Transcript: Standup Economics 101

Comedy Insider
Episode “Stand up economics”

Christian Thom: Hi, Christian Thom here. Everyone knows New York City is an expensive place to live. But trust me there are plenty of ways to scrimp and save while you’re here trying to make it. And since you can’t sell your blood and semen anymore, I recommend having lunch here, at Grays Papaya, New York’s 24 hours hot dog stand, widely regarded as the ramen noodles of meat. After all, where else can you get two hotdogs, a coconut drink and a tape work for only $3.50? Between the tape worm and my thyroid condition, I come out about even.
Now a lot of people wonder why the hot dogs are just little bit longer than the bun. It’s actually so they can fit two hypodermic needles in there, end to end. Hey every penny counts while you are waiting for that big break, and today comedian Lori Somner is going to help us out and shed some light about what you can expect from a career in stand up.
So what, what does a comedian make when they are first starting out?
Lori Somner: Uh, really your more making money outside of the city, when you are getting more road gigs, or if you start hosting. Some of the spots through the week are $15 spots, $20 spots, that’s why you are going club to club and there’s so much work in the city.
I do live on the upper west side and uh, well I live on the upper, upper west side. I live on eight hundred and forty fucking Second Street. I am just kidding I live downtown, in the 200’s. My rent is a dollar. I love telling people I live on Broadway. Especially if they have never been to New York City, there like Broadway wow goes that far north? Broadway goes that far north? Yes, Santa lives on Broadway cut it out. Santos, lives on Broadway, he’s my pot dealer.
Christian Thom: Now when you go on the road. You do the road game, you got the headliner and you got the middler, and the opener, three different pay scales.
Lori Somner: Right, eight, right, there’s three different pay scales and it could range anywhere from where your first starting out from three hundred to five hundred dollars and then its infinite whoever you are, depending on if you have door deals and stuff like that. You can be making ten thousand dollars on a weekend or you can be making much more than that. Or you could be making $2500 dollars for a weekend.
But a weekend is going to be Thursday through Sunday, when you’re out on the road. You know you’re doing one show on Thursday, two shows on Friday, and three shows on Saturday and one show on Sunday. So sometimes it works out like your making a lot of money but there occult be the opposite too.
Christian Thom: And you have transportation cost and hotels and meals and all that kind of stuff. Which is all a write off.
Lori Somner: Right, right.
But I know that I will always get face lifts, I don’t care how ridiculous you look because you do. Look at Cher; is she not awful to look at? (Sings impersonating Cher) What? Move your face! Stop it, enough is enough. But I know I’m going to do the same thing I don’t care, I don’t care if my ears connect in the back of my head I don’t care.
Christian Thom: Ok, then how do you transition from walking away from your job to fulltime comedy?
Lori Somner: Well, it happens differently for people, some people will get that magic phone call. That here’s a contract and here’s a pilot deal and everything else. Or there’s the reality for most people and you have to work your way up the ranks and there’s different ways to make money on it.
You can start producing your won shows. There are so many rooms around the city, besides the major clubs, and even in the major clubs. Comics amongst each other, it’s like ok you’re producing a show, well I am producing a show. So I will put you on my show, if you put me on your show. And then I am going to network with the people that I meet there, so that’s how your building. Your building an entourage, you’re building a reputation, your building just by branching out and doing all these different shows.
I feel so Zen right now; I feel such a Zen moment, that’s how I feel. And it’s good because I have been fighting with my roommate because I believe in reincarnation. And we have fights all the time I’m like, I believe in reincarnation. And she yells at me she was like, No Lori when you’re dead your dead, your alive and then your dead that’s it. And I just looked at her I was like; it’s so funny because you said the same exact thing in your last life.
Christian Thom: I never know when you have made it as a comedian, because it just goes on and on, there’s always another show more to do.
Lori Somner: That’s because you know when you make it, because when you can walk and pretty much say any room, when you’re performing at any club, when you have that name, within the business too because it is a community, a small community.
Christian Thom: And when people come out to see you, as opposed to just going out to see comedy.
Lori Somner: Right, right, right. And other comics are headlining and doing pro spots around the city. They have their own notoriety even though their not known mainstream, you will know them by face. You know there’s just that whole progression. There’s a process, it’s a journey and its time. Because it weeds out the ones that don’t have what it takes, that don’t want to do the work that’s entailed in it. Because Chris Rock still works, hard, he’s still going up on stage and working out material and going another place and working out material its still so he’s always working and that’s why he has the success that he has.
But in my apartment I sometimes have roaches in my apartment, and I used to you know I would spray them and you know the pads. But I don’t want to do that anymore because I feel like oh that’s so sad. I can’t kill them so I talk to them now, and like if one show up I will just talk to it and ask it to leave like thinking that’s going to work. Like, I don’t want you here. You don’t belong, you’re making me feel uncomfortable, and can you go? And he left and he hasn’t come back. So I am going to run for president because I can change the world.
You can either wait for the phone call or you can create you’re own phone calls. It’s all a part of the process and the journey. You know like you get your chops, you get yourself and that pushes you to the next level. Once you cross that barrier, your like oh, ok now I am not going to settle for this anymore. And now you have to pay me this amount of money because I know I can handle this. You give me any situation I can handle it. So that’s all part of the steps up the ladder.
My friends that are in relationships they always complain about stupid things like they will call me in the middle of the night with there awful problems with their boyfriends like there’s war happening everything and there like “Oh my god Lori, I wish that my boyfriend would buy me flowers. I wish that my boyfriend would take me out more.” And I am like I wish my boyfriend didn’t live with is girlfriend. That’s what I wish, true story goodnight.