“Be Cool Little Baby: Rebuilding My Comedy House (Thanks, Jerry)”
So I’m up here listening to Jerry Seinfeld talk about comedy the other day (on Youtube of course. I’m miles away from meeting him as far as I can see). And Jerry, in all his sage, millionaire wisdom, says, “If you’re a new comic, you’re like a baby. A comedy baby.” Not verbatim, but he said something like that and I scoffed because I thought to myself ‘You either got it or you don’t’.
Maybe you can kinda agree with what I’m getting at, but when someone calls me a baby, my first instinct is to throw a tantrum and prove them wrong by doing something super adult—like paying a bill on time or eating sugar.honey.ice.tea from my boss. But Jerry was onto something… he was right. He explained that if you’re a year into comedy, you’re a one-year-old comic. And you know what one-year-olds do? They fall. They drool. They say ridiculous things and think they’re hilarious. And it hit me: that’s me EXCEPT I haven’t even been born as a comedian according to the above criteria.
I’d spent all this time thinking I was building a mansion in comedy, but really, I’d been piling up cardboard boxes and calling it a house. One strong wind—or one heckler—and the whole thing would come tumbling down right on my adult head. My foundation was weak. My punchlines? Shakier than Haney’s knees. My comedic timing? Let’s just say it has the precision of a newborn trying to hold it’s head up right after birth.
So here I am, back at square one after all the websites, business cards, rebrand after rebrand, and after all this grand talk. No shortcuts this time. I’m rebuilding my comedy house brick by brick. It’s humbling, for damn sure, but also liberating. Because when you admit you’re a comedy baby, you get to make mistakes without pretending you’ve got it all figured out. I’m still not going on Kill Tony no matter how good I get. 1. I don’t have a visible disability and 2. I might actually kill Tony…never forget I am from the Westside of Chicago.
Why am I still attempting this dream of comedy at this age? Let me be honest and tell you—stepping into comedy was the first time in my life I felt like I belonged. I’ve always felt out of place even as a kid, like the weird kid who brought a chopped up Cricket doll to show-and-tell to scare the other kids whilst everyone else in a room was full of future nurses, athletes, and doctors (some drug dealers too, but we won’t charge it to their hearts). But in comedy, I found my people. Flawed adults with the imaginations of children. Grown-ups who’d rather debate the logistics of how the media pushes agendas for you to partake in things only for that thing to imprision you later on than discuss mortgage rates and this current non-non recession we are in. Suddenly, I wasn’t alone and I felt comfortable being who I am. Now getting a word in, hell that’s nearly impossible, BUT I always left feeling like I kicked it with some buddies after we ditched a lame house party.
So yeah back to the point at hand, I’m embracing my comedy baby status. I’m crawling before I walk, taking my time to get it right. And this time, I’m not just building a house for myself—I’m hoping to build some friendships along the way. The kind of friendships that survive open mic disasters and late-night joke writing marathons. The kind that cheer you on when you finally land that perfect punchline or someone who talks ish about how bad you bombed.
At the end of the day, comedy isn’t about being perfect or proving something to anyone else. It’s about finding joy in the flaws, the falls, and the moments that make us laugh so hard we snort. And if Jerry Seinfeld says I’m a baby? Well fark it, maybe it’s time to embrace the bib and pacifier and start again, but this time with humility.
Here’s to drooling, stumbling, and eventually building a comedy house with a foundation so solid, even Jerry would approve.
