Laugh til it Hurts... by Spencer Streichert

I’m a stand-up comedian, but if you live outside of Calgary, you have zero idea who I am. I’m not sure if that matters though (as I’ll explain) but with a profession based on exposure, it’s why I don’t work the road a lot. I’ve got a fan base, albeit a small local one, but large enough that I draw a crowd. I’ve released two albums in my four year career and to my surprise people have listened. The first was nominated for a Canadian Comedy Award and the past two years in a row I’ve been named as a finalist in Best of Calgary for Best Local Comedian, a city-wide publicly voted award. People even recognize me on the street (More often than I would have ever imagined), and yet I don’t really see myself as just a comic.

I like to call myself an artist, not just because I obviously sniff my own farts (see above), but because I do more than tell cringey stories about my own shortcomings on stage. I'm an award winning actor. I write and produce independent films. I'm constantly in search of new ways to create and express myself; which is why I got into comedy in the first place. To try something new.

I never thought stand-up was something I was going to pursue as a career. Sure, I have always been the funny guy in my group of friends, but it was primarily a defense mechanism. If it looked like people were going to start “taking the piss out of me,” I’d beat them too it. I was the typical class clown who had to constantly make everything funny, usually at my own expense. You can’t roast me harder than I can roast myself, because BOTH of your parents love you!

I stepped on stage for the first time on January 14th, 2015 at Oak Tree Tavern in Calgary when Simon King was headlining and Chris Gordon was hosting. I was already acting and wanted to perform more, but acting classes cost money. I didn’t know if standup was going to be for me, but I spent four months before I got on stage perfecting my tight five, writing and rewriting because even if I only did this once, I was going to give it my all! I got two minutes in, forgot my set, and I walked off stage... but I was hooked! I started going hard.

After four months, I produced a show for an audience of ninety in a cafe that seats only thirty. The place was PACKED. Two months later I organized and “headlined” my first independent show, which lead to 3 more, which paid my rent for the entire summer. Katie Westman took me on my first road gigs around Alberta. I played an awful music festival where I almost got my ass kicked by drunk hillbillies who hated my act. I was getting weird gigs at house parties where I’d do jokes in between bands. I started running Handcuff Comedy with Dale Ward. I was growing a really niche indie/alt crowd following. This was my first year in comedy, and I was actually making money doing it.

As I gained momentum I began to take a completely different approach to comedy. Of course I was still an open mic’er and I was doing pro/am nights at clubs like everyone else, but, as an artist, I wanted to explore a unique path. (Because why would I want to do something the normal way?). I was inspired by how many of the bands I was working with really owned their careers. They weren’t waiting for someone to tell them they were ready, they just did things on their own. They recorded and released early work to grow an audience. They booked their own gigs and created their own shows working directly with the venues. They didn’t give a fuck if people told them they couldn’t do something, they just did it. I wanted to do that… so I did.

I would be lying if I said that this path was an easy one; in fact, I know I probably damaged my early career with my "don't give a fuck" attitude. Headliners I talked to would disregard me as a joke. One headliner in particular, who I grew up watching on TV, once told me: “I would ruin opportunities for REAL comedians.” This comment stood out to me because all I could think was “Do I really want to play a house party for 70 drunk college kids for free beer/pizza and $30?”. Dude was a 40-something headliner and yet he felt he needed to ream out a 19-year-old at an open mic. I am 100% sure this person wasn’t threatened and was just trying to offer me advice that I maybe should have taken, but all this did was piss me off and fuelled me to work harder. Sure I was a punk, but I was a punk with gumption, dammit!

After a year I started getting regular club spots. I started getting more gigs outside of the city. I kept doing my weird one-off indie shows that I would promote for a month to make rent. I had made my friends in the scene, and saw some incredible people coming up at the same time as me who inspired me to push my career further. I felt like I could kill it anywhere! (Okay, I was a year in, “Killing it”).

Then I got fired from my day job. Fuck.

I’ll be honest, not a great employee, but my former job was mind numbingly easy! As anyone who works in retail knows, if I didn’t have to deal with the mouth-breathing customers it would be perfect. Now I was 20 years-old, job-less, and with a “solid” 20 minutes of material. An excellent time to record my first album!

I picked a date. The day before my 21st birthday (So I could guilt people into coming). I picked Verns as a venue because I saw Simon King film a special there in 2015. I stacked the lineup with my favorite comics in the city (Shout out to Bobby Warner, Scoot Laird, Matt Foster, Jake Poirier, Sam Walker and Kelsey Funk). Dale Ward emceed this bad boy and I used my film/radio connections to get the audio/video setup. I recorded it in front of a packed crowd, and after 2 months of editing, I released Winning by Default on December 9th, 2016. Because of it, I got to do some cool things.

With Clare McConnell and Andrew Phung at the 2018 Canadian Comedy Awards

I got to call into Humble & Fred on Sirius XM to promote the album ( side note, they asked me what my website was and I panicked and told them I had one. I’m sure someone owns the domain to www.spencerstreichert.com). I got to do some guest spots on Brad Williams show at the Laugh Shop. I got to do numerous podcasts and get my name out there to even more people! Then in 2018 I got a Canadian Comedy Award nomination for Best Album. People who I grew up idolizing were suddenly people I was doing shows with and who I was up for awards against.

In 2018 I moved to Toronto. I decided to go deep with everything, and I went hard. Literally within hours of getting off of the plane I got Scoot Laird to come with me to an open mic at Hawaii Bar. I'm starting from scratch, so why not REALLY attack this. I thought I’d have what it takes to start over. I was ready to hustle! Then I was named as a nominee for Best Local Comedian back in Calgary, and the hustle for comedy stopped.

I hated trying out new material. I hated doing open mics. I hated myself. So I temporarily shifted my focus to my other passions. I did a few plays and films, but without the comedy scene and being around those people all of the time I became more and more dissatisfied with my experience. Suddenly I lost this outlet. So after 11 months I came back to Calgary with a new outlook and a go-get em attitude!

So lets review the past six months. I get back to Calgary. I'm doing my regular spots again. I get the Best of Calgary nomination again. I do a ton of podcasts. I book some road gigs. I book some corporate. I decide to record and release another album. I PACKED The Laugh Shop on a Thursday (actually pretty insane that I pulled this off), and headline my first major club for the recording. I even went on Calgary’s Funny 1060 Am to promote the event. I hosted Comedy Monday Night for the first time on April Fools Day. I’m suddenly at shows where people are specifically coming to see me, and really random things are happening because of this. Before I did a show in late January I was having a smoke and a group of dudes walk up and start talking to me, and the entire time I think; “The fuck do I know these guys from?”. Turns out I didn’t. They just liked my shit and knew I was on the show. COOL! Random people are sliding into my DM’s after shows, listening to my album or after hearing me on a podcast. I’m hanging out with friends a few weeks ago and as we’re going into a restaurant a random dude coming out yells “YO, SPENCER!”. To think this all happened because I got fired from my day job, moved across the country twice, and really put myself out there. Holy fuck. Is it going to work out?

Nope.

Here's what I didn’t expect, and what no one tells you when you start to get recognized for your art: people can’t separate your stage persona from who you really are. People expect you to be always on and always willing to behave how you do on stage. People think that they know who you are because of what they see on stage. People think they know your private life because of social media and because you’ve blurred the lines in your art. People expect a lot from you, and fair enough, it can just be a bit much. Couple that with the fact that my act is largely story-based comedy exaggerated for comedic effect and my persona is an amplified mix of my least favorite qualities about myself, and suddenly you have a very, very dark situation.

You see, I have several, SEVERAL mental health issues (Ha! a comedian that's sad, go figure). Depression, night terrors, massive intimacy and abandonment issues, and I suffer from debilitating anxiety that has worsened in the past few months. The more my name gets out there, the more likely I am to hurt someone with my words. I’m not even an edgelord comedian anymore and have worked very hard to overcome that image. I tell stories about my own faults and about things that happened to me, but I am playing a character! I’m being honest with said character, but the Spencer on stage isn’t nearly as sensitive or empathetic as the Spencer off stage.

Listening back to my first album, I realized that it wasn’t jokes, it was a cry for help. I have talked about the darkest things that have happened to me on stage for laughs. I always thought that was what I wanted to do, really get people to know me. Really just shoot my thoughts out of my mouth with the energy of a xenomorph breaking through my chest cavity. Why not open up to a room full of strangers? What could possibly go wrong? What I didn’t realize was how people would react to my jokes and feel the need to come up to me after a show (or worse yet on the street) and tell them back to me, or how it would affect my relationships with those close to me. You mean talking about my sex life on stage would have emotional repercussions? You mean a bunch of strangers quoting my jokes about how I was molested back to me would be bad for my mental health? Who knew?

It culminated the week before my latest album Loser by Choice was released, and suddenly I couldn't sleep for 4 days. I was having massive panic attacks and hyper-analysing every interaction with those around me, and I became what I would say is the nearest to insane without breaking the threshold. I shut myself off and while everything in my life was looking like I should be happy, I was a mess. I didn’t care, I didn’t want my face out there. I didn’t want to pretend to enjoy any attention. I finally broke down and had a friend drive me to the psych ward because I hated how I felt. To which he, in turn, signed me up with a therapist and talked with me. Not talked, listened. (We gotta do more of this as a society people)

I want to be clear. I appreciate my fan base for everything they have done for me. Really. I’m not massively well known either so the support has been fucking amazing. But I know that this isn’t good for me.

Amanda Brooke Perrin wrote about how she took a year off from stand-up, and the entire time I read her article I found myself considering, what if? After that weekend, the answer is clear.

I’m done.

I don’t want to leave stand-up as a bitter individual and I really hope that everyone reading this understands why. For the past four years, this has been my life. It’s really the longest relationship I have ever had and because of it I have been blessed with some truly incredible opportunities. I have met so many people who have inspired me and created memories with them that I cherish. I’ve been lucky to call Comedy Monday Night my home these past few years and a place where I always felt the most comfortable. I got to record two albums by the age of twenty-three. I’ve had a wild ride with this unconventional approach and I feel like if there is any advice I can bestow upon my fellow comedians, its to take control of your own career. Don’t wait for the showcases or for someone to hire you, go out and showcase yourself and make your own work! All you need is a microphone and an audience, so bring both and keep your profit!

That being said, I can’t do it anymore. I can’t force myself to do something that brings me no joy anymore because I feel stuck. I don’t want people to perceive me as the person I was on stage. I don’t want the attention that I thought I would like, but didn’t. I don’t want to feel obligated to constantly be engaging in social media. I don’t want my personal life to be an open book for the world to read. I don’t want to belittle my own experiences and make light of things that hurt me. I don’t want to look at every interaction that I have with people through the eyes of potentially writing material about it. I don’t want to feel guilty about choosing friends over a show. I don’t want to use “theatre as therapy” as my university acting teacher would say.

I don’t want to be sad.

I want to act in theatre. I want to make films. I want to write for other people. I want a steady job that allows me to be even remotely creative. I want to wake up in the morning and smile because it’s morning and that's beautiful. I want to volunteer at a homeless shelter and help make people's lives better. I want to have evenings off so I can experience life with those closest to me. I want to fall in love. I want to be me. I want to be happy. I want my life back.

A few weeks ago I started casually seeing someone, and this person really does live their best life. This is someone with an equally rocky past, but the difference is, they have such a positive outlook on life and have used their experience to grow and become more empathetic. Here’s how I know things are rough for me. After this woman opened up to me, my response was, “Wow maybe you are damaged enough to date me.” Who says that? She laughed it off, but I started to think about how that's not who I want to be.

Someone who shares similar life experience came out of it a better person who is able to keep their life private and live for every moment. Every time I would tell her what I thought was a funny story, I realized that those are things that I should be talking to a therapist about. Yet, this beautiful soul listened to me and didn’t judge. She saw through what I was putting up. During my anxiety fuelled rampage I was a complete ass to this girl, and yet she understands me. When I told her I want to just be friends for a while while I deal with this massive life change, she was nothing but supportive and understanding. She wants to be here for me, and she makes me want to be a better person. Maybe something will happen between us down the line, but for now I need to become me again. I need to deal with the fact that I need a change.

So, I’m really actually done. Completely done. I have four gigs booked that I am going to complete, and then I never want to step on stage to tell jokes again. I am excited to be able to really enjoy my life again. I am excited to separate my art from myself. I am excited to see where life takes me and where I will be in a few years. I am excited to be able to work with theatre and film professionals and not be considered “a stand-up who acts.” I’m excited to have the attention from my comedy career die down. I'm excited to build that attention up doing something I really love. I’m excited to delete social media. I’m excited to live.

My name is Spencer Streichert, enjoy the rest of the show.

Spencer Streichert - @spencerstreichert