“This is stupid!” I yelled stupidly. “Us people got to stick together.”
I walked off stage and didn’t even introduce the next comic. He just went on himself, petrified. I was so mad at myself as I sat there watching him get obliterated. I couldn’t believe I had lost my cool and composure.
I didn’t want to go back the next week and face that crowd again, but I remembered that the point of doing an underground club was to learn to survive in any situation. And if I could survive this, then I could definitely survive anything.
Now that I knew what I was getting into, I had time to plan for it. An audience this crazy didn’t have the patience for jokes. It wasn’t about doing a tight five here; it was about survival. And that was familiar to me, because it was exactly what we did at The Table. I just had to pretend like I was at the Comedy Cellar, and be aware that the Sweet Cheeks regulars were testing me. If I could talk shit back to them and hold my own without buckling, then they’d accept me. It was a familiar game, but a hundred against one.
Once you know the rules of the game, you can play it. If you don’t know the rules, you’ll always lose.
My friend Na’im was trying to make inroads in New York, and he had a car, so I “Keithed” him and asked him to drive me to Sweet Cheeks for my next performance. I did a few early shows in New York, then we drove to Atlantic City. On the way, Na’im asked me what I thought of his act. “It was funny,” I said, parroting Keith. “You just gotta make your stuff more personal, more about you. Let people know who Na’im is.”
We arrived at Sweet Cheeks, and I met with the other comics. As a host, I had a responsibility to let them know how the room worked, which was more like a cage match than a comedy club. “Look, just go up there,” I explained. “All I need is for you to do your time. Good or bad, it don’t matter. Just hang in there, whatever happens, and get your money. If you do that, I can keep this room full and you can keep coming down.”
When the comedy show began, I was ready. As soon as the first thug’s mouth opened, I went after him before he could finish what he was saying: “Man, shut up with that goddamn half-a-mile-big head of yours!”
The relieving sound of laughter and “damns” filled the room, and I knew I could handle this. By the end of the night, I started to enjoy the verbal knife fight, even when I got out-shouted or out-insulted. It felt like I was in my element. In one way or another, whether it was with school bullies, other comics, or at the swim team banquet, I’d been doing this my whole life.
Eventually, Sweet Cheeks got so packed, I had enough leverage to switch the night to Wednesdays, so I could perform the big weekend shows in New York. I was also able to get more money to bring in comedians I liked. I’d pay them as much as $250, making sure to always let them know that they were getting that much to make up for the horrible experience they were going to have there.
I can count on one hand the people who had successful sets in that room. There wasn’t a night that went by without a lot of booing. However, just like at The Table, I hung in there and kept talking back, until the regulars came to accept me and even respect me.
Performing today is easy in comparison with shows like Sweet Cheeks, where the audience didn’t give a shit about me, where a bad joke would get me booed off stage (and sometimes even a good joke), and where I had to win over an audience that was there with the sole intention to humiliate me.
The entertainer who chooses the easy road, lined with cheering fans offering flowers and likes, won’t survive when the terrain gets challenging. The entertainer who chooses the hard road, lined with jeering haters throwing chicken wings, not only learns to survive any terrain, but to run even the easy road better than the competition.
48
* * *
WHEN OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS, OPEN THE DOOR, HEAR IT OUT, THEN SLAM THE DOOR IN ITS FACE IF YOU DON’T LIKE WHAT IT HAS TO SAY
Here’s the thing about performing live: If you do it enough, the right person will see you.
One night at the Boston Comedy Club, a big executive on the scene named Barry Katz saw my set and said he wanted to meet with me.
When I reconnected with Keith later that night, I asked him what he thought.
“Barry Katz?”
“Yeah, he wants to meet with me.”
“He’s one of the biggest comedy managers in New York. He’s got Dave Chappelle, Jay Mohr, Jim Breuer. You name the big guys, Barry Katz has ’em.”
I took the meeting. It was my first, and it started off great: I just sat there while he blew smoke up my ass.
“Buddy, I think you’re hysterical,” he said. “You’re funny. You got it. I wanna manage you.”
This was it, I thought—the comedy industry had finally noticed the new guy and recognized his potential. It was the next step on the road to comedy stardom. “All right,” I told him. “What do we do?”
“Just keep doing what you’re doing, and I’ll take care of the rest. Think of it like a bucket of shit: I’ll take it and throw it against the wall and see what sticks.”
I was young. I was inexperienced. And I definitely wasn’t the smartest guy in any room. But I knew what shit was, and here was a man who wanted to manage me comparing my career—the one I’d begged my mom for money to help support and sacrificed all my time with my girlfriend for and spent probably a thousand hours going back and forth to New York for—to a bucket of shit.
I left the meeting with a smile plastered on my face, then immediately spoke to Keith.
“Man, that’s no good,” he responded. He thought about it for a moment, then continued, “So I say: Fuck Barry. You don’t have the time for anybody who doesn’t see what you have the potential to be. Don’t do anything with him.”
I’d never turned down an opportunity before. In fact, the reason I’d done so much was precisely because I was waiting for a single opportunity like this one, and I didn’t know when it was going to happen again. But I had to follow my gut, even if Barry had—and continues to have—a great reputation.
Saying no to the biggest comedy manager in New York was one of the hardest things I had to do in my career. On paper, it seemed like the worst decision I could make. But from it, I learned that trusting your gut in situations where your logic contradicts you is terrifying—especially the first time you do it—but it’s always the right move.
I returned to the New York circuit and became Multiple-Set Kev. Some nights, I performed as many as five shows. I had to get a subway pass so I could haul ass from one gig to the next.
And then, one night, I got a second chance. This time, I was at the Comedy Cellar, and Dave Attell caught my set. Attell was one of the funniest performers on the circuit; every local comic looked up to him.
“Hey, dude, I think you’re extremely funny,” he said to me after my spot. “Do you have a manager?”
“No, I don’t.”