A Brief History of Comedy

When I tell my plan to people, a lot of them are surprised, not sure of where this came from. So a brief history of my interest:


- The first stand-up I heard was Bill Cosby, which my dad played on tapes in his car on what were then long car rides (maybe half an hour...hey, I was 5).

- I thought of my first joke (see earlier post) sometime in high school, and then started jotting down ideas as they came to me.

- My first and only stand-up performance was at the talent show for Governor's School as a rising senior in high school. It was pretty well received, a receptive and laughing audience. I used some puns there, some relationship jokes, some nerd jokes, even poked fun at an audience member (with his permission).

- In response to the question "What would you do if you did not go to college" for Penn State (which I later rescinded. Wooo Princeton), I answered that I would be a comedian. Little did I know.

- I applied for this award and won it. Now I have the whole summer ahead of me.

I think what attracts me to comedy is that it looks like people have such a good time doing it. What better hobby then to make people laugh? I do it all the time anyway, with my snide comments and my "Physics, more like Phy-sucks, am I right?" So, it's pretty much in my nature.

My First Joke

I give you this one for free, since it's a) really old and b) a pun, which as hilarious as they are, should never be used on stage.


I went to the doctor because my feet hurt. He told me to read Chicken Soup for the Sole.

First Performance!

Sunday, June 28th, 6pm at Gotham Comedy Club in NYC.

I'll be performing a 5 minute set along with my other comedy school classmates.

Other Summerly Goals

I don't know exactly how long comedy takes, but I know I won't be able to sit at home and write all day. So I have some other plans for the summer:

• Explore DC
• Learn some basic piano skills
• Beat Ocarina of Time and all of the side quests
• Arrange a song for the PUB
• Blog about my summer (how meta?)

I think that's all I've figured out. I'm sure more will arise and some of these will fail.

Comedy Class

The comedy class I'll be taking is at the American Comedy Institute. I'll be commuting between NYC and my summer house in DC during June, culminating with my performance at the end of June. I first saw this as a newspaper clipping that my mom left on bed as she does. I kept it in the back of my head and decided it would be a nice start. I have 4 group classes and two individual writing sessions. Should be swell.

Also, go here for an old but pretty good NPR story about the class.

What's the Deal?

I am the recipient of a Martin A. Dale '53 award, which gives funding to sophomores to pursue atypical summer paths. I'm following in the footsteps of my brother Sam '10 who spent last summer living on intentional communities. So what am I doing?
I'll be learning, writing, and performing stand-up comedy. It's always looked like fun, and the one attempt I made at it during the PGSS '06 talent show was fairly successful. So I'll be taking a comedy class in NYC (see next post) and then living in DC, writing during the day and performing during the night.
I'll try to keep this blog updated with my performance times/places so you can check them out and also include general updates of the summer. Hopefully I'll be posting daily (or more!) once summer gets into full gear.

Welcome!

Thanks for checking out my blog!