The Safety Dance

You're not waiting to be ready. You're waiting to be safe.

My first writing job was on Crank Yankers. Which seems like a pretty ridiculous place to discover you’re afraid to speak.

For those who don’t know, Crank Yankers was a Comedy Central show created by Jimmy Kimmel, Adam Carolla, and Daniel Kellison, where comedians made prank calls to strangers, and the calls were re-enacted with puppets. It’s also the type of job where the entire point is to talk. There is no version of a writing job where you quietly think funny things to yourself and everyone just sort of senses it.

Prior to writing TV, I’d spent a lifetime in the music business. Now I’m suddenly sitting in a room full of comedians and comedy writers. Actual people you would pay to see perform. People who never hesitate. They just go. And I had stuff. Actual jokes. I could feel them. I couldn’t wait to say them. I said none of them.

The puppets were saying more than me.

Every time, there was the same tiny window. The idea would come, and then immediately right behind it there would be a not yet. Nah, not this one. Maybe it’s not as funny as I think. And then someone else would say it. Or something close enough that I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t the same thought. Which is a very specific kind of humiliation. Not bombing. Watching your joke succeed coming out of someone else’s mouth.

This went on for days. Who am I kidding? Weeks.

At a certain point, I had to speak. So I pitched something. It died instantly. Come to think of it, what’s quicker than instantly? No laugh. No reaction. After a moment of silence (which could have been an in memoriam for my pitch), the head writer said, “Come on, guys. We need something funny.” Which was technically not about me.

It was absolutely about me.

The story I told myself in the next ten seconds was fast and specific and insane. I started mentally preparing a totally imaginary, self-sabotaging, and inevitable conversation in my head. I had failed at being a comedy writer. And I was now figuring out how I’d explain this to people like it was mutual.

Yeah, I tried comedy writing for a minute. Good experience. Learned a lot. I miss working in music. Whatever.

I went back the next day and kept pitching. Some jokes got laughs and made it in. Others died in the room. The point is there wasn’t a moment where everything clicked. I didn’t suddenly become confident.

I just kept pitching.

And at some point, I stopped waiting for it to feel safe.

Because that was the mistake. I thought I was waiting until I was ready. I wasn’t. Ready means you have something. Safe means nothing can happen to you. One of them gets you in the room. The other keeps you quiet in the room.

Safe sounds responsible. It sounds like you’re being thoughtful. Strategic. Professional. For the record, I was not being any of those things.

And the longer you wait for safe, the weirder it gets. And by the time you finally say it, it barely sounds like you. Or, hell, maybe you never say it. And someone else does. And then you sit there with that very specific kind of super fun humiliation all over again.

There is no safe version of being seen. There is no safe version of saying the thing that might actually matter. If it feels safe, it’s because you took the risk out. And the risk was the point.

You’re not waiting to be ready. You’re waiting to be safe. And safe is how you end up with a life made entirely of almosts.

Don’t be a puppet.

Say it earlier.

While it still has a pulse.

I’m here if you need me.

Pump Up the Volume: On Confidence, Self-Doubt, and the Voice in Your Head That Can Go Straight to Hell is coming soon. Foreword by Becky Lynch. Blurbs from Jimmy Kimmel, Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), and Chris Regan (Family Guy, The Daily Show).

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