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Taping
Premium Blend on Comedy Central A few months ago I found out that I would be appearing on Premium Blend which airs on Comedy Central. I had previously appeared on Caroline's Comedy Hour, Comedy on the Road and Showtime's Comedy Club Network, but that was a whole lot of years ago. It had been a while since I'd done any TV and I was feeling a bit rusty. I remember that doing TV can be a very nerve wracking and yet exhilarating experience. I knew to trust the fact that some kind of extra reserve takes over when the stakes are real high. Now you could argue that one appearance on a cable TV show is not really high stakes. But it depends on how you look at it. I agree that one great appearance on Premium Blend won't necessarily launch me into the stratosphere of Comedy. What about the flip side? One disastrous appearance could end my career. There's a huge downside potential in something like this. And I'm not talking about bombing. I'm talking about having a complete meltdown in front of the cameras. Bombing is easy. Having a breakdown is hard. This is the kind of worry that goes on before such an appearance. How's that for a nice, clearly stated, obtainable goal - "Whatever you do, don't completely ruin your life." But somehow I kept telling myself that everything would be fine and was able to delay the worry for a good long time. I was able to put all the fear in the back of my mind. It's the only sane thing to do. At least that's what I was telling myself. But I knew it was back there lurking, just waiting for the big day. Every now and then I would indulge myself and think about all the horrible things that could go wrong. What if I forgot everything and completely froze? What if I became unable to enunciate the words and went on a complete verbal bumblefest? What if I just completely lost control? I could picture people sitting at home watching Comedy Central, and suddenly calling their friends, "hey, quick, turn on Comedy Central, there's a half naked guy rolling around on the ground, foaming at the mouth. He's getting bleeped left and right. It's funny as hell." That would definitely get my name out there. Would I ever be able to work a club again? Even if I had a good set, people would approach me after the show and say, "hey, you're the guy who foamed." At least I'd finally have a hook. I guess all that worrying serves a purpose. It's a way of signaling your entire being to keep an eye out. There is something very important on the horizon. Don't blow it. And then eventually, after you mull over the worst case scenario about a thousand times and eventually come to terms with it, you get to the point of "Who cares? Just go out there and do your stuff. Have fun. If it doesn't work out, you can always move to Australia." On the day of the taping (November 6th) I woke up early and felt just fine. There was a certain amount of calm that had kicked in. There was a rehearsal scheduled for 2:30 in the afternoon. That's when it really hit me that in the old fight or flight dilemma, flight was no longer an option. I had to go through with this thing. The show was being taped at a great little theater on the campus of UCLA. There were all kinds of technicians running around. They had an incredible breakfast and lunch buffet set up. They had wardrobe people that were there to press your shirt and jacket and ready them for showtime. There were pretty women with clipboards walking around and asking you if you needed anything. They really know how to make you feel important. The people in charge literally walk you through the steps of where you stand and how you enter the stage and approach the microphone. It's a good dry run that further convinces you that this is really going to happen. So at that point, you really get to experience how it will feel to do your spot. They also have the outline of your set loaded into the teleprompter. Mine looked like
this: It was strange to see one of my little set lists that's usually written on an index card suddenly projected onto this state of the art teleprompter that was 30 rows back under a bank of cameras. I got through the rehearsal without any problems - no tripping, no foaming. But then I decided to drive back home and spend about an hour by myself just contemplating the night and getting in some last minute, hard core pacing. This also gave me a chance to go over some minor segue adjustments. Then it was back down to the theater by 6:30 to get makeup. Now I almost hesitate to admit this but forget about psychotherapy or Paxil or self help books, if you really want to feel better about yourself, makeup does the trick. I wish I could wear it everyday. But I still had about three hours to kill before I went on. There were four shows being taped that night. And after the first two shows they bring in a new audience. I was slotted for third person on the third show. Everyone seemed to do well on the first two shows and I noticed that it was kind of a young crowd. I used to do just fine in front of young crowds but the older I get, the further away they get. These were mostly college kids but they were a good, lively bunch. I'm glad I didn't see them load in the audience for the show that I was on. I was a little worried about the fact that it was mostly college kids. My audience, as I later found out, was mostly high school kids. Sometimes I guess it's tough to get a studio audience to come out and see a live taping out in LA. They tape shows all over the place out here. So it's not that big of a deal. As a result, sometimes you end up with an audience of bussed in high school kids. I'm really glad I didn't know that before I went on. It would have caused undue worry. I'm starting to get a little old for the college crowd. But high school kids are a couple of Grand Canyons away on the "hey, you can relate to this, huh" scale. Standing backstage about 10 minutes before going on is a whole other experience entirely. All that worrying that I had done in the previous two or three months came rushing back and this time it was just a tad more intense. It was in high gear. And there were some moments that were absolutely frightening. But I knew that that was just part of the deal and to just trust the fact that I'd be fine. Next thing I know the comic that's on before me, is onstage. Her name is Tig. She's kind of a low-key cerebral act and she's getting good laughs all the way through. The audience seems good. She wraps up and a stage manager comes over to me and tells me to go stand over there on the spot marked X and wait. The host, Harlan Williams, banters back and forth with the crowd a little. He pauses. And then I know, here we go. I take four deep breaths as he is going into my intro. He says my name and the sliding stage door opens. I don't remember too much about walking to the microphone. But I do remember thinking, "great, this is almost over - finally. Just relax and enjoy it." I step up to the microphone. I see my little set list glowing on the teleprompter and I can see all these young faces in the crowd. How strange this whole thing is. My first bit is about MTV. The setup to the bit is about how I don't really need MTV anymore because I'm a little older now. They boo. It was a mocking kind of boo but it was a full-blown boo nonetheless. And oddly enough, it kind of made me relax. And I knew that I had an anti Brittney Spears joke to follow it up. I knew that they would see my point once they heard that. The Brittney joke got an applause break. So I'm a minute in, and I got boo, laugh, applause. Now things settled down a bit and from there on out I just plowed through my material while floating on some kind of mixture of fear, bewilderment and some kind of weird surreal calm. It felt like it wasn't even me that was out there. A million thoughts are running through my head but they're all focused on the task at hand. Every now and then one of those weird stray thoughts would pop in. "Hey, wouldn't it be strange to just stop talking and walk off?" "What are you doing here! Get Out!" Overall, though, I was feeling good. I wasn't killing. But I was doing just fine. There were a couple lines that didn't quite connect but I remember thinking "don't worry, this might be one of those shows where they fix it in the final edit." I later found out, it is one of those shows. For the most part, the crowd hung with me the entire time. I got all the segues right and I even threw in a line that I'd only ever done once before. It got a good laugh. Before I knew it, I was done. The people backstage told me it went well and not to worry about any lulls that they would fix them in postproduction. That's great. They can turn high school kids into my kind of crowd with a few little edits. So after all that, I came away very happy with the results and also wanting to do something like it again real soon. And also, it makes me rethink my view of high school kids. I'm a full generation away from where they are and they really stayed with me the entire time. I owe them one. The show will air
on Comedy Central sometime in January. close this window to return to the Tom Ryan writing page SHECKY!
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