When you're a standup comic, you get up and you try stuff, and you're always kind of seeing how far you can push things.
If you like standup and decide that it's overtaking your life and want to hate it, watch 1,000 standup comedians who are trying to get on a TV show.
As a comedian, it really gelled when I started doing standup. Because standup is so much about bravery, especially in the early days. There is no doubt that it is going to go terribly for you over and over and over again. But you cannot get funny without bombing.
Standup comedy is inordinately difficult. If doing something else for a living will make you equally happy, choose that instead. I'm serious. Comedy is punishing.
There was a stage in my career, especially with standup, where I felt, because I didn't know why I was doing well, that anyone who would tell me anything; I was sort of like, 'What did they say? Yeah, I'll take that advice.' Now I'm a bit more careful who I choose to listen to.
People see me on the 'Daily Show' or 'About a Boy'. But the reality is that I only got into this business to do standup comedy.
I did standup comedy. I opened once for Jay Leno.
I wouldn't call myself a standup in the presence of Jerry Seinfeld or Chris Rock, but I do my share of it and it has been and remains part of my activity and I like it.
Standup comedy was my weird hobby. I would drag my poor parents out to the only open mics that were in coffee shops instead of bars. I'd get up and go, 'Hi, I'm 17, and I have jokes about matriculation!' At the time I was like, 'Why is no one laughing?'
The podcast movement was really a creative survival mechanism for standup comics.
