The bris would begin shortly. The chant of the Mohel, his clinking metal instruments, the shriek of an infant. We didn’t have to be in the room, but proximity was a sign of respect. I stayed close. Others stood outside in the hallway; they’d listen, not watch. Cookies and pastries and chocolates — “nosh,” as Grandma calls them — filled the air with sweetness. Comfort food; we’d need it.

Read it here.

Go to enough New York City open mics, and you start to recognize a cast of recurring characters. Who are the recurring characters of New York City open mics? And more importantly, have I become one of them?

Check it out here.

I glanced down at the piece of paper as I walked. It was printed with even rows of text, each line a separate idea I would riff on. It was my set, my bits, my jokes and my gags. My goal was to make a bar full of strangers laugh, and just for a few minutes at a time, loosen their grip on reality. I looked down at the paper, and then back up to make sure I didn’t walk into someone: I spotted packs of men and women in their suits and dresses on cell phones making plans for the evening, looking for relief. I was in my work clothes, t-shirt and jeans, also looking for a sense of relief. Eyes back down on the paper. I read sentences, already memorized. I wanted to read them again. Just in case.

If you forget something while you’re up there, take out the paper and have a look. That’s what everyone did last time. That’s what open mics are for: practice. No, no, that’s amateurish. You’ll seem vulnerable and no one will laugh.

Four blocks away. Paper still in my hand, but down at my side, folding against my jeans with each step. I ran through my routine (can something be your routine if you haven’t done it before?) in my head, counting 1, 2, 3 before delivering a punchline to an audience that wouldn’t exist for another 20 minutes. The stories and set ups were easy; They were just like a regular conversation. Punchlines were more difficult. Infinite ways to deliver, only a few ways to get a laugh. The 1, 2, 3 pause before a punchline…creates tension. In a few seconds of silence…the ears tense and wait. Relief was the reward for patience.

You’re only going to be up there for six minutes. Depending on how quickly you get your first laugh — if you get one at all — it will either feel a lot longer or shorter. Don’t try to seem cool. Just go up there and do it like you practiced.

Three blocks away. The paper was now stuffed in my back pocket. I made a detour at a Wells Fargo to use the ATM. The bank was styled like a McDonald’s: glistening reds and cheap, plastic yellows. There’s a joke here somewhere. A bank that’s like McDonald’s… Storing the thought for later, I took a twenty from the ATM. $5 to perform; A small cost for a new experience.

Don’t forget to introduce yourself once you step on stage. Your name is easy to remember, and if for some reason you do well, you’ll want them to know it. Do I introduce myself before and after, or just before or just after? Wait to see if the host introduces you, and then decide.

Two blocks away. Headphones on. Take the mind in another direction,. Music on. The blues. Comedians are supposed to be sad, right?

The link between music and comedy. In music, a verse builds tension, and a repetitive, catchy chorus relieves the tension. In comedy, a story or setup builds tension, and a punchline relieves the tension.

One block away. I quickened my pace and approached the club. A guy stood outside puffing a half-burned cigarette. I removed one headphone, looked at him, and reached to my pocket to grab my wallet for my ID. Nevermind. He wasn’t a bouncer; He was a patron temporarily trading his beer for a cigarette. I walked past him and entered the club.

I walked to the back of the bar and pushed away a draped black curtain. The room, revealed. Brick walls, bare except for two chalkboards with the week’s schedule. Tomorrow night was trivia night. One bright light — the spotlight — lit the corner stage. I paid my fee at the door.

“Yeah, I’m here to perform.” My name was scribbled on the bottom of the list. “That’s Mann with with two n’s,” I said correcting her. I took a seat on the metal folding chair in the back of the room.

The jokes about shit and dicks and porn always work, but are easy. I can make Jewish jokes because I’m Jewish, right? Seinfeld did. Most Jewish comedians do.

I chipped away at my nails, and a pile nail debris formed by my sneakers. I kicked the pile and sat on my hands. I wasn’t paying attention to the comedian on stage; I was only anticipating my turn.

I hope I didn’t have my routine too memorized. Canned material never sounded right, only when Carlin did it. My bin Laden bit is a little dated by now, but the cab driver I told it to the other night still laughed. He was Middle Eastern.

Brendan went on stage. He placed a voice recorder on his chair before going up. Brendan is friend and has been performing for about a year. He seemed relaxed, almost bored, greeting the host like he did each week previously. He forgot his new bit half way through his routine and transitioned to the bit about the time he threw up in the back of the cab. Most of Brendan’s bits are about alcohol. He’s Irish, with red hair. It works for him; It wouldn’t work for me.

Hopefully the audience is intelligent, cerebral enough to pick up on my references. What if they don’t know who Anne Frank is? That joke I have won’t work if they don’t.

I tapped the host, who had taken a seat in front of me after introducing Brendan.

“Hey man, it’s my first time doing this. Mind giving me some feedback after my set?”

He turned his neck towards me, but not his body. Concerned, he asked, “It’s your first time on stage?”

“Yes, well, no. It’s my first time on stage doing standup. I’ve done improv comedy and given speeches…”

“You gotta wait until I see you a few times before I give you any feedback.”

He turned his head back towards the stage. He was either being honest, or wanted me coming back again and again. Probably both. Brendan left the stage and sat down. The host went back up and grabbed the mic.

I was called up. My turn.

“Good luck, dude,” Brendan said.

Performing for the first time felt like drowning. Trapped, stiff, tense. Each laugh from the audience would be a gulp of air. Get enough laughs and you can breathe, maybe swim to the surface.

I made eye contact with a few members of the audience. I had my jokes memorized, but I threw in some “well, what else do I want to talk about?” to make it seem less so. The non-sequitors helped me relax.

Jokes are math. Add the right variables together and you’ll get laughs.

The room was filled with sad people, or so it seemed, which is more obvious once you are on stage. No smiles until right after joke. Everyone was slouching, beer sipping. Because the audience was made up of other comedians, everyone was on the defensive. “Go ahead, try to make me laugh” is the attitude. Everyone anticipating the other guy’s punchline.

The host gave me my red light when I hit the 6 minutes mark: An open cell phone flashed in my line of vision. I was only ¾’s of the way through my material.

Too much. Better than not enough.

I put the mic stand back in its original position and hopped off stage back to my seat. Brendan nodded, but didn’t make eye contact. “You did well,” he said, staring at the empty stage.

I approached the host again at the end of the show and asked how I did. He hesitated, then relented. “It was good that you took the mic off the stand and put it behind you. It lets the audience know, you know, that you mean business.”

Some comedian once said there is no practicing in comedy. The only way to get better is to go do it. It’s like boxing; You’ve got to get jabbed in the face a few times until you get better.

The story is set in the transitory period between college and a career. The protagonist struggles to manage his personal issues through music, the one thing that gives his experiences meaning.

You can read Tuesday here. It’s also accessible in the top right corner of this page

If you enjoy the story, please share it.

Thanks to Luke Nathan, who helped edit the story.

Thanks to Chris McKenna, who wrote the song that inspired the story.

And thanks to those who read early drafts of Tuesday. Your feedback was valuable in shaping the final cut.

The verbal intercourse between two techies results in a swap of favorite programming languages or database techniques, while the business guys exchange subtle off-white coloring, slightly thick — oh my God, it even has a watermark! — business cards. Opposite breeds walk away slowly, politely, on to another encounter.

Verbal differences aside, the roles of a tech guy or business guy in the early-stage technology company (or any company) aren’t that different: The tech guy works solo or with a team of other developers to write lines of functioning code. The business guy works solo or with a team of other business guys to communicate the value of the code (the product) so consumers buy/view/use it.

Think about what you do for the majority of your day: you communicate ideas and relay messages into text. Writing. Whether sketching code or prose, you are a writer. Now more than ever before, we’re all writers. Accepting this will make you better at your specific job, whatever/whoever it is you write for.

Now that I’ve convinced you you’re a writer, here are some simple ways to improve writing:

1. Read The Elements of Style. It’s old, but not dated. Half of the recommendations should be obvious if you completed a high school English course. The remainder will tighten up your writing. Anyone worthwhile I’ve received writing advice from cited the book.

2. Follow proper writing format regardless of output. Whether it’s an email, text message, post-it note — because you always leave a note — or essay, write as if you were a writer. If you think this will make you sound uptight…wrong. Writing well is writing for your audience, including the recipient of an inebriated text message.

3. Gain momentum by writing every day. This doesn’t mean forcing yourself into the role of a writer by smoking a pipe and pounding on a typewriter; it means treating the times you regularly write as a writer would. Regaining momentum takes more energy than sustaining momentum. Don’t stop.

4. Subtly display your writing skills unexpectedly. Tastefully include bits of humor or drama into otherwise dry pieces of business writing, or email exchanges. People will appreciate the creativity and will be more likely to remember your message.

5. Avoid common digital short-cuts like improper spelling, lack of (Or Overzealous) capitalization, little or no spacing, poor grammar, incorrect punctuation, and excessive abbreviations. Some might argue efficiency rather than laziness. But, I treat all writing as practice for the real thing, especially if I can avoid sounding like a 13 year-old girl exchanging text messages about the new kid in class.

6. Strip empty phrases of filler.

Related: Don’t abuse the convenience of writing. As communication funnels through the digital tunnel, we rely on it and ignore other, often more efficient, obvious forms of communication. You may be caught exchanging emails with someone with the intent to schedule a meeting for several weeks. This writing dilemma can be solved with a one-minute phone call.

Good writing isn’t obvious like bad writing is, and that’s the point. Something well-written traps the reader, sucks him in. Bad writing is distracting. When you strip away the job title, we’re all writers; we just write different things. Improving your skill set as a writer can only help you do whatever it is that you do — better.

…unless you’re writing about phrases to strip from your writing.

When my foot hits the solid pavement outside of the front doorway, I spend a few seconds absorbing the surroundings: the New York people, the New York air, the New York noise, the New York smell¹ –the entire New York pill swallowed at once is an inspiring drug.

The average person’s morning priority is to begin moving their legs into a walking pattern towards their destination. But for me, walking becomes secondary to my music fixation. With my legs locked into the ground, stiff and rigid, I pull out out my iPod and browse to the day’s first song. I usually pick something loud and soulful–the only way to compliment a New York morning. It’s the grease to my wheels.

Music: begin.

The bass kicks. The treble screams. The lyrics bring the sonics together. Like a sedative, my legs loosen, the buildings around me melt and the surrounding passersbys become lost, ghostly silhouettes. I begin walking, moving closer to my destination, which is different every day. I like this city. But, I love this city–on music.

I move quickly. No one is timing me, but I still attempt to arrive early, just to feel ahead of schedule.

Where am I going? The destination is completely meaningless. Sometimes I have no destination in mind; other times, I do. But, it’s always one foot in front of the other, knowing I want to be one step ahead, two steps from there and ten steps from there. Ad infinitum.

The beauty of the situation is trapped inside own narrative, expressed here, that means nothing to anyone but me.

1. I was going to add the New York dirt, but there is none. This city, especially on the west side, is immaculate.

A common theme in Chuck Palahniuk’s writing is this idea of an obsessive addiction. His work typically contains human characters that develop implicit scams to trick others into meeting the emotional, addictive needs of the scam artist. It’s a sick game beyond reason that Chuck accentuates through the use of psychological extremes such as addiction to brutal, physical violence or addiction to unstable, emotionally and sympathetically empty sex. The stories are raw, layer-free metaphors used to make a point about human relationships.

The writing style contains parallels to a method used in most redundant Hollywood tales, except directors riddle them with the necessary layers to keep a shallow audience dimly entertained for two hours. The story unravels like this: a group of hustlers attempt somehow, someway, at the dismissal of a higher ranked power, to get their hands on a vault full of cash. The prized money, the audience must assume, will be used to buy fancy addictive things like drugs, sex, clothing, surgery or vehicles, all which would have been otherwise previously unattainable. Presumably, these things have the purpose to meet a temporary emotional need of the character which the audience is purposely made ignorant of.

Chuck, a frighteningly talented emotional poet, understands the layers better than we do. He guts the organs, slashes the flesh and injects flasks of emotion into his character’s twisted narrative. The glittery walls of Hollywood are torn to the ground, and a path ending with a prize of hope and control is paved. On the path lies the emotional need–a brave addiction–the character is attempting to fool others into offering. The cost to the other characters is usually their failing sanity. If you’ve read any Palahniuk, you get it.

Entrepreneurship can become an obsessive passion, or, a coping mechanism for dealing with this operation we call business. It’s a way to trade one compulsive behavior or habit, many of which we have, for another. The difference is that the obsession can become choice. The story can become yours, not someone else’s. It’s about choosing a future, instead of relying on a past, without an appearance orchestrated by an externality.

The engine of an entrepreneur runs like the prose of a Palahniuk piece. The layers of excess, the masks of deceit, the rules of the office and the suits of common professionalism are removed to bring the courageous entrepreneur one step away from their prize of emotional security. The entrepreneurial journey itself becomes a coping mechanism for what’s generally accepted as business. It doesn’t matter what you do, but if you view it from the perspective of the entrepreneur, I guarantee you’ll be one step closer to whatever it is you’re after.

The reason is because music thrives from a bold case of the “first syndrome,” where we remember our first album experience(s) vividly, no matter how awkward, forced or setup the occasion may have felt. The first of anything is memorable not because it’s our first, but because it affects how we experience all future derivatives of the same experience.

The “first syndrome” creates a lasting comparison that ceases to let go, acting like an inescapable cognitive dissonance between us and reality. I still find myself comparing fresh, musical listens to my first nervous conflict with the Gods of Rock.

(Signal dream sequence)

I stumbled into the closet, discovering a vintage pile of records that smelled of perfumed incense and stale, foreign plants. I was young, and noticing the fluorescent colors, I leaned down to pull out the large discs with the welcoming, enticing cover art. I chose the banana, jean zipper, glass triangle, juggling mime, stoned school boys, pissing friends and the man dressed in pink.

I came for the art, but stayed for the loud, gripping sounds. I carefully placed the large black discs on the record player and waited for the scratch and crackle as the needle adjusted to the groove. The music finally kicked in, and I jumped. For such an old piece of machinery, the symphony it produced was robust.

Ah, but when the music finally blared, it was worth the chore of getting the record synced with that ancient looking device. The banana told me it was Sunday Morning, the jean zipper screamed about Brown Sugar, the glass triangle caused Brain Damage, the juggling mime asked When’s The Music Over, the stoned school boys taught me about America, the pissing friends revealed what was Behind Blue Eyes and the guy dressed in pink showed me how to make Spanish Castle Magic.

(End dream sequence)

And just like that, I was sold. Chained, handcuffed and slaved to music for life. The Gods of Rock were my first. Every artistic medium from that day forward would be compared to the imperfections of my first experience with The Music. My favorite hang out growing up became the record store,³ and I preferred the used ones. The selection was more eclectic, and to my taste, so were the people.

When we discover new music, it invokes an emotional response sharper than a switch blade. It’s a sonic sensation of words and harmony that I’d argue is more powerful than other forms of art for the sheer reason that it disposes the chore of visualization on the listener. Music is the rawest form of media, and the counter-culture movement only accentuated that feeling of lust.

I don’t believe in much, but I do live by the Gods of Rock. Choose your icons wisely, because they might just change your life.⁴

And to that, we salute you.

1. I once got in a heated debate because I proclaimed that Limbaugh was a brilliant strategist. My opponent didn’t realize I made the claim in a negative light, and that their response proved my question rhetorical. This article is a good example.
2. See: alcoholic
3. What’s the modern day used record store? Do the collaborative filters on the internet accomplish this already, or is recreating that experience an opportunity in disguise?
4. I referenced this scene in the title of the post.

There is a story the classic screenwriter Nora Ephron tells from her journalism days in high school, also discussed in the book Made To Stick, that positively proves the result of leaving ambiguous, interpretive holes in our work’s narrative. The story revolves around Ephron’s first news writing assignment, where the eager students, including Ephron, approached with the instinct to report strictly who, what, where, when, why–and then to connect.

The class assignment included a series of situational facts about a high school, describing how the entire faculty would be out of their classrooms for an educational conference the following Thursday. The aspiring journalists were supposed to transpose the facts, then write the respective report. The students wrote their leads, many describing a similar situation regarding the conference, each written to portray where the teachers were going, when they would be gone, who would be speaking, etc.

After the teacher collected the assignments, which were all stylistically alike, he paused, stared and gently proclaimed:

“The lead to the story is ‘There will be no school next Thursday.’ “

Ephron’s story, with the zinger of wisdom being the teacher’s response regarding what the lead should have been, portrays the “less is more” principal.

Effectively using “less” should not have a direct intention to mislead, nor should any information actively be removed. But, by stating an initial fact that leaves holes to be filled, it forces an audience to question not only what will be stated next, but also to ponder the intent of the writer. When an artist, a writer in this case, becomes more interesting than the work itself, it creates a sense of mystery, even urgency, surrounding the product.

And that, in a sense, becomes an addictive narrative.