A long, detailed and comprehensive list of FAQ for clean comedian Shaun Eli

I recommend the way I got started- have a very attractive person tell you to try stand-up comedy. She talked me into taking a stand-up comedy class. Some comedians look down on classes, saying the only way you can get better is to do it. I think that’s nonsense. Every other artistic profession takes classes. Actors take classes. Musicians take classes. Professional athletes still work with coaches. Maybe you can’t teach funny, but you can teach performance techniques and give advice on how to write and structure a joke, and how to find what’s funny in your life. You can also be taught what subjects make for good comedy, and what subjects annoy audiences or that have been done way too much already.

Yes, you need to get on stage to get better. And classes help you do that, in a supportive environment. You will make friends with other people also starting out- and that’s helpful, because when you’re a new comic most of your opportunities will come from other comedians, not from bookers or club owners or agents.

Plus, classes can help you avoid some rookie mistakes. For example, the punch part of a punchline belongs at the very end of the sentence. Otherwise you’re still talking when people should be laughing. You also need to learn how microphone stands work (you’d be surprised at how often a new comic screws this up on stage) and to be sure not to hit yourself in the face with the microphone when you have to pull hard because someone shoved it tightly in there.

You’ll also learn a really important lesson, that comics learn and re-learn. Slow the heck down. Way down. And then slow down some more. Especially if you’re performing in a noisy environment, performing for people whose first language isn’t English, or performing for the elderly. People need time not just to hear the premise, but to absorb and understand it. And THEN the punchline.

Another lesson, although not everybody agrees with this. Don’t make fun of the less fortunate. We call that punching down. Letterman didn’t allow that on the show- he’s said that on his show you can’t make fun of homeless people, because they’re not here to defend themselves.

People root for the underdog. Make fun of the overdog.

In NYC and Los Angeles, if it’s a comedy-only open-mic, pretty much everyone there will be another comic. There won’t be regular audience members. The other comedians probably won’t listen to you, because all they care about is their own five minutes.

You should memorize your material- don’t rely on paper or your phone as a crutch. Because if you have it, you will use it.

Sorry to say, but nobody cares if you eat it at an open-mic. So while it’ll be painful, it’ll also be educational for you to see what happens if you forget your material at an open-mic. Your biggest laughs may come from when you screw up, and that’s okay.

Oh, and most open-mic set lengths are five minutes. Time yours- it’s okay if you do only two minutes, but you don’t want to run long and have the emcee take the mic out of your hand.

Pretty much not. I’ve done open-mics as a reasonably-experienced comedian and was good enough to command attention (and surprise people) but that probably won’t be your experience your first five years in comedy. Oh, that’s for NYC and L.A. In many other places, you can get an audience for an open-mic night, and it’s a very different (and much nicer) experience.

No. I mean, it is better for me. One of the things that I learned from the first comedy class I took is that it’s a good business decision to be a clean comedian. There are many more opportunities to perform. Comedy clubs don’t care if you’re dirty, but that’s not where the money is. Partly that’s because it’s only a small subset of comedians who can do a solid 30 or 45 minute clean set. That’s one reason I’m a clean comedian.

Another is simply that I don’t tend to think of dirty jokes. Also, most of the time there’s no reason to curse on stage. I’ve seen plenty of comedians who could do a clean set, if they just took out the curse words. And it would probably shorten their jokes, too, which is good.

I do have a couple of jokes that are clean in content but work better with a curse word. I’ve opted for less laughter on a joke because I’d rather be the guy who cursed zero times than a guy who cursed once and got a slightly bigger laugh that no one will remember. For what it’s worth, I pretty much never tell those jokes anyway.

I have been at a comedy club where an audience member has said to me afterwards that I was the only comic who didn’t curse, or that I was the only comic dressed like I cared how I looked on stage. Some people notice stuff.

Yes, I write mine, and everyone else’s too. That funny joke you heard another comedian tell? That was mine too.

Okay, most comedians write our own jokes. We don’t steal; we don’t tell old jokes. We write. Some famous comedians, because they’re putting out frequent comedy specials, have writers. Late-night talk show hosts, who have a new monologue every night, have teams of writers. But that comic you’d never heard of, that you saw on Netflix or The Tonight Show or Amazon? Wrote their own set. With a couple of exceptions. There’s a comedian who got pretty famous quickly and didn’t have much material. She hired several comics I know to write jokes for her. She hired funny people and they’re darn good jokes. But she didn’t write them. (no, I’m not going to tell you who it was)

I wish I had a good answer for that. I think there’s funny stuff in everybody’s life. Comedians are just good at figuring out how to make the ordinary, funny. When I started in comedy I mostly wrote short jokes- set-up, punchline, maybe a tag (an additional punchline that builds on the existing premise), then the next joke. I wanted to be a story-teller, to have a series of jokes around something in my life. But I didn’t think I had any.

Then as I got better as a comedian I realized that a lot of funny stuff has happened to me. I have a long story about jury duty. About my former job. And there are few things that are more fun than making fun of a former employer! I have a story about fighting a parking ticket- in criminal court. A story about dating a vegetarian. Maybe being stubborn helps, because it creates the right kind of situation from which to mine comedy.

And sometimes I come up with stuff in my sleep. Really. I wake up with an idea in my head. Often I’m too tired to write it down, figuring I’d remember when I woke up (I almost never do, which kind of stinks). Once I had a dream about a really pretty comedian telling a great joke. I woke up thinking I have to figure out who she is. Then I realized that it was a dream- she was a figment of my imagination. Then it occurred to me that the joke she was telling in my dream? I wrote it! I was worried that I may have heard it somewhere, so for months I told it only at open-mic nights. I figured that if it were someone else’s joke, another comedian would tell me. Nobody did, and now it’s in my act. Or at least I think it is. I remember adding it to my set list, but I can’t for the life of me remember which joke it was. Doesn’t really matter, though. It’s mine mine all mine.

There are story-tellers. One liner comics. Observational comedy. Musical comedians. Some comedians are political. Some are self-deprecating. Some are filthy. Some are clean, but have really dark humor. My stand-up is a mixture of stories, short jokes (one-liner type) and some observational comedy. I have no musical talent and probably so bad at singing that it might be funny, but no, I won’t sing on stage. Or in public at all.

Some comics look down on this, and on any props. I think there’s something to be said for having and using the power to make people laugh with just your words. But some guitar acts are funny- playing music can add emphasis to a joke.

But a comic whose act is re-writing song lyrics to make them dirty? I did that when I was twelve. I’m not talking about Weird Al. I think he’s funny. Or at least I did when I was a kid. I don’t think I’ve heard him lately, although he is back touring.

It’s not for me. It’s people insulting each other. Not a fan. Okay, when a celebrity gets roasted in public, and they volunteered for it, that’s different. But apparently some of them regret it afterwards.

I don’t want to be roasted. When I was a new comic I went to someone’s going-away party. It was going to be a roast. I didn’t know that until I got there. And one rule of a roast is that you roast everyone else who is roasting, not just the roastee. I had about fifteen minutes to write some jokes roasting other people. I think I did fine.

What was said about me? Most of it was pretty mean rather than funny. Someone, and I wish I remembered who so I could give him credit, said something like “Shaun records all his shows, in case one day he decides to blackmail himself.” I think that was funny.

And yes, I do record many of my shows. For a few reasons. First, if I think of something funny on stage that I want to be able to use later, I’ll have it recorded. Second, maybe something interesting happens that I can share on line. And third, it’s a record for business purposes. If someone says I didn’t do the time they paid me for, or I said something they didn’t think was appropriate, I can prove otherwise. So far this hasn’t really been necessary, but it’s prudent risk management. On rare occasions other comics have had problems, and it’s good to be able to say, if it’s necessary, “No, that was someone else who said that, and I recorded the show and my set length was exactly ~.”

For what it’s worth I carry a timer on stage and I usually do a few seconds to a few minutes more time than I’m being paid for, with the understanding that I’ll go long only if it was approved beforehand. Some corporate events, and comedy clubs, run on a tight schedule. Theatre shows can sometimes go a little long, but I do keep in mind that the staff wants to go home and the audience needs a bathroom.

Every comic is different. I would say that I’m clean, I’m affordable, and my comedy isn’t some of the stupider stuff you might hear. I try to avoid politics or anything else that could alienate an audience. Every joke has a victim, as every joke is making fun of something or someone. I try not to make my comedy mean. My jokes aren’t racist or sexist. I may talk about racism or sexism, but in a way that makes fun of those things. I don’t base my humor on negative stereotypes. You won’t hear me making a joke about, for example, negative stereotypes about Jews. I especially dislike when other comics make fun of their own religion or ethnicity in a way that perpetuates a negative stereotype. Because that gives the audience justification for their own bigotry- “Hey, he said it, and he’s one of them, so it must be true.”

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I perform in theatres and performing arts centers, sometimes solo, sometimes with colleagues I bring. I do charity fundraising shows, again either solo or with colleagues. I perform at, and sometimes emcee, corporate events. I perform in houses of worship for various denominations, for seniors groups and for private parties.

I’m not even sure I’m the funniest one in my family, but I am the one who gets paid for it, since I didn’t go to medical school. I went to Wharton and I do this now, so probably I’m not the smartest one in my family either, but I am one of the happiest ones.

I’m not the funniest comic in the NYC area, that’s for sure. But I think I’m plenty funny, certainly funny enough for your event. Per dollar I’m probably the funniest person in any reasonable price range, and anyway you can’t afford Seinfeld.

Some. It’s a lot of fun to be friends with some of the funniest people in the country and to get paid to hang out and travel with them.

I find that most comedians are really nice, and it may surprise you to know that a lot of us are shy. I have a friend who’s a really funny, rather successful comic who’s brilliant on stage, but really quiet at parties. He’ll talk to people he knows, but otherwise he just sits in the corner and plays with his phone.

I really don’t like that people think that you have to have problems to be a comedian. Your dentist or deli clerk may be depressed, but they don’t get paid to talk about it. If they did, you’d have someone else sticking their fingers in your mouth and you’d get your sandwiches from a different place. But we get paid to find things to talk about. Plus, not all of it’s true, and much may be exaggerated. I’m a happy person. I have a master’s degree in positive psychology. Really.

Stand-up comedy is a weird art form. The audience has to buy the illusion that it’s conversational, and to some extent that the comedy is made up on the spot. They have to get used to, at the beginning of the show, the idea that a stranger is talking and their job is to just shut up and listen, and laugh, and they’re paying for the experience.

So the emcee often does what’s known as crowd work, which is asking questions of the audience, so we’re sort of getting to know each other. It’s a way of getting everyone comfortable, especially when there are interruptions like people arriving late and wait staff taking drink orders.

Not every emcee does this, and it’s more common in a more intimate comedy club situation than at a theatre show.

I’ve been at comedy clubs where comic after comic might ask where someone’s from. And yeah, that’s dumb. I’ve seen a whole audience yell “London!” after the third time the same person was asked the same question. I’ve heard audience members ask “Don’t you guys talk to each other?” And I’ve literally seen a sign backstage at a comedy club that said something like “Only the emcee and the last comic are allowed to do crowd work.”

But sometimes crowd work’s a lot of fun. If you meet me, ask me for the story about the Latvians in the audience.

I’m smart enough not to replay bad stuff in my head, let alone to share it. I will say this- all comedians have had bad nights on stage. Haven’t you ever had a bad day at work? (Which is something I’ve said once or twice when I was new and things weren’t going that well) But really, once we’re good, bad shows are very rare, and it’s often because we took a gig we should’ve turned down because it just wasn’t the right setting for a comedy performance. Like at a singles event, where nobody wants to be told to shut up and listen to this stranger, they want to spend their time meeting other people. Or at a cocktail hour where people are mingling and wandering around and eating standing up.

I’m fortunate that I can afford to say “No, that’s not the best environment for a comedian, so perhaps you’d prefer to have musicians? Or if you really want comedy, let’s talk about making the event comedy-friendly.”

It depends. Being funny on stage in front of strangers who are expecting to be entertained is different from being funny for your friends, where it’s probably spontaneous and just a quick funny comment, and it’s based on a shared frame of reference and all that you have in common.

It’s two different skills. Not saying that one is better or harder or more important than the other. They’re just different. Just like baseball and golf are both hitting a ball with a stick, but they’re very different sports.

Duh, mine. And if I don’t have a show where and when you want to be entertained, here’s a button to book me:

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