Working Comic: Academic Career. – by Shawn Carter.

ccdoI always knew that I’d never be a doctor or lawyer.  Even as a child I knew my options were limited when it came to what profession I may end up working as an adult.  My attention span is rather short.  I find myself daydreaming far too often, and school was always boring.  When I was in the second grade I was such a bad student that my teacher thought I must have a learning disability.  As a result of her concern, I took my first trip to Boston.  I suppose most people probably have a nicer story.  Maybe your first visit to Boston was to watch the Red Sox play or perhaps it was to take a historic tour and learn about one of the oldest cities in America.  My first trip to Boston was so that I could have my I.Q tested.  It wasn’t all that bad and in fact when I went back to school they put me in the “smarter” classes due to the test results.  That was a mistake though because I was not smart or at least not the type of smart they would prefer.  I wouldn’t pay attention in class, I wouldn’t do my homework.  I would do well on tests but my grades were always low because I didn’t do the required work at home.

I really couldn’t pay attention in class.  I mean I would try and try but at some point my mind would just wonder off and start creating an entire story in my head to save me from the tedious ramblings of my ultra repetitive, monotonous, redundant teachers.  When I was in high school I used to sleep through math.  One of the great injustices I can recall from my early life was scoring a 100% on a test, but the teacher claimed that I must have cheated because I didn’t show the work.  I didn’t cheat and I didn’t know any of the material that he taught that month, but everything on the test could be solved with logic.  I just used logic.  When everything was said and done I got a ZERO on the test because he didn’t believe me.  This teacher didn’t even claim to have seen me cheat nor did he claim that anyone told him I cheated.  He just determined in his own head that I couldn’t have gotten a perfect score on a test after spending the entire semester sleeping through his drivel.

Even if I was a better student my family couldn’t really afford to send me to college.  I did a couple of years at community college trying to figure things out.  Then I quit and I just started working.  I did retail, security, landscaping and even painted cars.  I thought that becoming a comedian would be my one chance to make a decent living.

Little did I know that being a stand up comedian wasn’t a way to escape poverty, it was a way to achieve poverty.

Ohhhhh…. It’s not all that bad.  I just feel bad for myself for getting towed this week.

Honestly it’s I’m not getting rich from comedy or even making as much money as I did painting cars, but it’s something that I enjoy doing.  I enjoy making people laugh, and now I get paid for it.  After years of feeling like I wasn’t built for this world I’m finally seeing that I belong in it.  I just belong in a different place than most people.

Monday – I hosted the show at Sally O’Briens.  It was busy and fun and we got the whole thing done by 9:30.  A damn near perfect night.

Tuesday – I handed hosting duties at Stadium in Quincy off to Jere Pilapil because he’s the best and I had other things to do.  What other things?  Well, I took my girlfriend out to a fancy expensive dinner where all of the food was biodynamically grown or something like that.  Anyway,  it was tasty but so is wendy’s ya know.  But I’m glad that she liked it.

Wednesday – Where the fuck is my car???  That was the first thought I had as I walked out of my girlfriend’s apartment in the morning.  The police officer on the street told me it had been towed.  He also told me that he had knocked on the door and all the dogs were barking and they thought if we were home we would have woken up at that point.  I stopped short of telling him how much we drank the night before.

As I look down the street I notice Phoebe’s car is gone as well.  Great, both our cars have been towed to different lots.  Guess this will be the day that I use that one free ride from Uber.  I spent $160 that day before getting breakfast.

Then that night I went to Tavern at the End of the World and Maggy’s Lounge and talked about my shitty day.

Thursday – I took a night off.  Why not.

Friday – I hosted a fantastic show at Kowloon in Saugus.  Steve Bjork was the feature and Don Gavin was the headliner.

Saturday – Two more shows at Kowloon.  Don Gavin was killing so hard I thought people were going to start falling out of their chairs.  It was really something special to see.

Sunday – Nothing.. Relaxed… Watched a bunch of “Orange is the New Black”.

Well, that’s it for this week.  I know it was a little long.  Hope to see ya around.

 



UnScene Comedy is the best place to find essays, articles, and media from some of the top Boston comedians.


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *