How’s LA? 

Well for any comic who’s asked, here’s my attempt to give that simply question far too complex an answer.  I’m able to live here because I have my duel-citizenship which as you probably just exclaimed, makes me super lucky.  Unfortunately I can’t help you move here unless you share my mother, who as you would know, is a little crazy, completely religious yet fortunately American.

I planned to visit for 6 months (best laid plans…) so a breakup and personal recession later could leave me with no immediate options plans to leave.  I’m having fun, why not document the transition while it happens? 

I feel lucky to be here and thrilled this place offers more comedic opportunities, but remember: most of the children with golden tickets met their untimely and often chocolate-covered demise!  Whether I was aware of it at the time, Toronto was indifferent to my arrival.  This city, however, has an immune system which constantly invents hilarious antibodies to purge anyone who moves here with a dream.  This Halloween I considered dressing like a baboon heart on the verge of rejection. 

I’ve past my first year, which almost OVER-qualifies me as an expert.  Basically, I mustered up the nerve to go to a party and arrived to discover it’s more of a ‘potluck’.  The game has changed and this blog, my friends, is stuff I wish I knew 12 months ago.  A last minute text: “Bring ketchup chips*, we’ll be heroes!”  (*fact: they don’t have those here and we WOULD be heroes.)

My guide to L.A. (not grandiose or arrogant enough?) written for Toronto!  Tips and Tricks all derived from one source, later revealed to be ultra-biased and highly ill-informed: me.

1. This place is amazing! Some of the best comedy I have ever seen is happening in this city.   It’s a comedy nerd’s paradise.  It’s also an ACTUAL paradise.  I constantly see shows that inspire me to work harder or intimidate me to the point where I want to quit (but like, in a good way).  I started comedy with the usual dream (spelled ‘de-lu-sion’) of making it big.  The longer I spent in Canada, the more I was shooting for things like a ‘Comedy Now’ and *hopefully* affording a place without roommates one day.  There are roughly 10020392093 comics in this city and in all likelihood, I will never walk around an apartment naked, but the dream has been resurrected here.  Once you get past all the LA stereotypes this city has an amazing, infectious energy.  A underlying spirit of creativity resulting from artists in every field, outgrowing their respective markets and moving to one place to reach the next level.  L.A. is definitely worth a shot. That said:
2. “This is the hardest city to get stage time”.  That warning was given when I first debated moving, but I had no idea.  Ask anyone to get on a show and you will likely be stabbed and end up face down in an alley.  OK, things aren’t that bad, but worse than anything you’ve prepared for.  Here, quality stage time is the most rare and precious commodity.  (Think ‘Settlers of Catan’ with no Ore till someone moves the robber AND rolls some fucking 12’s!).  I came down here with the Toronto mentality ‘just do shows’.  The only shows I could get on were open mics, of which I hit 2 to 3 a night for 2 months before I even saw my first real audience member!  According to my me, the two cities break down like this:

The difference?  Show business.  “There’s no show business in Canada” (Norm MacDonald http://www.avclub.com/articles/norm-macdonald,54380/) Well there is, but it sorta has training wheels.  

For example, down here, it may go something like this:

“Get this, what if it has men… AND brooms?”

“Get out.”

If I describe the respective comedy scenes like an ecosystem (and I’m hardly qualified to) the introduction of a highly desirable goal in a competitive market required LA to naturally evolve an insulation around real stage time, so that ‘the biz’ can run smoothly.  You don’t get to real shows via open mics.  You start…

3. Networking (Coming soon. Maybe.)