Standing Up

"Perseverance is a great substitute for talent."
-Steve Martin, Born Standing Up

I finished Steve Martin's book last night and it is good. It might not be exactly what you're expecting, as I expected more about his stand-up philosophy and less about his life and got the opposite, but it is filled with funny stories and is a great read. Among my favorite anecdotes concerns the famous bit he used to do where he would get the entire audience to leave the venue with him and conclude his show outside, sometimes interacting with passerbys as the whole crowd watched. Martin says that the moment he realized he was really getting big was when he could no longer perform this bit as the audience got too large, and he "reluctantly dropped it". He goes on to talk about how he enjoyed himself a lot more performing for the small crowds. And when he looks back on his stand-up career that is what he misses most, "before comedy became serious". I find it kind of poetic in that we don't realize until later, after we've finally gotten what we've been chasing, that we were actually happiest while we were chasing it.

The quote above reffers to how when he was growing up he was always told he lacked talent, he couldn't sing, act, etc. And how he spent a lot of his career getting around that and using it to his advantage. He bombed often in clubs, at one point doing a 25 minute set "without getting a single laugh." But he didn't let it bother him. Actually that was a lie, he did let it bother him, and it helped bring him to severe depression several times. But he kept at it. And he got famous after years and years of writing and performing. I'm not sure what thing is particularly inspiring about all of this, but something definitely is.