How to Commiserate

Back when I was a comedian, another comedian told me his theory of how to make it in show business.

Let me clarify.

Back when I was a comedian, almost every night, at least one comedian—and often a member of the audience or two—would tell me their theory about how to make it in show business. My favorite was a guy barely old enough to drink who told me that the key to success as a comedian was for me to rent videos of all the best comedians I could, pick out the best joke in each of their videos, then make up my act with those jokes.

But I digress. This one specific time, a comedian I respected shared a theory with me, that the amount of success you’ll have in show business is directly proportional to how willing you are to be totally ripped off. His theory was that you let your unscrupulous manager exploit you when you’re young, then you shed them like a booster rocket and use your fame as the foundation of a later career in which you take care of yourself.

It’s an interesting theory, but at the time I was just struck that I was listening to a middle-aged man who was bitter that nobody had exploited him.

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