I think being bicoastal, if you can swing it, is the way to go. LA and NY have different things going for them. There is a lot of TV opportunities in LA and podcasts - but NY is amazing and you can do so many shows in a night there.

stay where you are until you're PRETTY sure you're one of the best. THEN move when you're 90% sure you should move. it will always be scary, but that's the whole game. you do things JUST AS you think you MIGHT be ready... if you wait until they ask you to come it will never happen. be bold! believe in yourself! but listen to what comedy is saying back to you, your path could be a multitiude of things.

The ceiling for comedy in New Orleans is about a foot-high, so you have to army crawl your way through it—it’s that low. New York was no question. I went to film school here a year before, and I just fell in love with the city then, so I came back. In New York you can get a lot of stage time [as a comic], and I needed and wanted that. It was the worst transition ever. I moved here with $800, blew through that in about two days, got an apartment in Crown Heights, got mugged three times in a year, my landlord died of AIDS, and the first day I got into my apartment, there was a pigeon in it, just flying around. So it was pretty rough. I got a job as the file clerk at the film school filing pap...[Read more]

Get onstage as much as humanly possible, study the greats, and write like stand up is your job.

The thing I try to remember with hecklers is just to take my time and listen to them. I believe it was Chappelle who said, "A heckler's first punch is their best punch." They're generally not clever people. You don't see a lot of scientists going to comedy clubs and heckling. They're just drunk. And mostly women. So you just have to take your time and then eviscerate them.

I got started in comedy writing because i would write serious things and people laughed. My advice is growing up exactly like me with my brain and body.

you gotta deal with like a decade worth of bullshit before you start seeing the fruits of your labor. Just avoid negative people and keep writing and perfecting your set. Throw out jokes that don't work. Keep the ones that do work.

I started when i was 17. I got a good head start, skill-building wise, but I sometimes think I missed out on a lot of “Life” that I could be drawing from now. Try to go to college and get some knowlege. If you don’t do that, make a deliberate attempt to read a lot and educate yourself, so that you don’t just become a siv for American pop culture. If you spend all your time on stage talking about the cover of People magazine, you won’t go far, you won’t last, and you’ll be bored before you get good. Take advantage of the head start you’re giving yourself by stopping as often as possible to live your life, explore America and grow as a person. When you go to some shit town to do a one-nighte...[Read more]

stop fuckin around. just get on stage. there's nothing else to do if you want to do stand up. you need to get on stage. figure that out and the rest will follow.

get up. get help. help others.

1 get on stage as much as you can 2 do the comedy that would make YOU laugh 3 ask yourself WHEN would i laugh if i was listening to myself? if the answer is "i don't know" then neither will the audience 4 hang with people who don't tear you down or break your spirit 5 listen to the greats, let them influence you, then shed them when you find your voice 6 don't be a dick!

Just do it. Constantly do it. There is no substitute for just making stuff.

Find other people who make you laugh and spend as much time with them as you can. They'll make you better and keep you motivated.