A Quote by Jay Chandrasekhar
I started standup at age nineteen. I decided that the only way I was going to try show business as a career was if I could make total strangers laugh.
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The Four Levels of Comedy: Make your friends laugh, Make strangers laugh, Get paid to make strangers laugh, and Make people talk like you because it's so much fun.
It's not like somewhere along the way I decided to be a total formalist in terms of music and to not care about content; the content is going to be there whether I try to make it be there or not, and I can have fun and see what happens.
I never decided I wanted to be an actor. I just started doing standup because I love standup. Everything else has sort of been these tiny steps leading to this.
I decided to try to make a show of my own where I could invite an audience to obsess about race the way I sometimes do. So it was an attempt to dig into the race and history in America, and to make it personal and dramatic.
Actors, you have to wait for people to give you work, or you have to make your own stuff. But standup, I could just say, 'I want to do standup in 30 minutes,' and I can go do standup. Or I could just say, 'I want to do standup in a few weeks in this city.'
People often tell me that they have no idea how I can do standup. The idea of trying to make a large group of strangers laugh is, for many, absolutely petrifying - and it is - but there are ways of gradually developing the material that can ease the fear.
Everything has its place and time. We men of the nineteen-forties can smile at the mistakes of the nineteen-thirties, and, in turn, the men of the nineteen-fifties will laugh at the mistakes of the nineteen-forties. It is this historical perspective that shall save us.
When I started acting, doing theater stuff at a young age, I was always the comic relief-type roles, so I knew I had a funny bone and could make groups of people laugh, but I didn't really take it seriously until I started getting paid on a weekly basis; then I was like, 'Oh, well, this could be a lifestyle.'
I'm a fan of odd meters. For example, I've decided to sing 'No Business Like Show Business,' but I'll be doing it in constantly changing 5/4, 7/4 and 11/4 time signatures. I've found a way to make that work.
I started my career as a journalist, writing about science and technology for 'Business Week' magazine. Then I decided to make a career shift. I went to graduate school in computer science, and I began developing educational technologies - in particular, technologies to engage children in creative learning experiences.
Business is difficult. But it could be approached two ways: Seriously, or with the same way you're doing your job, with entertainment aspect, with pleasure, with fun. And we decided to try to make it as fun that we do our creativity.
By the age of 13-14, I realized that I could make people laugh. So I started dancing, doing mimicry, and even playing music.
I could never have gotten back into my career without the undying support of my husband, who works full time at a stressful job! We decided that we were going to do this as total partners and it is a 50/50 deal with us.
For years, people have been trying to talk to me about doing a show, and I wouldn't do one because I'm a serious business guy. I'm not going to do a stupid show. So, the opportunity came up with CNBC, and we started talking. It became a real business show. It's educational, people watch it, and it's great for small business.
I decided if it was going to be a mistake to come to New York and try and make a career in fashion, then it was going to be my mistake... But the American dream is real. I'm living it.
If I could make the same amount of money doing standup it would be no contest. The problem is that if you do make that kind of money doing standup, it's not in clubs, it's in big auditoriums and large venues, and I really think something is lost when you do standup for a big crowd.
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