I Messed Up Last Night

I didn’t have a great comedy set last night. It wasn’t a train wreck by any means, but it certainly wasn’t a home run. If we were to scale this where 10 is Mortifying and 1 is Euphoric, this instance would probably be a 5.

What does a 10 look like?

My worst moment on stage was doing a 45-minute show at the Krakow Fringe Festival to a packed room of 70–80 people. I told the first joke and immediately (as if planned) everyone stood up and walked out. There were four people still seated when I got to the second joke. I had 44 minutes left of my set.

(To make it even worse, there was a documentary crew filming the whole thing.)

As for last night’s set, there was a great crowd. I was performing in one of my favorite spaces for the first time in a long while. I was excited about the material.

But…

I started with the wrong joke. The laughs were scattered. The audience got into my head. I got too thirsty for their approval. I had too much untested material. The audience wanted more uplifting material. No one wanted to be reminded of the war. I was too busy mentally rewriting and editing my next jokes to stay in the moment. 

Whatever the reason: I messed up.

So instead of getting to sit back and enjoy the rest of the show, I got to sit there and stew in my self-loathing and disappointment.

This meant completely ignoring the fact that I’ve been doing this for a decade; that I have good shows more often than bad ones; that sometimes (sometimes!) it doesn’t have anything to do with me; that shit happens.

I’m writing this because it’s been a long time since I left a show feeling this way. And it’s important to document when this happens instead of only acknowledging the successes.

This is a reminder that it’s like laying down tile. One tile at a time. Some tiles are more interesting than others. Some are unnecessarily heavy. Some don’t line up perfectly. Sometimes it’s relaxing. Sometimes it’s tedious. You might question why you’re doing this at times; why you’re always struggling on your hands and knees. And that’s when you need to stand up and step back and recognize the beautiful pattern you’ve been creating.

NPR once said, "People get paid a LOT of money to write comedy who are not one-tenth as funny as [Christian A. Dumais]." And while that quote continues to bring me joy all these years later, I can attest that I do not get paid a LOT of money to write (or perform comedy).So, if you've enjoyed my work through my books, my comedy sets, my tweets, or even here on Substack, here's a place where you can show some support for what I do…