Stand Up

I was thinking tonight about the idea of being up on stage. Once upon a time I thought I was a comedian. I was in one of my darkest stretches of life and having no prior stand up experience (not counting oral reports in 9^th grade Geography) I decided to try out for Last Comic Standing.

I drove to Minneapolis by myself. I got there the night before the audition and slept in my car. I practiced like crazy. Then, reality set in. I hit the actual stage. The lights were bright. The cameras were on me. The judges from TV were staring my way.

And I completely tanked.

It was the first time I can ever remember not having control over what was coming out of my mouth. Nerves overwhelmed me and I said everything too fast and unfunny.

I was devastated. I felt horrible about myself going in to the audition and felt worse coming out. I thought I was going to be an overnight success. And looking back on why I wanted to do the audition…it was all wrong. I was so in need of someone else to tell me I was great, because I didn’t feel great at all. The vibe I must have given off on stage was one of desperation…“Look at me…Look at me.” Oh my gato they are looking at me…and I’m hideous.

That’s why starting this blog has been such a cool thing for me…it’s the opposite of desperation. It’s not look at me, I’m funny. It’s look at me, I’m fucked up. I’m not interested in looking good anymore or trying to get people to see how talented I am. Now I’m encouraging people to laugh at me instead of laughing with me. And that’s like shooting fish in a barrel…man it’s easy to find stuff that I fuck up, right?

But, really the great art, great movies, great books…isn’t the common denominator that the artist puts their real heart on display? They find the right canvas and figure out a way to transplant their heart onto that canvas. When we pour out our real selves, it’s so endearing.

I’m not putting my writing out here because I’m trying to be endearing. I’m writing because this is who I am. I want to tell my story. The feedback and conversations I’ve had with people since I started the blog have been overwhelming. It’s infinitely more rewarding to know I touched someone’s heart than to know I made them laugh.

But, I do still love to induce a belly laugh. I actually faced my stand up demons a couple of years ago. I did open mic night at the local chuckle hut. My first attempt was a disaster. So nervous. Had a heckler. Tanked again.

But, motherfucker…I got back up there the next week. I was up first. And I got two legit laughs from the crowd. Here’s what I said…

“I recently got divorced. My wife got the house, the nice car and most of the furniture. I got the T.V. and the alcoholism. I felt really lucky to get the alcoholism, because she wanted joint custody. But, I told her that wouldn’t be fair…to the disease.”

And the second one was a drunk text that I sent one night, “There’s a reason why they called that movie American Pie…and not American Hot Pocket, because I just burned the shit out of the roof of my cock.”

It felt really good to actually have some success. Expecting to kill it at Last Comic Standing was unrealistic. I gained a ton of respect for comedians. It’s fucking hard. But, how did the successful ones make it…they worked hard. They practiced. They failed. They tried again. They didn’t give up.

That’s what writing feels like this time around. I’m practicing. Not everything I write is going to be solid gold, but I’m going to keep on trucking. I’ve found my canvas. And it’s so nice to not have the pressure of forcing it or trying to be successful overnight. I’m successful already, because I’m doing what I love. And to think that what I’ve written so far has meant something to people...so cool.

When I wrote two hit wonder I would check my statistics daily. And think things like, “I wrote something funny 10 minutes ago. Why has no one told me I’m a comic genius?” I don’t have a statistic counter on this blog. The people that are meant to read it will read it. I’m not trying to be a wonder anymore. I’m cool with just being MatthewBlakeAtkinson.