Related Articles
What’s your job like now? The reason I ask is because this “CBS Sunday Morning” thing isn’t my only job. Don’t get me wrong – I love doing these segments! But like many of you, I have a couple jobs. Well, I HAD a couple jobs.
See, in addition to doing these things, I’m also a writer and an actor. Well, I WAS an actor. Then again, during the pandemic I have been acting like I’m NOT going crazy.
Heh-heh.
My main job, or my day job, is actually a night job. I am a standup comedian. For the past 30 years, 300 nights a year, I perform standup comedy. I’ve performed everywhere: clubs, bars, laundromats, theaters, arenas. I even performed at a rodeo, ’cause I have a good agent.
Then boom! COVID hits. Getting a group together during a highly contagious pandemic is not a good idea.
So, what’s a comedian to do?
A comedian needs an audience; standup is a conversation. There’s no fourth wall. Sure, the conversation is kind of one-sided; only the comedian has a microphone, and the audience communicates by laughter, but it’s a communication. The laughter of the audience is not just enjoyed by the comedian, it’s enjoyed by everyone. There’s a sense of community that’s built.
Can stand-up be performed virtually via Zoom? I suppose. But nothing beats the in-person experience.
But how?
Well, last Sunday in the parking lot of a horse track in New Jersey, I performed my first drive-in standup show
That’s right; I performed standup comedy to close to a thousand cars! People were sitting inside their cars, or socially distanced on top of their roofs. Was it ideal? No. Were the laughs as loud? Definitely not. But it was a show.
And for a couple of hours, through my jokes and through the flicking lights and faint laughter and beeping horns, a community was built. Did that community look like a traffic jam? It sure did! But I’ll take it.
Story produced by Sara Kugel. Editor: Chad Cardin.
See also:
Week 1: Family life under lockdownWeek 2: Life in quarantine is like a sitcomWeek 3: Spring arrives!Week 4: Lessons of “distance learning”Week 5: Kids, quarantine and sanity are not compatibleWeek 6: Consuming all news, all the timeWeek 7: Jim Gaffigan discovers he misses strangersWeek 8: On sharing dinner with the massesWeek 9: On living in unprecedented timesWeek 10: Are we REALLY all in this together?Week 11: On not knowing what comes nextJim Gaffigan on what dads REALLY want on Father’s Day
Jim Gaffigan on getting the whole lockdown thing wrong2020, please turn your notifications off
For more info:
jimgaffigan.comFollow @JimGaffigan on TwitterWatch “Dinner with the Gaffigans” on YouTube
Story produced by Sara Kugel. Editor: Chad Cardin.
