Moving for Comedy... by Nathan Macintosh
I moved to Toronto from Halifax to start doing stand up at 19. Up to that point, my whole life was The Maritimes. I got lost on the subway (I know) and the streetcar legit scared me. Didn't know how to get on it.
'You walk into the middle of the road?! But there are cars!'
'They stop!'
'That one didn't stop! Look at him! He just blew through it!'
'And now he's getting arrested! Just get on the streetcar!'
'No... NOOOOOOO!'
I wanted to go back. I would ride the streetcar (which I learned how to enter) and think 'Jesus Christ, what am I doing? Maybe Sobeys back home is hiring! Maybe I can volunteer for Christmas Daddies and the girl I had a crush on in high school who got married at 19 will be getting divorced at 21! I CAN go back!'
I bombed so hard at the Rivoli one night in my first four months of being in Toronto that I wanted to do heroin. If the host, instead of telling me 'That joke sucks, this joke sucks, you really tried to make THAT work?' (real thing that happened, which ALSO made me want to move home) had handed me heroin instead, I would’ve shot up right there and had a WAY better ride back to Lake Shore. I WANTED to go back, but I didn't. You can't just GO BACK when you've made the INSANE decision of moving to a new city to give your THOUGHTS that you scribbled on NAPKINS to STRANGERS.
'You're back?'
'Yeah, comedy is hard...'
'Yeah... you didn't know that at the time?'
Moving is hard, regardless of where or how it's done. Moving two streets over from where you live now sucks. We all think it's easy because we don't think we own anything.
'Well, hey. I'll just walk the boxes over! No big deal! I don't own anything anyway! What am I, a Rockefeller with a parade of grandfather clocks? I own A pair of pants and A shirt!'
Then you go to move and you're like, 'Dishes? I have DISHES?! And BOOKS?! What in the hell am I doing with all thi... I HAVE A COUCH! For Christ’s sake... I'm going to have to make 63 trips back and forth... WHY did I forget that I have a BED?! Screw it. I'll sleep on the dishes... DISHES!?'
But moving for comedy? It’s not only hard, it's completely stupid. I mean that with the utmost respect. It is completely stupid and you have to be kind of stupid and arrogant to do it. You are going to leave YOUR HOME, go to a NEW PLACE and MAKE A WAY FOR YOURSELF with THOUGHTS that you SCRIBBLE on napkins or into NOTES on your phone? You have to be stupid! Moving for comedy is like moving from where you live and HOPING that there is a place two streets over.
'Here's the keys to my old apartment. Hopefully the next one is there!'
When you move, you RARELY have a chance to just 'try out' a place. Not a lot of leases are on a 'try it out' basis.
'So hey, take it for a spin. If in a few months you don't like it, just bail in the middle of the night, no questions asked! You can leave a note blaming the neighbours or whatever. Write a Facebook post about how this apartment was hard to live in and how you won't miss a piece of it and just leave the keys!'
So moving to a city for COMEDY, where you SCRIBBLE thoughts on NAPKINS or into NOTES ON YOUR PHONE should be given some kind of respect as a lease/agreement/hand shake deal. I remember people 'trying out' Toronto. Somebody from Moose Jaw would show up going,
'I do stand up all over the cities named after animals, and now I'm giving Toronto a shot.'
'Cool. You moved here?'
'No. I'm here for 9 days and then I'll be back in 53 more.'
Comedy Now Special for The Comedy Network
Siiiiiick. Consider yourself forgotten, boot cut jeans. Toronto comedy scene does not (or at least didn't at the time) care about the part time people. About the people who show up every few months to perform on the best shows and go back to Wherever Falls. I would have LOVED to go back to Halifax and only travel to Toronto every once in awhile, but that's not how it worked. So I stayed, and things started to work out. I ended up winning some awards, was invited to perform at JFL and taped a half hour special for The Comedy Network. If I'd just 'gone back' I'd NEVER have worn a shiny plastic jacket in front of an orange spaceship type backdrop on TV... I joke now but was a huge deal to me at the time.
The goal when I was in high school was always New York. I told people when I was 16 that I'd be here one day. When I first got to NY, everyone told me that your first year or two would be awful. That was the word used by everyone who said this sentence. 'Awful.' And it is. Truly. Awful. NOBODY cares about you. I couldn't get on ANY of the good shows. I would try to get the roaches out of my apartment and they were like, 'We were here before you! YOU leave!'
I WANTED to leave! I would travel an hour to put my name in a bucket, bomb for three minutes in front of no one but comedians, and ride the subway back thinking,
'Jesus Christ, what am I doing? Maybe I can MANAGE a Sobeys back home! I will DONATE to Christmas Daddies! The girl I had a crush on in high school who was married at 19 DID get that divorce at 21! She's remarried now but she's INTO DIVORCE! I can go home!'
The beginning of stand up is kind of the best the FIRST time you do it, because everything is up and when you get jokes to work it's like, 'Wow! I might actually be doing this!' But when you have a few things going on in a city, then you move to another country and do the process AGAIN? Start AGAIN? Where NOTHING from the previous city transfers over? Dear Christ, she be a kick to the bag. And it was harder to stick it out in New York from Toronto than Halifax to Toronto, and there were days when I was REALLY considering moving back. Looking at apartments, just being full tilt depressed in the new city and scene. I would think to myself 'I have credits in Toronto. I'm on the good shows. I was making a tiny bit of money. What in the hell am I doing here? A cockroach is LITERALLY looking at me and INTENTLY listening!'
But I had to respect the decision that I made. There's a scene in Rocky 3 where Apollo Creed is sparring with Rocky, and he's hitting him and Rocky just isn't hitting back. Apollo snaps and yells, 'Damn, Rock, come on! What's the matter with you?!' Rocky says 'Tomorrow. We'll do it tomorrow' and Apollo walks up to him and yells, 'There is no tomorrow! There is no tomorrow!' I would watch this scene and trade 'tomorrow' for 'Toronto.'
'There is no Toronto!' I went there and when it was hard I still stuck it out. And I wasn't going to give NY a 'try.' These are not goddamn frisbees. They are not California rolls. They are tough places for ANYTHING, but when you move to them to say thoughts to STRANGERS that you scribbled on a NAPKIN... it's HARD and you have to at LEAST respect it and not just give it a few months.
On the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon
There are SOME people who when they move to a city for comedy SHOULD move back home, but only the people who don't take what they've done and are doing seriously. Again, moving to a new city to do comedy is STUPID, and if you're going to do that, AT LEAST respect it. Going down a steep hill on a bike to hit a ramp at the bottom to jump a highway is LESS STUPID than moving to a new city to do comedy. I'm not saying either that anyone NEEDS to move to a new city for comedy. You can do whatever you want right where you are. But if you’re GOING to move to a new city for comedy, TAKE IT SERIOUSLY and don't give up just because it's hard. Keep going and good things can happen.
Despite fighting roaches in my apartment and bombing HORRIFICALLY in front of comedians, I stayed in New York, and in the last two years I've performed on Conan on TBS, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. It's not working at Sobeys, dating your high school crush who was married at 19 and divorced at 21, remarried then divorced again, but it's something. WAIT... she's single again?!
