Ask A Genius 1012: Have the Balls for Something
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/07/16
Rick Rosner, American Comedy Writer, www.rickrosner.org
Scott Douglas Jacobsen, Independent Journalist, www.in-sightpublishing.com
Rick Rosner: So one theme that runs through the book is that lonely comedy nerds, the ones in the book who became famous and successful were dedicated enough and or lucky enough to hook up with other comedy nerds. Like Sandler and Apatow became roommates and Apatow ended up like having contact with Ben Stiller and all these people would bounce off of each other and inspire each other and create work.
In my stupid case, fucking Sandler invited me out to Friendly’s ice cream. He was sounding me out to see if I could write material for him. But my social skills were so shitty that I kind of bounced off of him and fell away into, well, I too had a partner and we were successful together, but we were also, like, wildly dysfunctional.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: How so?
Rosner: I can’t go into it. So I was lucky for a while and to a limited extent. And could I have gotten luckier? Because like, I’m on the spectrum, but some of these other guys have to be honest, maybe. Nobody goes into comedy or knows whether the spectrum fucks you in comedy. I’m not enough on the spectrum to use that as an excuse, except I did. But becoming a stand up, a stand up is the opposite of being on the spectrum.
You getting up on stage and doing stand up, a 1000 times, 2000 times before you get good, you develop a rapport with the audience. You learn how to understand and manipulate audiences in a way that’s very non-spectrum. Hannah Gadsby is on the spectrum. She does pretty good, am I right in that? Does she talk about that?
Jacobsen: She does talk about it, and she is funny. Funny person, yes.
Rosner: And probably what I should have done, I trained myself out of a lot of awkwardness or at least awkwardness in certain contexts by being a greeter, a doorman, an ID checker in a bunch of bars where I met a shit ton of people. That helped. But probably what I should have done was fucking get up on, have the balls to get up on and the gumption to get up on stage a gazillion times and to hone like, a joke telling craft. I can write a joke, but can I fucking tell a joke? Not as well as I could if I’d gotten up on stage a million fucking times in the eighties and nineties.
Jacobsen: The end.
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