, present is all happening simultaneously. I think that this five-minute fucking open mic is important. What an idiot. How could I be so fucking arrogant? Jesus, jesus, just think about what it's like.
Speaker 1:Oh, here's another thing, another hard-ass thing. Here's another thing Like another hard-ass thing. Here's another misery, misery, misery. You know what else makes me misery? Procrastination. Right, we're probably all procrastinators on some level. Everyone knows Nods. I have a box. Procrastination, not doing the thing.
Speaker 1:I have a box. It was a Christmas gift. It was given to me two years ago. The return label has been printed out. It hasn't been taped. The UPS store is one minute from my kids drop off so it to to return this Christmas present would take two minutes, literally two minutes. It has been sitting in my office staring at me for two years. For two years I've spent probably 50 to 56 hours thinking about why I'm not returning the box. That's of my life, like the most value, that's how many days. And now the fucked up thing is I can't even return the fucking thing like it's well past the the window. So now I have all my options are re-gift or, uh, goodwill, goodwill or it's or it's what, and this is what I towards. The third, the third option is what I'm leaning towards, which is I keep it forever, I never move it, and I and I start talking to it, and I and I I take this box, this inanimate object that is now essentially alive.
Speaker 1:I have a relationship with this thing and it's it's not a good one. It's a it's an angry relationship, but it's kind of exciting because it's so fucking weird. There's no explanation why a human being, why a two-minute thing, has not happened. There's no explanation. I've been searching for it. There's nothing that explains why I haven't done this. But there's something exciting about having a relationship. Maybe I should, maybe I. Just something exciting about having a relation, like, maybe I should, maybe, maybe, maybe I just, maybe I talked to it, maybe I, maybe I, maybe I set a place, setting at Thanksgiving for the box. That's what I'm leaning towards. You know, the box is alive.
Speaker 1:Your name is now. Your name is Herbert and I'm going to talk to you. Herbert, herbert, what's going on, man? What is going on with me? You have given me so much pain. I hate you, but I love you, just like my kids.
Speaker 1:You know, everyone says kids make you happy. Kids are the best. Kids change everything and it's true, I got two. They are, they are the best, but they also are making. It's just misery. Parenting is also. They also are making. They're just, it's just misery.
Speaker 1:Parenting is misery and the misery of parenting is different, because it's like they're so cute and you want to snuggle up and eat them and all those things, but then then you know they're, they're. They're telling you they're so boring they're telling you facts. Like my son watches YouTube and he'll be like dad, did you get it? Fuck it all up. Dad, did you know that the sun weighs 100 trillion miles? You're like what? And then you go, no, miles isn't weight, that's not the measure of distance, I'm sorry, miles isn't the measure of mass. And he goes yes, it is. And then, and then you're just like Fuck you, dude, I'm out. You're right, I'm out.
Speaker 1:And I started to do that a lot, you're right, I'm out. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's all miserable, it's all miserable, it's all hard. I mean I was thinking about like a baby. You know, I was holding a baby the other week and was just looking at these beautiful, like the soul had downloaded, and you're just seeing the sort of destiny of this baby. And then I was like, oh no, like the destiny of this baby is that at around age 20 or so, 22, it will enter the world and their entire life will become making paper, green paper, so that they can eat and sleep under a roof. And they're most likely 99.9 chance that this, this thing, that this life that they're gonna lead, is gonna be like being a I don't know, an assistant to a mid-level insurance executive and they're gonna to like organize that executive's day-to-day bullshit, this mid-level insurance executive's pointless fucking life, and that look in the baby's eyes. That's your destiny. That's what you're here to do, that mid-level insurance executive. You're going to do a slightly better job than the other applicant and that is going to be your value to this capitalist system that we call the world. I mean, how can you not just cry yourself to sleep knowing that that is the reality? Anyway, this is all to say. I'm starting a positivity coaching business and I hope you email list is over on the by the exit.
Speaker 1:No, um, you know, I uh procrastination thing is really, really weird. You know, there's no explanation. You see, a lot of you go on twitter. It's like procrastination is really an emotional problem. Procrastination, the real facts about procrastination it seems like it's an epidemic. We all all do it. I think I.
Speaker 1:I have a friend, uh, I have a hard time calling friends back. I have a friend who I haven't called back, uh, in 17 years and I'm still. I'm still like my wonder. It's like all my to-do list, you know, it's like call Rick back and I'm just thinking about calling him, being like what's up, man, sorry, sorry, I missed you. Uh, sorry, it's like, call Rick back. And I'm just thinking about calling him being like what's up, man, sorry, sorry, I missed you, sorry it's taken me so long.
Speaker 1:Just super cash, just don't even apologize, maybe not even apologize, you know, just like, hey Rick, hey man, just got your message. What's going on? That would be fun. Just fuck with people. So fun to fuck with people. But, yeah, stop saying sorry for not getting back to people. Life's too hard to get back to you. Hey man, sorry, my life is super fucking hard. Hey, life's hard, let's move on. It reminds me of like another miserable. You know the amount of miserable interactions you have in a day. It's the misery of small talk.
Speaker 1:You haven't seen a friend in two years. It's like, hey man, holy shit, david, what's up? Holy cow, when was the last time? Sandy's party? Yeah, what have you been up to what? What did you just ask me? I said, yeah, it's been two years.
Speaker 1:What have you been up to? Like what? What did you just ask me? I said, yeah, it's been two years. What have you been up to? What have I been up to in two years? What kind of question is that, man? What do you mean? Like there are millions of things that I've been up to. What am I supposed to say to you? What have you been up up to? What have you been up to is a question for when you go on an errand and you come back to your girlfriend or your wife or something, you're like, oh yeah, sorry, I got caught in traffic, what have you been up to in the 32 minutes?
Speaker 1:And even then it's hard to answer like I don't know. I think I think I did the dishes and then I think I stared at the box that I have to fucking return. Yeah, yeah, it's hard out there. It's just so hard. What else is hard, you know? What's really hard is pretending that you're not such a pervert, like everyone is so much more perverted than they're letting on, and that's hard Because it's so much easier to really let your freak flag fly, and I think that's why there's less misery in the gay communities. It seems it's not a fact, but they're letting their freak fly a little bit Like yeah, I like to be pegged, I like to be tied up, I like to, you know, pretend my wife's being gang fucked by 17 people.
Speaker 1:You know if you're just out with it. If you just say what you want and what you like, I think you'll be less miserable. I mean, that's my take and we're just all just hiding the perversions. You know, I'm scared. I'm scared to tell my wife what I really want.
Speaker 1:I sent her a memo One day. I was just, I was trying to search deep about what I want and I realized that I wanted more than I was just, I was trying to search deep about what I want and I realized that I wanted more than I was getting. And I, I wanted more. Dad, I want more. And I went um and I sent her a memo, a manifesto, kind of like Jerry Maguire when he sends a mission statement. I said, kind of like Jerry Maguire when he sends a mission statement. I said, hey, I password protected it.
Speaker 1:And I told my wife all my perversions, all my weird predilections, thoughts, things I think about when I'm not with her, and the idea of it is getting me very excited. And so it was four pages long. It was everything, and I won't go into the specifics because I have kids and I don't want to get divorced. But I will say, um, divorced and arrested. But I will say that, uh, after I sent it to her, I was very nervous and um, and I should have been because she didn't talk to me for two weeks and in, marriage is pretty, it's almost over, based on the document that I sent to her.
Speaker 1:So be careful with the truth. I think the moral of that is, you know, part of the reason that we're all so miserable is you can't say the truth a lot of the time, otherwise your entire life will implode, and not being able to tell the truth is very, very bad for the soul, and so that's a huge reason why I think all of us in this room are so, so goddamn miserable. Okay, well, what would it be? What would starting stand-up be without getting into the sex stuff? But we're staying on brand no, I gotta tell you, I just listened to that along with you, as if I hadn't listened to that, but I realized that all my open mics in New York are stemming. All this material is being stemmed from that rant. Now, I was going to go into them, but they're not over, and so I'm not going to play each open mic, because who wants to do that? But I think it's going to be an interesting next few episodes as I piece together how do you take that raw material, all of which you know?
Speaker 1:You may or may not have been interested in it, but as far as I'm concerned, there's a few areas there where there are jokes where I can probably get something out of it. One is the positivity coach. Like dichotomy between, you know, just being an absolute Debbie Downer and positivity coach, because those are like these two parts of me, you know, because I have the misery man but I also have positivity Paul. And there's it's the conflict between our personas, these elements of our personalities that I find so fascinating. And I don't know how I can make it funny, but I know that's where I want to live. So like, don't know how I can make it funny, but I know that's where I want to live. So like, for example, I'm a meditation teacher but I'm also complete degenerate. So there's a you know, and that may not be, maybe most meditation teachers are that, but it feels like you know, it's like, it's like I. There's not many meditation teachers, I think that would like, after class was over, if someone just had some beautiful uncut cocaine, that they would probably do it you know what I mean and just be like oh, let's use the cocaine, to be even more aware of what cocaine is like.
Speaker 1:I'm going to be mindfully aware of cocaine. No, I, of course I don't do that. Of course I wouldn't do that. Of course I don't do that. Of course I wouldn't do that, of course I wouldn't do that. But you know what I mean, right, it's the sort of degenerate, along with the enlightened being, that I obviously am Now. So there's that.
Speaker 1:And then like the procrastination stuffination stuff. You know, it may be a little tired procrastinating jokes I haven't heard a lot, but maybe everybody is like all right, yeah, we get it, maybe there's something there. Um, but I do like the idea of making the return present into like a being and having a relationship with Herbert. I don't know, I think I'm going to. I tried to milk that, I tried to do that in an open mic and it didn't go very well. And then I got to tell you guys, this, these open mics, man, holy shit, the darkness. It's like being in a basement with a bunch of like sociopaths, it's.
Speaker 1:I'm going to start doing like live, doing live audio blogs right before I go in and stuff. So we're going to add some texture, because I believe in this episode it's just been me talking the entire time. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, and if you've made it all the way, like I said, what a treat. You're the best, I love you, and then so the other things that I think some jokes that can come out of these rants is this whole idea of like lying and not lying versus telling the truth, and I've got some fun stuff that I'm actually the most bullish on, and it involves Louie going to DARE. You know, the DARE drug counselors came to his school and so he's just peppering me with questions about what I've done, and he asked me at like seven in the morning on the way to school, whether I'd done cocaine.
Speaker 1:And I think there's a good bit there, so I'm working on that, but that's in the premise of you know what, what is not lying versus what is being honest, and how does that relate to kids and how does it relate to you know what? What is not lying versus what is being honest, and how does that relate to kids and how does it relate to you know, obviously, everyone being so perverted? Um, okay, okay, guys. Well, there you have it, and I think not to end on a kind of a sad, let's say a sad note. I'm not going to end on a sad note, I'm going to end on a, on a note that I, I I've been resisting telling you guys, but basically we were live, I were, we've been.
Speaker 1:All these episodes have been kind of me resurfacing stuff I've done and there's there's a ton from the past. But as I sat down to do this, I'm like what? This is? An audio journal? This is a, this is a. This is morphing. This isn't something.
Speaker 1:This, this project, is very much alive and fluid and growing and, uh, I, I decide I want to be right on the edge and I want to be on the edge with you. So I don't want to be controlling this thing anymore. So I want, whatever you listen to on an episode, uh, episode basis, if you're with me here, I want it, uh, to be unfolding in real time and, uh, that's where we're at. I mean, I am recording this minutes before it's going live. So you just hang on, I will too, and we'll keep going. But I really do appreciate you being here and I wish you a week full of always love, peace, connection, fun, just huge, huge, huge laughs, uh, and I hope you feel good, and I know that we're all miserable, of course, of course we are. But uh, there's some. We're gonna, we're gonna, make the most of our misery. We're gonna, we're gonna, make our miserable misery fun, aren't we? Let's make it fun. Okay enough, uh, lots of love, love you, you all, take care, be well, see you next week.