Stress Test

During our bookclub meeting tonight, one of the guys told a story about a stressful work situation. In the story, one of the leaders he works with, referring to the stressful situation, said, “I can’t wait to read the book on this in 10 years.”

Now, I don't know if this is what he meant, but I think that’s great advice for deciding whether or not to worry about something. If something isn’t worthy of having a book written about it, it’s not worth stressing about. Books take time to write. They have to be researched, edited, proofread. They have to be interesting enough that an agent will submit it to a publisher, and have a strong enough hook that a publisher buys it. No one’s gonna write a book about you losing your wallet or getting fired.

But the opioid epidemic? Or the COVID vaccine? (Both bookclub books, btw!)

Along the same line of thought…

Jaron Lanier talks about creating content that take 100 times longer to create than it does to consume. A blockbuster movie takes months or years to create and 110 minutes to consume. That passes the Jaron test. A novel, say about an ambitious NYC attorney who has to spend the holidays with her ex, for example, takes months to write, and several hours to consume. That passes too. But a tweet? Or a Reel?

The story about the stressful work situation was especially fitting given the club’s most recent read, Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot. The author, a Vietnam Vet and former fighter pilot, was shot down over Vietnam and survived as a POW in the Hanoi Hilton for more than 8 years. His experience was worth writing a book about, and was probably worth stressing about. But, ironically, and because of his studies of Stoic philosophy, and in particular, Epictetus, he didn’t.

1903

Earlier today I took one of those touristy cruises to the Statue of Liberty and back. I had a blast. But my major complaint?

“When did the first subway line open in NYC?” There was a lull in the tour guide’s schtick and one of the passengers seized the silence to ask a question.

David, the guide, smiled. “1904. And do you know how I know that? It’s one year after 1903, which will become very important later in the cruise.”

We were just about to take off on a tour to the Statue of Liberty and I was excited. I made a mental note to listen for 1903.

An hour later, after we’d debarked, I was walking home. A thought occurred to me, and I texted my family, who’d been with me on the cruise. Did we ever get the story about 1903?!?

My niece responded first. I think it was the year Lincoln did his first open mic.

Then my step-mom. It was the year David was born.

We never did get the story about 1903 and I’m left feeling intellectually blue balled. David got me cerebrally hot and bothered and now I have no idea what to do with the empty promise.

I guess I’ll have to take care of it myself.

Death row Meal

Have you ever thought about what your last meal would be? Have you ever really sat down and thought what you’d want to eat, knowing you’d be dead soon?

I think about it often. I don’t fantasize about my death. Far from it. But I do often think about food, and inevitably it leads me to ask, “would I want this as my last meal?” Hyperbole aside, it’s a quick way to get to whether you like the meal or not. I don't necessarily mean would you want this for every meal, mind you. At some point sustenance comes into play, and no matter what you want your doctor to prescribe, bottomless carbonara probably isn’t the answer. But for a last meal?

I think I would choose really good bread with really good butter. My current favorite butter is French, and comes from Isigny, a town in Normandy. And my current favorite bread? Whatever’s freshest. And baguettiest. Despite my allegiance to Italy and all things pasta, they suck at bread. I mean, sure, focaccia. But c’mon, Italy, have you ever had baguette? Fresh from a Parisian bakery?

So…bread. And butter.

And Calvados.

Calvados also comes from Normandy. Which is something I just learned. My father-in-law introduced me to calvados twenty years ago, when I didn’t know anything about alcohol other than it would get me wasted if I had too much and boy oh boy was Midori good at getting me wasted. But the first time I tried calvados? It felt like the first time I put on a pair of suit pants. Something just fit. I felt like an adult. There’s a distillery in Oregon called Clear Creek that makes absolutely amazing eaux de vie, and if their apple brandy was the last thing I ever tasted I wouldn’t be unhappy.

Okay, so… so really good bread, and really good butter. And Calvados (or Oregonian apple brandy).

Oh…and also Champagne.

I had a glass of Champagne today at a high tea at Bergdorf Goodman because I was in a celebratory mood and god, do I just love Champagne. Wiff and I keep a bottle in our fridge at all times just in case we need to celebrate something. The past few months we’ve opened bottles of Pol to celebrate the commercials I’ve booked. And there’s another bottle in there now waiting to be opened once I finish recording a commercial voiceover on Tuesday. These celebrations don’t happen often enough, and they may not continue, but I love the feeling of opening a bottle of Pol Roger every time I have a reason to celebrate.

Okay.

So.

Good bread.

Good butter.

Calvados.

And Champagne.

Going once?

Going twice?

Dead.

When You Do Want to Write

My niece is visiting New York this weekend. As I gathered a list of options for activities—restaurants, museums, sights both touristy and not—I was reminded how cool this city is. This afternoon we walked to CVS to get sunscreen and a pizza place to pickup pizza. On the way, we passed a steakhouse, several theaters that had plays that starred household name celebrities, a new bar that used to be a nail salon, and an old bar that used to be a hangout for The Westies. Normally, I don’t notice much in my neighborhood, but tonight, with my niece in tow, I was seeing the city through her eyes, fresh eyes. Eyes that can read the DON’T WALK sign a little crisper.

What can I do to always see the world with those eyes?

Besides getting Lasik.

When You Don’t Want to Write

Updated Edited: June 29, 2025

When you don’t want to write, you still gotta write.
You still do the hard part: sit down and write.
It doesn’t have to be good.
It just has to be.
I mean, it eventually has to be good,
but that’s what editing is for.

Today Was a Good Day

Today was weird. I woke up at 5am at almost the exact instant Bailey emerged from her sleeping spot under the bed beneath me. You might want to say that it was because she emerged from her sleep spot directly beneath me that I woke up. But you'd be wrong. The stars had aligned and woke us up at the exact moment each of us was supposed to. Together. I believe.

As she pulled herself out from under the bed, I gave her a little scratch. Right on the spot she likes, right above her tail. She didn't even bother looking back as she curled her spine into the scratch. She knew it was me, knew we had both arisen at the same time. She believes too.

I took her outside for her usual morning walk. I said hello to Wilson, the sometimes overnight doorman, as Bailey and I jogged from the elevator to the front door. It was cooler today than it's been the last few days. The thermometer said 79 degrees, feels like 77, so I wore a t-shirt and shorts. But with the breeze, the one that took the temp all the way from 79 to 77, I almost felt chilly. I didn't, of course, but almost. I believed I could. Like I could remember what chilly felt like, like I had forgotten the past two record setting hot days. And almost chilly was a far cry from how I felt not 6 hours ago when I'd walked home from a comedy show at Comic Strip Live.

I was first on the lineup in front of a receptive crowd. After watching a few comics and hanging out with a few more, I headed home. It was sweltering. My walk to the train station was only three blocks but that was three too many. I entered the station, paid at the turnstile, and walked to the escalators only to find them inoperable.

I thought it was an energy conservation mandate the city had issued to prevent blackouts. Our apartment building had to comply with the same mandate and had raised the temperature in the common areas to alleviate the strain on the system. The building sent an email earlier in the day suggesting residents do the same and consider “keeping air conditioning usage to a minimum,” but I secretly hoped Wiff had set ours to 60.

I walked down the frozen escalator steps and, as I descended, I felt the air get warmer. Each step felt like I was getting one step closer to Hades. I passed a few stray souls on my way down, people who were either too hot and tired or too old to step faster. I wanted to stop and talk to them, to complain about how hot it was and isn't it annoying we have to pay the price for the power company's shitty infrastructure, in the Upper East Side of all places, when I looked over to the up escalator and noticed it too was stopped. People had to walk, without mechanical help, up 238 steps in sweltering heat, in the Upper East Side of all places! I couldn't complain. At least not aloud.

I made it to the mezzanine level, one floor above the subway platform, and overheard an elderly woman talking to someone who looked like he worked in the station.

"Can I take that elevator to the street?" she asked.

"No, ma'am,” he said. “That one only goes down to the subway platform. The other one won't work until the power comes back on."

Aha! So it wasn't a mandatory energy curtailment thing. It was an accidental energy loss thing. Maybe the power company’s infrastructure was shittier than I thought.

She continued. "Well I can't walk up all those stairs."

"I'm sorry. You can wait here, or take a subway to another station and get to the street that way, and then take a bus back here."

I wanted to help, but I didn't know what I could do, other than offer her a piggy back ride. And I'm a nice guy and all, but I draw the line at piggy back rides for strangers. Especially in this heat. Especially in the Upper East Side.

What Do I Know?

Isn't it always the case where you know the right answer, but don't want to tell someone because you'll hurt their feelings, no matter how incorrect they might be? I was getting my haircut yesterday, and while my stylist was buzzing away the untidy mess on the sides of my head, the stylist on the other side of the mirror was prattling on about the weather to the woman in his chair, adding his own untidy mess to the world.

"Well, it's tough in this heat.” He sighed. “All this AC. It's not good for us."

"Oh, yeah," the woman said, the way one does when they're held captive. You could tell that her heart wasn't in it.

He continued. "It's not good for our skin or our lungs, the way it removes all the moisture from the air." He spoke with the confidence of someone who's rarely ever challenged, who rarely ever has to defend the inane things they say. He spoke like a small time mob boss. Or a hairdresser.

The woman in the chair had been through this before. Maybe not with him, but with someone else, and she knew the game. She knew what to say when, and when to look up from her phone with a shocked look on her face. This was not one of those moments yet. She knew he had a soapbox to step up to, and paced her responses appropriately. "Mmm hmm."

"That's why when I'm not at home, I let mine go up to 78 degrees. If you let the air conditioner rest during the day it'll work better at night. All these people who leave theirs running during the day...it just makes it harder for the AC to work at night."

Her legs shifted under the table. "I know, right?"

Neither of those things were true, but what was I to do? I couldn't just barge in and explain how physics works. Mostly because I don't know. But also because it would have been rude.

Yesterday I took Bailey for a walk. A woman passed me and sighed. "102 degrees out. Can you believe it?" she asked. "It's a record!"

It was 102 degrees out, and it did beat a record. But one from the 1800s. Don't you always kind of look at records like that with suspicion?  Did we even have thermometers back then? Or did we divine the temperature through prayer?

I looked back at where I'd just stepped and saw a fresh shoe print in the melted tar. "Oh, is it that hot?" I said. "With this breeze I was getting a bit chilly."

She ignored the joke and continued, barely audible from behind her mask. "She's gotta be so hot! With all that fur it's like wearing a mink coat!" She pointed at Bailey as if I wasn't sure exactly whom she meant by "with all that fur."

I didn't know why she was wearing a mask but I've stopped wondering or minding. It's 2025, and thankfully you don't see them too often, but every now and then I'll see someone wearing one. I used to grumble to myself, thinking the wearer to a total moron. Like that Japanese soldier who was on the island for 30 years and didn't know The War had ended. I used to want to shake them. "You fool! Haven't you heard? It's over? We won!"

But a few of the 600 people in my building still wear masks, not for COVID reasons, but medical. They have or have had cancer and are undergoing chemotherapy. They're immunocompromised and the occasional wince or subtle mockery is a small price to pay for not dying from catching a common cold. After talking to them, I've stopped judging. It's easy to judge when you think they're stupid. But when it's for survival, it's harder to be an asshole.

"I brush her every day," I lied. "It's a lot of work." She didn't notice that Bailey's fur was a matted mess, having not been brushed in months.

"Does she have water?" She asked.

And right then, I wished I could sneeze into her mask. Does she have water? I wanted to say. She did, but she dropped her canteen a few miles back when we were running from the sandstorm. It was the darnest thing. The harness I force her to wear, the heavy one with three water bottle holsters—one for her and two for me—just slid right off, what with her losing so much weight in this heat. Oh, look at that. It's almost time for her midday sprints. What did she think this was, a company march?

I know she told herself she was trying to be nice. I'm sure she thought it was better to err on the side of caution and check whether this man on the street with a fluffy Pomeranian in the 102 degree heat had water than to walk by minding her own business.

But I didn't want to get into it. I didn't want to say "no, I don't have water because, do you see that door not 20 feet away? That's our front door. Beyond that is air conditioning and bottomless ice water." I didn't want the conversation to go further. Because I knew where it would go. So I just gave her a nice smile and said, "It's a five minute walk."

"Oh thank goodness," she said. "My dog just died and I couldn't bear to have that happen to anyone else."

Shame on Me

It’s been a while since I’ve really screwed up.

Once, when I was in the seventh grade, my class built a clothes trunk to donate to our school’s annual auction. I say “built” but I mean “asked one of our parents to build.” It wasn’t much of a choice, really. One of the kid’s dads was a carpenter.

After it was built, our teacher had the chest brought in to class so we could admire our handiwork. Then she asked us to sign it. Just like real artists. One by one, we went to the front of the class, and signed it with a thick black sharpie. Before we’d signed it, a friend of mine leaned over and said, “I dare you to sign it ‘Da Pimp.’” So, when I approached the chest, after taking a moment to admire my creation, I signed Da Pimp.

Once we’d finished, a few teachers took the chest away to be prepared for the auction. I thought I was in the clear. There’s no way they’d see it among the 30 names in in the chest. Especially with only minutes remaining in the school day. Moments later, Mr. McCoy came in. “Nobody’s leaving until we figure out who signed Da Pimp.”

For a minute, I thought if I keep my mouth shut, they’ll never know. And that might have been true. The only one who knew I’d done it was the friend who suggested I do it. He was a security risk. A few minutes alone with him and a baseball bat might clear that up. But then I experienced shame. The shame of failing my teachers. The shame of being the sole reason all my friends—including the one who gave me the idea—were being held after the closing bell was me.

Some people sit with shame for too long. They dwell in it because they don’t want or are too afraid to atone for whatever they’ve done. That day in seventh grade, I learned that shame can be a powerful impetus for change. It can push us to make amends with whomever we hurt and to be welcomed back into our communities. I could only take a few minutes before I fessed up.

“If it’s a pimp you’re looking for, look no further.”

“Everyone can go,” McCoy said, “except you, LeDonne.”

What’s your Overstory?

What stories do you tell yourself...about yourself? You know, about everything that goes on in your day? I don't know about you, but if I didn't have some way to process all the extra ice cream I eat, the idiots I wait in line behind at Starbucks who seem to only just now in 2025 have discovered that they can order coffee in public, the woefully random and unfair diarrhea I get—that only and always seems to strike after I eat ice cream—if I didn't have some way to make sense of it all, I'd go nuts.

Which would go great on top of a bowl of ice cream... but that's another story and, unfortunately, another roll of TP. Malcolm Gladwell writes about the concept of an overstory in Revenge of the Tipping Point. Overstories form a framework that helps us process events. In middle and high school, the story I told myself was that I was smart, I was funny, and I was into leadership. It was a way for me to feel good about not fitting in, about being a little different. I wasn’t really all that different, everyone feels a little unbelonging every once in a while, but it helped me feel good about myself nonetheless. Your overstory might be that you’re a survivor. When you got randomly shoved by some weirdo on the street you told yourself “well, that sucked but I’m strong, so I’ll be okay.” That’s a great overstory.

But overstories can also be negative. The other day I saw one of my neighbors on the sidewalk. As he passed the parking garage exit, a car pulled out and nearly bumped into him. I say “bumped into” not to be hyperbolic, I mean literally bumped into. The car couldn’t have been going more than 1 mile per hour. My neighbor leapt back and performed a little scene I’ve seen others (including myself) perform many times, the Act of the Incredulous Walker: he threw up his arms in an emotional admixture of surprise, scorn, and incredulity. There was a scoff. Maybe two. Then he continued on his way, muttering to himself, “Boy, today just isn’t my day.” I don’t know what his overstory is, but it’s probably not “I can handle anything the world throws at me.”

The power of an overstory is that, once you decide what it is, you start to notice things that reinforce it.

The other thing about an overstory is that you can change it. Why not use it to your advantage? Tell yourself anything!

Moon River

Last night, I sat at the piano and played for the first time in 6 months. I played Henry Mancini's Moon River, arranged by George N. Terry, from a vintage piece of sheet music I bought Wiff two years ago. When the sheet music was originally printed, in 1961, it sold for $.75 which, in today's dollars, is $8.06. I found a seller on Etsy and paid $21. You could say I got ripped off, but I think the value of some things increases with age and experience. At least that's what I'm telling myself as I get a little older and a little more experienced. Plus, it was a gift so I didn't care.

The sheet music also came with a hidden surprise: the previous owner had marked it up a bit—a circled quarter note, reminding them to hold for a whole count; a handwritten flat symbol, reminding them to play the correct note. And that's just in the first part half of the song which is written in the key of C. Once it changes to A flat major, it’s marked up so much I can only imagine how many times they must have sharpened their pencil. It reminded me of when I was a kid learning how to play.

When I was younger, I marked up music the same way. I was in my high school's pep and jazz bands and the Tacoma All-City Jazz Band. I was also a ladies man. It was a fun way to support my school's teams in all the sports I wasn't athletic enough to play. I wasn't a fantastic piano player, but I was good enough to make the cut. I had to audition for those positions and, there being only one piano per band, the stakes were high. You were either in or you got to watch the other piano player play and wish they'd break a wrist. Thankfully, in each band, my competition was just one other pianist: for the school bands I competed against a nice girl with a friendly smile; for the all-city band, it was a different nice girl who also had a friendly smile. As I remember it, I destroyed them both. As history has more accurately recorded, there was no competition. They were both on their way out of the bands and I was just their replacement.

But the important takeaway?

I was a virtuoso.

As I sat there last night, playing what is arguably Mancini's most memorable song, noticing the previous owner's markings, it helped me remember that the key to earning a spot in a jazz band wasn't begging for an audition, it was playing better. To get better at jazz, I played classical. Which may sound counterintuitive, but when you’re learning to play jazz, playing classical helps. It gives you the dexterity and precision needed to play quickly and accurately. It gives you a familiarity with the keyboard so you know where your fingers are at all times. To play better jazz, I needed to play better classical. I needed to focus on the inputs, not the outputs.

Now, I'm not auditioning for jazz bands, I'm trying to be a better stand-up. I want to tour nationally. I want to be recognized in airports. When I get arrested in a foreign autocratic regime and get thrown into a Siberian gulag, I want to be so famous my prison overlords recognize me and give me an extra helping of toilet-borscht. I want more and better paying gigs. I want more money. I want fame.

But my current situation is a direct reflection of how hard I've worked on the craft. My phone isn't ringing off the hook because I haven't worked hard enough on the jokes. Also because phones haven't had hooks in 20 years. I’m not touring because, despite having over 90 minutes of funny stuff, I need more and funnier minutes, because whatever I've got isn't funny enough for enough producers to think we have to get Anthony Le-whatever on the show!

I need to focus on the jokes. I need to focus on the punchlines, the bits, the material. I need to focus on the classical.

But in the meantime, Moon River will do.

Change Your Place, Change Your Perspective

I’ve watched a lot of stand-up.

I’ve noticed that, often times, the stronger the opinion, the smaller the world view.

The fix?

Get a different vantage point. See the other side.

Change your place, change your perspective.

Summer Writing Project

Today is the summer solstice, marking the first day of summer and the halfway point in the year. It’s the day where most people in the northern hemisphere will look out their windows, shake their head, and say, “why the hell is it still light out?”

Being halfway through anything is bittersweet, but whether it’s bitter or sweet depends on how you look at it. I’m 41, which is considered middle aged. I could focus on the fact that half my life is over and I’ve only just this year started to eat fiber; or I could focus on the fact that I’m in good health—thanks, fiber!—and have, at the very least, this moment to enjoy. I could focus on the fact that I haven’t achieved the things I’ve wanted to achieve—international stardom or at least a credit score above 620—or I could remember that, over the last 41 years, I’ve learned things that will help me make the best of whatever time remains.

I could choose to focus on how I frittered away much of the first half of the year. Or I could look at it differently: even though we’re halfway to the end, it’s a new beginning.

In the name of new beginnings, I’m starting a little project called the Summer Writing Project. It’s something Wiff proposed a few days ago, and a bandwagon I wholeheartedly jumped on. The project is simple: write every day. That’s it. No rules. No regulations. No requirements. No other r words. Just rite. It can be about whatever you want. It can be a blog entry, work on your manuscript, an apology note to your estranged lover. I’m choosing to make mine public—we could all use something to laugh at—but you can keeps yours private. If you’d like to join, you’re more than welcome. You can even link to your Summer Writing Project in the comments below.

Read my Summer Writing Project posts here.

Albanians in the Audience

“I’m Italian,” I said. It's the first line of a bit I have about being Italian. Living and performing in NYC, there being a lot of Italians in NYC, and Italians being a vociferous people, that line often gets some sort of response.

“Woo!”

I couldn’t see the source of the woo, but I could tell it was a woman and that it came from my right. I looked in her general direction. “Are you Italian?”

“Close.”

“Close?” It was an honest question to an odd answer. I paused to let the audience laugh. That’s one of my favorite things about stand-up: as much as I think I can predict when they’ll laugh and what they’ll laugh at, there’s always an element of chance. I pulled out of the bit to play with her. “Like…Greek?”

“Albanian.”

“Oh sure, geographically close,” I said. “And culturally close well?”

“Similar.”

“Similar,” I said, mimicking her Adriatic accent. Normally, you wouldn’t make fun of someone’s accent whom you just met, but a comedy club isn’t normal. There’s an implied “I’m kidding” to everything we say. The only reason this whole room exists is because we all collectively agree that we’re gonna laugh. More importantly, she laughed, which gave me permission to continue having fun with her throughout the rest of the set.

I came back to her a few times, using her as a partner for comedic condescension. And it worked. Afterward, speaking Italian, she told me she enjoyed the show, but that next time I owe her a bit or two in her Italian. I think that’s what she said.

That, or she was casting a spell.

How I edit Stand-up Comedy Videos in DaVinci Resolve (Free Version)

I recently posted a video on YouTube about how I edit stand-up comedy videos. In the video, As part of my workflow, I shoot the entire comedy show in one take, and then cut up each comic’s portion on one timeline. When it comes time to export, I used to go to the render panel, select each clip, clip “mark in/out points,” and then add to render queue. But that was time consuming. So I wrote a script.

This script adds each clip on the timeline to the render queue, using a render preset called “Stand-Up Videos.” I don’t know how to create a UI window yet—I’ll update this post when I figure that out—but in the meantime, you’ll need to create a render preset called “Stand-Up Videos.”

Get the script here.
Install it here: ~/Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design/DaVinci Resolve/Fusion/Scripts/

👇 Watch the video here 👇

DaVinci Resolve Script to Export Timelines

I’ve recently gotten back into doing VO work. I record 10-20 auditions in a batch, edit them in DaVinci Resolve’s Fairlight panel, export, and then upload to Voices.com. But I’ve encountered a quirk in DaVinci Resolve. When I highlight all the timelines and select a render preset for export, prevents me from rendering. So I have to manually load each timeline and apply the render preset. It’s annoying.

Enter Python!

This script adds all the media pool timelines to the render queue using a render called “VO Auditions,” and then renders them to a folder called “VO Auditions” on the desktop.

Get the script here.

Install here: ~/Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design/DaVinci Resolve/Fusion/Scripts/

Made to Schtick

Last updated: Jun 20, 2024

I recently read Made to Stick by brothers Chip and Dan Heath. It has a ton of great insights into why some ideas are stickier than others, and how we can take our dumb ideas and make them stickier. Which got me thinking: Is it possible to apply their advice to comedy writing?

I think so.

The authors discuss how the stickiest ideas are generally Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credentialed, Emotional, Stories. Or SUCCESs for short. I think the best jokes contain the same principles.

Simple
The best jokes are Simple. The Heaths write that “if we’re to succeed, the first step is this: Be simple. Not simple in the terms of ‘dumbing down’ or ‘sound bites.’ You don’t have to speak in monosyllables to be simple. What we mean by “simple” is finding the core of the idea.”

The same principle applies to comedy. If an audience is thinking, they’re not laughing. Often when I write new material, my first instinct is to make it clever. Or I’ll try to say too much too quickly. But clever isn’t funny. When’s the last time a double entendre made you shoot milk out your nose? In general, humor that works in The New Yorker doesn’t work on stage.

Unexpected
I once heard a joke defined as “a sentence that ends in a surprise.” For example, Dating is hard, especially when you’re like me, married. The word married is Unexpected; it’s what makes the whole line funny. If you can see a joke coming a mile a way, it’s not funny. Dating is hard, especially when you’re unattractive doesn’t have the same zing to it.

Concrete
Good stories, the authors write, are also Concrete. They often involve real, tangible examples. When Nordstrom wanted to tell their employees that Nordstrom was all about customer service, they didn’t just say, “Listen up, we’re all about customer service.” Customer service isn’t concrete. It might mean different things to different people. Instead, they told stories with concrete examples. They told their employees stories about employees like the one associate, who, during a particularly bad blizzard, warmed up a customer’s car while they finished shopping. That’s concrete. That’s customer service.

Comedy can benefit from being concrete too. There’s an old idea that says you should write jokes a caveman would understand. A caveman wouldn’t know what “egalitarianism” is—I don’t even know what it is—but chances are he’d know what a girlfriend is. Or a mom or dad. He wouldn’t know customer service, but he’d know about snow and cold.

Credentialed
The Credentialed part may not sound applicable to comedy, but I’d argue it is. It’s important for the audience to believe that whatever you’re saying could have conceivably happened to you. Or could conceivably happen. If the audience is too busy trying to figure out if what you’re saying is even real, they’re not going to be laughing. For example, it’s unlikely that I would be dating given that I’m married, but it technically is possible, so the audience isn’t wondering how it could realistically work. But if I started saying “Dating is hard, because I’m an alien,” that changes things. Now they’re thinking “what the hell is this guy talking about?” The joke doesn’t need to be credentialed, necessarily, just believable.

Emotion
Emotion isn’t absolutely necessary for a good bit, but I think a lot of the good ones have them. I think the more emotional stakes a bit has, the funnier it is, the richer it is. A friend of mine had a bit about hopping in a cab in Puerto Rico, asking the driver to take him where all the locals, and ending up back in the Bronx. The last time I heard the bit he’d changed it. Now the bit starts with him and his wife arguing about where to go on vacation. She wants to go to Miami; he wants to go Cuba and “puts his foot down.” So they go to Cuba, hop in a cab, ask to go where the locals go, and they wind up in Miami. Same joke, just emotionally richer. Now it’s a story—which we’ll get to next—about him versus his wife. He raises the stakes by putting his foot down, which makes him out to be an asshole, and creates tension in their marriage (and, more importantly, in the bit). They go where he wants to go, but, lo and behold, they end up where she wanted to go all along.

Stories
Not absolutely necessary, but I think helpful, is the storification of a bit. Humans are hardwired to think of their environment and communities in terms of stories, which make them a powerful way to convey information. There’s a reason most of the Bible is comprised of stories, and why Jesus spoke in parables. Morals are suuuuuper boring to learn, but hide them in a story and we are riveted.

Same with a good bit. I can say Dating is hard, especially when you’re married. Or I can start with that and continue with a story about my wife and my date night and the trials and tribulations of planning it, getting there, ordering food, and then consummating it at the end of the night, with sleep.

Anyway, that’s my two cents on applying Made to Stick' to comedy.

My Voiceover Setup (New for 2025)

Updated July 22 2025.

I recently setup a new voiceover booth and setup at home. You can read about my previous setup here, but suffice it to say my new one blows the old one out of the water. And the kicker? The mic I’m using is older. [As of May 20, 2025, this is no longer true… update below.]

Here’s a walkthrough of the new setup.

COMPUTER

Apple 16” MacBook Pro. I’m still using a MacBook Pro, but I upgraded in 2021. Now, I know 2021 is ancient for a laptop, but I splurged and got the M1 Max chip and I haven’t complained once about any perceived slowness. I do lots of video editing in DaVinci Resolve and have yet to notice any slow down.

SOFTWARE

DaVinci Resolve V20. Speaking of DaVinci Resolve, this is one area where I made a huge switch. In my previous setup, I used Adobe Audition for a DAW. But I’ve since dumped Adobe and moved to DaVinci Resolve. I just couldn’t stand paying the monthly subscription! The crazy thing is that, technically, you can use the FREE version of DaVinci Resolve to do almost everything you’d need to do as a voice actor. I opted for the paid version, which is a one-time payment of around $300, because I wanted some of the fancier features on the video editing side of things.

Source Connect. Source Connect is the industry standard for live directed sessions. I don’t like it. For starters, the website is confusing to navigate. It’s also really expensive. They also have two versions of the product, versions 3.9 and 4.0, and they’re not operable with each other. I have version 4 but most of that studios I connect to have 3.9. Source Connect allows you to create a “bridge” to connect the two versions, but it only lasts for 90 minutes. And in order to get the full 90 minutes out of it, you have to manually 15 minutes. But you can only add 15 minutes when you have 5 minutes left in the session… So it’s super fun to be in the booth and tell the engineer, the producer, and sometimes the client, “I’d love to record the next take, but I gotta go feed the meter.” Unless you’re booking several Source Connect sessions a month, go for the two-day $25 license. This is especially helpful since some clients opt for Zoom because they don’t like working with Source Connect either.

Moving on.

MICROPHONE

Sennheiser ME66 with K6P (no link because it’s old). Here’s another big change. Last time we talked I was using the Shure SM7B. But when I recently got back into doing voiceover work, I watched some YouTube videos on mics and noticed some of the people were using shotgun mics. I have a shotgun mic, I thought. And a halfway decent one at that. I used the ME66 exclusively on a recent project I did and really liked the sound, so I started using it in my booth. I LOVE IT. And the crazy part is that I picked this thing up suuuuper used on eBay for $50 years ago. On my wist list are the Sennheiser MKH 416 and the Neumann TLM 103. But until then, the ME66 will do just fine.

UPDATE!!!

Sennheiser MKH 416. I finally bought it. And I wish I’d gotten it earlier. It sounds SO SO SO different and SO SO SO much butter than the ME66. It’s the industry standard for a reason.

RECORDER / AUDIO INTERFACE

Sound Devices MixPre 6 II. Before I was using a Zoom H4N Pro. But now? I’m in love with the Sound Devices MixPre 6 II. This little guy is small enough to fit inside an on-set sound guy’s bag, but clean and quiet enough to be act as an audio interface. It’s also got tons of gain for gain-hungry mics like the Shure SM7B (which, I’m not using much anymore). It’s not entirely “out with the old and in with the new” though. I still use the Zoom H4N Pro to record multitrack audio recordings of comedy shows.

Are You Woo Woo Too?

Originally published in The Comic’s Log.

I’m not a big woo woo guy. I’m not even a woo guy. I’m a science guy. A fact guy. I believe in math and black holes, and that boats float if they displace enough water, even though I can’t explain any of those words. I don’t believe in astrology or miracles or gluten allergies.

But every so often something happens that makes me want to rethink things.

Your new debark date to February 8th, 2023. Please confirm receipt of this email.

I was getting kicked off the boat.

I read the email on my morning lap from bow to stern and back again. The night before I performed my first two shows aboard the Norwegian Dawn and I was still riding the waves of laughter from a theater full of people.

Until I’d checked my inbox.

The email was unexpected. And with no further explanation, there was nothing I could do except wonder why. I climbed the stairs up two decks, to the Grand Atrium on deck 7, where I would find Florin, the ship’s Romanian barista, waiting with an espresso and a joke. 

He found out I was a comedian the morning after my first night onboard. 

“You are comedian?”

“Yes.” Don’t ask me to tell you a joke.

“Tell me a joke!”

I sigh, which is terrible way to start a joke. “I’m half Italian, so I only speak with one hand.” I hold up my left hand and make the Italian gesture. You know the one, pinched fingers, curled palm.

He chuckles.

I continue. “The other half’s German, so don’t speak with that hand. I keep that arm down.”

He pauses, perhaps to parse the joke or translate to Romanian and back. A moment passes, and his linguistic roundtrip returns without a laugh.

“Germans are also known for a gesture,” I explain.

“Okay.” He frowns.

“Popular around World War Two?”

“Okay.”

“You know, the Nazi salute?” I look around before demonstrating a little half salute, tucking my elbow close to my body so I don’t get thrown in the brig or worse, cancelled.

“Okay. I go make your espresso.”

Nothing saps a comedian’s confidence in a joke than having to explain it, but I save my ego by chalking it up to English being his fourth language. 

Each morning afterward, Florin had a new joke for me that was a particular blend of hack and racist—the kind that start with “what’s the difference between a black man and an extra large pizza?” and end with me courtesy laughing and calling security.

I was too polite to tell him the jokes weren’t funny. And I was too afraid of what he’d do to my coffee if I told him those jokes were only allowed in whites-only country clubs. But I needed my morning drug, and on this boat, he was the only dealer.

Today’s joke: “What do you call a Mexican who lost his car? Carlos. Car-los. Get it?”

I got it. 

I asked if there were any jokes about Romanians.

“No. We steal everyone else’s. We are gypsies! Get it?”

“Good one.” It was not a good one.

I took my espresso and continued my walk around the boat, stopping at one of my favorite perches against a guardrail overlooking the ocean to respond to the email and, depending on how I felt afterward, hurl myself overboard. 

Received! Did they give a reason for the schedule change? 

What did I want to say?

What the hell happened?! Was it something I said? Or did? Did they not like my jokes? Or my suit? Or my face? I told one joke about fixing my school’s computers in fifth grade because I did the best Indian accent. And the emcee (and my boss onboard) was Indian and, I got the sense, didn’t have a sense of humor. Did she get me fired? 

There weren’t a lot of other things that could have gotten me kicked off the boat, and I didn’t remember doing any of them.

The welcome packets for Guest Entertainers—guest ents in cruise parlance—don’t list many rules. Drinking is okay, we just can’t get drunk in public. Drugs aren’t allowed and if we’re suspected of using them they can administer a test at random. But after learning from one of the comedy bookers that they’d only ever tested one comic for drugs, and it was very obvious he needed to be tested, I didn’t get the impression this was a huge issue.

The only thing they really frown on is not having sex with passengers. 

Like they really don’t want us doing that. So much so that it’s on every other page of the handbook. 

You can drink, but don’t be drunk. Because you might have sex with a passenger. Don’t get high. But if you do, don’t have sex with a passenger. You should never be in a passenger’s stateroom, but if you happen to get lost and find yourself in one with a passenger do not under any circumstances have sex with them.

I told one of the comics on an earlier cruise that I couldn’t imagine anyone ever breaking that rule.

“Oh they break that rule alright. Some of these women are On. The. Prowl.”

“Not for me. I talk about being married in my act.”

“Oh that don’t stop them.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“You know what the worst part about a threesome is?”

This took a turn. “That it’s just a fantasy?”

“The hardest thing about a threesome is that you’ll always be with a 9 and a 6, and the six’ll wear you out.”

“We lead different lives.”

I don’t do drugs. So that wasn’t it. I wasn’t publicly drunk. I mean, I’d had a few drinks each night, but I always drank the second one in my cabin. And not with a 9 or a 6.

What the heck did I do wrong?

I was proud to work on a Norwegian boat. Compared to other cruise lines, the food was better, the cabins were nicer, and the pay was much better.

Before Norwegian I’d worked on Carnival cruises. They specialize in shorter party cruises. Lots of couples, lots of booze, and lots of scooters. This was Norwegian. Lots of gray hair, lots of sunburns, and lots of scooters. The average age on Carnival was between 45-65. The average age on this boat was somewhere between 65 and dead. But I was having a decent time, and as far as I could tell, the audience enjoyed my shows. 

After each show I parked myself by the theater exit to thank the audience for coming.

At least that’s what I tell people in my newsletter.

The real reason? To receive their praise.

Sure, they could come all the way back to the greenroom if they wanted to tell me I made them laugh so hard they decided to add their estranged daughter with all the piercings and who votes for Democrats back in their will, but being in the way and staring at them as they try to leave the theater is more convenient.

Last night, as the audience filed out of the theater—whose capacity was 1200, which is unrelated to the story but is just a flex on my part—I could tell they enjoyed themselves. Most of them even smiled at me when they asked “which way to the casino?”

So when I got the email from my agent, I felt a mix of emotions. On the one hand, I was relieved. I had been on the boat—or ship, as one disgruntled passenger would later inform me—for four days and had already finished my books and grown tired with the food [but definitely not the pay].

But on the other hand, it felt like a kick in the nuts from some unknown foot. In fact, that was the hardest part: not knowing where this was coming from. I was supposed to be on for another 19 days, performing 4 more shows. But now I had seven days and only one more show to perform, which left a lot of time to speculate, to fill in the blanks looking for a reason why my tour was cut short.

I kept trying to remember Seneca’s line about not suffering imagined troubles. “There are more things…likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

It was tempting to try to understand something I didn’t have enough information to understand. Was I not funny? Was I too dirty for the clean show? Too clean for the dirty show? Was it the political joke? Or the one where I say the word anal? But going down any of those roads would have led to a dead end.

For all I knew, they didn’t need a comedian on the next cruise and wanted to give more stage time to the magician, Levitating Liev. Or maybe they wanted a specific comedian…or maybe based on the next cruise’s demographics they wanted a black comedian, or a woman, or a black woman, or…

All I could do was move laugh and move forward. 

First, the laugh: I told Wiff I was coming home early.

She asked why.

I’m not sure. But I doubt any of the reasons start with “Anthony was so funny that…”

Then I moved on. I got back to my cabin and sent an email to my other agent, the guy who books commercials. Hey, turns out I’m going to be available February 9-19 after all. 

Three days later, I got a request to tape an audition, which I did while docked in Grand Cayman.

Two days later, the Friday after I got home, I did a Zoom callback.

The following Tuesday I got another email. This time with much better news:

You booked it. Your shoot date is February 16th, 2023.
Please confirm receipt of this email.

A Smile You Can’t Look Away From

Updated June 23, 2025

“Alright!” the Assistant Director shouts. “Let’s take 5!”

I’d just finished the close up shot and the guys needed a few minutes to reset for the wide. A PA escorts me off set and into a holding area ostensibly to keep me safe, but realistically to keep me out of the way. I tend to get curious when lights and cameras come whizzing by. How many watts is your light? An Arri 35, huh? Can I see your f-stops?

“Do I have time to grab a quick bite?” I ask. I’m not even hungry, but breakfast was so good I wanted a second helping. Avocado toast and chia seed pudding with fresh fruit? What could go wrong?

The commercial is for Lumineux’s toothpaste, which, as the commercial says, gives people a bright, healthy looking smile people can’t look away from. This gag is that it’s so bright, the camera man can’t stop zooming in on my mouth.

Because we were shooting such a tight shot of my mouth—it sounds creepier than it is—the guys rigged up a teleprompter with a live feed from the camera so I could see myself, or rather, my mouth.

I walk off set and am greeted by the warmest smile I’ve seen all day, including my own.

“You are hilarious!” the brand director says as she gives a huge hug. “I keep seeing this guy as a recurring character!”

Had she stopped at “hilarious” I could have died a happy man. As someone who spends an inordinate amount of time trying to be funny, that’s high praise. But then to add a hug? Like a real, wrap-your-arms-around-another-human-being kind of hugs, and not one of those tap-the-back-shoulder-two-times kind of hug? That’s just too much. I blush.

“It’s so much fun up there,” I say. “Thanks so much for having me.” Wait, did she say '“recurring character?”

I quickly eat another chia seed pudding, head back to set, and stand on my mark.

“Picture’s up!” That’s set-speak for everyone can see what’s on camera; let’s get ready!

I look into the monitor. “Uh… Can we take another five? Also, does anyone have toothpaste?”

Another Great H&R Block Video

Director: Bobby Webster
DP: Kat Westergaard
HMU: Vera Stromsted