I Bombed in front of Kumail Nanjiani & Roy Kent Part 1
It. Was. Bad.
The past month has been a ride.
In the last 4 weeks I’ve produced and been on shows with Kumail Nanjiani, Craig Robinson, Brett Goldstein, Iliza Shlezinger, had a callback audition for the Laugh Factory and every day that I haven’t performed I’ve been writing or doing an open mic.
I crushed at every comedy show I did, except the last one…
THE MOON ROOM
Brett (Roy Kent), Kumail, a couple of the other comics and I are in a makeshift green room shooting shit. There were a 100 people right above us, upstairs in a sleek new cocktail bar in West Hollywood waiting for the show to start.
But us comics had unanimously decided we needed to wait a bit longer. Because you see the bar’s northern wall was all windows without any curtains and even at 7:30 pm the sun hadn’t set, causing the room to be flooded with sunlight, which is terrible for a comedy venue.
A good venue MUST BE DARK. Because, turns out people are embarrassed to be seen laughing, so the darker the room the more freely people will laugh. Crazy right?
Back in the green room, Kumail jokes about how the venue (which is called the Moon Room) is actually full of Sun, ironically, we talk about the desert menu and how Kumail can’t eat any, Everyone’s chatting, introducing themselves and having great conversations.
I’m trying to act cool and make jokes and add to the conversation but I also realize I have a lot of newly written material that has punchlines I’ve not memorized so I go through them on my phone. After about 20 minutes, I get up and say,
“I think it’s time.”
At this point everyone gets up, with a camaraderie I haven’t felt in a green room before and Brett Goldstein puts his hand out and says “Shall we?”.
It took me a second to understand what he was signaling too, but everyone walked instinctively towards him forming a huddle.
The deadpan, dry comic who played Roy Kent in Ted Lasso wanted us all to put our hands together and cheer before we start the show.
“One, Two, THREE, COMEDY!”
It all happened so quickly, I didn’t realize I did one of the funniest and dorkiest things possible before a comedy show.
It felt…natural.
As we all exit the room I audibly say,
“Wow, I feel like we really bonded there”.
The first of my many jokes to bomb that night.
To Be Continued
The whole story would’ve been too long and then I wouldn’t have been able to show you a video of me bombing, it’s not good hahaha - You’ll see it next week.
PSA
Apologies for not sending out the newsletter the last couple weeks, shows, writing and mics have taken up most of my time.
Also I’ve been doing some thinking about the newsletter itself, while it is therapeutic and a lot of fun to write, it isn’t providing me with value I wanted from it. At this point it’s more of a personal blog of a journey of a comic that all you readers know well. And while I want to maintain this, this may not be the most valuable medium for it (in terms of getting the most eyeballs)
All this to say that the frequency of this newsletter may decrease from once a week to something more spontaneous. AND in terms of following the journey of the comedian, well I’ve got some ideas I’ll be sharing very soon :)
If you’ve made it till here, you’re a real one.
Talk soon killers!