By the time I went off to college, I was ankle-deep in my fascination with stand-up comedians. And that is a distinction I’ve always taken the care to emphasize. I like comedy; I love comedians. I had long last found my field, and I had no intention of letting go. Still, no one ever really knew what or who I was talking about.
It seemed that I had gotten a little too deep into this world of working stand-up comedians, my own personal team of philosophers. I ended up applying for a radio show through my college’s station, knowing that could be a wonderful two hours a week where I could finally have a space to talk about stand-up. And I had a lot to say. Still do.
WRCU, Colgate University’s resident radio station, didn’t quite know what to make of my application. I was a little freshman, and I was adamant about running a show about working stand-up comics. They had music, news, and the occasional sports show, but they had never had a show about stand-up comedy before. Due to a generous donation from an alumnus, the radio station was immaculate, and I was simultaneously entranced and terrified by all the slider boards, hanging microphones, and audio equipment every time I walked pass the station. A wall of glass separated the booth from the bustling student center that sat at the top of the hill on campus. A red sign read “ON AIR” above the heads of the DJs as they introduced their next songs, which came floated out of the airwaves at a ten second delay.
When the committee was evaluating applications and making up this semester’s schedule, I came very close to getting denied. They didn’t understand what I wanted to do, but moreover, they just didn’t believe I would be able to broadcast a consistently clean show. Stand-up comedy, after all, often lends itself to the things we aren’t supposed to talk about. Personally, I think that’s the fun part. But Hamilton, NY is a small, conservative town upstate. Luckily, I had a friend on the advisory board who could vouch for me and my dedication. In the end I got my show, maybe they were just happy to not be giving a slot to another pop rock station. Along with my approval, however, came many lectures about making sure my content is squeaky clean. “It’s not as simple as just staying away from Carlin’s Seven Dirty Words,” the head of the station told me. “You have to make sure that the topics and themes are all PG enough for Hamilton.” Their reservations about my show were reflected in my slot, 9:00pm - 11:00pm on Saturday nights. I think they half expected me to bail in favor of a social life, but the joke’s on them -- I didn’t have one.
That first week, I spent all of my Saturday teaching myself how to manually drop a “beep” over swears and edit out the dirty stuff in my favorite comedians’ routines. Over the weeks I would miss a “shit” here or there, but in the beginning I don’t think anyone besides my mother was listening.
I showed up a good hour early for my first show. I had all my comedy edited and ready, and I had some notes written about what I wanted to focus on. The show in the slot before me was called “White Guys With Guitars” featuring an endless stream of male indie musicians that all sounded the same to me, yet each felt more pretentious than the last. Well, a healthy dose of pretension is a great lead-in to some self-deprecating comedy, I thought to myself. When the host of the show signed off and broke for commercial, I had exactly thirty seconds get set up behind the board and get my laptop plugged in before the commercial faded out and there would be dead air. It didn’t help that the boards and the hundreds of buttons and toggles still terrified me. As the commercial faded out I turned down the slider and turned off the audio. I turned on the studio microphone, and the red light appeared above me, telling me I was live. I took a deep breath.
“Welcome to Late Night Stand Up, I’m your host Katie Mears, you’re listening to WRCU FM Hamilton.” I started, proud of myself for getting the tags correct. “Here at Late Night Stand Up we’re going to explore stand-up comedy, podcasts, and comedian interviews. Tonight I’ll be talking a bit more about the state of stand-up and my goals for the show, but first here’s some Carsie Blanton to set the mood. This is “Ain’t So Green.”” I turned my microphone off and pressed “play” on the song queued up on my laptop. I knew myself, and I knew I would need a little break at the start to get my head on straight, and I thought a song or two throughout would do just that. Carsie’s gentle voice traveled through the cables and onto the airwaves, and while it took a bit longer than I would have liked for it to get going, I was proud of myself for a decent start.
When the song ended, I eased the studio microphone back on. “So this show is a bit different than what you’re used to hearing on WRCU.” I continued to explain Late Night Stand Up, before reading parts of a brilliant keynote from a comedy festival a few months prior from, you guessed it, Patton Oswalt. I wanted to set the scene, a bit, and provide some context for the state of the industry I love. In the mid to late 20th century, the career of a comedian was a clear route. Everything changed though when Johnny Carson went off the air, and here in 2013, comedy was only just finding its footing again. “The way you made it in comedy was very clear, simple, straightforward.” writes Patton. “You went on Carson, you killed, you got called over to the couch, and the next day you had your sitcom and your mansion, and you’re made. Just ask Drew Carey and Jerry Seinfeld and Ellen DeGeneres … That’s how you did it. But now, Johnny was gone, and he wasn’t coming back.”
Carson left in 1992, the peak of the comedy bust in America. Comedy clubs were shutting down, fewer specials were being produced, and open mic nights were now charging their comics to perform. They had to, no one was in the seats. After the comedy boom of the 1980s, the industry experienced a huge drought that lasted through most of the 1990s.
In the speech, Patton goes on to explain what brought comedy up and out of its rut. And as trite as it is, the answer is technology. Now, instead of having Carson, or any other gatekeeper to please, comedians could make art to be directly consumed by fans. You don’t need the approval of anyone in a suit, and a great podcast or a killer YouTube channel could be enough to get you where you want to be. Hell, even a funny Twitter account can be enough sometimes. There are comedians who support themselves fully through Patreon accounts and fan donations. It is a time when comedians can share their material directly with fans, and they can be as weird or idiosyncratic as they want. Comedy no longer has to be so broad, and weird comedians are able to find their weird fans. Andy Kaufman would has been the star of Adult Swim and Mort Sahl would have had his own panel show if they were around today. Unfortunately, they were both a little too left of center in their time, were comedians never mass appeal to find success. Hell, if I were born thirty years earlier I probably would have hated comedy.
In between quoting Patton, I talked about how I wanted my show to become a part of this new world of stand-up. I wanted to do the same thing. To share the moments, stories, and one-liners that were blowing me away week after week. Besides, I’m sure my friends were getting tired of me rambling about comedians they’d never heard of. Each week I became more confident and efficient as a host and curator. The show waited for me each Saturday night, and became a lovely home for all the weekly musing I had about comedy. If there were a fifteen-minute conversation I loved from a podcast earlier that week, I would save it, cut it, and play it on my show a few days later. If there were a brilliant Rodney Dangerfield one-liner I stumbled upon, it would be saved, cut, and added to the lineup. However, my favorite one-liner of his would never make it on air: “I only get women because of who I am … a rapist.” But beyond just jokes, any interesting articles, updates on new comedy specials, and any juicy lore from the comedy community made it onto Late Night Stand Up. Some weeks I spent most of the show talking, some weeks I let my comics do all the talking.
One day during my sophomore year I was sitting in Frank Dining Hall, chatting with a friend, avoiding doing work. One of the deans was sitting with a colleague at a table across from me. “Excuse me,” She said at one point, leaning over. “I think I recognize your voice. Do you host that comedy show?”