Say Something Funny...B*tch

The one and only man on SSFB campus.  You have wrote in, often and vigorously, and Colin Hughes has answered. 

Ladies and B*tches….

QUESTION:

Are guys in comedy more or less f*cked up than guys in other vocations?

ANSWER:

As a comedian I think that this is a misnomer.

I spent nearly 6 years as a sales manager for a small company. There were times when I would wake up at 5am, be out of the house within a half hour and not return home until 7pm. At that point I would jump on my computer, plan the following day, do some paperwork, and eventually go to bed. I would do this 6, sometimes 7 days a week. At one point a coworker and I had each worked 30-some-odd-days in a row without having a day that was less than 10 hours.

We were crazy. At the same time though, Vitamin Water had just sold for billions, BILLIONS!!!! of dollars and if we played our cards right, with the stocks we had vested already, we could stand to make 4-5 million ourselves, if our company had sold for even a fraction of what Coke purchased Vitamin Water for. If we pushed hard enough today, we could retire tomorrow. Or so we thought.

Since then, we’ve both been fired, the company sold and nobody made a fucking penny. Not even the people still with the company.

Did we waste our time? Perhaps. Does this have anything to do with your question? Absolutely. Am I answering my own questions like Donald Rumsfeld? Yes, and I’m sorry. What I’m trying to say is that passion can make people a little crazy. The thing about making millions of dollars with our drink company was so far from the front of our mind when we were at our most insane. All we could think about was being the best sales reps and making the company the best beverage company ever.

Now take that same passion and apply it to a profession that is as naked as anything in the world. There is no marketing team to support you. No CEO to direct you. It’s just you and a microphone and some poop jokes. The “insanity” of stand-ups exist in all fields. All of them. Lawyers are driven to be the best they can, as are doctors, teachers, etc. The difference is that you didn’t grow up knowing stand-ups. If, however, you grew up knowing a sole-proprietor of some small company, think about that person. It’s the business equivalent of a comedian.

If however you were talking about improvisors the question was formatted wrong because improv isn’t a vocation. It’s a vacation in every sense of the word. People are paying to have fun. The only difference is that everyone on the beach is looking at you and waiting for you to say something clever.

To ask YOUR Question to Colin- email saysomethingfunnybtch@gmail.com.  And read more Colin on twitter @colinhughesLA.