Standing Still... by William Bradbury

I seem to be approaching stand-up like a crab. I think I have the potential to cut through something, but nothing that’s too hard. And I’ve taken just about the most sideways approach you could imagine.

I started in Tokyo and performed one liners around Asia. And there is something humorous about doing wordplay jokes to an audience of non-native speakers. It could really foster self-delusion. It’s not that the jokes aren’t good, it’s there’s too much of a language barrier.

After 3 years of that, I decided to move to Canada. I thought Toronto was best for stage time, even though I was warned against it by a Vancouver based comic who told me that in Toronto it’s all cliquey and mostly alt-comedy, whereas in Vancouver the comics respect the art of joke writing more. I haven’t been to Vancouver yet. But I have noticed comedians in Toronto tend to go for an ‘authentic this is me as myself talking to you guys’ type vibe, which has it's advantages. It’s just different to my approach.

I prefer to adopt a persona. Basically, I take all the negative parts of my personality – anti-social, introverted, negative - and then heighten them all to make my 'character.' In my more depressed moments I feel like a method actor gone mad. And other times I wonder if it’s just indulgent and I should maybe join a book club or start learning some social skills instead of telling jokes that strangers don’t really seem to like all that much most of the time.

William Bradbury performing in Shimokitazawa, Tokyo

It was a tough adjustment to go from being one of the top 5 comedians in Tokyo – yeah, probably about the 5th out of five - to just an open micer in Toronto. There’s this bad combination of low self-esteem mixed with entitlement which is exacerbated by having had some minor successes in a different scene. The voice in my head basically says, ‘I suck at comedy and I hate myself, but I’m better than most people and I should be booked on every show.’ 

Still, at first, I felt like things were going pretty well. I performed at Yuk Yuks a bunch of times and it looked like I might have a chance of auditioning there. But then, that didn’t materialize. And then months went by where all I did were open mics. It’s tough to power through that. Especially in Toronto where it’s hard to even ascertain what goals there are to reach. I don’t even have goals. I lie to myself and tell myself I actually don’t want any success because it’s too uncomfortable to accept the reality that I don’t have any right now. Just tell yourself you don't actually want what you want, so you don't have to feel bad about not having it – that's how I maintain myself. Never mind that this strategy probably stops me for going directly for what I want. It’s soothing in a negative way, like staying in and listening to Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory for a few hours.

In the past I remember this glow after certain shows where people came up to me and I had this almost spiritual type feeling of thinking that I’d found my calling. But now it’s hard not to look at that as a kind of ridiculous delusion. Or am I just allowing myself to be dragged into the sith like darkness of the open mic scene, which is just a negative cloak as untrue to reality as someone with a Jesus Christ complex. As usual, it's probably somewhere in the middle. I'm never as good as I feel at my best or as bad as at my worst. Yet Toronto has put me at my lowest for a sustained period of time now.

The advantage I had in Tokyo was I had a job which gave me a lot of paid vacation. Rarely going more than a week without getting in front of an actual audience. Since moving to Toronto, I now have much less time to write cos I have to work more hours not only to payback the money I lost moving here, but also to afford the rent and try to save money to live. For someone who’s only compliment ever is ‘you’re a good joke writer’, it made me panic a bit. I know that the only reason I was able to get any laughs was because I tortured myself in front of a notebook a little bit more than some other people would be willing to. And this is where all the anti-social behavior worked to my advantage. Having no real relationship and no hobbies opened up a calendar where I could write all the time. Yet there's a ridiculousness to someone as sullen and intense as me desperately trying to save his own life by of all things, writing silly wordplay jokes. It’s totally stupid. Well, it’s comedy.

I try to stop myself giving up by reading books on standup and realizing that plenty of comics went through hard times for longer and powered through to the other side. But when reading these stories from different times in different cities, it’s hard not to think that it just doesn’t really apply to me. One day I will tell myself to just power on and realize nothing in life is easy. Another day, I will be so overwhelmed with dread at having to stand in front of people who probably hate my act and go through more of the same. What about changing the act? Giving in to what I imagine other people would prefer – talking about my life and being more ‘real.’ I’m too stubborn to do that.

So I find myself at this crossroad. I think about what the next step is – touring, being a middle, that doesn’t sound appealing either. I’ve probably gotten worse as a comic since I moved to Toronto. My confidence is pretty shot. At one point I was so convinced I had no talent what so ever it took reaching out to some people I’d known in Tokyo just as a reminder that I was valued at all.

Yet even at it's worst, I'm attracted to stand up. There's a drama to it that other mediums just don’t have. When you write an essay or a story or a novel, you do it in frustrated silence, and then you send it out and often wait and don’t get a reply. There’s no pop. There’s no kick. There’s no orgasmic moment. At least until there is, and when it hits it lasts longer. But comedy you get a mini thrill all the time. 

However, as a result of the high coming more quickly with stand up, it lasts for less time. And it’s this side of comedy that makes me think it’ll always be this chase. There never is a moment where you can stop and be like, ‘that’s it, it’s done.’ But then the fact it has these dramatic highs and lows that you can viscerally feel is what make it more exciting a life than that of a writer. 

Now at 30 with little lasting success in any domain, I wonder if I have the temperament for 'making it' at anything. They aren’t really offering creative work for people who just want to sulk and maybe write about that misery now and again when the mood strikes. Or maybe they are. And perhaps as a 3.5 years open micer I have found my calling after all.

William Bradbury