Last night I did a quick set to a house filled to the brim with 5 people. It wasn’t great. 

But it was pretty good. I just wanted to try out some new stuff, so in that sense, mission accomplished. But somewhere into my first bit, I delivered what I thought was a punch line, and it got zero laughs. Less than zero laughs. It sucked the air out of the room. But right away, someone in the back shouted out, “Yo, that would be funny in a packed room.” 

I was like, “Wow… thanks dude!” I really, truly appreciated that. That guy in the audience knew the line was pretty good, and that in a situation with 5 people, not a lot of stuff was going to be funny. I had always sort of known that sometimes, crowds just check out, and you just have to power through. But it was really cool to have an actual audience member confirm that yeah, just because we’re not laughing doesn’t mean that you stink and you’ve wasted all your time in college and you should move back home and give up. Which is sometimes what I think. 

Anyway, thanks, optimistic heckler.