An Introduction To Diary of a Failed Comedian

Answers to a few questions you might have

What Is This?

It’s a Substack about comedy, art, culture, and how it feels to follow your dreams…and fail.

Who Am I?

I’m Peter.  For fifteen years, I pursued a career in stand-up comedy.  Some people get into comedy with big aspirations.  They want to sell out arenas, star in movies, or host a talk show.  Not me.  My ultimate goal was simply to become a full-time comedian that didn’t need a day job to pay the bills.  Even in that relatively modest aim, I failed.  After fifteen years of falling short, I got incredibly burned out and comedy started to feel more like a burden than a source of joy or passion.  I also got married and the thought of doing open mics in the back of Brooklyn dive bars instead of spending time at home with my loving wife and adorable dog was incredibly depressing.  So I gave the whole thing up, and I’m very happy with that decision.

Why Am I Not Giving My Full Name?

One of my biggest stumbling blocks in stand-up was the way I felt my work as a comedian reflected back on me as a person.  To find any success in comedy, you have to constantly promote yourself and your work online.  I always cringed at the thought of somebody I went to high school with stumbling upon my flailing attempts at a comedy career and thinking I was a huge loser.  I understand that’s not a rational, healthy, or productive thought to have, but I had it nonetheless.  I believe this really held me back creatively.  By leaving my last name out of this and making myself less searchable, I feel like I can separate any potential judgment of this writing from judgment of me, even if the only person who would conflate those two things is myself.

I also hold down a normal office job and I don’t want to worry about this Substack messing that up.  I don’t plan on writing anything incendiary here, but it’s probably for the best if bosses and clients can’t Google me and find my Substack about failing at comedy.

What Do I Plan On Writing About?

There’s an abundance of aspirational content on social media that revolves around chasing your dreams, following your passions, and achieving your goals.  These accounts are constantly sharing advice and providing inspiration to help you, the audience, pursue what’s meaningful and become your highest self.  That’s all well and good, but they’re missing one crucial bit of information.

What happens when you follow your dreams and fail?

I don’t mean a temporary setback, a “It doesn’t matter how many times you get knocked down, it’s how many times you get back up” kind of scenario.  I’m talking about when you reach a logistical and spiritual dead-end in your pursuit, like I did with comedy.  How do you cope with that?  What do you do next?  Was the whole thing pointless?  There are way more failure stories out there than success stories.  I think people need to hear more about what happens when you fail.  And they definitely need to hear more about the positive things that can come out of failure.

What Is My Ultimate Goal Here?

I’ve abandoned the idea of making a living from a creative pursuit.  Even if you’re obscenely talented and hardworking, there’s still a tremendous amount of luck involved, and at this point in my life I’ve lost my tolerance for wishing upon stars.  But I still have an innate desire to put my thoughts into words and share them.  So my goal here is twofold.  First, I want to have a creative outlet where I can work through my experiences, share my thoughts about comedy, and discuss related topics that interest me.  Second, I want what I write to be useful to the reader.  Maybe they’ve gone through something similar and this can help them process and accept the experience.  Maybe they’re still on that path and looking for insights that will help them find success.  Maybe they haven’t had a similar experience at all, but they recognize something in my writing that relates to their own life and they get some enjoyment out of it.  Ultimately, I don’t believe this Substack will be any good if I’m writing it just to serve my own needs.

Why Should You Read This?

You should read this if you’re interested in learning about the flip side of following your dreams, the side that is full of desperation, regret, humiliation, anxiety, angst, and plenty of other negative emotions.  But you should also read this if you’re interested in learning about the flip side of THAT flip side, where negativity is transmuted into something valuable: Meaning.  Because even though I technically failed at comedy, it gave me things that are ultimately more important than taping a Netflix special.  It gave me a sense of purpose, a vessel for discipline, and a reason for getting out of bed in the morning.  All of these things have now carried over into my daily life as a husband and a dude with a regular job.  

How did I find these positive attributes amidst all of the negativity?  Well, dear reader, if you want to find out, you’re going to have to smash that Subscribe button.