Stand up comedy has always been a love of mine, ever since I was a child. I vividly remember sitting transfixed watching Maria Bamford's comedy central special when I was young; as a middle schooler, I would sneak downstairs at night to watch late night stand up specials; as I work, there's almost always a stream of stand up comedians, or related podcasts, playing on my headphones. The mix of confidence, vulnerability, playfulness, planning, and precision a good comedian employs fascinates and inspires me.
With time I started to listen more to their stories off stage than their sets on stage, and have found immense inspiration in listening to comedians talk about their process, their career arc, their triumphs and their failures.
And here's the thing: their failures are plentiful and crucial. On comedian (and philosopher) Pete Holmes' "You Made it Weird" (one of the best podcasts on this subject), he interviews comedians and they talk about their experiences, and most of the formative ones are about absolutely bombing. In one of his early episodes with the gruff Bill Burr, Holmes recounts meeting Burr for the first time as a comedian. Burr said to him "I hope you fail early and often."
At the time this sounded like an insult, the way almost anything said in Burr's caustic delivery sounds. But talking years later, Burr tells him it was actually a benediction, a hopeful aspiration that Holmes–a confident rising star–would understand how crucial failure was to the process, that he'd learn to fail before his ego could solidify.
And that's the thing: comedians practice in failure in a way no one else can. Yes, we can all fail, but comedians are trying to take a piece of themselves, their very perspective and being, and fling it into the universe wrapped in playful words and turns of phrases; rejection is all but a full rejection of who they are. In one of Kyle Kinane’s bits, he described the absurdity of being a comedian: “You’re going to defend your perspective and opinions to total strangers.” And boy do they fail. And bruised and battered, they do it again. And again. And again.
They’ve all bombed. Dane Cook had hot dogs thrown at him while performing a free show in Florida; Hannibal Burress was once literally carried off stage; Pete Holmes watched an entire crowd leave one by one. And they revel in it, embrace it, grow from it. Listening to Pete Holmes’ podcast, I hear nothing but stories of persistence, of effort.
I think about that a lot, how what separates the greats from the rest is their complete willingness to fail. The shooter sinking free throws is the one who doesn't care if they miss them. I once heard an interview with Michael Jordan where the interviewer asked him about his successes, and Jordan commented that he wished people would ask him about his failures more, because that's the experience he built his success on. What I love about comedy is they deal entirely with the failure, and talk about it openly in a way we refuse to so often.
I'm thinking about all this having just bombed on the shooting line. And I mean BOMBED. A week ago I shot my tournament PB, an absolutely formidable and competitive score; today, I shot 4 full on misses. I danced around the gold, just barely missing, and in trying to force it I did even worse. I did it to myself: I introduced too many changes to my gear and my form, and as I distrusted my setup I lost trust in my form, and the whole thing collapsed. But I fought on, I took notes.
I took all that failure, all that shame, and I drove to my home range. And remembering it, feeling it, I started working. I figured out what happened, I fixed my gear, I figured out what was wrong in my shot.
And I figured it out. For now. And I laughed about it the whole time.
I smiled, and thought of Saint Bill Burr: "Fail Early, Fail Often." And the unsaid part, the transmitted wordless tantra each comedian knows: Persist Always.
In my training journal, I have an affirmation I took from Pete Holmes: “I have the absurdity in me to pursue this relentlessly.”
So, here's to more failing, and all the things I’ll take from it. I don't know when success will come, but I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to be scared of failing. [Picture of me and my rock, my inspiration, Manny Gonzalez by Devan Accardo]
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