Starting Standup in Maine with David Walton

#25 - All Same Day, Dad

• David Walton • Season 1 • Episode 25

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David begins the day filled with confidence and hope as he preps for his 20th open mic. By nightfall these positive emotions have transformed into face melting shame, but the warrior in him transmutes humiliation into strength and resilience. A hero's journey, all same day.

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Speaker 1:

Hey, what's up? How are you? Excellent? Yeah, I'm doing well. Thanks, yeah, it's been.

Speaker 1:

Oh man, spring can't get here soon enough, so cold. Yeah, I don't know where to find bulbs. No, I've been seeing them at Costco, though they have a ton for sale. Is it too late? I see First frost is in April, or, oh, april 25th, okay, well, yeah, I'm a bit of a black thumb, so you shouldn't take any advice from me, that's right. Yeah, no, I, uh, all I know how to do is grow weeds. Who was that? I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe a parent.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so, wild day, wild day. We're going to do an all same day here. What's happening is I'm alone with my children. My wife has left me. I'm a single dad for a couple weeks. My kids.

Speaker 1:

There is an open mic tonight at eight o'clock in Biddeford. The Portland Press Herald is meeting me there. There's going to be a little photo shoot and then they're going to watch my open mic and I'm. I can leave my kids at home. They're 12 and 11. But I'm not going to, because the police listen to this show and I am going to bring them. So I'm not going to be doing any standup sets about cocaine or sex or all the usual stuff that I love to talk about. So I thought to myself, what am I going to do this about? And I thought, well, if my kids are going to be watching me with all these degenerate stand-ups, let's do it about grandpa. So this is going to be an all-grandpa set and we'll see how it goes.

Speaker 1:

I've been preparing all day, I've been writing additional jokes, I sort of have a bunch of scattered thoughts, so it's a lot of organizational, but there's some exciting stuff and we'll see if I'll share it with you. If you're lucky right now it is 1.30 pm on a Wednesday In about six hours I'll show up and put my name on the list and then we'll do it. And then I'll come home and I'll see. I'll see if you get to listen to it. That's's my choice, that's not yours. Okay, so it's starting. Stand up, run and gun style, and that's all I got. Stand by. Oh man, that's rubbish, that's rubbish. Oh, my goodness, I just got back from the open mic. Oh yeah, oh, that's the ticket.

Speaker 1:

That was a special kind of humiliation. Haven't felt that one in a while. Where do I begin? Where do I begin? Well, I'll say with the funny part of the humiliation.

Speaker 1:

I picked up my kids from school and I'm comfortable leaving them home alone, but I was like guys. I was like guys, I got to go perform tonight. Why don't you come? We can have a few burgers, maybe some ribs, and then you guys, can I just do a quick five minute set about grandpa and then we'll go home. My son looked at me. He goes dad about grandpa, and then we'll go home. My son looked at me. He goes dad, I don't want to go, I don't want to see you suck. And I was like I really did appreciate his honesty. It made me laugh so hard. So I was like it's true, you don't want, you don't want to see your dad suck at things. And he just intuitively knew Now I've been building up confidence in my stand-up and I was like you know I chuckled because I was like he doesn't realize that if he came and he watched he'd probably be pretty proud because there's going to be some good laughs. I got some strong material about Grandpa and little did I know that my son was dead nails right, holy cow, that was humiliating and I thank everything, all the gods that my children didn't witness that.

Speaker 1:

At one point. I was reenacting a vocal exercise from acting school. My back was on the disgusting floor. I had my feet above my head shaking. I realized I had a hole in my pant crotch so I had my hand covering what I only hope wasn't my balls hanging out. And as I'm doing this bit which I thought was going to have people howling and I was doing this bit and it was just crickets Um, I suddenly see the photographer just like come up like she's shooting a porn, uh porn, and just take a picture like just right up close, of me on the floor and I don't know how to explain the humiliation I was feeling. It was a. It was worse than when I first did the acting exercise and thought about what my dad would think of me doing this the two grand he was paying for me to do this exercise on the floor of the actor center in New York as a hungry 21 year old looking to just open up the different reverberation channels of his instrument. And I believe she has a photo of me basically in labor on the Comedy Mill floor.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, I got up from that bit and I think I was beet red, not from being prone on the ground but from the shame I was feeling and I ended up just saying like I just told the audience you know, I want you guys to know, I think that was the most humiliating thing I've ever done and that did get a laugh, but it's a cop-out and yeah Look, I'm probably exaggerating how bad it was. I think my expectations for myself are getting much higher and this was a very sobering, humbling experience. It was a tough audience. It was a lot of comics, some surly built men and my subject matter wasn't. Perhaps I didn't win them over early enough, wasn't? Perhaps I didn't win them over early enough Immediately started talking about like a rich country club dad, I didn't get the audience on my side early.

Speaker 1:

And when you don't do that and you start going boy, is it a, is it a lonely feeling? And then my whole brain went short circuit and I and I didn't know what to say instead of like just being fun and improv, improv-y. I think I had about 15 seconds of silence. That's caught on tape as well, but again, that's gonna stay in the vault. We're not gonna share that right now. It's too soon. We'll share that later, too soon. But I want you guys to hear. I promised I'm going to just perform the set for you tonight, and that'll be that. So here's the set that I wished it had sounded like, and it most certainly did not. There's something here. I'm hoping to make it better, tighter and figure out a way to really get an audience cooking on this one. So back to the drawing board, and I thank you for being here, and this is going to be a short episode because I'm a single dad and I'm incredibly depressed. Bye now. Hey, how's it going?

Speaker 1:

I want to talk about my dad today. My dad was born in 1940, new Jersey. Different time, way different. Back then, men only got hugged if they survived the Titanic. Yeah, he was a real businessman's businessman Bespoke suits, country clubs, not changing diapers, obsessed with Ivy League schools, even though he went to UVM, that's, the University of Vermont, where the only requirement freshman year was you're not allowed to wear deodorant. When I was 10 years old, he caught me checking myself out in the mirror. I had this crush on a girl named Heather Burke. Heather, shout out Heather Burke, and he goes.

Speaker 1:

David, let me tell you about the different types of men. A Princeton man is so insecure about his looks he stops at every mirror he sees to fix his hair. A Yale man is also insecure, no doubt, but he doesn't want anyone to know so he steals quick glances at the mirror. But a Harvard man a Harvard man, david never looks in mirrors because he knows he looks good. And I was like wait, didn't you go to UVM? What do Vermont guys do, dad, check for cow shit in their beard? No, that's not true. I didn't say that at 10 years old, obviously I, I think. I think, if I remember correctly, my 10 year old self said I must go the queen.

Speaker 1:

My dad is very different than me and I respect the hell out of that, but he's disappointed in me and that's okay. I find it so strange when people don't understand why their parents are disappointed in them. My dad was a powerful commercial real estate developer who successfully raised seven kids and his only son, his namesake, wears makeup for a living, became an actor. For God's sakes, it's every parent's worst nightmare. I mean. The only thing more awful for parents is when their kids try to be stand-ups. My dad is a real man. Okay, puts on a suit, handles his business, comes home, has one or two vodkas, stress, eats the shitty chicken from the 365 ways to cook chicken. We all gave my mom for Christmas the cookbook. He gets disappointed with his kids' table manners and then huffs off to his room to keep working and maybe watch a European semi-erotic film. That is a real man. Meanwhile my kids watch me have an emotional breakdown because I'm screwing up the part in an audition self-tape where I have to act surprised, opening an imaginary door. I'm going to act that out.

Speaker 1:

The guy my dad literally built office buildings in Waltham. The guy my dad literally built office buildings in Waltham. I built my pecs for a shirtless scene where I get bent over a piano by Stanley Tucci. It's pathetic. He practices speeches to boards of major corporations. I practice vocal exercises where I have to get on my back legs in the air and moan like I'm giving birth. When I was in school I doing these exercises. I would picture him watching me like I'm paying two grand for this bullshit.

Speaker 1:

Of course my dad's disappointed in me, but now he's got dementia, which is a terrible disease, and his mind is going pretty fast. But I have to say there are some silver linings to dementia. It's like suddenly I have Jedi mind powers. I'm like these aren't the disappointments in your son you're looking for. You love me and are so proud of me. He's like a 230 pound Etch-A-S-sketch you just shake him up and you can start over. Write anything.

Speaker 1:

No, no, dad, becoming a stand-up was your idea. You begged me to turn down that private wealth job at Goldman. Yeah, oh no. Yesterday we were talking about rewriting your will. Yeah, let's take a look, see. Have you heard of the term primogenitor? Let me explain it. I think I've started to go too far, though. Like last week I told him UVM was ranked number one in the US News and World Report college rankings above Harvard, and he's just eyes lit up, like really. I'm like, yeah, harvard's gone to shit, dad. Uvm men are the ones who don't give a shit about mirrors now. And then I showed him the new Harvard football cheer and dropped down and do the leg exercise. He goes, go Crimson. He actually called bullshit on that. So he's still in there somewhere. Love you dad. There somewhere, love you Dad.