jeff chern

This book is not just a book about my before-during-and-after standup comedy career. Comedy was just the vehicle. It's about career choices. Life choices. About who believes in you and who doesn’t. About how surprised you are at who does and who doesn’t! It’s about decisions. Whose advice do you take? Some tell you if you believe in yourself keep doing what you’re doing and don’t change. Others tell you if you don’t change you’ll fail. In the end can you live with the results? Let’s hope so!

I never threw up before a show. Maybe I should have. Maybe I should have been more nervous. Standup comedy can be funny on stage. Off stage it’s a serious business. In the beginning every new comedian has to be the performer, writer, manager, and marketing team. Every joke has to get scrutinized. Is it funny? Is it in the right sequence in the act? Does the verbiage give it the proper rhythm? And of course, is it right for the audience?

It’s one thing to get laughs in your living room or at the lunch table in school. But how about on stage, in the lights, looking through the smoke at 100 strangers who don’t know you and quite possibly are waiting for the next act? Is comedy fun? Yeah. When it works.

When it doesn’t work? If you’re lucky you’ll get heckled and you have a chance for some snappy come-backs.

That’s if you’re lucky. If you’re not lucky, you’re bombing and no one heckles you and all you can hear are crickets.  And you can’t talk to them!

Why did I write this book? I’ll be honest. My ex pushed me into writing this. We needed the money.

“Who wants to hear about me? And what do I write about?”

“You’re a good writer. Write about you and your career.”

At first it was work. Like an English theme in school. Then I got into it. I didn’t have to go to a boring library and look things up. It was about me. I already knew this! I was just telling a story. And in the story I actually did and said some pretty funny things. And I wrote sentence fragments because I make the rules. And in the end? In the end I wrote a funny, insightful, entertainingly (my own word) interesting book that should make you laugh and cry. At least I did.

And my current wife?

“Why did you write a book about you? Nobody cares about you. Write a mystery!”

I can’t win.