I Had To Follow Jim Gaffigan On Stage Last Night

By opened, I mean bumped. He came in, shook my hand, and then walked on stage. Like the time Dave took our table at that nightclub in Miami. Up to that point, it was looking pretty good for me. The early comics were great but nobody had blown the roof off the place. I felt confident that I could keep pace, that the entire evening wasn’t going to fall off a cliff when I took the microphone like when the maid of honor stands up to speak and tries to be funny even though she’s never said anything funny in her entire goddamn life.

I was ready to go, too. I’d gone over my set list a bunch of times, writing it out on my little pocket pad with bullet points like a choose-your-own-adventure flow chart. If this goes well, go this way; if it bombs, turn around and head for safe ground.

Actual comedian’s notepad. Not for redistribution. No context required. 

Because the place was packed, and because it was a benefit show for Heal Our Heroes (a great military charity that Captain Cons is involved with, check it out), I was going to mostly play the “hits.” It wasn’t the time or place to work on a bunch of new stuff. Unless you’re Jim Gaffigan.

In he walked. At first, only the comics saw him. We were waiting in the dark in the back, making last-minute changes to our sets, holding meaningless, whispered conversations. There had been murmurs that he might drop in, but all were unsubstantiated. It felt strange that he would come to a charity benefit show. Usually, guys like Gaffigan and Seinfeld drop in at Gotham during regular house shows during the week. But there he was, King Baby, in the flesh.

“Hey man, Jim’s gotta go now. So you’ll go after him,” the host told me.

“Cool,” I said, lying. Fuck me in the fucking asshole. Are you kidding me? I have to follow Jim fucking Gaffigan? That’s like following Mandingo in a gangbang scene.

Yeah, uh, I mind. I would prefer to not follow one of the best in the world. The moment Jim Gaffigan steps off stage, 50% of the audience stands up to go to the bathroom. It can’t possibly get any better than that. It’s all downhill from there. Who’s next? Oh, that ginger fuck from Barstool? Time to dump.

He crushed, too. Crazy thing is, he was just doing new stuff. A packed house at Gotham, one of NYC’s top comedy clubs, is his open mic. That’s the spectrum he lives in. I played that room in September and it was probably the highest achievement of my comedy career; he comes there to find out which jokes to throw away. Someday, maybe.

I actually like following comics who do really well. It’s much better than following someone who bombs and sucks the life out of the room. But following a legend is different. Usually, it falls to the host to moderate the temperature of the audience. After a monster comic like that, the host should bring the audience back to earth. Tell a couple jokes, settle them down, remind them that they’re not at some insane all-star comedy show where Chappelle, Rock, and Jefferies are about to come out. But the host was Carl Radke from Bravo’s Summer House, and he’s never done comedy before, so that didn’t happen. He simply brought me up.

And then I was on stage, staring out at a bunch of faces that were wet with tears from crying over Gaffigan’s set. You could see them whispering recaps of his jokes to each other, which would set them off laughing again. Nobody was ready to refocus on some unknown chump. As far as they were concerned, the night should have ended there. I had to address it. I made some quip about how Jim opens for me everywhere these days, told them to re-set their expectations. They liked that–calling out the elephant that had just left the room. And then I started my set.

In terms of comedy, this has been one of the coolest weeks of my entire life. On Wednesday, I shot a sketch with Bill Burr, probably the single biggest influence on my comedy career. Last night, I followed Jim Gaffigan on stage. People there said I held my own. Who knows. I’m just thrilled to follow in the footsteps of giants.