For a long time I had a chip on my shoulder about The Comedy Cellar. Perhaps I’m skeptical of how people talked about it like it is the end-all-be-all of comedy venues in New York. Located on MacDougal street in the heart of the West Village, it’s a bit of legend these days. Personally, I’ve always been allergic to hype, and I always saw The Cellar as being a little too up its own butt. It's a very clubby atmosphere. There’s an expression in comedy that there are two types of comedians: Those that got called names in high school, and those that called people names in high school. This club definitely feels like the home turf for the latter. There is a uniquely New York flavor of aggression that flows under the floorboards of The Cellar.
Before you can perform at a particular club, you have to be “passed.” This typically consists of winning over the booker, whether that means making them laugh or making them see something in you that piques their interest. Of course, it goes without saying that The Cellar is always the last club where a New York comedian will get passed. Once you’re passed, however, you’re in, and you’re put on the rotation. I’ve heard that the booker at The Cellar really makes comedians sweat. (I don’t know what this means, or if it means anything at all, but an overwhelming number of managers and bookers at comedy clubs are female. Stand Up New York, The Cellar, Caroline’s, The Comedy Store -- all run or booked by women. Maybe it’s because we’re generally better at sniffing out the bullsh*tters?)
While their clout and their top-tier booking system all but guarantees an amazing show, people don’t go to The Comedy Cellar for the regulars. People go to the The Cellar for the drop-ins. When Dave Chappelle, Jerry Seinfeld, or Chris Rock are working on new material, they often “drop-in” at The Cellar. Some nights it might be Amy Schumer, Dave Attell, or Norm MacDonald. Unaccountable and unannounced, these giants pop in and out as they wish, and each night crowds pack themselves into The Cellar in the hopes of being so lucky as to catch their favorite. Sometimes they big-time the crowd, show-boating and playing their greats hits. However, I always prefer the drop-ins when they’re there to work. Tweaking jokes that somehow keep flopping or humbly working out a new five minutes.
The first time I went been to the cellar was years ago. I was barely 21 so I was finally making may way through all the clubs in the New York that I was barred from before I was of legal drinking age. My friend had to cancel last-minute, so I ended up going by myself. I don't have any issues going to comedy shows alone. In fact, I enjoy it. Comedy, plays, movies -- there's something to be said for taking in these experiences on your own. Letting them wash over you fully, not having to think about what the person next to you is feeling. As a teenager, before I got my license, I used to spend entire days out on my bike. I’d bike around town until the sun went down. I’d go see a movie, wander in and out of stores, buy myself lunch, sometimes sit and read in a park. I’ve always been good at being on my own, and comedy shows are no exception. I can laugh as much as I want. The night of the show at The Cellar, as soon as I walk in and I got scolded by the staff for not alerting them that my two-person party had become a one-person party. I guess at the cellar, it was an issue.
Between the crowds, the name-dropping, the two-drink minimum, and now this, I was nowhere near sold on The Cellar. I told myself this was all fluff and no substance. A club for tourists, perhaps, which was the greatest of all sins to my comedy-nerd mind. You can learn a lot about a comedy show before it even starts, as I’m sure you can with most varieties of art. You have to start by looking around, seeing who is in the seats.
Either way, being by myself was an issue, and rather than waste a good, full table on a girl by herself, I was relegated to a table of other ‘singles’. The island-of-misfit-toys where the usher throws the widows and orphans who wander into the club by themselves. I don't remember who was on the bill that night, but I do remember the other singles, and how I spent the night dodging the advances of the dudes at the table, dudes who see girls alone at comedy shows and think they're there because they’re out scouting. Specifically scouting for them, or really, doing anything besides coming to see comedy.
The show was unremarkable, frankly. I don’t remember a single comedian from the lineup, which is rare. Perhaps this is in part due to the pitiful location of the pitiful singles at their pitiful singles table. Perhaps it was an off night, or perhaps too early in the night, because we all know the really good comics don’t start reering their heads until the wee hours. Whatever the case, I dipped out of the show as soon as it ended and I didn’t really look back.
In the years since that night, I'd been to countless comedy shows in New York. Bar shows in Brooklyn, free shows in Kips Bay, even some big name gigs in some of the theaters around the city. But I still hadn't made it back to the Cellar. I had been to an event or two at one of the Cellar's satellites, however. The Cellar is so big that it has opened up two satellite venues, The Village Underground and The Fat Black Pussycat. They run these shows in the same manner as the MacDougal original room, all three clubs working as one massive enterprised, slowly taking over their one-square block in the West Village. They’ve even opened a new location in Las Vegas.
Whenever I go to a show at these clubs, I’m reminded of that night years ago at the original MacDougal room. I don’t know if it was the softening effect of the passing years, but it was becoming clear to me that I needed to give The Cellar another chance. This time, in earnest. And when Mark Normand announced he would be running his new hour there, well, I couldn't say no.
Mark Normand was one of the first comedians I ever interviewed. I was introduced to him through Greg Stone, a comedian and friend of mine. I was the weathergirl on Greg Stone’s podcast for a while, and I still keep in touch with him and his co-hosts. The summer after my sophomore year at Colgate I spent a few weeks living in Manhattan. I was obstensibly there taking summer classes at New York University, but I was spending every minute of my free time going to comedy shows, interviewing comedians, and drinking in the New York comedy scene. I told the comedians that I was writing a book about stand-up. I needed a reason stronger than “I want to pick your brain because I think you are so fascinating and amazing and probably crazy.” Writing a book about comedy seemed to be the best line for the time being. Maybe one day it’ll be true.
Mark agreed to meet me for an interview at The Housing Works on a lazy Friday evening in June back in 2014. Being my anxious self, in those days I was showing up to interviews a solid hour early. While for most of my interviews that was predictably ridiculous, my neuroses ended up saving my interview with Mark. When I arrived at The Housing Works, I was told that the cafe/bookstore was closing early that day for a wedding. I didn’t know you could get married in a cafe/bookstore, but there you go. I managed to get myself together and I ended up moving to the Think Coffee on Mercer Street, and I played it casual when I texted Mark about the change of venue.
When Mark showed up, impressively punctual, I found myself as a 20 years old, sitting across from a strange 30-something man that I had spent years developing a parasocial relationship with through comedy and podcasts. To call myself naive would be a little too on the nose. But I didn’t have anything to worry about. Mark was sweet and understated. Besides, when you’re interviewing comedians, it’s usually just 90 minutes talking about their neuroses. Still, I was pretty visibly nervous. I remember he one time called me out on my nervousness, saying, “You draw shapes when you’re nervous, it’s cute,” and gesturing to my doodle-filled notepad between us.
I told Mark to begin at the beginning and tell me his comedy origin story. Mark was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. I remember asking about how he got started in this world.
KM: So just to start, if you wanna tell me a little bit about what originally drew you to comedy and your first shows.
MN: Sure. So as a kid I was real creative, I was in the theater and everything. And then at some point, I guess, you know, puberty kicked in and I was so obsessed with like what people thought of me and being cool that I was too scared to do anything creative anymore. So I just started drinking a lot, hanging out with my friends and vandalizing things and whatever, and yeah. And then in college I just broke down. I was just a boozebag, I have no prospects, I was a failure, I was a loser. And I think I just said, “You know what, fuck it.” I like being an actor, I like being whatever, a creative person. So I just did an open-mic. I always loved comedy, but I always saw comedy like, “That’s what *people* do.” That’s like being an astronaut, you know? Other people do that. I’ll be a waiter forever, or a bellhop or something.
Mark Normand’s first open mic was in Lafayette, Louisiana. He lived in Baton Rouge in college, Lousiana State University, and he drove the two hours to do the five-minute open mic. He admitted that the only way he was able to actually go through with it was first getting blackout drunk. When he graduated, he moved to New York with $800 bucks in his pocket. He’s been here since, having been in the game nearly ten years now. A lot of people in the commuity hold the belief that it takes about ten years to be worth listening to. Mark spent years working as a janitor by day, writing jokes during his lunch break and going up at open-mics at night. He has an average frame with short, curly black hair and boyish features. We spent a lot of our time together talking about the constant rejection and pain that goes along with becoming a comedian.
KM: And that’s the thing that’s most beautiful about it and what’s most brutal because everything thinks they know what’s funny, and so you have to pray and hope that what you find funny they find funny. And hope that you can create something that you can share together.
MN: Right, right. That’s why when you nail it it feels so good, because you know you got it. You know when a mean person compliments you? Or an honest person compliments you? You’re like, “Wow, that was nice.” But when a nice guy compliments you, you’re like, “Well, you compliment everybody.”
KM: I heard a comic say the other day that they prefer it—That nice heckling isn’t as bad as someone just walking out. Because if they walk it’s like, “oh, you’re like a normal, not crazy person, and so I kind of trust your opinion.” Because a heckler it’s easier to dismiss as crazy.
MN: Yeah, I completely agree. But that’s a comic’s thing. Like, we like women that don’t want to have sex with us, you know? And it’s the same with a guy leaving, like, “That guy’s smart—He doesn’t like me. I get him. I don’t like me either.”
My dominant memory from our time was about how much he was striving for authenticity as a comedian, both from himself and from his audiences. To this day, when he’s on stage he’s fixated on earning the laughs. Normand isn't the type of guy to take handouts -- wanting each laugh to happen organically, as opposed to just building momentum or charming the audience.
KM: So when you are performing, how do you see the audience? Are you still conscious of the idea that it is making people laugh, or are you really looking for that Pavlovian feedback of the joke?
MN: Oh it’s all about the Pavlov. I want it all involuntary. That’s why I don’t look at the audience, I feel like if I look at them, they feel like they have to laugh or smile to be nice and I hate that. I want a real one! So I look above their heads so there’s no pressure. I hate those comics that do a lot of smiling and mugging. I hate all the mugging. Make ‘em laugh! Tell jokes, this isn’t about you, you know? This is about comedy. I don’t like that, that whole thing. It bugs me. I hate likable comedians. Not that Dave Attell isn’t likable, he’s likable in his own way. But, you know, these guys who are just, they’re more personality than they are material. Eh, I can’t stand that.
KM: That almost sounds like you want them to not want to laugh but be like, forced to laugh.
MN: I want to fully earn it, and I want it to be real! I don’t want it to be this, “We paid for a ticket, now we’re gonna enjoy it no matter what.” No! Enjoy it if it’s good, if it’s not good don’t enjoy it. I want it to be real.
There is something so innocent and refreshing about Mark Normand’s perspective here. While his jokes sometimes hit or miss with the audience, he carries this integrity about his material that keeps him present. If “real” is what you’re looking for, comedy is definitely the field for you. No matter how famous you are, no matter how good the venue is or how much goodwill you’ve won from the audience, you can’t sustain if you can’t keep people laughing. This is part of the fun, too.
Comedians like Mark Normand have such a hunger for this type of involuntary response from the crowd that they sometimes purposefully seek out jokes on the most unsavoy topics. For example, Sam Morril can get you to laugh at a rape joke inspite of yourself, he counts that as a win. As an audience member and comedy fan, there’s something oddly satisfying about watching someone laugh at a joke that they didn’t want to laugh at. It’s a very unique thing to witness.
Mark Normand is not quite as conniving with his comedy, but he wants his jokes to be fully earned. He’s not up there to be liked or to be pitied. He’s up there to make you laugh, whether you wanted to or not.
Normand has released two albums since I interviewed him in 2014. His first album was playfully called Still Got It!, released in 2014, followed by Don’t Be Yourself in 2017. “I don’t know if it’s low self-esteem or whatever, but the compliments go in and right out.” Mark once said. “But the insults stick to me. The compliments are like water: I drink them down and pee them out. The insults are like fat: they stick to my ribs forever. I need to run around the block just to get rid of them.”
That debut album was a frequent rotation on my radio show, Late Night Stand Up. For three years I played my favorite clips from comedy specials, albums, and podcasts. Mark Normand is someone I keep coming back to when I get up my own ass about stand-up. I love the research and the academia, but the day I stop laughing at Mark Normand one liners is the day all of these projects die.
His career had a big bump because he is friends with Amy Schumer and she often took him on the road to open with her. He’s was working on a new hour, and that new hour is what finally got me back in at The Cellar. The show was an early show on a Tuesday night. It was cheaper than the average Cellar show, running at $10 or $15 per ticket. The show was advertised as “Mark Normand - An Hour.” All of these details worked together to signal to the audience to not get their hopes up. Not that it would be bad, per se, but that Normand was going to be working.
These are my absolute favorite shows. It’s always fun to see them sweat a little. Great jokes are great, don’t get me wrong. When they’re perfectly timed and they hit you just right it’s truly magic. I think comedians like Gary Gulman, Brian Regan, or George Carlin are at their best when they’ve had the time to work out the kinks -- when the jokes had that extra time in the oven. Those are a breed of literary comedians, verging on orators or poets. You go for the laughs, sure, but you also go because the prose itself is so damn perfect. George Carlin once said that his perception of his career changed drastically when he realized that he wasn’t a comedian who wrote his own material, but instead a writer who performed his writings.
But comedians like Normand, comedians who are comedians first, who are constantly scanning the crowd, reevaluating their choices, rethinking their order and second-guessing their tags, these are comedians that you want to see sweat. Normand is best when his jokes are 80% finished. Most jokes start as an idea or a concept that could be funny. Then it’s up to the comedian to stretch it and fill it out -- to frame it and reframe it until it’s finally a full joke that gets to the heart of what was funny in that idea to begin with. When you go to these shows, you get to see jokes and ideas come together in real time. No matter how brillant a comedian is, many comedians don’t do their writing on moleskins or cocktail napkins, they do their writing from the stage. Sometimes you want to see a finished masterpiece, sometimes you want to see him paint it in front of you.
This time, I wasn’t going to the show alone. I was bringing my boyfriend, Cole. At the time though, he wasn’t my boyfriend yet but we’d been on a date or two. Dating me typically means a lot of comedy shows. Frankly, comedy shows are great dates early on. I don’t think there’s any better shortcut into what a person thinks or values than what they find funny. Only once did I bring someone to a comedy show who got offended early on. They crossed their arms and didn’t laugh again. It was a long night.
Typically though, I love taking people to comedy shows, especially people who are less versed in the comedy world. With everything I know about Mark and with everything I know about new hours, I had a feeling this was a show I wanted to watch in part through the eyes of someone else. Cole and I entered the club a little early and hung around by the bar until showtime. We were some of the first people there, so when the usher led us into the bar we were sat on the far side of the front row.
Seating in comedy clubs can be an ordeal. Too far in the back and you miss out. I don’t mind being asked where I’m from or what I do, although I certainly won’t tell a comedian that I study them for a living. That’s too Freudian to try and attack when you’re a comedian trying to warm up an audience and get a show running. We’re sat in my favorite spot for a show, which is front row far to one side. It’s like being a fly on the wall because you get to watch the comedian perform to the crowd but you also get to watch the crowd. It’s always fun to see who laughs when, who laughs more than their date, and who never laughs.
Luckily, the audience was really on board for what Mark had to offer. I’m an easy laugher, I always have been. I quickly realized Cole was an easy laugher too. Mark had his notes and his beer resting on the ledge behind him, and he worked his way through the material. There were glimpses of old jokes to break up the new ones. Cole pointed out how whenever he was losing his way he would swing his leg back and forth and look down at the ground. There were some insider moments of editing, where you would hear him say little things to himself like “Okay, that one worked” or “Okay, that one isn’t quite ready.” While there were times that new jokes didn’t quite land, there was an overwhelmingly positive response from the audience.
If you live in a smaller town or in a place without a thriving comedy scene, all you’re going to see when it comes to live stand-up is either the very top or the very bottom. You’ve have the random local open mics and you’ll have the big ticket items that come through on enormous country-wide tours. Neither of those types of shows are going to let you see a show like Mark Normand: An Hour at The Comedy Cellar.
While I still have my issues with The Cellar, it is a shape where comedians can come to work. It might not always be smooth and pretty, but frankly, I think it’s the better for it. Cole and I left the show and wandered into a bar across the way. We discussed the ins and outs of the show -- what we thought was funny and what we thought needed work, what we thought deserved a bigger laugh, things of that sort.
Even when all the jokes don’t land, I loved seeing Mark working out his new hour. Seeing him perform is like watching someone trying to solve a puzzle in front of you. You can watch his gears turn in real time. Normand continues to be an advocate for that authentic response, running all over Manhattan each night, dipping in and out of shows and trying to win over the laughter and the id inside all of us.