Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life<\/a>".<\/p>\nAlthough not the best-written book, and despite his self-deprecation, Steve was seemingly shtupping every desirable woman extant, the insight into careers was utterly fascinating.<\/p>\n
His motivation was his father.\u00c2\u00a0 Steve needed to prove himself to his distant dad.\u00c2\u00a0 He needed something to call his own.\u00c2\u00a0 And it took him two decades to achieve this.<\/p>\n
Yes, most people believe the first appearance on late night TV breaks you.\u00c2\u00a0 But that’s not the case.\u00c2\u00a0 Steve was eventually demoted from Johnny, only appearing with guest hosts until a breakout review from a small club appearance in Florida, whereupon he got another chance with the main man (because a friend at the show was championing him, without allies, you’re nowhere.)<\/p>\n
Steve’s story is "Outliers" in action.\u00c2\u00a0 Steve put in his 10,000 hours at Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm.\u00c2\u00a0 He got to experiment, he got to be bad.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s one of the problems with the insta-stars of today, they’ve got no chance to be bad.\u00c2\u00a0 So they’re surrounded by production live, they sing to hard drive, when what we’re really looking for is some element of humanity, of connection, of control. I’ve never seen anyone put down a heckler as well as Paul McCartney did at Amoeba.\u00c2\u00a0 He knew exactly when to bite back, how to silence the intruder and keep the audience on his side.\u00c2\u00a0 You learn this via thousands of appearances.<\/p>\n
One night the audience is rapturous.<\/p>\n
The next night there’s silence.<\/p>\n
Is it you?\u00c2\u00a0 Do you need to adjust the act?<\/p>\n
Most acts today are finalized before they go on the road.\u00c2\u00a0 They can’t be fixed, they can’t be changed in light of human response. And without that response, there is no show.<\/p>\n
After Knott’s, Steve wrote for television.\u00c2\u00a0 Until he realized if he didn’t quit right away, didn’t give his standup a chance, his opportunity for success would evaporate.<\/p>\n
So Steve quit, and went on the road.\u00c2\u00a0 And lost money.\u00c2\u00a0 He got no traction as an opening act so he decided to headline.\u00c2\u00a0 Where he made even less money, even though the people were there to see him alone.<\/p>\n
But then there was an accident.<\/p>\n
That’s how creativity works.\u00c2\u00a0 Oftentimes not premeditated, you do something in a situation that insures your success.<\/p>\n
He was performing in a room with no stage exit.\u00c2\u00a0 He was done, but the audience wouldn’t leave.\u00c2\u00a0 When he escaped through the side door, they followed him.<\/p>\n
Steve became famous for this, leading his audience out on adventures.\u00c2\u00a0 It wasn’t planned in advance, it was a serendipitous moment on the road.<\/p>\n
But that doesn’t mean Steve didn’t plan, didn’t analyze his act.<\/p>\n
We hear today people will do anything to make it.\u00c2\u00a0 But what exactly is that anything?\u00c2\u00a0 Change your name, sleep with the director, sell out to corporations?\u00c2\u00a0 In other words, are you willing to work on your creativity, your act, constantly refining and reinventing it until the audience, after tons of your own hard work, responds?<\/p>\n
Steve decided to invent a new kind of comedy.\u00c2\u00a0 Where the punch lines were not defined.<\/p>\n
Imagine this.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like a band successfully playing covers and then starting over playing music no one has ever heard before, that most people don’t like.<\/p>\n
But by being so different, you’re unique, you’re unchallenged by competitors, you can pave your own way.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re willing to believe in yourself, if you’re willing to put in the effort.<\/p>\n
Speak with a coder.\u00c2\u00a0 He doesn’t sit down and write iTunes or iOS 4 the first time out.\u00c2\u00a0 He learns the language he pays his dues, he makes his mistakes…and the best software triumphs.\u00c2\u00a0 Why would fresh-faced beauties believe that just by showing up they can make it in the entertainment world.\u00c2\u00a0 Huh?<\/p>\n
Eventually Steve got sick of his own act.\u00c2\u00a0 It became stale.\u00c2\u00a0 He had to move on.\u00c2\u00a0 In other words, Chris Isaak never wrote another "Wicked Game", nothing like it.\u00c2\u00a0 Are you willing to try something new, or do you just want to repeat what you’ve done before?<\/p>\n
Steve junked standup and went into movies.\u00c2\u00a0 He loved the collaboration after working alone.\u00c2\u00a0 He wrote a play.\u00c2\u00a0 And never looked back at where he came from until decades later, when he wrote this book.<\/p>\n
People are complicated.\u00c2\u00a0 Our motivations are multifarious.\u00c2\u00a0 Success is elusive.\u00c2\u00a0 You can try, but you’re gonna hit a lot of blind alleys.\u00c2\u00a0 Your one big break will probably be cumulative, a result of years of hard work that pay off in that one performance that puts you over, years after you thought you should make it, after multiple late night soliloquies wherein you decided to give up.<\/p>\n
But those who last soldier on.\u00c2\u00a0 They know that it’s not only hard work, but a constant exploration of their act, a constant reevaluation, a constant seeking for personal satisfaction that ends up in career fulfillment.<\/p>\n
P.S.\u00c2\u00a0 They say I’ll get a replacement Kindle tomorrow.\u00c2\u00a0 On to the next book!<\/p>\n
\nBorn Standing Up: A Comic’s Life<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My Kindle broke. I was searching on a word and I noticed the 5-way switch felt funny, turned out it was broken…\u00c2\u00a0 But I’d already finished my book, Steve Martin’s "Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life". Although not the best-written book, and despite his self-deprecation, Steve was seemingly shtupping every desirable woman extant, the insight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-R3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3289"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3292,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3289\/revisions\/3292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}