2nd Date to Outback - Need Advice

[tonypaladino]

This is long, and I really appologize for the hijack.

NYC in 2003. I stopped because the scene is terrible. This city is full of wannabe comics, and the clubs have an ass-backwards way of getting new talent in. The clubs run "headliner shows" with the big established names, and "bringer" shows for the newcommers. In a "bringer" your spot on stage depends on how many paying customers you bring in to see you. Bring in the most, you go on first, bring zero, you don't go on unless the show runs short.

Basically you have to have a minimum of 3 friends pay $10 each to get in and buy 2 drinks just to have a chance at a decent slot. Almost all of my friends being poor college students, it didn't work out.

The club cares ZERO about how talented or funny you are, only how many people you can bring in. Your act could be 7 minutes of farting for all they care, if you happen to have 12 friends buy tickets to see you.

Basically, you have to do the bringers for at least 3 years, then the clubs start caring about how good you are and select the funny comics to open for the headliner shows. You then have to do that for 3-6 years, finally getting paid, but very little, until maybe one day someone will notice you and you'll be the 1 out of 100 to get an HBO or Comedy Central special.

I worked the NY Comedy Club, Stand Up NY and Ha! for six months, begging people on the streets to give my name to the cashier so I could get a spot. At NYCC I even used to mop the floors once in a while just to get a slot. It was terribly depressing and I had just had enough after a few months.

I really wanted to keep doing comedy, but I was sick of the clubs, so me and two other comics started a radio show that was broadcast on a low-watt station in manhattan and was going to be streamed over the internet. Evenually we ran into a crapload of technical problems and the show crashed and burned after 2 months. And so ended my comedy carrier.