Sam's Sanity Diary

I want to work on a project that I feel will be very meaningful to me. It will be called "I Quit Comedy", and the whole idea is that I will quit doing comedy by the end of the year, but before I do, I will write down all my jokes into a book, so that whoever finds/buys the book can come and perform those jokes. By doing so, I foresee one of two outcomes - either I get the brain juices going again and I write my first hour and ride a new comedy ego-boost that will carry me on for a year or so before it runs out again, OR I don't write an hour and I find out I'm just not good enough to be a modern comedian, in which case, well at least there is a joke book, so all those years of open mics and bombing didn't amount to nothing. I feel like if I am to "give" the jokes away in a joke book, it will force me to work on them a bit more. Pride and decency will not allow me to give away something that is half-completed. Off the top of my head right now, I can think...

My relationship with comedy is very different now from when I first started 11 years ago, or even as recent as a year ago. For the longest time, it was always The Dream. I guess I've been chasing it so long, I got into the habit of chasing it and not living it. I got a gig coming up, and it's probably the first serious corporate gig since I started performing 11 years ago, and I still feel under-qualified for it. I've always been a decent club comic but I suck at writing and performing clean, corporate-friendly jokes to people who are not necessarily fans of standup. It has always been an area of weakness that I always thought I'd work on later but I kept neglecting it and now, it kind of feels like I've run out of time and I just have to throw myself into the deep end of the pool and teach myself how to swim. I have to come up with something good and clean in less than 2 weeks. I never thought I'd say this, but comedy is work now. Most of the time, I dread it. ...